ICYMI: Tireless Elk, Tuskless Elephants, Muskless California

A weekly roundup for busy people

By Paul Rauber

Illustrations by Peter Arkle

October 22, 2021

Colorado wildlife officers remove the car tire an elk had around its neck for two years

The Biden administration drops its ambitious, $150 billion clean energy program because of opposition from West Virginia senator Joe Manchin. Between July and October 2021, Manchin received more than $400,000 in donations from fossil fuel companies.  

The EIA says that coal-generated power will increase by 22 percent this year, the first increase in coal burning in seven years.  

El Salvador, which has made cryptocurrency legal tender, is mining bitcoin with geothermal energy from its Tecapa volcano

Seville, Spain, is the first city to name and rank heat waves.

The consensus among climate scientists that climate change is caused by human activity is now greater than 99 percent

The Ford Foundation, following Harvard and the MacArthur Foundation, will divest from fossil fuels

The EPA announces a three-year plan to regulate and restrict the widespread and dangerous class of “forever chemicals” known as PFAS.

The sockeye salmon runs at Alaska’s Bristol Bay set an all-time record: more than 60 million fish.

Western monarch butterflies return to Pacific Grove, California, after a 2020 season in which none were recorded. The California population has risen to around 10,000, from 1,900 last year. 

California’s 2021 water year was its driest in history, with only half the historical average precipitation. 

Two of the three runaway zebras that escaped from a Maryland farm in August are still on the loose. A third was killed in an illegal snare trap. The zebras’ owner and Prince George’s County plans to lure them into a corral baited with two female zebras.  

The hippos imported to Colombia by drug kingpin Pablo Escobar are declared persons under the law and have retained a lawyer, who will try to prevent their euthanization. 

Wisconsin Republican lawmakers want to allow the hunting of sandhill cranes

Oregon kills three more wolves from the Lookout Mountain pack, bringing to eight the number executed for killing cattle. 

Syria executes 24 people said to have started last year’s devastating wildfires. 

More than 100 square miles of farmland in Iraq turns into desert each year.  

Heavy poaching is leading elephants to evolve toward tusklessness

Elon Musk will move Tesla’s headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas.