In the 1960s, the US began displacing around 600 families for a 40-mile reservoir; in 1975 the dam was shelved and their land became a 70,000-acre national park

Origin Story: The Tocks Island Dam Controversy The US government once planned to flood a 40-mile stretch of the Delaware River valley to build a massive reservoir, only to cancel the project and turn the acquired land into a sprawling federal parkland.The Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, a 70,000-acre national park spanning Pennsylvania and […]

In 1867, Canterbury released 40 house sparrows to eat crop pests; within 15 years New Zealand was poisoning the birds and paying bounties after they began stripping grain crops

The Canterbury Acclimatisation Society liberated 40 sparrows in 1867. (Picture: Birds of the world) The house sparrow was brought to New Zealand in 1867 to help farmers deal with crop-eating insects, but the small bird soon became a problem of its own. Within a few years, while it grew in numbers, it also began damaging […]

In 2026, volunteers began planting 30,000 trees to rebuild the wetland forest that once shielded New Orleans from storms | World News

30,000 native trees near New Orleans and Lake Borgne, PC: AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel In the wetlands behind a pumping station near Lake Borgne in Meraux, Louisiana, hundreds of young saplings stand wrapped in white plastic cylinders as volunteers ferry them through the marsh by airboat. The goal is to plant more than 30,000 native […]

19th-century ships accidentally brought mice to islands 30 miles off San Francisco; they later reached densities of 1,270 per hectare and began reshaping the seabird ecosystem

The Farallon Islands Are Off Limits to Humans — but Not Wildlife Accidentally brought to the Farallon Islands by ships in the 19th century, non-native house mice have reached extremely high numbers, with densities of up to 1,270 mice per hectare. The rodents are disrupting the fragile ecosystem of the islands, located about 30 miles […]

In 1923, wardens began protecting a 35-acre Texas island where the state’s last reddish egrets survived; one family lived there full time in a two-room hut, and today it holds the world’s largest nesting colony

Welcome to the Island Where Egrets Rule A century after wildlife wardens began protecting a small island in Texas, the 35-acre site has become the world’s largest nesting colony for Reddish Egrets. Green Island sits in the Laguna Madre, a coastal lagoon in southern Texas. In 1923, Audubon Texas signed its first sanctuary lease with […]