Stories

New England’s fall foliage harder to predict as the climate changes, biologists say

October 7, 2022

It’s fall foliage season, and climate change has made it harder to predict the timing and the vibrancy of the leaves, according to local biologists. The season is a multi-billion dollar industry for the region. The red, orange, and yellow shades of New England make it a beloved travel destination this time of year. But some…

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A ‘well-put-together bear’: Orphaned cub grows up, with release set for next spring

September 30, 2022

A black bear cub, who was rescued by the Greenfield, Massachusetts, police, in April has grown from about the size of a football to about 60 pounds, and over 3 feet tall. The bear and 46 other orphaned cubs are being raised at a wildlife rehabilitation center in Lyme, New Hampshire. The center raises orphaned,…

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Common mergansers swimming on a section of the Meduxnekeag River that's been restored to a more natural state.

A tribe is restoring a northern Maine river so that it’ll be cooler and more hospitable to salmon

September 21, 2022

There are eight Maine rivers that are federally recognized as having distinct populations of Atlantic salmon, from the Sheepscot River in the Midcoast, to the Denny’s River Down East. But salmon also once spawned further north, in Aroostook County, and the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians is trying to bring them back by restoring not…

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Conservationists say New England’s drought is another wakeup call about climate change

August 12, 2022

Alicea Charamut went for a hike last weekend to a place where she thought her dog would have a chance to cool off with a swim. Devil’s Hopyard State Park, in East Haddam, Connecticut, has a big waterfall. But on this day, the water was barely flowing and Charamut’s dog found no relief. “There was…

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Forester Kyle Lombard looks out the window of the small airplane, searching for damage in the New Hampshire forest below.

Meet the foresters keeping an eye on New Hampshire’s trees from the sky

August 9, 2022

Most of the year, New Hampshire’s Forest Health team is on the ground, in the woods, doing what they can to protect the state’s trees. But for a few days every summer, they get to soar above it all. Foresters Bill Davidson and Kyle Lombard make up the two-person operation affectionately known as the Bug…

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‘Old Ladies’ dive into Cape ponds seeking trash, emerge triumphant

August 8, 2022

People normally aren’t excited to find garbage on the bottom of a pond, but for an unusual group of underwater trash collectors on Cape Cod, there’s a certain exhilaration when the biggest discovery of the day suddenly appears 8 feet below the surface. “We found the tire!” exclaims Diane Hammer, who sits in a kayak…

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Threatened toads defy odds, appear to make a comeback on the Cape

August 1, 2022

In the 1980s, a rare and elusive amphibian called the spadefoot toad vanished from its habitat in Falmouth, Mass., on Cape Cod. For the last decade, conservationists have tried to bring it back. Now they believe they’ve reached a breakthrough in that quest. The story begins each year in springtime, when Mass Audubon researchers don…

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Peregrine falcons in New Hampshire could find an unlikely ally: rock climbers

July 27, 2022

Recreationists and wildlife have to coexist. But there are times when wildlife need their distance from the humans that like to explore their habitat. For a handful of sites around New Hampshire, that means closing certain areas over the spring and summer so peregrine falcons can nest. Peregrines were considered endangered until the late 1990s,…

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A group of Connecticut cicadas disappeared nearly 70 years ago. Scientists still search for answers.

July 25, 2022

On a hill overlooking the Fenton River Valley, John Cooley gestures to a horizon blanketed with trees. It’s the bucolic embodiment of New England’s forested landscape. It’s also the scene of a mystery that’s puzzled scientists for nearly 70 years. What happened to a group of periodical cicadas that used to live here? “You would…

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‘Flying on strings and cloth,’ high above western Massachusetts

July 22, 2022

Sometimes Gallagher launches from Mount Tom and flies to his house in Hadley, Mass., about 8 miles away. Sometimes he flies from Mount Tom all the way to Rhode Island or eastern Massachusetts (paragliders call that flying “cross-country”). But some days Gallagher doesn’t go anywhere, just soars above the mountain with the bald eagles and…

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