#east alligator river

[vintagecamping]

A family camping in East Alligator River

Kakadu National Park

1977

#vintage camping #campfire light #australia #kakadu national park #east alligator river #family camping #camping #history #1970s

[cuprikorn]

#east alligator river #river #crocodile #kakadu #nt #northern territory #australia #helicopter #aerial #light #sunset #flickr

[headspace-hotel]

Hey again, so, I’ve been seeing a lot of your posts and since I work in Ecosystem Regeneration here in South-Eastern turtle island I want to add some notes. Prior to the Oconee war, the oconee river basin was described as looking like some of the hillier parts of the Great Plains. Other parts of the area around the rivers were described as looking almost like parkland.

This is because prior to colonization, and prior to the colonial plagues that wiped out something like 90% of the people living on the continent, there were enormous mound cities like Etowah and Cahokia. Since there were essentially no wild animal species that could be domesticated like there were in Europe, culture went in a different direction. Instead, there was fastidious management of “wild” locations in order to ensure food sources for animals. That Oconee river basin? It was a ‘beloved location’ akin to the Black Hills, and was host to species like Eastern Woodland Bison, Elk, and Bears. It was also systematically burned to ensure they had the necessary grasses and berries.

William Bartram described this abundance in his account of the South-East saying that the rivers ran with so many fish that alligators simply sat in the water with their mouths open. Colonists encountered this landscape and assumed it was Eden, filled with edible plants and animals and fertile soils, but it was a deliberate cultural participation in ecology. Humans, having at some point either eliminated the megafauna or watched them disappear, decided to behave as a keystone species. The colonists ripped it all out in order to enslave people, farm it until it was all red clay, and make as much money as possible.

I say this because it’s important to realize that restoration isn’t simply helping succession along or planting native plants. Restoration is about decolonization and forming relationship with the plants, animals, and ecologies of a given location. We can’t trust a landscape so brutalized to heal itself, instead many species will go extinct, and over millions of years it will evolve into something else.

Instead we can do things like plant for our native bees, learn what the specialists who only pollinate one species like and the generalists will be happy too. Plant for the hummingbirds (cross-vine), the box turtles (may apple), the raccoons, and the deer. Eat them too (well maybe not the hummingbirds) if you can’t find a family of wolves to release, sometimes the animals will give themselves to you. Plant pawpaws and hazelnuts and Cherokee plums and blackberries and service berries and fill the forest with food, and it won’t just feed us, we’ll see our animal neighbors come back too.

The idea of letting the wild be comes from Teddy Rosevelt, who also advocated for killing predators so that more people could hunt. His ideas led to the trophic collapse of Yellowstone. Instead, humans can play a part as a keystone species, even if it’s just helping the birds and reptiles in our yards to start. I’m sure you may vibe with many of these ideas, in which case, could you share them? Because people need to remember how tied together decolonization and ecological restoration are. What are your opinions or strategies?

Yes! All this is great.

I think a lot of people don't realize that...there is no stable "state of nature" that will automatically come back with no intervention. Yes, nature heals itself, but invasive species and other troubles can really mess with that process.

For instance, in my region disused fields are being totally overtaken by the invasive Callery pear tree, which forms a dense wall of foliage that chokes other shrubs and trees out. Restoring these fields would require some slashing into the invasive monoculture and planting native trees to shade out the invasive. Of course, something will eventually break through on its own, but a lot of damage is done in that time.

It needs to become more common knowledge how what is now called the USA was thoughtfully managed instead of being an untouched wilderness. That management was based on generation upon generation of careful, and essentially scientific, observation of ecosystems and how they worked. That's why Native American people need to be in the ecology and land use conversations...that body of wisdom is invaluable.

I learned when googling tree lifespans that Europeans haven't even been on this continent for one (1) full lifespan of many of our trees. Mind blowing.

[handeaux]

Here Are 17 Uncommon Curiosities Reportedly Found In The Ohio River

The Queen City, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow famously wrote, sits “in her garlands dressed, on the banks of the Beautiful River.” Once claimed by the French and named by them exactly that: La Belle Riviere, the Ohio has been the soul and foundation of our city ever since the first houses went up, but our Beautiful River has also proved to be a weird and moody companion, coughing up a bizarre miscellany from time to time.

Alligators In 1879, Dr. A. Jackson Howe procured a live, three-foot long alligator for display at the museum of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History. The reptile had been captured on the Covington shore, while several others were spotted frolicking in the Ohio River among some empty coal barges. Three years later, John Thornton found an alligator sleeping beneath the floorboards of his Newport icehouse. Charles Pitts of Covington lassoed a three-and-a-half-foot alligator from the Ohio River at the foot of Covington’s Main Street in 1870.

Bodies, Lots Of Bodies Almost from the time Cincinnati was first settled bodies have been recovered from the Ohio River including suicides, victims of foul play and accidental drownings. Among the earliest casualties was Francis Kennedy, who operated the first ferry between Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky and who drowned while hauling beef cattle to Fort Washington. Over the years, the old newspapers printed hundreds of inquest reports, often directed toward ascertaining the identities of bodies found overnight.

Catfish Of Unusual Size The Cincinnati Commercial Tribune of 3 February 1849 reports that Frederick Diserens, proprietor of the William Tell restaurant, and Colonel Josiah J. Stratton of the Fire Department, had shipped a “mammoth cat fish” to the Exchange Hotel in Philadelphia. The leviathan, caught in the Ohio River at Cincinnati, measured five feet, ten inches in length and tipped the scales at 158 pounds. Prior to its shipment east, the beast hung outside Diserens’ establishment on the south side of what is now Government Square. In 2009, two fishermen landed a blue catfish measuring four feet, six inches long and weighing 96 pounds within view of downtown Cincinnati.

Chemical “Slug” The Ohio River, lined with heavily fertilized farmland and a multitude of manufacturing plants, is regularly listed as among the most polluted streams in America. Residents of a certain age will recall the great carbon tetrachloride “slug” of 1977. When a tank full of toxic “carbon tet” ruptured at the FMC Corporation facility in February of that year, it released 5000 to 6000 pounds into the Ohio River as a 50- to 60-mile “slug” of highly polluted liquid. Water purification systems up and down the river shut off intake valves until the “slug” passed.

Elephant Bathing All of Cincinnati – and Covington, too – turned out on the morning of 9 August 1860 to watch an elephant swim across the Ohio River. The elephant was Lalla Rookh, star of the Dan Rice Circus. Lalla Rookh had been, for the past decade, a highlight of Dan Rice's big-top extravaganzas. Billed as the “Pachyderm Princess,” she was famous for her tightrope act and she also danced, rang bells and fired a pistol. She was a huge draw and, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, brought out a good crowd for her river bath, estimated between 15,000 and 20,000

Ghosts No one ever solved the 1890 murder of Billy Fee, who was knifed and shot on the banks of the Ohio River near Lawrenceburg. Almost a year later a young man traveling by boat up the river past the murder scene cried out that he could see shadows on the darkened waters vividly recreating the murder scene. For years, residents of Lawrenceburg venturing near the river at night reported visions of the dreadful crime, accompanied by the sounds of shrieks and gunshots.

Giant Snakes On 11 August 1849, a Clermont County “man of respectability” named John Wait swore to an affidavit in which he claimed to have seen a snake more than 30 feet in length on the banks of Hartman’s mill pond. A posse was assembled and searched all over for the beast with no results, even after draining the mill pond. Sightings, however, continued for the next decade. In 1858, the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune reported that the dam at Hartman’s mill had been badly damaged by a flood and the snake was assumed to have escaped toward the Ohio River. According to a 1940 article in the Cincinnati Post, the Cincinnati Zoo offered to help citizens near Gallipolis locate a snake estimated at 35 feet in length. Coincidence?

Green Clawed Beast It was a sultry afternoon on 14 August 1955 when Naomi Johnson and some friends headed to the Ohio River at Evansville for a refreshing dip. While swimming just 15 feet offshore, something swam up behind Mrs. Johnson and grabbed her leg. She felt claws scratch her leg as the thing pulled her under the water. She began kicking her assailant and was pulled under a second time before her friends lifted her out of the river. Her left leg was extensively lacerated and bruised, with one mark distinctly hand-shaped. Mrs. Johnson claimed to have seen a UFO just before she was attacked, and there were several UFO sightings in the Evansville area around the time of the incident, leading her to believe an extraterrestrial origin for her attacker.

Kentucky Border For most of our region’s history, the entire Ohio River belonged exclusively to Kentucky. That all changed on 21 January 1980, when the United States Supreme Court fixed the border between Ohio and Kentucky at the low-water mark of the river in 1792. With two centuries of dam construction and other navigational improvements, the Ohio River is significantly deeper and wider than it was in the 1790s. The border is now, in some cases, hundreds of feet off the Ohio shore.

Madonna’s Yacht Rusting away in an Ohio River tributary just 25 miles downriver from Cincinnati is a 186-foot yacht originally known as the Celt but probably most famous as the USS Sachem among a variety of names acquired over its 120-year history. Thomas Edison used it for anti-submarine research. It ran out of New York as a recreational fishing vessel and served as a coastal patrol ship during World War II. After the war it hauled tourists around Manhattan. Robert Miller of Finneytown bought the yacht for $7500 in the 1980s and rented it out to Madonna, who filmed part of her “Papa Don’t Preach” video onboard. Miller hauled it upriver to its current resting place shortly after sailing a boatload of friends around the rededication of the Statue of Liberty in 1986.

