Transcript

7.2.26 · Science Show KY

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Radioized Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader's
0:04
Speaker 1: Kelly Taylor. I'll have articles on science and nature, but
0:08
Speaker 1: first a reminder. RADIOI is a reading service intended for
0:13
Speaker 1: people who are blind or have other disabilities and make
0:16
Speaker 1: it difficult to read printed material. Our first article comes
0:20
Speaker 1: today from Vox, why we don't actually want a world
0:26
Speaker 1: without mosquitoes, dated June twenty First, I want you to
0:30
Speaker 1: close your eyes and imagine a perfect summer girls' night out.
0:34
Speaker 1: It's dusk and you assemble your crew and hit up
0:37
Speaker 1: the ultimate cookout. You avoid hanging out by the grill
0:40
Speaker 1: because you don't want all that smoke in your face,
0:42
Speaker 1: but the food really starts calling your name, and it's
0:45
Speaker 1: quite the spread. You gorge yourself on a delicious meal,
0:49
Speaker 1: and then even though you hate to dine and dash,
0:51
Speaker 1: you head out. You got what you needed and you're
0:54
Speaker 1: off to the next spot. That is the perfect Saturday
0:57
Speaker 1: night for a mosquito. These bloodthirsty insects are more than
1:02
Speaker 1: an annoyance that feasts on your ankles. Mosquitos are the
1:06
Speaker 1: deadliest animals on the planet. They spread illnesses like malaria,
1:11
Speaker 1: which kills over six hundred thousand people a year. The
1:15
Speaker 1: good news scientists are working on swatting our mosquito problem
1:20
Speaker 1: away for good. Google's debug program, for example, recently asked
1:26
Speaker 1: the Environmental Protection Protection Agency for permission to release over
1:30
Speaker 1: three hundred million sterile male mosquitos in Florida and California
1:35
Speaker 1: with the goal of shrinking the mosquito population by limiting reproduction.
1:40
Speaker 1: It's a great strategy to curb diseases spread by mosquitoes
1:43
Speaker 1: such as zeka and dingate. But would it be possible
1:47
Speaker 1: to get rid of these annoying insects altogether? And if so,
1:51
Speaker 1: should we That's a question. Greg Kebnick, a research scholar
1:55
Speaker 1: at the Hastings Center for Bioethics, tackled for the National
2:00
Speaker 1: Academies of Sciences. Quote. We got together a group of
2:03
Speaker 1: environmental ethicists, conservation biologists, and ecologists to think about this question.
2:11
Speaker 1: Would it be okay, ever to wipe out a species?
2:14
Speaker 1: We brought together folks like me who are predisposed to
2:18
Speaker 1: try to protect species, but we were persuaded that sometimes
2:21
Speaker 1: the case could be made. So what factors should you
2:26
Speaker 1: account for when you think about whether a species should exist?
2:30
Speaker 1: We answer that and more, including what to do about
2:32
Speaker 1: the mosquito bites you do get on the most recent
2:36
Speaker 1: episode of Explain It to Me Box's weekly call in podcasts.
2:40
Speaker 1: Here's an excerpt of the conversation with Cabnick, edited for
2:45
Speaker 1: length and clarity. You can listen to the full episode
2:48
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. I
2:54
Speaker 1: have to admit that I would not be terribly upset
2:56
Speaker 1: if mosquitoes were gone tomorrow. Are there people who think,
2:59
Speaker 1: why not just get rid of them all? What is
3:02
Speaker 1: stopping that idea from happening. There's nobody doing research on
3:06
Speaker 1: these technologies or looking at the diseases. Who's saying, let's
3:09
Speaker 1: get rid of all mosquitoes. For one thing, Getting rid
3:12
Speaker 1: of all of them would be phenomenally difficult. The real
3:15
Speaker 1: goal for the people who are doing this work is
3:17
Speaker 1: to address the underlying public health problem with malaria. The
3:22
Speaker 1: mosquito is a vector. It's part of the life cycle
3:25
Speaker 1: of plasmodium, which is the single cell microbe that gets
3:29
Speaker 1: into your bloodstream and causes malaria. And you can get
3:32
Speaker 1: rid of malaria by getting rid of plasmodium. You don't
3:35
Speaker 1: have to get rid of the mosquito. The people who
3:38
Speaker 1: are working on getting rid of plasmodium. Are pretty careful
3:40
Speaker 1: to say we're not testing them, we're not targeting the mosquito.
3:45
Speaker 1: But absolutely we're getting rid of plasmodium. I think intuitively
3:49
Speaker 1: people have slightly different views about species of different levels.
3:53
Speaker 1: I haven't seen anyone lamit the possible loss of plasmodium.
3:58
Speaker 1: How do we get rid of it? Can we just
4:00
Speaker 1: copy paste, repeat and make it so malaria is not
4:03
Speaker 1: a thing anymore? We hope so. But it was a
4:06
Speaker 1: huge undertaking getting rid of malaria in this country. There
4:10
Speaker 1: was a big endeavor funded by the Rockefeller Foundation to
4:12
Speaker 1: create a huge center in Atlanta. It was in the
4:16
Speaker 1: southern United States where malaria was really a problem. That
4:20
Speaker 1: whole organization created by Rockefeller later was given to the
4:23
Speaker 1: federal government and turned into the CDC. The effort was
4:28
Speaker 1: pesticides to kill the mosquitoes. It was a habitat change,
4:32
Speaker 1: It was draining swamps. It was clinical care. In order
4:37
Speaker 1: for the plasmodium life cycle to continue, a person who
4:40
Speaker 1: has been infected with plasmodium has to be bitten by
4:44
Speaker 1: a mosquito. But if you take a sick person and
4:47
Speaker 1: you put them in a bedroom with screens that alone
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Speaker 1: helps you get rid of plasmodium. It was a combination
4:53
Speaker 1: of a whole lot of things like this that allowed
4:55
Speaker 1: us to get rid of it. Would it be okay
4:58
Speaker 1: just to eliminate certain s since there are some that
5:01
Speaker 1: don't carry the disease. That's essentially where we came down
5:06
Speaker 1: in Anophales Gambia. We thought this one is really pretty horrific.
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Speaker 1: There are about eight hundred species of mosquito in Africa.
5:17
Speaker 1: You could get rid of Anophales Gambia across sub Saharan Africa,
5:21
Speaker 1: and chances are there would be little to no environmental
5:23
Speaker 1: impact from losing it. Then there are other kinds of
5:26
Speaker 1: mosquitoes that have been spread around the world. They're not native,
5:30
Speaker 1: and so you're not necessarily changing a natural system if
5:33
Speaker 1: you get rid of them. I noticed that you said
5:37
Speaker 1: chances are that it would probably probably be fine. How
5:40
Speaker 1: do we know for sure? You don't know for sure,
5:43
Speaker 1: And then the question is, well, do you need to
5:46
Speaker 1: know for sure? How do you feel about the level
5:48
Speaker 1: of uncertainty here? If you're in a burning building and
5:51
Speaker 1: you need to jump to the ground, do you know
5:53
Speaker 1: for sure that you can get to the ground without
5:54
Speaker 1: killing yourself? You don't necessarily, but if the building is
5:58
Speaker 1: on fire, you'll go ahead and take the chance. Malaria
6:01
Speaker 1: is a little bit like that, when you get bitten
6:05
Speaker 1: up in the summer. What do you think of it?
6:06
Speaker 1: Does doing this type of research change a relationship with
6:10
Speaker 1: all that buzzing in your ear a little bit? It does?
6:13
Speaker 1: I like to go up to the Adirondacks and go
6:15
Speaker 1: canoe camping up there, and if we go at the
6:17
Speaker 1: wrong time, there will probably be a few species of
6:21
Speaker 1: mosquitoes biting us, and there could be several species of
6:24
Speaker 1: fly biting us, and it could be really pretty tough
6:27
Speaker 1: to be up there. But I would not want to
6:29
Speaker 1: get rid of all the species of mosquito in biting
6:32
Speaker 1: black fly up there. It's part of the whole system,
6:34
Speaker 1: and I want to leave it alone. I think that
6:37
Speaker 1: the reluctance that we have to wipe out mosquitos is
6:40
Speaker 1: representative of the value that we find in the natural world.
6:44
Speaker 1: This is why the Endangered Species Act is the landmark
6:47
Speaker 1: environmental policy accomplishment of the twentieth century. Wild species are
6:52
Speaker 1: a marker of the value of the natural world, and
6:55
Speaker 1: it feels like a particularly awful thing to do to
6:57
Speaker 1: get rid of a species, So the argument in favor
7:01
Speaker 1: of it, if you were ever to do it, would
7:02
Speaker 1: have to be really quite strong. And now we'll turn
7:08
Speaker 1: to BBC News for an article that's somewhat related to
7:13
Speaker 1: the last one, and this is headlined researchers find millions
7:17
Speaker 1: more insects species. New research has found the Earth has
7:23
Speaker 1: millions more insects species than previously thought. An international team
7:27
Speaker 1: of experts, including doctor Robert Puschendorf from the University of Plymouth,
7:32
Speaker 1: has estimated a minimum of between fourteen and thirty million
7:36
Speaker 1: insect species on the planet, not six million as previously estimated.
7:41
Speaker 1: The team analyzed more than one point six million DNA
7:44
Speaker 1: barcoded insects collected from Aria des Conservacion Guanacaste, a renowned
7:52
Speaker 1: UNESCO World Heritage Site in Costa Rica. Pushendorf said, quote,
7:58
Speaker 1: diversity is really hard to quantify, but what this new
8:01
Speaker 1: study shows is that we have completely underestimated the insects.
8:07
Speaker 1: For the new study, the associate professor, who is originally
8:10
Speaker 1: from Costa Rica, highlighted how populations of amphibians had changed
8:15
Speaker 1: over recent decades as a result of issues such as
8:17
Speaker 1: climate change and deforestation. He said there was always a
8:21
Speaker 1: big debate about how much life exists on our planet.
8:24
Speaker 1: The argument we as conservationists make is that if you
8:28
Speaker 1: do not know what you have, how can you manage it.
8:32
Speaker 1: While the study is focused on Costa Rica, a place
8:34
Speaker 1: very close to my heart, these same techniques can be
8:37
Speaker 1: applied anywhere in the world, including here in the United Kingdom.
8:42
Speaker 1: Only by doing that will we truly understand the species
8:45
Speaker 1: we share our planet with, the species we already have lost,
8:49
Speaker 1: and how we can best protect the survivors going forward.
8:54
Speaker 1: The researchers combine multiple collection techniques, ecological observations, DNA barcoding
9:00
Speaker 1: and statistics with ACG estimates, which were then cross referenced
9:05
Speaker 1: to multiple different groups, including trees, amphibians, and moths. They
9:10
Speaker 1: found different methods consistently revealed an extremely large number of
9:14
Speaker 1: cryptic species, which underscored how much biodiversity remained hidden. The
9:20
Speaker 1: team's conservative estimates suggested between ninety three to ninety seven
9:24
Speaker 1: percent of insect species remain nameless. The research was led
9:29
Speaker 1: by scientists at the University of Cornell, University of Colorado,
9:34
Speaker 1: and the University of Kentucky. Now we'll turn to earth
9:39
Speaker 1: dot Com. The headline for this article is Europe's historic
9:45
Speaker 1: heat wave was virtually impossible without climate change. This is
9:49
Speaker 1: from June thirtieth. The heat baking Europe this week is
9:54
Speaker 1: the kind of extreme that scientists say would have been
9:56
Speaker 1: virtually impossible without modern climate change. A new scientific analysis
10:01
Speaker 1: puts it bluntly, conditions like these simply didn't happen a
10:06
Speaker 1: few decades ago, and the reason they're happening now comes
10:09
Speaker 1: down squarely to human driven climate change. Researchers say it
10:13
Speaker 1: ranks among the most extreme heat waves Europe has ever experienced.
