ICYMI: Giant Wasp Nests, Bourbon Pollution & Chlamydia-Free Koalas

A weekly roundup for busy people

By Paul Rauber

Illustrations by Peter Arkle

July 5, 2019

Warmer winters in Alabama are contributing to wasp nests the size of Volkswagen Beetles. 

Kentucky authorities warn that a fire at a Jim Beam warehouse that destroyed 45,000 barrels of bourbon “could have a serious impact on aquatic life” in the Kentucky River.  

There are so many invasive iguanas in Florida that homeowners are encouraged to kill them.

June 2019 was the hottest ever recorded.

Floating ice off Antarctica was at a record high in 2014. Three years later, it hit a record low. No one knows why. 

A freak storm blankets the Mexican city of Guadalajara in more than three feet of hail.

Eighty-four percent of wildfires are started by humans. The most common day of ignition for wildfires is July 4. 

Coal-mining company Blackjewel LLC files for bankruptcy protection and shuts two mines in the Powder River Basin, putting 700 people out of work. 

Australia’s Kangaroo Island is serving as a refuge for chlamydia-free koalas. As many as half of all koalas on mainland Australia are believed to suffer from the disease.  

Low tides combined with unseasonably warm temperatures cook mussels on the rocks at Bodega Bay, California.   

A rare network of sand dunes in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, may lose their protected status after they are partially destroyed during the building of a Trump golf course.  

Twelve endangered Florida panthers have died thus far in 2019, most after having been struck by cars. The latest was killed by another panther.