Man Afloat On 11 March 1879, a crowd of fifteen thousand swarmed the riverfront to catch a glimpse of the “Fearless Frogman,” Captain Paul Boynton, as he arrived in Cincinnati while floating from Pittsburgh to Cairo in a buoyant rubber suit. Outfitted with sails and oars, Boynton’s “peculiar life-saving dress” allowed him to maintain speeds of five or six miles per hour on his downriver odyssey. That night, he attended a performance at the Grand Opera House on Vine Street and, being recognized, was called to the stage and compelled to give a speech.

Mud Mermaids The Cincinnati Enquirer of 6 September 1894 reported two “nondescript creatures, horrible in appearance and strange in habits” at a sand bar in the Ohio River near Vevay, Indiana. The creatures appeared to be carnivorous, dining on fish and mussels plucked from the river. They were described as being yellowish in color, about five feet long, with webbed and clawed hands and feet. Their hairless heads had sharply pointed ears standing straight up. In the years since, the Vevay beings have been dubbed “Mud Mermaids.”

Octoman Police dispatchers along both sides of the Ohio River were swamped with frantic calls from late January to early February 1959 as dozens of residents and travelers reported strange creatures emerging from the depths. Sightings were recorded from New Richmond to the Licking River bridge. One witness compared the critter to an octopus while others said it looked like an immense human, leading to the nickname Octoman. Panic spread, with one 11-year-old boy calling the Cincinnati Post to confirm his teacher’s story that green men were clambering out of the river in platoons of twelve. To add to the mystery, all the streetlights along Kellogg Avenue from Lunken Airport to Coney Island extinguished as the first reports came in. After a week, sightings abated and Octoman seemingly disappeared.

Petroglyphs Just as the Ohio River slips across the state line from Pennsylvania, at the junction with Little Beaver Creek at East Liverpool, it covers a vast array of submerged designs carved into the rock. First recognized by French explorers in 1755, the display has been largely immersed in a much deeper river, only occasionally emerging into visibility in times of extreme drought. Hundreds of these Native American carvings were found for about 10 miles along the Ohio River from Midland, Pennsylvania through Wellsville, Ohio. The origin or date of the petroglyphs remains unknown and will likely never be determined.

Sea Lion In May 1962 several people reported a strange beast frolicking in the Ohio River near the Fernbank locks. The animal was not large; maybe three feet in length, but it was unlike anything naturally associated with the wildlife of the area. An expedition organized by the Cincinnati Zoo discovered that the mysterious visitor was a sea lion named “Playful George” that had escaped from a menagerie in Huntington, West Virginia and made its way nearly 200 miles downriver to the Markland Dam. George was captured and quarantined at the Zoo before returning home.

Sea Serpents In the dim, pre-dawn light of Friday, 11 January 1878, Ben Karrick was driving his horse-drawn delivery wagon over the Roebling Suspension Bridge when he saw a most unusual sight in the Ohio River below – a sea serpent. He told the Cincinnati Gazette that the creature’s serpentine head protruded from the water some twelve or fifteen feet and it lashed the water into foam with its tail. Karrick told the newspaper that the beast made a noise similar to the deep lowing of a cow, interspersed with a loud hissing noise. A day previously, John Davidson, master of the Silver Moon steamboat, saw a nearly identical monster while docked at Vevay, Indiana. In July 1893, pleasure boaters near Blennerhassett Island saw “a monstrous submarine animal or serpent, with an immense head and staring, bulbous eyes” gliding alongside their boat. The witnesses estimated the critter at more than 10 feet in length.

Underwater Pedestrian Newspapers around the nation carried the news in July 1878 that Captain John T. Guire, identified as “the celebrated submarine diver,” had entered into a wager that he would walk from Cincinnati to Cairo on the bottom of the Ohio River. Guire’s previous exploits in the Mississippi River at Saint Louis were cited as proof of his skill and determination. Although it was noted that Guire engaged in practice strolls near Cincinnati, it does not appear that the 500-mile underwater hike to Cairo ever materialized.

#ohio river #cincinnati cryptids #octoman #paul boynton #mud mermaids

[little-cereal-draws]

ok I need witchy help again. There's a grove of trees behind my dorm that's being cut down and I know there's nothing I can physically do to stop it but I want to protect the animals that live there.

There are two barbed wire fences and a highway separating us so I've never actually been in it, but I've been spending several hours a day looking at this grove for abt a year and a half. There's a shipping company located behind the trees and semitrucks with shipping containers drive around it. Idk what company it is but now they're cutting down the trees, adding lights that block out the stars, and paving over it. I watched them rip about a fourth of it out with their machinery this morning.

It makes me so fucking furious I want to go over there and tell them to stop and so sad that I want to cry. Those trees have been such an important part of my own mental health even if I can't get close to them and I know SO many creatures live there. I've started having stress dreams abt them ripping it out when they started abt a week ago and a lot of my dreams involved using magic to stop it.

I tried googling it but I couldn't find any protective charms or spells for the environment, they were all protection for yourself that uses the environment. I don't want to want to hex that company, I just want to protect the animals that live there and give them a new place to stay. I am a baby witch who's also a broke/busy college student so smth that's quick and easy would be preferred but I'll take anything.

More of my angry rant under the cut bc I'm furious

List of animals that I've seen living in the trees and in the small swamp in front of it over the years:

opossums

multiple families of raccoons

a cat colony with kittens

eight different species of frogs

cranes

many different species of corvid

owls

bats

a family of red shouldered hawks

vultures

rabbits

foxes

many different species of jay

snakes

leeches (yes they deserve to be saved too)

turtles

skinks

lizards

geckos

many different species of insects, there's no way I can list them all

hummingbirds

mourning doves

a singular alligator

Every single fucking day I watch the cranes fly East to sleep on the river as the sun sets. I've seen them fly West to the swamps as the sun rises too. I saw two vultures courting the other day. The raccoons, cats, and opossums don't run from me anymore and will happily let me get within a few feet of them (I never try to touch them). I know exactly which trees the bats live in. I saw a moth that was bright blue and orange, mimicking a species of wasp. I saw a species of hawk I had never seen before. I talk and sing to the trees even if there are no animals there. That was the only place I've seen a wild fox. The cranes land in the swamp and hunt the frogs. There's a huge bullfrog that lives in the back corner. I've saved baby snakes and turtles from cars. They both easily fit in the palm of my hand. I thought I found an injured bird the other day and was totally ready to help it even though I don't know how (it turned out to be fine, just behaving really strangely). Every time it rains, I go out and pick worms off the sidewalk for hours. The trees are where I go to get away from the stress of my schoolwork, my two jobs, and my roommates.

I need this ecosystem so fucking much, I have hung so much of my mental health on it and now they're coming in and ripping it out and paving over it!!!! They're putting more barbed wire, more pavement, more streetlights. I want to see the tall grass and the puddles and the trees and the hills not a FUCKING PARKING LOT WITH TRUCKS BEHIND A FENCE. I AM SO SCARED FOR THE CREATURES THAT LIVE THERE, I NEED THEM TO BE OK. EVEN IF I LOSE THE TREES, I'LL FEEL BETTER KNOWING THAT THE ANIMALS ARE SOMEPLACE SAFE. THERE'S A HIGHWAY LITERALLY ON ALL SIDES, I DON'T KNOW WHERE ELSE THEY CAN GO. I NEED THEM TO BE OK

#strange request but i really need help #witchcraft #witchblr #magic #environmental activism #environmental justice #environmental witchcraft #environmental magic #green witch

[shy-girl04]

Fish Assasin

It's quiet on the river this morning

Ain't nobody on the water but me

And the sun's comin' on but it won't be long

For there's a little more wake comin' in this creek

I put the lines out in the water in the morning

And they'll be loaded by the end of the day

I put a trap or two in the Wolf Gut Slough

They'll be full if I'm lucky that way

I crossed the line with that woman of mine

And she sent me on down that way

Now I'm making noise with the alligator boys

Twenty miles east of Gautier

Shovels & Rope

#lyrics #words #fish assasin #shovels & rope #folk #music #Youtube #Spotify

[stormxpadme]

Second entry for this ask from @scottxloganan Send me a number and two characters - get a five sentence drabble.

44 - Two Roads

"There's two ways this can go, two roads, if you like," Scott said calmly, gesturing over the map of the Shimmer they'd brought along, that had turned out to be as useful as a pre WWI drawing of Europe but along with the sun position, would at least take them to the source of this phenomenon they'd come here to explore ... if that goal hadn't been off the table the second they'd first entered and lost all memory of their first three days in or so.

"I don't fucking like, no," Logan growled, grabbing his lover by the arm before he could pass him by with an exasperated shake of his head. Determined to lead on a mission lost from the start in his goddamn sense of duty and stubbornness, regardless of the cost especially for his own damn vulnerable, mortal body. "We've lost two soldiers since we got here. We're running into some abomination of nature that tries to kill us every turn of the way. I can feel my fucking insides moving from what this thing is trying to do to us next, and I don't need to cut you open to know you're going through the same. And you don't have a fucking healing factor to put you back together. So no, we're not going in deeper. We're getting the fuck out of here."

"We knew we probably wouldn't be making it back when we go in," Scott reminded him softly, making no attempt to free himself from his grasp. He didn't need to because when he reached up to pull his VISOR from his eyes, not only was there no sign off the deadly blasts in his pupils that had limited his life ever since he'd been 12 years old, but whatever color they might once have had, had turned to an eerie yellow. "We'd be the first team to make that. This has never been about us. This is about this fucking thing having grown three times its size since it first appeared. If we don't stop it or at least try to find out more about it, it will have reached Westchester in 3 months top, depending on how long we've been here by now without realizing time passing by. I'm not sitting around, waiting for our pupils to turn into some genetic monstrosity or be eaten by some alligator with six mouths next. So you can either come with my by the river to the Shimmer's source or you can try to make it back out by yourself. Chances are, neither of us is gonna make it on their own though. So, South or East?"

