ICYMI: Gorillas at Risk, Billions on Lockdown & World's Highest Mouse

A weekly roundup for busy people

By Paul Rauber

March 27, 2020

filename

Illustration by Peter Arkle

Visitors are banned from Congo's Virunga National Park to protect its roughly 300 endangered mountain gorillas, who are as susceptible as humans to the novel coronavirus. 

The number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States passes 1,000. The US has more active cases than any other country. Worldwide, there are more than half a million cases.  

China bans entry to all foreigners. Mexican protesters call for a ban on border crossers from the United States. In India, 1.3 billion people are on a three-week total lockdown

The corn ethanol industry is hurting from the nationwide decline in driving, but is profiting from the new demand for hand sanitizer. Car sales are down, especially for electric vehicles

Due largely to the drop in crude oil prices, coal becomes the world's most expensive fossil fuel.  

study in Nature Sustainability establishes that the cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions of electric cars are lower than those of gas-powered vehicles. 

Washington State bans single-use plastic bags. The plastic industry tries to use the coronavirus epidemic to roll back bans on plastic bags and other single-use plastics. 

Anna Seidman, until recently the lawyer for the trophy-hunting-advocacy organization the Safari Club, will now head the US Fish and Wildlife Service's international affairs program.

The California utility Pacific Gas & Electric pleads guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the 2018 Camp Fire in the town of Paradise.  

East Antarctica's Denman Glacier is showing signs of instability, having retreated three miles in the past 20 years. Its collapse into the ocean would result in an eventual sea level rise of five feet.  

Australia's Great Barrier Reef may have just experienced its worst bleaching event ever. This is the third bleaching event for the reef in five years. 

A yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse is discovered living at 20,340 feet on the Llullaillaco volcano on the border of Argentina and Chile, making it the world's highest-dwelling mammal