10:17
Speaker 1: The analysis comes from World Weather Attribution, a research network
10:22
Speaker 1: built specifically to figure out how much of a role
10:25
Speaker 1: climate change plays in individual extreme weather events. Released this
10:30
Speaker 1: past Friday, the study looked at real world observations and
10:33
Speaker 1: forecast data covering the three hottest days and nights of
10:37
Speaker 1: the current heat wave across a large stretch of the continent.
10:42
Speaker 1: A heat dome has parked itself over much of Europe
10:45
Speaker 1: this week, trapping warm air in place and producing the
10:48
Speaker 1: kind of heat and humidity that becomes genuinely dangerous. Heat
10:53
Speaker 1: domes aren't rare. What's rare is how hot this one
10:57
Speaker 1: has got. Records have been falling almost daily, France set
11:02
Speaker 1: a national heat record, then surpassed it the very next day.
11:07
Speaker 1: The UK also set a new June temperature record before
11:10
Speaker 1: exceeding it less than twenty four hours later. Spain logged
11:14
Speaker 1: its two hottest June days back to back earlier in
11:17
Speaker 1: the week, while Switzerland recorded its hottest June day ever.
11:21
Speaker 1: Germany's provisional figures also suggest a new all time high
11:26
Speaker 1: across Europe. One country after another has been rewriting its
11:30
Speaker 1: heat records to pin down climate change contribution, the researchers
11:35
Speaker 1: compared the twenty twenty six heat wave against two earlier
11:38
Speaker 1: benchmark events, the major European heat waves of nineteen seventy
11:42
Speaker 1: six and two thousand and three. Those heat waves occurred
11:46
Speaker 1: when the planet was meaningfully cooler than it is now.
11:49
Speaker 1: What the experts found was hard to ignore. Both the
11:52
Speaker 1: daytime and nighttime temperatures during this stretch of heat would
11:56
Speaker 1: have been close to impossible in nineteen seventy six year
12:00
Speaker 1: that set its own heat records at the time. Over
12:03
Speaker 1: the past fifty years, the planet has warmed by roughly
12:06
Speaker 1: two degrees fahrenheit about one point one degree celsius, and
12:11
Speaker 1: that shift alone has dramatically raised the odds of extremes
12:14
Speaker 1: like this one occurring. Had an equivalent heat wave hit
12:18
Speaker 1: in June nineteen seventy six, the study estimates it would
12:21
Speaker 1: have run about six degrees fahrenheit or three and a
12:25
Speaker 1: half degrees celsius, cooler than what Europe is living through
12:28
Speaker 1: right now. Nighttime heat has been just as extreme as
12:32
Speaker 1: daytime heat, and in some ways more dangerous. France just
12:36
Speaker 1: recorded its hottest night. Ever, When nights stay hot, the
12:40
Speaker 1: body never gets a chance to cool down and recover
12:43
Speaker 1: before the next scorching day begins, and that lack of
12:46
Speaker 1: recovery time is a major driver of heat related deaths.
12:51
Speaker 1: The researchers found that the kind of brutal nighttime heat
12:54
Speaker 1: Europe is seeing now is roughly one hundred times more
12:57
Speaker 1: likely today than it was in two thousand and three,
13:01
Speaker 1: the year a European heat wave killed more than seventy
13:03
Speaker 1: thousand people. The team also dug into humidity, examining a
13:09
Speaker 1: measure called wet bulb globe temperature across eight hundred and
13:12
Speaker 1: fifty four cities in thirty countries. This figure combines temperature, humidity, sunlight,
13:19
Speaker 1: and wind into a single number that captures how much
13:22
Speaker 1: strain heat actually puts on the human body. Essentially, how
13:27
Speaker 1: hard is it for someone to cool themselves down? Nearly
13:31
Speaker 1: half of those cities, forty five percent have either broken
13:34
Speaker 1: or are about to break their all time records on
13:37
Speaker 1: this measure. When that number climbs high enough, sweating stops
13:41
Speaker 1: working as a cooling mechanism, and the risk of heat
13:44
Speaker 1: exhaustion or fatal heat stroke rises sharply. The researchers put
13:50
Speaker 1: it starkly, at just one point four degrees celsius of
13:54
Speaker 1: global warming, extreme heat is already testing the limits of
13:57
Speaker 1: what societies can handle. People are already dying, even though
14:03
Speaker 1: the full death count won't be known for a while yet.