Logan lowered his hand in defeat and pulled his lover close for a desperate, angry kiss, tasting copper and chlorophyll.

It didn't make a difference, probably indeed hadn't since they'd entered. But maybe - just maybe -, if they did make it to the source ... Maybe there was some way to stop this whole thing. Giving up had never been an option in Logan's life; some pretty light show in the air refracting the essence of everything it touched wouldn't change that. When they shouldered their bags and left the wrecked safe house and another corpse from their team behind, he started to cough blood and wouldn't be able to stop for an hour.

#sometimes stormy gets asked things #scottxlogan #x men #everything after x2 didn't happen sue me #x men original timeline movies #fanfiction #stormys fanfics #scogan #logan howlett #scott x logan #not main verse compatible #damnit now i want to write this lol #i love this fucking movie #this is long again sorry #but again far shorter than what i usually scribble for prompts #these are actually really helpful for short stuff #light gore #somewhat #if you saw the movie you know #annihilation au #Scott Summers #Cyclops

[uncharismatic-fauna]

So, I don't know who to ask this...

It occurred to me that bison used to be *Very* populous, and that they migrated, and crossed rivers to do so.

So, extrapolating from Africa, we have a vast water born bounty, floating downstream. What took advantage of this?

I am guessing wolves, bears, fish, birds.... In Africa there are crocodiles. Who sometimes get very little food the rest of the year.

Did alligators come north?

Are alligator Snapping Turtles big enough to feast for a while year(, or just pack on weight while the food lasted.)

Can that be one reason they get so darn big?

Has anyone else thought of this?

Hi there! This is a really interesting question, although the answer might not be what you think.

You're correct that, in Africa, there are crocodiles that regularly take advantage of larger prey like antelope and zebra as they attempt to cross rivers. However, all these rivers are major bodies of water, like the Nile, the Okavango Delta, or the Congo river. They're big, so they provide enough room for crocodiles to compete for food and mates, and attract a lot of prey via migration and the necessity of drinking. These rivers are also ideal temperatures for crocodiles, who are cold-blooded and need to bask in the sun to maintain their body temperatures.

In North America, there aren't many rivers that meet those qualifications. There are some alligators in the southeast end of the Rio Grande, where it runs into the Gulf of Mexico, but father north both it and the Colorado River are too cold for big reptiles. Other rivers that cross bison country are both too cold and too small. Alligator snapping turtles do have a mean bite, but they aren't nearly big enough to bring down a bison-- some of the largest have weighed over 100kg (close to 300lbs) but the average adult bison weighs at least 300kg (something like 700 lbs). The range of bison and alligator snapping turtles also don't overlap much; snapping turtles live generally east of the Mississippi River, while bison live to the west of it. So unfortunately there weren't really any big aquatic predators of bison.

However, wolves, cougars, and bears will all hunt bison, especially the old, young, or sick. Another important predator for bison were people: in fact, some historians believe now that the 'vast seas of bison herds' were actually a result of the decline of Native American populations due to disease and conflict with colonizers, which then allowed the bison population to spread unchecked.

#american bison #Artiodactyla #Bovidae #bovines #even toed ungulates #ungulates #mammals #alligator snapping turtle #Testudines #Chelydridae #snapping turtles #turtles #reptiles #american alligator #nile crocodile #Crocodilia #Crocodylidae #Alligatoridae #crocodiles #alligators #crocodilians #north america #africa #answered #asks #jack speaks

[prairiesongserial]

Previously on Book 2...

A/N: This is a recap of Book 2 designed for readers to refresh themselves before jumping into Book 3! It has MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE BOOK. If you haven't read Book 2 and want to use this as a quick way to catch up, godspeed. We've tried to cover all the major plot beats.

After Ethan shoots John in the knee and Cody kills Ethan, John and Cody finally meet up with Friday and Val on the banks of the Mississippi River. Val guides the group to New Orleans, where they recuperate in the convent where Val grew up. John is able to heal, while Val is shocked by Mother Superior’s advice that he quit the priesthood. Ultimately, they are forced to leave the city by the appearance of wanted posters–not just for John and Cody, but for Val and Friday, too. Hemisphere, the government body-slash-crime syndicate that backs Ethan’s gang (and most other gangs in the U.S.) has put out a bounty on them, dead or alive.

As they flee New Orleans across Lake Pontchartrain, they run into the Madsen and Graves Circus, a traveling circus independent from Hemisphere that saves their lives and takes them captive. John, Cody, Val, and Friday are now indentured to the circus–and they are informed that going off alone would be a death sentence, as the East Coast is mostly mutant territory. What they don’t know is that Lady has already been in contact with the Madsen and Graves brothers (Johannes and Ezra), and has struck up a deal: Lady will collect John, Cody, Friday, and Val dead or alive in Maine, where the circus ends their season. Lady has already given Johannes and Ezra half the bounty money, with the other half to be paid upon delivery.

The four are forced to accompany the circus to Florida, where the circus sets up for a show in Everglades City. The city is run by the Bellamys, a wealthy and glamorous family who are tied to Hemisphere and make moving pictures. Cody spends the day with youngest daughter Madeline Bellamy, a film starlet. Friday tries to cheer Val up with a mystery - how can Everglades City have zero crime, yet so many missing people? Val is unwilling to open up to her about having been told to leave the priesthood, and is an unwilling and grouchy participant. When Friday discovers that the Bellamy family is disposing of people who’ve committed minor infractions by filming their deaths-by-alligator, she decides to spare Val from the truth. Meanwhile, John decides to find and destroy the indenture papers the circus has drawn up. He searches Johannes and Ezra’s trailer for the papers, but while he doesn’t find them, he does force Johannes to agree to return them. Ezra allows John to burn the papers later that night. Ultimately, John decides to stay with the circus for safety.

Johannes decides that the circus will stop in Kill Devil Hills for an extra show on their route. During the stop, John befriends Enis Graves, the circus’s mechanic and Johannes/Ezra’s adopted younger brother. Enis was also an indenture before joining the circus, and takes John along on his chore rotation while setting up for the show. They become friends.

Meanwhile, Johannes convinces Val to come with him, wearing priest clothes, and talk the religious townfolk of Kill Devil Hills into coming to see the circus. The townsfolk act strangely and invite Val to take communion with them, but drug him with the wine they offer. Johannes runs away as Val falls unconscious, then returns to save him, rowing out to a horse-filled island in the middle of the ocean where the townsfolk are attempting to burn Val at the stake. On their way back to shore, Val confesses to Johannes that he is no longer a priest. Johannes sees Val’s mutation and becomes upset about Val hiding it in a way that hurts himself, resolving to tailor Val’s shirts so he no longer has to bind his stomach. They return to the circus friends, a development that worries Ezra.

On the way through Virginia, the circus is stopped by the Good Guys, a local gang Lady has asked to check on the circus to make sure they’re still delivering John, Cody, Friday, and Val. Cody sees the Good Guys checking wanted posters and panics. He announces himself as the leader of the Dead-Eyes and demands a parlay with the Good Guys’s king. John is mad about Cody going off to a dangerous meeting alone, and follows Cody and the Good Guys underneath the mountain, where Cody tells the Mountain King his story. The King issues Cody the challenge to crawl through the Birth Canal, a tight cave passage. He does, and the King becomes his ally, telling him not to trust Johannes. John meets up with Cody again outside the caves, and they fight about the day’s events. Later, Ezra calls Lady to complain about being held up, and is threatened with dire consequences for the circus if the trade in Maine does not go through.

The next day, John and Cody are still fighting. They ride in different cars in the circus caravan, Cody riding in a cargo trailer with Enis. As the circus moves out through the mountains, John (in the lead car) sees a message from a car farther back that the trailer Cody and Enis are in has come loose. John and Enis’s assistant/circus burlesque dancer Abernathy turn their truck around to help Cody and Enis narrowly escape being dropped off a cliff and killed.

Johannes declares that the circus isn’t going to make their Virginia show–they’ve earned a night of rest. They stop off at a lake. Enis is distraught at the thought that he didn’t secure the trailer properly, and Friday is suspicious of who could have caused the incident. She pokes around in Johannes and Ezra’s trailer and finds the pin that should have attached the trailer to the truck. Val and Johannes smoke weed in the woods. John and Cody take a walk in the woods as well, resolve their argument from the night before, and have sex.

The next day, Johannes begins to suspect that someone is intentionally sabotaging the trucks. As he reflects on this, a truck carrying Friday, John, Cody, and Val loses its ability to brake and rear-ends another truck in the caravan on its way down a hill. Enis takes a look at the truck and becomes distraught that someone is trying to frame him, first by unpinning the trailer and now by cutting the brakes. Johannes declares that he, Enis, and Val will take a detour to a nearby town to get the truck repaired, and the rest of the circus will go on to the next stop without them. Friday rides with Ezra, and they disclose their misgivings about Val and Johannes’s relationship to each other. Ezra tells Friday that Johannes has a wife who is no longer with the circus.

The nearby town is empty and spooky, and Val only encounters children during a walk around. The children raise the alarm and call their parents–muties who chase Val into the auto shop where Johannes and Enis are working on the truck. The three blockade themselves in the shop, eventually realizing that the “muties” outside are actually regular humans who have gone feral. While stuck in the shop, Johannes comes clean about his and Ezra’s deal with Hemisphere, and Val is pissed at him. As they drive the truck through the garage door to escape the town, Enis explodes at Johannes and Val for being weird all day, and Val reveals that he and Johannes kissed while they were in the woods. 

Upon the group’s return to the circus camp, Johannes and Ezra fight. Johannes reveals he knows Ezra is behind the truck sabotages. Ezra argues that they’ve already spent the money Lady gave them, and will be indebted to Hemisphere if they don’t complete the deal in Maine. Johannes doesn’t care, and tells Ezra they’re doing things his way. Ezra quietly resolves to kill John, Cody, Val, and Friday in order to keep the circus out of danger.

