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Shifting Baselines and Sneaky Jays

10,000 Birds

A 1978 paper in SORA indicates that Blue Jays had gone from “few extralimital records” prior to 1972 to rare but regular across the mountain West and into California, Washington and Oregon, with 220 extralimital records in the wither of 76-77 alone. 1978, for reference, was the year of my birth.

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From Today's New York Times

Animal Ethics

He can do so in one of two ways: either by heeding the advice of scientists calling for the polar bear to be listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act; or, at the very least, by delaying the lease sale while the complexities of the proposed listing are sorted out.