14:06
Speaker 1: Spain's mortality monitoring system estimated more than two hundred excess
14:10
Speaker 1: deaths associated with the heat over just four days. In France,
14:15
Speaker 1: at least fifty five people have drowned over the past
14:18
Speaker 1: week trying to cool off in lakes and rivers. The
14:21
Speaker 1: disruption has gone well beyond fatalities. Thousands of schools have
14:26
Speaker 1: shut their doors, train services have been thrown into chaos,
14:30
Speaker 1: Power outages have hit multiple regions, and tourist sites have closed.
14:36
Speaker 1: Europe is heating up faster than any other continent on Earth.
14:40
Speaker 1: The scientists behind this study warned that heat waves of
14:43
Speaker 1: this scale, frequency and duration are only going to become
14:47
Speaker 1: more common unless the world moves quickly to stop burning
14:50
Speaker 1: fossil fuels. Friedrich Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College
14:55
Speaker 1: London who worked on the analysis, framed it less as
14:59
Speaker 1: a scientific question and more as a choice about what
15:03
Speaker 1: kind of future people actually want and whether they're willing
15:07
Speaker 1: to do what's needed to get there. And now we
15:13
Speaker 1: have an article from the San Francisco Chronicle dated June thirtieth,
15:18
Speaker 1: California's historic dam removal notches another big wind for salmon.
15:24
Speaker 1: When four dams were torn down along the California Oregon
15:28
Speaker 1: border two years ago, scientists were stunned by the large
15:32
Speaker 1: number of salmon that moved so quickly up the newly
15:34
Speaker 1: unobstructed Klamath River. This month brought another striking development. A
15:41
Speaker 1: chinook salmon was detected going up the river in Oregon
15:44
Speaker 1: past the former dam sites, and it was not part
15:47
Speaker 1: of the fall run of fish that's already been racing
15:50
Speaker 1: up the Klamath in late summer and early fall. It
15:53
Speaker 1: was a much rarer fish, a spring run salmon, which
15:56
Speaker 1: migrates earlier in the year and as long stroke to
16:00
Speaker 1: survive on the West Coast. The Oregon Department of Fish
16:04
Speaker 1: and Wildlife's detection of the first spring run salmon swimming
16:09
Speaker 1: into the Upper Klamath Basin in more than a century
16:13
Speaker 1: suggests that this imperiled fish run has begun to reap
16:17
Speaker 1: the benefits of dam removal. The success of the run,
16:21
Speaker 1: on top of the fall run stands to increase the prevalence, diversity,
16:25
Speaker 1: and resilience of struggling West Coast salmon. Salmon have seen
16:29
Speaker 1: their numbers drop dramatically over the past one hundred years
16:33
Speaker 1: as the rivers they depend on have shrunk, gotten warmer,
16:36
Speaker 1: and been blocked by dams. A hotter, drier future with
16:40
Speaker 1: a changing climate will only make things tougher. Quote. If
16:44
Speaker 1: you think about the spring chinook, we don't have many,
16:47
Speaker 1: so it's just incredible to have them make it up here,
16:50
Speaker 1: said William Ray, junior chair of the Klamath Tribes, one
16:55
Speaker 1: of the native groups along the river, which has its
16:57
Speaker 1: tribal headquarters in the Upper Basin. Can Unity of Chiliquin, Oregon. Quote.
17:03
Speaker 1: The fish had to go through so much. I don't
17:05
Speaker 1: think we're fully taking into account what of your herculean effort.
17:09
Speaker 1: This is end quote. Chinook salmon, also known as king salmon,
17:14
Speaker 1: have a remarkable yet precarious migration. Success relies on a
17:18
Speaker 1: lot going right across myriad volumes of water. The fish
17:23
Speaker 1: hatch in freshwater rivers and streams, but swim to the
17:26
Speaker 1: ocean for about two to three years, where they grow.