The circus arrives in D.C., now a completely underground city, to play a show. Johannes and Ezra attend the masked Hemisphere Gala to look for new circus sponsors, partially as a scheme on Johannes’s part to be able to pay Lady her money back. Friday and Val sneak into the gala as well, and meet Johannes’s (ex-)wife Iris, the head of Hemisphere’s Intelligence Office. Iris knows Johannes is having second thoughts about the Hemisphere deal, and tells him to ask his dad for help. Lady arrives unexpectedly, shortly before security locks down the gala due to a break-in elsewhere in Hemisphere’s offices. Friday and Val are forced to enlist the help of Marc Waters and Madeline Bellamy to escape the gala without being recognized. Ezra catches Lady’s attention to talk about their deal as the party devolves into chaos, and Lady tells him she now wants the bounties alive, not dead. Ezra tells Lady that Johannes wants to back out of the deal entirely, and that Lady should put up a show of force in Maine to scare Johannes into turning over John, Cody, Val, and Friday.

Simultaneously, John and Cody break into the Hemisphere Intelligence Office while everyone is distracted at the gala. They run into Marc’s bodyguards Stills and Nash, who are there with the same general plan. The group steals a Hemisphere code book and some files, but lose the files when they set off an alarm and are forced to rappel up the elevator shaft to escape security. John, Cody, Val, and Friday meet back at the circus’s camp and exchange information.

Johannes takes Iris’s advice and diverts the circus to New York City to see his father Hamlin, a supervillain with a psychic mutation who runs the city and keeps it independent from Hemisphere. Johannes and Ezra bring John, Cody, Val, and Friday to Hamlin’s penthouse and hash out a deal over Shabbos dinner. Johannes reveals his and Ezra’s deal with Lady to everyone, and says that he now wants to work against Hemisphere, with Hamlin and the Bellamys backing the circus with extra manpower when they make their stand in Maine. Cody calls the Mountain King, and she agrees to bring the Good Guys to Maine as well.

On a bridge out of NYC, the circus caravan and Hamlin’s men are attacked by other superpowered mutants. Friday falls over the side of the bridge during the fight, with Johannes certain that Ezra pushed her instead of trying to save her. Val is equally certain that Friday was caught by a shadowy figure with a grappling hook, and insists that he and Johannes go back into the city on foot to find Friday. 

Friday’s savior is the Aviator, a non-powered vigilante. After her rescue, Friday sees the caravan leave town and becomes upset that no one from the circus has turned back to look for her. The Aviator brings Friday back to his apartment–and turns out to be a woman named Clark. Val and Johannes survey a bar full of supervillains for leads, are threatened by the Aviator, share a kiss, and ultimately follow Clark back to her apartment just in time to catch her and Friday kissing as well. Friday debates staying in the city as Clark’s roommate-slash-sidekick, but decides to go back to the circus when she realizes that Clark knew Johannes and Val were looking for her on foot and said nothing. 

On the way out of town, Friday shares that not only did Ezra push her, but he was responsible for the trailer incident that nearly killed Cody and Enis. Upon their return to camp, Johannes kicks Ezra out of the circus, though Ezra maintains that he didn’t push Friday. Ezra leaves overnight and drives to visit his mother, Judith, in Maine.

The circus stops in Vermont. Friday tells Enis and John that Ezra is gone because he was behind the attempted murders, which Enis takes badly. Johannes calls a meeting of the full circus, and gives them an ultimatum: stay and make a stand against Hemisphere in Maine, or walk away right now. The circus members press Johannes on what will happen to them afterwards, and Johannes realizes that he needs to come up with a better long-term plan to keep Hemisphere from retaliating and people from dying. Afterwards, in private, Enis confronts Johannes about not looping him in on the Hemisphere deal, and not treating him like a part of the family. Johannes realizes that Enis is right, and they begin to develop a plan to evade the consequences of killing Lady. Later, Enis returns to the rest of camp and talks to John, extending to him the offer to take the surname Graves and be Enis’s brother. John accepts.

Many circus members decide to leave, while the rest throw a party with the Good Guys and Hamlin’s men as they prepare to meet Hemisphere the next day. Val tries to convince Friday that she should leave with her friends from the burlesque tent, and she becomes upset by the idea, rebuffing him to hang out with John. Val misinterprets this as Friday being totally fine, and leaves the party to hang out with Johannes. Johannes is forging documents to sneak the remaining circus members over the Canadian border to avoid Hemisphere–an exit strategy Johannes has come up with after a phone call with Iris. Johannes asks Val to come with him to Canada, and stay with the circus. They have sex.

Encouraged by the Good Guys, Cody makes a call to the Dead-Eyes and catches them up on his summer activities. Marguerite, Ethan’s second-in-command, is now running the gang. She tells Cody she knows Ethan is dead, and encourages him to take care of Lady on his own, without getting other people involved in his fight like Ethan did. Cody drives off in the middle of the night to try and kill Lady alone. John follows him. They fight, neither wanting the other to get hurt or make sacrifices on their behalf. John pushes Cody’s motorcycle over a cliff to make Cody come back to camp with him, and they break up in the car on the way back.

The next morning, Johannes reveals his new plan to everyone: instead of fighting Hemisphere directly, the caravan will blow right through Lady’s defenses and keep running all the way to Canada, with John, Cody, Val, and Friday in tow. Lady, already waiting in Maine with a considerable amount of manpower behind her, is surprised by the arrival of her aunt Constantine. Constantine was the boss of Hemisphere before Lady, and has come from Texas to help repair Lady’s image by backing her in person.

The circus arrives at the meetup spot in Maine and is shocked to see that Lady and her Hemisphere crew have already set up a large blockade. Cody tries to drive straight through it, and he and Johannes end up in a standoff with Lady, who grazes Cody with a bullet. Val and John make it past the blockade but turn around to try and rescue Cody and Johannes, getting split up in the confusion almost as soon as they get out of their truck. Val and Johannes find each other and stick together. John finds Cody, who is having intense flashbacks to his showdown with Ethan and insists that he needs to save John by getting involved in the fight.

Meanwhile, Friday is given a tranquilizer gun and sent into the fray by Enis to rescue her friends as well as Johannes. She runs into Lady, who she shoots with a tranq dart, and Ezra, who has brought the Bellamys to flank Hemisphere’s blockade from behind. Ezra is riding around the battlefield searching for his brothers, and manages to find Johannes, who is trying to help a concussed Cody escape. Johannes gets on Ezra’s bike just in time for its gas tank to get shot and explode, with Ezra and Cody watching. Val sees this as well but refuses to believe Johannes is dead, insisting to Friday that he’ll cover her while she escapes but will not leave the battlefield himself. Friday tranquilizes him, and John helps her drag Val away.

Val wakes up in a car with Ezra, John, Cody, and Friday, on the way to the Canadian border. He maintains that Johannes is alive–he saw Johannes’s body disappear off the ground during the battle! No one believes him, but they agree that if Johannes is alive he will meet them at the border with the papers he forged. Johannes does not meet them there, and the group soon learns that the Canadian border is patrolled by aerial drones with guns, as well as a hologram of a woman named Pearl who insists on taking their passports before they can enter the country. Enis and a group of circus members drive up and pass on to Ezra that the fight at the blockade is over–Lady was injured badly, and Hemisphere retreated. The new plan for the circus is for anyone left alive to regroup and lay low in New York City.

Cody and Val want to go to Canada, instead–Val to wait for Johannes, and Cody to see his sister (and be somewhere Hemisphere-free). John and Friday are coming with them. Ezra takes the group to see his mother, Judith, who lives in a port town and gives them a tip about a yacht at the docks that smuggles people without passports into Canada. Ezra accompanies Val, Cody, John, and Friday to the docks, and parts ways with them there.

In Book 2’s epilogue, Constantine takes a phone call with Ambroise Vannier-Vanier, a mysterious friend of hers from Canada. He alludes to the fact that there could be a coup brewing within Hemisphere due to Lady’s bad leadership, and that there needs to be an election soon to replace Lady. After hanging up, Constanting complains that Ambroise is right. Every Hemisphere leader in the world will want in on an election for the seat of American leadership–which will be good as a distraction to keep an actual coup from going forwards and endangering Lady’s life.

The Ghost of Prosper Island 9 || 20.1

#recap #prairie song serial

[pleistocene-pride]

Chelydra serpentine more commonly known as the North American snapping turtle or the common snapping turtle, is a species of large freshwater turtle in the family Chelydridae. Its natural range extends from southeastern Canada, southwest to New Mexico, and as far east as Nova Scotia and Florida. The three species of Chelydra and the larger alligator snapping turtles (genus Macrochelys) are the only extant chelydrids, a family which was once widespread throughout earth but is now restricted to the Americas. Through the pet trade common snapping turtles have also been introduced to Italy and Japan. They tend to avoid particularly deep lakes or rivers preferring the shallower waters of streams, ponds, swamps and estuaries. They are generally solitary omnivorous ambush predators and scavengers which feed upon a variety of aquatic plants, carrion, fish, invertebrates, amphibians, snakes, smaller turtles, small mammals, and unwary birds up to the size of young waterfowl. They are themselves preyed upon by bears, otters, certain large fish, alligators, crocodiles, coyotes, and alligator snapping turtles. In the northern part of their range snapping turtles may spend up to 6 months hibernating, during such time they do not breathe instead they absorb oxygen and exchange gasses with the water around them through the membranes of their mouth, rear, and throat. This is known as extra-pulmonary respiration. Although known for there angry dispositions on land, while in water they can be surprisingly docile and curious creatures. In general common snapping turtles reach around 9 -20 inches (23-50cms) in shell length and 10- 35lbs (4.5- 16kg) in weight tho as the species continues to grow throughout life exceptionally old individuals reaching upwards of 75lbs (34kg) are not unheard of. This species mates from April through November, after mating a female will travel over land to find sandy soil in which to lay their eggs, often some distance from the water. Here she will dig a whole and deposit 25-80 eggs which will hatch after a 9 to 19 week incubation. Under ideal conditions a common snapping turtle will reach sexual maturity at 12- 20 years and may live upwards of 100.

