#Invasives101: If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Eat ‘Em
Invasive plants wreak great havoc in the Hudson Valley, crowding out native species that birds and other animals depend on for food and shelter. For the home gardener, they’re also a pain in the neck, seeming nearly impossible to eradicate....
New Valley Research Suggests Biodiversity Actually Cuts Animal-to-Human Disease Spread
In the eyes of many scientists, wherever the wild things are, so are lots of pathogens. It has long been held that new disease-causing pathogens find their way into humans whenever people encroach upon places that are home to an...
The Shad Are Running — But for How Much Longer?
April usually marks the beginning of the shad run in the Hudson River, when adult males and females begin journeying from their haunts in the Atlantic Ocean — somewhere between Canada’s Bay of Fundy and the Virginia coast — to...
Threatened H.V. Amphibians Emerge in Spring’s Vernal Pools
These days, it’s not easy being green — at least if you are a Hudson Valley amphibian. Frogs and salamanders both here and around the world are facing a true threat quartet: pollution, disease, invasive species and climate change. As...
Recording Change One Photo at a Time
Environmental changes can move at a snail’s pace, making them costly to record and hard for the average person — and even scientists — to visualize. Now, Scenic Hudson has introduced an inexpensive but innovative feature in a handful of...
Go Spring Ephemeral-Spotting
The Valley may not host showy fields of tulips or bluebonnets. Yet for the hikers, painters, students, explorers, photographers and general observers among us, spring offers something compelling: a special crop of wildflowers that we can spot only for a...
Gearing Up For Amphibians’ “Big Night”
If you think amphibians’ winter-survival strategy is impressive — species like spring peepers freeze solid, with no heartbeat for months, then thaw out within hours — you’ll be amazed by the moves they make as temperatures warm. On a wet-enough...
Iroquois Pipeline Expansion Opposition Gets More Time
On Jan. 19, the then-chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, James Danly, called an extraordinary session of the commission, which reviews new fracked gas initiatives nationwide. On the agenda was an expansion of the Iroquois Pipeline, a project that...