17:29
Speaker 1: Then they return to their birthplace to create the next
17:32
Speaker 1: generation before dying. The five hundred million dollars damn demolition
17:36
Speaker 1: on the Klamath River, the largest dam removal project in
17:40
Speaker 1: US history, was initiated by tribal communities looking to clear
17:44
Speaker 1: a major bottleneck for salmon. Opening up hundreds of miles
17:48
Speaker 1: of previously inaccessible waterways is expected to increase their spawning
17:53
Speaker 1: and ultimately their population. The Klamath River, which winds two
17:57
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty miles from southern Oregon through north in
18:00
Speaker 1: California to the Pacific, once had the third largest number
18:03
Speaker 1: of salmon in the continental US. The Columbia and Sacramento
18:08
Speaker 1: rivers have boasted more. The spring run salmon that recently
18:11
Speaker 1: made it to the Upper Klamath Basin has been identified
18:14
Speaker 1: by Oregon Wildlife officials as a hatchery fish, meaning it
18:19
Speaker 1: wasn't reared naturally in the river, but in captivity. Wildlife
18:24
Speaker 1: officials traced the fish to an experimental release of captive
18:27
Speaker 1: bred salmon three years ago made by the Oregon Department
18:31
Speaker 1: of Fish and Wildlife in the Upper Klamath Basin before
18:34
Speaker 1: the dam removal. The fish were released to test how
18:37
Speaker 1: salmon might fare in the upper basin after the dams
18:41
Speaker 1: came out. Interestingly, the spring run fish, which was outfitted
18:46
Speaker 1: with an electronic tracking tag, swam downriver from the Upper
18:50
Speaker 1: Basin through the former dam sites in May twenty twenty four,
18:54
Speaker 1: just as the dams were being demolished. Department officials didn't
18:58
Speaker 1: pay much attention to the fate of the fish at
19:00
Speaker 1: the time because their focus was on learning about salmon
19:03
Speaker 1: movement upriver. On June third of this year, however, the
19:07
Speaker 1: tagged salmon was back on the agency's radar when its
19:10
Speaker 1: signal was unexpectedly detected, indicating it was moving back up
19:14
Speaker 1: the Klamath River. Officials tracked its migration upriver through two
19:18
Speaker 1: dams in Oregon that remain on the river, which salmon
19:22
Speaker 1: can bypass with fish ladders to the mouth of the
19:25
Speaker 1: Williamson River on Oregon's Upper Klamath Lake. While wildlife officials
19:31
Speaker 1: say it's possible the tagfish spent the past two to
19:34
Speaker 1: three years on the lower reaches of the Klamath, they
19:38
Speaker 1: told the Chronicle that it's highly unlikely the fish migrated
19:41
Speaker 1: all the way to the ocean and back, revealing the
19:43
Speaker 1: potential of spring run salmon to navigate the entire river.
19:47
Speaker 1: The agency doesn't monitor salmon in the lower Klamath. It's
19:51
Speaker 1: also possible there will be more spring run fish making
19:53
Speaker 1: the round trip, though the upstream migration generally ends in July.
19:58
Speaker 1: Wild spring run si salmon also live in the river,
20:01
Speaker 1: but they have not been observed moving through the footprints
20:04
Speaker 1: of the old dams. This is perhaps because their numbers
20:07
Speaker 1: are so small that the lower basin is sufficient to
20:10
Speaker 1: support them, and instinct has kept them returning to the
20:14
Speaker 1: waters where they were born. In contrast, the larger fall
20:18
Speaker 1: run population has had members straying upriver. There are also
20:23
Speaker 1: challenges upriver, including turbid waters left from damned demolition, which
20:28
Speaker 1: are improving, and the existing Keno and Link River dams,
20:32
Speaker 1: which can be difficult to pass even with fish ladders. Federal,
20:35
Speaker 1: State and tribal scientists have long planned to intervene to
20:39
Speaker 1: help spring run fish. Earlier this year, the Oregon Department
20:42
Speaker 1: of Fish and Wildlife, the Klamath Tribes and the Urrok
20:47
Speaker 1: Tribe were awarded a six million dollar federal grant to
20:51
Speaker 1: incubate spring run salmon and begin a reintroduction program in
20:55
Speaker 1: the upper Basin. Quote it might take a few decades
20:59
Speaker 1: that there will be a fishable population again, said Gray Junior,
21:03
Speaker 1: the Klama Tribe's chair. The recently detected spring run chinook
21:08
Speaker 1: gives us hope. Now here's an article from fox Weather
21:15
Speaker 1: the headlined what is your State Animal? See the official
21:19
Speaker 1: list featuring all fifty states. This is dated July the first.