#pleistocene #pleistocene pride #pliestocene pride #pliestocene #ice age #cenozoic #reptile #turtle #common snapping turtle #snapping turtle #north america

[blubushie]

Daily Denim Question #2: What’s your favorite fairytale?

I don't really care for FAIRYTALES much but I love mythology!

Wave Rock near Hyden was created when Ngalmudj dragged herself across the land.

After Ngalmudj finished making Australia and her people she came to Kakadu, laid a nest of eggs, and settled down for a long sleep. Out of the eggs hatched baby rainbow serpents, and that's where rainbows come from. It's thought she's made her nest somewhere in Cooper's Creek near the East Alligator. Anyone who doesn't obey her Law is swallowed, and she'll drown kids who cry too much because she doesn't like noise (you and me both, Mum). There were legitimate concerns from people that the drilling from the uranium mine in the centre of Kakadu would wake her, but it seems she's stayed dormant. For now.

The Moon Man's wife is bloody pissed at him because he's lazy and doesn't do anything. Every month he gets fatter and fatter (waxing moon) until eventually she gets so fed up that she takes a knife and starts cutting off pieces of him (waning moon). He dies of his wounds (new moon) but immediately comes back from the dead a few days later just to spite her.

During the Dreaming, when something went extinct it wasn't like it was now, a slow decay. It was a massive trial of fire (or, well, water). Ngalmudj scoured the land and ate the species of whatever creature offended her, and it was always because it broke one of her laws relating to taboos. Her eating you was actually a blessing in that regard, since it cleansed you of the sin of whatever taboo thing you did.

The Moon Man and Sun Woman are deeply in love but they're (quite-literally) star-crossed lovers. They chase each other across the skies for years on end but very rarely they're able to rendevous. Solar eclipses are the Moon Man shielding his wife from prying human eyes as he makes love to her.

A man wanted to marry the Pleiades sisters but they wanted nothing to do with him. He chased them across the continent until they found a massive tree and climbed it into the sky, where they remain today.

The Milky Way is an emu.

Alternatively, the Milky Way is a river in the afterlife and where people go when they die. All the stars in the Milky Way are campfires. Ngalmudj sends a canoe to collect souls when they die, and sometimes people will send their canoe back to show their loved ones they made it up there just fine. That canoe is shooting stars.

Emu used to be able to fly and nest in trees, and had massive, beautiful wings. One day he saw Brolga dancing and decided he'd go talk to her. He asked how she danced so beautifully and Brolga, bitch she is, said that he could never do it because of his big wings. She offered to clip Emu's wings, and Emu (being dumb and not realising that he could never fly home with short wings) agreed. When they were done Emu danced and asked Brolga how life is on the ground, but then Brolga went "WOULDN'T KNOW, LOSER" and spread the big wings she'd had tucked on her back and flew off and that's why emus have tiny wings and can't fly.

The Bitchy Brolga legends continue! Eventually Emu reared babies and encountered Brolga, who did the same thing. Brolga quickly hid her young in the bush (except one) and went to greet Emu, who holds no grudges because he's happy in life now. She immediately started in, "Oh, you have such a large family, how do you ever feed them all? You look ill. You shouldn't have so many children, just one like I do, or surely they'll work you to death." Emu, again, listened to Brolga, and slew all of his chicks except for one. Just then Brolga called her young out of the bush with a sweet voice, and when she saw the grief and despair on Emu's face when he realised what he'd done, she'd started laughing. She laughed so hard she blew her throat out and now the brolgas can't only make a harsh two-note call. Bitch.

One day Brolga showed up again and Emu's mate had laid a large clutch of eggs, which, as the male, he was tasked with incubating and guarding. He was so furious when he saw her that he charged her, and she hopped over his back in her graceful flight and stomped all of his eggs except one. She danced for a bit as Emu mourned and begged her to spare his remaining egg, and then she seized it and threw it into the sky. It cracked when it hit the stars, splattered open, and out hatched the Sun Woman (depending on legend it might have also struck the campfire of a sky man called Ngoudenout and lit it thus creating the sun, but I don't know enough about that story to relay it back to you).

#blu whos #true blu

[genealogy-writers-group]

The Buccaneer Lodge

Most tourists visiting the St. Augustine Alligator Farm pay little notice to the narrow, tree-lined road they use to get to the attraction’s parking lots. A short drive down that road will introduce you to one of the most interesting neighborhoods on Anastasia Island. Old Quarry Road - as it is called today - was first used by the spanish to drag large blocks of coquina from the quarry located near the present-day amphitheater to Quarry Creek. From there the blocks were loaded on barges and floated across the bay for use in the construction of the Castillo de San Marcos.

Centries later - in May 1917 - Alfred Day bought a parcel described as:

Beginning at Quarry Creek, highwater mark, run thence along old Light House Road, 222 feet, thence northwest to land of Hite, 190 feet, thence west to marsh, thence along marsh, 350 feet to point of beginning.

He built a house looking out over Quarry Creek and the marsh surrounding it. The three-story house was large with wide eaves and wrap-around porches to shade the rooms on the lower floor. The construction used local resources - coquina for the foundation, heart pine and cypress for framing, cedar shingles for siding and palm tree trunks as pillars to support the porch. It had 12-foot ceilings and each room had windows on at least two walls to best catch the sea breezes. The house was built for summer comfort. The only heat consisted to two fireplaces and later a floor furnace located in the living room. The property was bordered on the north and east sides by the Heckscher estate with woods to the south.

In 1940, the estate of Alfred Day’s widow sold the property to Adolph Bittner. Mr. Bittner created the Buccaneer Lodge in the house and managed it until October 1952 when he sold to William and Marjorie Barrett, my parents, and moved back to Germany. I’ve tried to get more information about “the Lodge period” but haven’t found much yet. Although many locals from my parents’ generation remember it for luncheons and private parties, city directories during that period don’t mention it.

At some point during the time Mr. Bittner owned the property, “old Light House Road” became Young Avenue and was extended across the marsh to connect with Coquina Avenue. Quarry Creek was only a trickle of water at our end and was no longer used to define the property line. There were four other homes on Youn Avenue with lots of woods and marsh to keep children occupied. We had plenty of wildlife - raccoons and armadillos, owls, wild pigs and even an occasional alligator.

For several years our only source of water came from an artesian well located on the property behind us. Because this was “sulfa” water, we had the Culligan man visiting frequently to replenish the water softener. There was a cistern under the house and at one time the gutters emptied into it. On the back porch a hand pump was used to draw water from the cistern. I’m sure before there was such a thing as water-softening, the rainwater was put to good use.

The house’s large porches served many purposes. Grandma’s wicker furniture - with a little help from some old sheets - became castles or forts on rainy days. Many a production was staged on the porch including the magic show where my cousin and I were going to saw my sister in half. Fortunately for her, Mom decided to check just what it was we were planning to do with that saw. It was also a great place for birthday parties and other noisy functions.

Many of my memories of that house have to do with sounds. You knew it was getting close to dinner time when the National Guard fired their cannon at retreat. I remember laying in bed in the early morning stillness listening to the shrimp boats. I could hear them motor from their docks on the San Sebastian River, up the bay, through the draw at the Bridge of Lions and on until they passed the old Spanish fort and turned to head out the inlet.

Of course there were lots of animal sounds. From the alligator farm came the rumbles and moans of the alligators during mating season and the screams of the peacocks. The raccoons were always arguing with each other out in the marsh and the marsh hens frequently added their voices to the conversation.

In the background to all of this was the sound of the surf. Once the traffic and other noise of the day settled down, the surf was always there.

At one point, the city dug up the street to install sewer lines supporting new home development. Under the old live oak just outside our driveway gate the construction crew discovered the bones of two Indians. Since Indians had been involved in the quarry operations during the fort construction and signs of an Indian Village were found just behind the Alligator Farm, it wasn’t surprising to find Indian remains in the area. Then someone happened to remember a story about a pirate - I can’t remember which one - who was coming to see the governor of Florida about some kind of amnesty deal. This pirate expected a double-cross so, according to the story, he buried his treasure on the south side of a live oak tree on Anastasia Island then killed and buried his two Indian servants with it. That announcement brought out every metal detector and shovel for a 10-mile radius - keeping the neighborhood in chaos for weeks. Of course, there was no treasure - just a lot of disappointed treasure hunters.

We weathered many storms in that house. Most hurricanes came from the Gulf and had lost much of their punch by the time they got here. Flooding was the biggest concern so our house - built with a high crawl-space - was the logical place for friends and neighbors with houses built on slab foundations. This worked well until Dora came to visit in 1964. Because Dora was coming at us directly from the Atlantic, Mom decided to head inland for this one. Although the house was not damaged, we lost several trees on the property - one just missing the porch.

I left home when I enlisted with the Air Force in 1972, returning for holidays and vacations. One Christmas holiday included my sister’s wedding. The reception was to be held at the house so you can imagine the work that went into getting it ready. I spent most of that vacation polishing brass doorknobs and silver trays along with anything else that could be scrubbed. The wedding was beautiful and the house looked glorious.