21:24
Speaker 1: As we approach the two hundred and fiftieth birthday of
21:26
Speaker 1: our great nation, it is a good time to examine
21:29
Speaker 1: the details of what make our country so unique among
21:31
Speaker 1: the world's nations. Each state in the United States has
21:35
Speaker 1: its own unique identity, whether it's the food, culture, or environment.
21:39
Speaker 1: Each location has qualities that make it stand out from
21:42
Speaker 1: the other fifty states in the country. An animal represents
21:46
Speaker 1: each of the fifty states to celebrate the unique landscapes, histories,
21:50
Speaker 1: and environments, and to promote the conservation of these native
21:53
Speaker 1: species across various regions. So as July the fourth is approaching,
21:59
Speaker 1: marking fiftieth birthday, here's a look at each state's designated animal.
22:04
Speaker 1: Alabamas starting off with the black bear, which students chose
22:11
Speaker 1: because of its size and rarity in two thousand and six. Alaska,
22:17
Speaker 1: known for its chili climate and natural beauty during the
22:20
Speaker 1: warm seasons as well, is represented by the moose. These
22:24
Speaker 1: creatures have long been a symbol of the state and
22:26
Speaker 1: grow rapidly from birth. A caf can outrun a human
22:29
Speaker 1: by the time it's five days old. Arizona, the ringtail
22:34
Speaker 1: has been the state animal of Arizona since nineteen eighty six.
22:38
Speaker 1: It's an omnivorous creature that is a skilled hunter. Arkansas
22:44
Speaker 1: has the white tailed deer as one of the most
22:46
Speaker 1: common deer species in North America. They get their name
22:50
Speaker 1: from the iconic and broad white tail. California is the
22:55
Speaker 1: iconic California grizzly bear, chosen in nineteen fifty three, is
23:01
Speaker 1: sadly extinct in the state. These creatures lived up to
23:05
Speaker 1: thirty years in the wild. In Colorado, the state animal
23:09
Speaker 1: is the rocky Mountain big horned sheep that's been the
23:15
Speaker 1: symbol of the state since nineteen sixty one. In Connecticut,
23:20
Speaker 1: it might surprise most people that one of the original
23:23
Speaker 1: thirteen colonies is represented by the sperm whale. This whale
23:28
Speaker 1: has the largest brain of any mammal in the world.
23:32
Speaker 1: In Delaware, the state animal is the gray fox, designated
23:37
Speaker 1: in twenty ten to help preserve creatures like the gray fox.
23:44
Speaker 1: In Florida, the iconic Florida panther was chosen as the
23:48
Speaker 1: state's representation in a statewide student vote in nineteen eighty two.
23:54
Speaker 1: Georgia is home to a wide variety of animals. The
23:57
Speaker 1: white tailed deer is the state animal since twenty fifteen,
24:01
Speaker 1: and it also has a state marine animal, the North
24:04
Speaker 1: Atlantic right whale. In Hawaii, the state animal is the
24:12
Speaker 1: Hawaiian monk seal, one of the world's most endangered speels.
24:17
Speaker 1: Seal speA thieve. For Idaho, the state animal is the
24:23
Speaker 1: Appaloosa horse, chosen in nineteen seventy five. The eppaloosa has
24:29
Speaker 1: a colorful, unique coat pattern. In Illinois, the white tailed
24:33
Speaker 1: deer once again makes the list, chosen as state animal
24:37
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty. In Indiana, the Northern cardinals been the
24:41
Speaker 1: state animal since nineteen thirty three and is known as
24:45
Speaker 1: the perfect habitat for these beautiful creatures. In Iowa, an
24:50
Speaker 1: unexpectedly beautiful bird called an Eastern goldfinch was chosen as
24:54
Speaker 1: the state animal in nineteen thirty three. In Kansas, the
25:00
Speaker 1: mighty American bison was chosen as the state animal in
25:03
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five, once had a population in Kansas in
25:07
Speaker 1: the millions. In Kentucky, the gray squirrel was chosen as
25:13
Speaker 1: a state animal by the Kentucky General Assembly in nineteen
25:16
Speaker 1: sixty eight. Louisiana, the dangerously cute black bear has been
25:22
Speaker 1: the designated state animal since nineteen ninety two. In Maine,
25:27
Speaker 1: the moose is also the state animal, as in Alaska.
25:32
Speaker 1: Maine made it the official state animal in nineteen seventy nine.
25:37
Speaker 1: In Maryland, the Baltimore oriole is Maryland state bird. The
25:43
Speaker 1: orioles eat insects, fruit, and nectar. In Massachusetts, the iconic
25:49
Speaker 1: Boston terrier, indigenous to New England and the first breed
25:53
Speaker 1: developed in America, is Massachusetts state animal. For Michigan, again,
25:59
Speaker 1: white tail deer cracks the list, chosen by a group
26:03
Speaker 1: of fourth grade students in nineteen ninety seven. In Minnesota,
26:07
Speaker 1: the Eastern timberwolf is a stunning representation of Minnesota as
26:11
Speaker 1: the official state animal. In Mississippi, the very popular white
26:16
Speaker 1: tail deer was chosen again, joining a growing number of
26:19
Speaker 1: states that have made the same decision. In Missouri, the
26:23
Speaker 1: cute Missouri mule was chosen as state animal, as these
26:28
Speaker 1: strong creatures are known to outperform horses in certain types
26:31
Speaker 1: of terrain. For Montana, the powerful and dangerous grizzly bear
26:37
Speaker 1: and Montana is known for its raw strength and speed
26:40
Speaker 1: and is the state animal. Nebraska has chosen once again,
26:47
Speaker 1: the white tail deer picked by Nebraska in nineteen eighty seven.
26:53
Speaker 1: For Nevada, the desert big horned sheep was chosen as
26:58
Speaker 1: the state's official animal nineteen seventy three. In New Hampshire,
27:04
Speaker 1: the whitetail deer is the official state animal. For New Jersey,
27:09
Speaker 1: horses have been the state animal since nineteen seventy seven.
27:13
Speaker 1: In New Mexico, the black bear became the official state
27:16
Speaker 1: animal in nineteen sixty three. For New York, the beaver
27:21
Speaker 1: is the creature that represents one of the original thirteen colonies.
27:27
Speaker 1: In New York was chose the beaver in nineteen seventy five.
27:32
Speaker 1: North Carolina has the Eastern gray squirrel as the official
27:36
Speaker 1: state animal since nineteen sixty nine. North Dakota has chosen
27:42
Speaker 1: the beautifully colored Western metal lark as a state animal
27:47
Speaker 1: since nineteen forty seven. Ohio, the beloved whitetail deer makes
27:52
Speaker 1: the list again. In Oklahoma, the bison is the state
27:56
Speaker 1: animal since nineteen seventy two. In Oregon, beaver once again
28:01
Speaker 1: makes the list. For Pennsylvania, the white tailed deer shows
28:06
Speaker 1: up again, and in Rhode Island, the Rhode Island red
28:10
Speaker 1: is a type of chicken breed that originated in New England. Well,
28:15
Speaker 1: we'll have to stop the list there. You look it
28:18
Speaker 1: up with yourself to find out the rest, but we're
28:21
Speaker 1: out of time for this week. Your reader was Kelly Taylor.
28:24
Speaker 1: Now stay tuned for further programming on RADIOI