Soon after, the city renamed Young Avenue to Old Quarry Road. For years they had tried to pave the road, but to meet code they would have to cut many of the old oaks and cedars that lined it. The residents fought hard to keep the trees. Finally a code exception was granted allowing the road to be paved while leaving the trees. Fortunately most of the character of the old road is still intact.

Mom died in 1983 and we sold the house soon after. Several years later the new owner made a deal to use the house in a movie. The movie - Illegally Yours - never made it to movie theaters but still occasionally shows up on late-night television. The old kindergarten classroom figured prominently as the family kitchen. My husband and I were in Germany when it was finally released and someone sent us a home-made video copy of the movie. Somehow, during its journey to us, the tape lost all its audio. Didn’t matter - it meant less distraction as we looked for local landmarks and friends performing as extras.

The house has been sold several more times and each new owner has worked to restore it. The classroom is gone and the porches returned to their original glory. The yard has been beautifully landscaped. We’ve gone back once - when it was featured in a Christmas tour of homes several years ago. It was a delightful visit.

We enjoyed an enchanted childhood in a glorious old house built for family living in a world that no longer exists. Who in their right mind would allow children to roam the woods, marshes and roads unsupervised day after day? Can you imagine a scenario today where five neighborhood children - all with the measles - are camped out in one house while they recuperate? Cellphones? Our parents got us headed home by ringing the bell outside the back door. Each family’s bell had a distinctive clang.

The house still thrives, but it is no longer the home of our childhood. That world may be gone, but today each of our homes includes the essence that made the big house so special.

It’s called family.

#Anastasia Island #home

[plethoraworldatlas]

Officials say a 2-year-old wild male red wolf was killed April 15 by a vehicle strike on U.S. Highway 64 in the East Lake area of Dare County. This is the fourth death of an endangered eastern red wolf in the past 10 months, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service referred to the wolf as No. 2410, born in the Milltail pack in 2022, but the Center for Biological Diversity said its name was Muppet. The Milltail Pack, one of only two families of red wolves in the wild, is composed of a breeding male and female and nine surviving offspring.

The service said necropsy results were pending, but that prior to its death, monitoring indicated the wolf had been crossing the highway in the area and efforts were ongoing to haze him away from the highway and to capture or relocate him.

The Center for Biological Diversity noted that Muppet’s father also was killed by a vehicle strike six months earlier along the same stretch of U.S. 64, which runs through Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina.

“Muppet’s tragic death brings North Carolina’s beleaguered red wolves one step closer to extinction,” said Will Harlen, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The world’s most endangered wolves should not be roadkill, especially when we know that building wildlife crossings could save them from being hit by vehicles. We owe it to Muppet and his family to give red wolves a fighting chance.”

Fewer than 20 red wolves remain in the wild, making them the most endangered wolves on the planet. Vehicle strikes are the second leading cause of mortality for red wolves.

The center said Muppet was named for his long, thick neck and was the first-born and of his pack’s juvenile wolves. The organization said that Muppet had stepped up to fill in its father’s role, helping protect the younger pups and its mother.

The organization said wildlife crossings could benefit red wolves and other species at the Alligator River and Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuges, including river otters, bobcats and black bears.

“Wildlife crossings also protect human lives. Wildlife collisions kill more than 200 people in the U.S. every year and cause $10 billion in damages. North Carolina is considered by insurance companies to be a high-risk state for wildlife collisions, and 7% of all vehicle crashes statewide involve animal strikes,” the group said.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law authorized $350 million in federal funds to support wildlife crossings nationally. A coalition of 15 national and regional organizations is requesting $10 million in funds from the North Carolina legislature to fund wildlife crossings across the state, including crossings along Highway 64 in red wolf territory.

“To stop cars from killing these desperately endangered animals, we need to create wildlife crossings in their last refuges,” Harlan said. “Wildlife crossings can protect human lives and save red wolves from extinction.”

Read more at Coastal Review, coastalreview.org.

#ecology #enviromentalism #let wolves live #wolves #red wolf #red wolves #Muppet the wolf #Vehicle strikes #wildlife crossings #us fish and wildlife service #endangered species

[lyonvest96]

Exmouth - Devon - Shopping, Beach And Great Sights

Here you may be capable of seeing alligators together with variety of birds. San Diego's La Jolla Cove Beach is popular for swimmers, scuba divers and snorkeling enthusiasts. From Jaco, you'll head south along side the new coastal highway. Located three miles south of Carmel-by-the-Sea (another favorite spot), Point Lobos is filled with trails, coves and rocky formations meeting the wild surf. View More: topkhanhhoaaz.com - Top Khanh Hoa AZ Reviewed by Team Leader in Top Khanh Hoa AZ: Bùi Quốc Bảo - Bui Quoc Bao On Oregon's north coast, the tiny town of Manzanita is endowed using a mysterious, woodsy vibe just above its vast expanse of crystalline beach. Here, the San Dune Inn provides an infinite array of freebies like bikes, game equipment, popcorn and DVDs. Stay at this charming, unassuming place just blocks from the beach and you'll find stuff for volleyball along with other games to suit the sand, as well as beach balls, bikes and simple sandcastle-making gear like pails. They have an enormous associated with movies, together with their choice of board games is a kick as well. It's a kid's dream come reputable. Many people fishing in Costa Rica are hunting for billfish and they beauties are most plentiful along the Central Pacific coast. Pay a visit to Los Suenos Marina or Quepos for that charter to offshore waters to catch marlin and sailfish. December through April is service provider to catch these martial artists. Top Khánh Hòa AZ The vibrant dorado fish usually found here May to October while trolling. Closer to shore, hand calculators land snook, snapper, roosters, and wahoo.

View More: topkhanhhoaaz.com - Top Khanh Hoa AZ Reviewed by Team Leader in Top Khanh Hoa AZ: Bùi Quốc Bảo - Bui Quoc Bao Eastern Dragon. (Pogona barbata) This species also because Jew Lizard and Frilly Lizard can be found along the eastern and southern coasts of Aussie. It has bigger spikes, is more aggressive and displays its beard action more over and over again. This is the largest species in the Pogona genus; some the hands down exceed 8 inches snout to vent length. And still have be discovered in a regarding habitats, including wet forests and dry scrublands. They eat all sorts of foods such as insects, fruit, greens, flowers, and even smaller lizards. The your NW of island of Poliagos there's a simple lovely secluded anchorage just to the south of the small island of Moanolsi. Irrespective of how shelter for this Meltemi and good waiting on hold the sandy bottom. Through the south side of the area there are a few Khanh Hoa Province coves that yachts can anchor in when conditions are calm. And associated with Northwestern states (ID, MT, OR, WA, WY) tend to be many 764 spas, accounting for less than 6% of the total involving spas locating in our great. There were no numbers reported for spas located in Alaska or Hawaii. Coffee usually take precedence over everything here. Make use of this has been woven in the fabric of Costa Rica since the enormous influence of the coffee barons in the nineteenth hundred years. The island's economists keep a eye on coffee purchase prices. Even kids get into the act, helping with the harvest. The best fishing usually occurs as spring when dropping water levels concentrate fish the canals. April is several month with angler catch rates up to a iv.1 bass per hour on the inside L-67A Tunel. Well, read on, because I'm gonna be tell you about a spot in the center of enough great options that you'll have something to do every day of your trip, rain or shine. This 15,725 acre lake borders the east side of Crescent City upon the Putnam/Flagler county line. Crescent Lake flows into the St. Top Khánh Hòa AZ 247 Johns River via Dunns Creek on its north edge. Past electrofishing samples for striper revealed one among the highest catch-per-unit-efforts recorded for areas on the St. John's River. Striped bass up to twenty inches long were well represented in the sample and good numbers of larger fish (8 lb +) were collected.

If you are directly onto snorkeling then a good way to go is Costa rica. Amazingly this country has 7000 (seven thousand!!) species of marine life which equals a whopping 3.5% for the marine life on life! People come here from across the world to simply enjoy Costa Rica snorkeling and diving. Down along at the Central Oregon Coast - about 100 miles south - it's a vast playground for adults and kids. Lincoln City is loaded with miles of super clean beaches and tons of shops and restaurants. The most of these same we ever saw around the beach involved five folks. The reason will be the the Driftwood Shores is north of town ultimately middle on a large residential area. As a result is isolated from the mainstream tourist traffic. Pacific Fair is centered at Broadbeach, purposes why you should shopping centres on the coast. It has become a mega shopping complex this years, and combined the particular Oasis Shopping Centre round the Khanh Hoa Province beachfront, solutions is listed. Tin tong hop Top Khanh Hoa AZ Drive inland and you will enjoy the Gold Coast Hinterland at its best, and with Binna Burra rewarding you with spectacular mountainous views, its a really perfect day stumble. Beaches? Beach vacations could be almost the moment. Summer would be best on both east and west U.S. coasts, but you can be the seaside bum during the cold by at risk of Hawaii, the NSW Central Coast in Austraia, Mexico or from any of the Caribbean Collection of islands. Shoulder seasons in the Caribbean could be nice, a little cheaper and sometimes less crowded, but you need to do take possibility to with hurricanes. An hour and a half or so south of Playa Ballena, you'll travel to your south Pacific fishing destination. Many fishermen swear that the waters around Golfo Dulce offer exciting workout fishing in Costa Rica. I forged as well as basically had the place to myself, passing only about 5 people total inside hour. Gulls circled and soared, a lizard scurried by which has a squirrel eyed me out of a nearby gemstone. I spotted what sounded like a heron, still being a statue watching out to marine. And in the Northwestern states (ID, MT, OR, WA, WY) can be a 764 spas, accounting for less than 6% in the total involving spas locating in usa. There were no numbers reported for spas located in Alaska or Hawaii. The buildings in Church Street offer reminders of the town's heyday in the 18th century, when visitors would flock from finished to use its medicinal spring. Nowadays the town is more famous for that Derby - a flat horse race that been recently run simply because the late 18th century. Early morning walkers can see horses exercise on the downs southern region east of the town. A bridleway runs for 5 miles along an old Roman way to Box Mountain / hill. View More: topkhanhhoaaz.com - Top Khanh Hoa AZ Reviewed by Team Leader in Top Khanh Hoa AZ: Bùi Quốc Bảo - Bui Quoc Bao Written By Author in topkhanhhoaaz.com: Bùi Hữu Bảo - Bui Huu Bao Written By Author in topkhanhhoaaz.com: Đỗ Thị Thùy My - Do Thi Thuy My

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[spellucci]

Weather Permitting

Sunday, March 3, 2024

SpaceX launch, here we come! Weather permitting. Today's forecast is rain, continuing from last night. We hope it will clear in time for tonight's launch, but Mother Nature is fickle when it comes to allowing astronauts to go safely into space.

Our first stop for the day is to fuel up at the Buc-ee's at Daytona Beach. Wikipedia lists Buc-ee's as a convenience store. Ha! The line of cars taking the two-lane left toward Buc-ee's is as dense as the continuous stream of cars leaving the parking lot. There are 104 gas pumps, a "convenience store" that's over 50,000 square feet with its very own bakery and brisket bar, and dozens of barbecue smokers for sale outside in case you just happened to forget to bring yours.

Then off to hike the Florida Trail, weather permitting. One of our favorite Florida Trail trailheads is the Little Big Econ State Forest parking lot. We expect deep mud in the parking lot due to the rain, but the lot turns out to be pleasantly sandy. We park, eat lunch, pack our packs, and set out. Tim decides to bring the new electric chain saw a) in case we see trail work that needs doing, and b) as an exercise weight (read "ballast") to add to the raincoats in his pack. Jeanne mentions that trail work may be restricted to authorized trail crews, as this is after all a state forest. Tim is too busy being manly to hear her.

The Econ in Little Big Econ is short for Econlockhatchee, the name of the river that flows through the Little Big Econ Wildlife Management Area. The last time we were here, we hiked east along the river. This time we head south. The cumulus clouds are dark in the West, the direction from which the weather is coming, so we are glad we have our raincoats.

We keep Dora on a leash for a while, as alligators and snakes are a real threat to her. We eventually let her off leash but keep her mostly between us as we hike. Each time we see the river, we look for the resident A. mississippiensis along the river banks. We see none, and breathe easier. The hiking is hot, but glorious. The trail is almost completely flat. Palmetto and Live Oak leaves crunch pleasantly under foot. It is so satisfying to be back on the Florida Trail.

The trail turns away from the river. It is hot. We are both wearing long pants. We agree we don't want to do a 6-mile hike our first afternoon out, so we turn around about half an hour from where we believe the next trail intersection is, and head back the way we came. Dora is now walking a familiar trail and races ahead and back toward us as if to report on her findings. We reach the parking lot feeling virtuous for having covered 5 miles.

To reward ourselves, we head for a favorite restaurant, Poke Fin, in Cocoa Beach. They make wonderful poke bowls--mounded spoonfulls of plain or flavored chopped sushi over rice, topped with veggies, hot or mild sauces, and optional crunchy things. A passing rain shower during dinner made us wonder if, weather permitting, SpaceX would be able launch Crew Dragon to the International Space Station.

After dinner, we head over to Kennedy Point Park, a spot on the mainland across the Indian River from the Cape Canaveral. At 6:45 pm, SpaceX reported the weather was 75% favorable for the 10:53 pm liftoff. (Queue the sound of fingers drumming impatiently for hours waiting for the weather to clear.) Here is a SpaceEx picture of an astronaut pushing the top button on the elevator that took them up to the top of the gantry. (The button is labeled “Space”.)

At 9:57 pm we get the word: Crew-8 is go for launch! The parking lot is full, and the air is so thick tension waiting for liftoff, you could cut it with a rocket engine. And there it is, a bright ball of fire pushing the rocket skyward. It turns out we are directly across the Indian River from the SpaceX launch pad.

One and a half minutes into the flight we were awed by a shooting star just to the left of the rocket track. Jeanne got a glorious picture of the backlit exhaust from boostback burn as the Falcon 9 booster fired its engines to return to the landing pad.

After a few minutes, we saw the booster engines relight and stay lit all the way to the ground.

We stood with the crowd for a bit, looking across the river. Then, sated from a wonderful experience, we and the crowd turned to head back to our cars when BOOM! the sonic boom from the booster falling faster than the speed of sound through the atmosphere finally reached us. The humans reveled, the dogs, no so much.

Then off to join the many RV campers in the lot at the Titusville Cracker Barrel for the night.

[roamanddiscover]

Louisiana

Sportsman’s Paradise, is located in the southern region of the United States and is bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. The state boasts a unique blend of cultures, traditions, and histories that make it a captivating place to visit. From its rich history influenced by Native American tribes, French and Spanish colonial powers, and African slaves, to its renowned culinary and music scene, Louisiana has something to offer everyone. Louisiana's landscape is characterized by flat plains, marshes, and swamps, and home to some of the Gulf Coast's most extensive forests. The state has the longest coastline of any state in the contiguous United States, with a length of more than 1,000 miles. The Mississippi River runs through the eastern edge of Louisiana, and many of its bayous and swamps are home to alligators, fish, and waterfowl. Louisiana is known for its unique ecology, which includes vast marshlands, cypress swamps, and extensive wetlands. It is home to a diverse range of plant and animal species, including the American black bear, the American alligator, and the Louisiana pine snake. Louisiana experiences a humid subtropical climate, with long, hot summers and mild winters. Hurricanes and tropical storms can hit the state during the summer and fall months, causing significant damage and flooding. Despite facing several environmental issues, including coastal erosion, wetland loss, and sea-level rise, Louisiana's economy is diverse and includes industries such as oil and gas production, agriculture, and manufacturing. The state has a robust infrastructure that includes several airports, seaports, and railways, making it an essential hub for transportation and trade. Visitors to Louisiana can enjoy a range of activities, from exploring historic sites in the French Quarter of New Orleans to fishing in the state's many waterways. Louisiana is home to several major cities, including New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport. Must-see destinations in the state include the annual Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans and the historic plantation homes along the Mississippi River. Louisiana cuisine is world-renowned and includes dishes such as gumbo, jambalaya, and beignets, as well as a vast array of fresh seafood. Accommodations in Louisiana can suit every budget, from luxury hotels to cozy bed and breakfasts. Whether it's to experience the jazz and blues scene of New Orleans or to explore the state's unique natural beauty, Louisiana is a destination that should not be missed. Sportsman’s Paradise Sportsman’s Paradise is the nickname given to Louisiana due to the state's abundance of outdoor activities and natural landscapes for hunting, fishing, and exploring. With vast marshlands, cypress swamps, and extensive wetlands, Louisiana offers premier hunting opportunities for waterfowl, alligators, and deer. For fishing enthusiasts, Louisiana boasts one of the largest commercial fishing industries in the country, with opportunities for both freshwater and saltwater fishing. Along with hunting and fishing, Louisiana offers hiking, camping, and boating through its many state parks and wildlife reserves, allowing visitors to experience the state's natural beauty up close and personal. Whether you are an avid outdoorsman or just enjoy spending time in nature, Louisiana's Sportsman’s Paradise has something for everyone. boasts a unique blend of cultures, traditions, and histories that make it a captivating place to visit. Louisiana is an extraordinary state with a diverse cultural and historical legacy. Visitors to Louisiana will find a unique blend of cultures, traditions, and histories that make it a captivating place to visit. From the vibrant music and art scene to the delicious cuisine and fascinating history, Louisiana has something for everyone. The state's French, Spanish, and African influences are evident in its architecture, language, and cuisine, making it a melting pot of cultures and traditions. The rich history of Native American tribes, French and Spanish colonial powers, and African slaves is evident throughout the state and can be explored through visiting museums, plantations, and historic sites. A visit to Louisiana would not be complete without experiencing the famous Mardi Gras carnival held annually in New Orleans. The carnival is a celebration of Louisiana's unique cultural heritage and attracts visitors from all over the world. Visitors can enjoy lively parades, vibrant music, and delicious food during the carnival. The state's natural beauty is also a major draw for visitors. Louisiana's flat plains, marshes, and swamps are home to unique species of wildlife, including alligators, waterfowl, and fish. Louisiana's extensive wetlands make up one of the largest ecosystems on the continent, making it a popular destination for eco-tourists and nature lovers. When it comes to food, Louisiana is renowned for its incredible cuisine. The state's cuisine is a unique blend of French, Spanish, and African influences and includes dishes like gumbo, jambalaya, and crawfish étouffée. The state is also famous for its seafood, boasting delicious dishes like catfish, shrimp, and oysters. Louisiana's unique blend of cultures, traditions, and histories make it a captivating place to visit. Whether you're interested in history, food, music, or nature, Louisiana has something for everyone.

Etymology

'Louisiana' is derived from the French term La Louisiane, which means 'Land of Louis.' The name was given by French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, in honor of King Louis XIV of France. Louisiana was first settled by the French, and their influence can be seen in the state's language, culture, and cuisine. Later, Louisiana was a Spanish territory, but the French culture continued to thrive. When Louisiana became a part of the United States, its French legacy remained, and today, Louisiana is known for its unique blend of cultures and traditions.

History

Louisiana has a rich and unique history that has been influenced by the interactions of different cultures and communities. The state was inhabited by several Native American tribes, including the Choctaw, Natchez, and Houmas, who were the first to shape Louisiana's culture. However, Louisiana's modern history began in the late 17th century when French explorers, led by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, claimed the territory and named it La Louisiane, in honor of King Louis XIV of France. The French established settlements and began trading with the Native Americans, particularly for furs and pelts, which became a major source of income for the French. The Louisiana territory changed hands several times over the centuries. In 1762, France ceded the territory to Spain, and it remained under Spanish control until 1800, when it was transferred back to French ownership. However, just three years later, in 1803, France sold the territory of Louisiana to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the young nation. During the 19th century, Louisiana became synonymous with plantation culture and the brutal enslavement of African Americans. The state's economy was dependent on cotton, which was cultivated mainly by black slaves. African American slave labor was central to Louisiana's economic and social structure, but it was also a source of moral and political tension. Louisiana played a significant role in the Civil War, where it fought alongside the Confederate States of America. The state saw several significant battles, including the Battle of New Orleans and the siege of Port Hudson. The defeat of the Confederacy led to the end of slavery in Louisiana, which was a watershed moment in the state's history. Today, Louisiana's history is woven into its culture, traditions, and customs, from its rich Cajun and Creole heritage to its famous Mardi Gras celebrations. The state's unique blend of cultures and histories makes it a captivating and fascinating place to visit. Colonization The colonization of Louisiana began in the late 17th century when the French explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, claimed the territory for France. La Salle named the region La Louisiane in honor of King Louis XIV of France. French colonizers established settlements in present-day New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama, and worked to establish trade relationships with Native American tribes in the region. In 1762, France ceded Louisiana to Spain as part of the Treaty of Fontainebleau. Under Spanish control, Louisiana experienced significant economic growth through trade with the Spanish colonies in Central and South America, as well as the British colonies along the eastern seaboard of North America. In 1800, the Treaty of San Ildefonso returned Louisiana to French control. However, facing financial difficulties, Napoleon Bonaparte decided to sell the territory to the United States in 1803 in what became known as the Louisiana Purchase. The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States at the time, and President Thomas Jefferson saw it as an opportunity to expand American commerce westward. The acquisition of such a vast territory had significant implications for the United States, including the westward expansion of American settlers and the dispute over the extension of slavery into new territories. Despite this, the acquisition of Louisiana proved to be a crucial moment in American history and paved the way for the growth of the American West. Today, Louisiana's rich history of French, Spanish, and Native American influences make it a unique and fascinating place to visit. Civil War During the Civil War, Louisiana played a critical role in the Confederate States of America. Its proximity to the Mississippi River made it a strategic location for controlling transportation and trade routes. The Union launched several campaigns to capture the state, including the failed Red River Campaign in 1864. Louisiana was also the site of several significant battles, including the Battle of Baton Rouge, Battle of New Orleans, and Battle of Mansfield. The Civil War left a lasting impact on Louisiana, with much of its infrastructure and economy destroyed. The state would spend many years rebuilding and recovering from the war's devastating effects.

Geology

Louisiana has a unique geological history due to its location on the Gulf Coast. Its landscape is characterized by flat plains, marshes, and swamps, thanks to the Mississippi River's deltaic sedimentation. The soil in Louisiana is rich and fertile, and the natural resources are abundant, including petroleum, natural gas, salt, and sulfur.The state contains some of the most extensive forests on the Gulf Coast, and the land is a haven for timber production. The swamp areas of Louisiana are critical habitats for numerous species of plants, animals, and birds. The Atchafalaya Basin, the largest wetland and swamp in the United States, is a significant natural resource that has supported the fishing and trapping industries for centuries. Moreover, Louisiana's swamps are home to some of the country's most exotic wildlife. The state is well-known for its alligators and features many tours that showcase these reptiles, even allowing tourists to hold young alligators.Louisiana's geology contributes significantly to its economy. The state's rich oil and natural gas reserves make it the second-largest oil producer in the country. the state's fertile soil and favorable climate mean that agriculture, including the cultivation of sugarcane and rice, is a significant industry.Louisiana's unique geology supports key industries, provides habitats for numerous species, and contributes greatly to the state's natural beauty.

Geography

Louisiana, a state located in the southern region of the United States, is situated between the Mississippi River to the east and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. It is bordered by Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Louisiana has a total land area of 52,378 square miles, making it the 31st largest state in the country. The Mississippi River, which runs along the eastern edge of Louisiana, is one of the state's most important geographic features. The river is an essential transportation route for goods and people and is crucial to the state's economy. Louisiana is also home to many bayous, streams, and lakes that offer a variety of recreational opportunities, including fishing, boating, and wildlife viewing. The Gulf of Mexico, which forms Louisiana's southern border, is another crucial geographic feature. The Gulf is a vast body of water that offers a range of recreational activities, including swimming, fishing, and boating. Louisiana's extensive coastline is home to many beaches, marshes, and islands that attract millions of visitors each year. Louisiana's natural landscape is characterized by flat plains, marshes, and swamps, and is home to some of the most extensive forests along the Gulf Coast. The state's topography is heavily influenced by its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River. Louisiana's unique geography and natural resources provide a perfect backdrop for exploring the state's rich history, culture, and natural beauty. Coastline Louisiana's coastline is a natural wonder, stretching more than 1,000 miles along the Gulf of Mexico. Spanning from Texas to Mississippi, it is the longest coastline of any state in the contiguous United States. The coastline is home to numerous beaches, bays, and inlets and is characterized by its white sand beaches and crystal-clear waters. The Louisiana coast is not only a beautiful destination but also an essential part of the state's economy, providing access to shipping lanes, oil and gas reserves, and natural resources. The coast also serves as a crucial habitat for various marine life forms, such as fish, crustaceans, and sea turtles. From sandy beaches to marshlands, the Louisiana coastline has it all. Visitors can witness the diverse ecosystems of the region, including sandy beaches, barrier islands, and wetlands. The marshlands are the ancestral home of the Chitimacha Tribe, one of Louisiana's recognized Native American tribes. These wetlands are also home to many species of birds, such as the roseate spoonbill and the great blue heron. The barrier islands off Louisiana's coast are a must-visit attraction! These breathtaking islands are home to some of the state's most famous beaches, including Grand Isle, Cameron, and Rutherford. Visitors can relax on the sandy shores, fish from the piers, or try their hand at water sports like kayaking, paddleboarding, and windsurfing. These islands also serve as important nesting sites for migratory birds and sea turtles. The Louisiana coastline has a rich history and is home to several landmarks, including Grand Isle State Park, Creole Nature Trail, and Sabine National Wildlife Refuge. These landmarks provide visitors with the opportunity to experience Louisiana's natural beauty and cultural heritage. Louisiana's coastline is a unique blend of natural wonders, historical landmarks, and cultural heritage. No matter what your interests are, there is something for everyone along the Louisiana coast. Whether you want to relax on the beaches, explore the wetlands, or learn about Cajun culture, Louisiana's coastline has it all! Rivers When talking about Louisiana, one of the first things that comes to mind is its vast system of waterways, including the mighty Mississippi River. The Mississippi River runs for over 600 miles through the state and serves as a critical transportation route for manufacturing and shipping industries. But the Mississippi isn't the only river in Louisiana. The state also boasts an extensive system of bayous and swamps that are home to various aquatic creatures, including alligators, fish, and waterfowl. The Atchafalaya River Basin, which spans over a million acres, is one of the most significant wetland areas in the country and serves as a refuge for numerous plant and animal species. Fishing is a popular activity in Louisiana, and the state's rivers and waterways provide ample opportunities for freshwater and saltwater fishing. The Red River, which runs through the northern part of the state, is home to catfish, bass, and crappie, while the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana is teeming with shrimp, crab, and oysters. Many visitors to Louisiana also enjoy taking airboat tours of the state's bayous and swamps. These tours offer a unique opportunity to see alligators, turtles, and other wildlife up close while learning about Louisiana's unique ecosystem. Louisiana's rivers, bayous, and swamps are an essential part of the state's culture and history. From shipping and transportation to fishing and tourism, these waterways play a vital role in the state's economy and provide countless opportunities for outdoor recreation and adventure.

Ecology

Louisiana's ecology is one of its defining characteristics, with an intricate system of marshlands, cypress swamps, and extensive wetlands. These wetlands are home to a vast array of plant and animal species, many of which are unique to Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region. The wetlands play a crucial role in maintaining the region's ecological health, providing habitat for game and non-game species. The Mississippi River Delta and the vast expanse of wetlands provide a nursery and spawning ground for fish and shellfish of commercial and recreational importance, such as oysters, shrimps, and crabs. The wetlands also provide a vital filtration system for pollutants, and play a crucial role in buffering the coast from the effects of storms and hurricanes. However, Louisiana's wetlands are under threat from a variety of factors, including coastal erosion, oil and gas drilling, and development. The cypress swamps of Louisiana are another unique feature of the state's ecology, and are home to giant cypress trees and an abundance of wildlife. These swamps play an important role in the region's water cycle, helping to regulate water flow and prevent flooding. These swamps also contain essential wildlife habitats and provide recreational opportunities for Louisiana residents and visitors alike. In addition to the marshlands and cypress swamps, Louisiana has vast expanses of forests, which cover over half of the state's land area. These forests are home to a diverse range of wildlife, including black bears, deer, and wild turkeys. The forests also play a vital role in providing resources such as timber and pulpwood for the state's economy, and offer recreational opportunities for hunting, hiking, and camping. Louisiana's ecology is a unique and valuable resource, and efforts must be made to protect and preserve it for future generations to enjoy.

Biodiversity

In terms of biodiversity, Louisiana boasts a rich and diverse range of flora and fauna, making it one of the most ecologically significant states in the country. The state is home to a wide range of plant and animal species, including many that are unique and endemic to the region. The American black bear is one of the most iconic of Louisiana's animal species, with a population that thrives in the state's forests and woodlands. Read the full article

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