More than 130 years after its discovery, this moth was finally photographed alive

A month into the coronavirus pandemic, photographer Joel Sartore woke up early at home in Lincoln, Nebraska, and went outside to grab the newspaper. Grounded from traveling his usual six months a year, he’d been moping, unsure what to do now that his 2020 trips were canceled.

© Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
Joel Sartore captured the long-toothed dart moth in September 2020 near Santa Fe, New Mexico.

On the porch, a panoply of bugs buzzing around a light caught his eye—dragonflies, cicadas, june bugs, and many more. Suddenly, his funk lifted.

“I thought, I bet I could stay busy through this pandemic by photographing insects and other invertebrates,” Sartore says. As the founder of National Geographic’s Photo Ark, he aims to document every species living in zoos and wildlife sanctuaries around the world. (Read how Photo Ark began.)

After that April morning, Sartore recruited two of his grown children, along with his friends Loren and Babs Padelford, Nebraska-based amateur entomologists and retirees who devote their time to photographing insects. The team began combing the farmlands and prairies of Nebraska and five neighboring states for the tiniest of creatures, from ferocious antlions to colorful leafhoppers to spindly assassin bugs. They ultimately added 900 new species to the Photo Ark in a mere eight months.

“That something so vital to the Photo Ark was right under my nose the whole time is just amazing,” says Sartore, who photographed most of the invertebrates on-site, in tents, and released them back in the wild.

As the 11,000th species to be added to this decades-long effort, Sartore chose the long-toothed dart moth, Dichagyris longidens. (Read about the güiña, the mystery cat that marked Sartore’s 10,000th photo.)

After its naming in 1890, the roughly inch-long moth, native to the U.S. Southwest, was largely forgotten. So little is known about it, in fact, that Sartore’s photograph is the first-ever of a live specimen.

“The mammals get all the press—the gorillas, the tigers—but it’s the insects that save us all,” he says, citing their role as crucial crop pollinators and scavengers that break down waste. In the U.S. alone, insects contribute about $70 billion a year to the economy. At the same time, many studies show that insects are also disappearing at a rapid rate worldwide, largely due to habitat loss and agricultural pesticides.

Akito Y. Kawahara, an associate professor and curator of Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) at the Florida Museum of Natural History, applauded Sartore’s decision to highlight a moth for this Photo Ark milestone.

“He’s bringing attention to the small things in the world—they’re really underappreciated,” he says. (See 15 pictures of beautiful, misunderstood moths.)

Mystery moth

When Sartore and his team captured the long-toothed dart moth along New Mexico’s Pecos River in September 2020, they sent a photo of the mysterious species to Bob Biagi, an editor at the species-identification website BugGuide. His response: “We have been waiting for your image for at least 130 years.”

The long-toothed dart moth is a type of cutworm—small brown moths that look virtually the same. It’s hard even for scientists to tell them apart, Kawahara says, which is why the long-toothed dart moth has been so little studied.

Cutworm moths are so named because their caterpillars emerge from the soil at night and snip the stems off plants, usually seedlings, toppling them over. Some species, such as the army cutworm, are considered agricultural pests, but most aren’t harmful to crops, Kawahara says.

Cutworm moths also help feed bats (they’re particularly “meaty,” Kawahara says) and pollinate night-blooming flowers. Moths’ role as pollinators is often overshadowed in the public eye by butterflies and bees, he says.

Earth is home to about 160,000 known species of moths and butterflies, but perhaps another 200,000 remain unidentified. “There are so many insects that we don’t know much about,” says Scott Bundy, a professor of entomology at New Mexico State University.

New Mexico in particular has many undocumented insect species, in part because it became a state relatively recently, in 1912. In eastern U.S. states, entomologists have been cataloging species for centuries, Bundy says.

“That’s what’s so fun for me—there’s so much still to be learned about what we have here.”

Insect threats—and solutions

Moths and butterflies are disappearing faster than other insect groups, according to a recent study, and many species may go extinct before they can be identified.

Climate change in particular presents a “huge, huge problem” for moths, Kawahara says. Fluctuating temperatures can confuse caterpillars about when it’s time to pupate, and increasingly extreme wildfires can roast caterpillars alive.

Another threat is light pollution. As nocturnal creatures, moths navigate by moonlight, but they can get distracted by artificial lighting, which they end up circling so many times it exhausts them and makes them easy prey, Kawahara says. (Read more about why moths are attracted to bright lights.)

He recently published a study detailing eight simple things people can do to help moths and other insects, such as turning off lights in offices and homes at night and planting native vegetation.

He also encourages people to be curious about the world around them: Go outside with your smartphone, flip over rocks, and share pictures of what you see, he says. Such community-science data can supplement scientific research, particularly during the pandemic when scientists’ ability to work in the field is limited. (Learn more ways you can help pollinators at home.)

“I hope more photographers aren’t just drawn to the charismatic megafauna,” Kawahara says, “but instead realize there’s this extraordinary diversity of incredible animals right in our backyards.”

The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world, funds the Photo Ark.

Deer native to India starve to death amid drought in Hawaii

HONOLULU — Axis deer, a species native to India presented as a gift from Hong Kong to the king of Hawaii in 1868, have fed hunters and their families on the rural island of Molokai for generations. But for the community of about 7,500, where self-sustainability is a way of life, the invasive deer are both a cherished food source and a danger to their island ecosystem

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Now, drought on Molokai has brought the problem into focus. Hundreds of deer have died from starvation, stretching thin the island’s limited resources.

The drought is among the island’s worst in recent memory and has been going on for nearly two years.

“During the last wet season, which in Hawaii runs from October through April, it never pulled out of drought,” said U.S. National Weather Service hydrologist Kevin Kodama. “It’s been pretty bad, especially for pasture conditions and just the general vegetation. ... It’s had an impact on the wildlife.”

In India, axis deer are kept in check by tigers and leopards. But with no natural predators on Molokai, the population has exploded, and there now are an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 deer on the 260 square mile (673 square kilometre) island.

Residents have a hard time controlling the population by hunting alone. And the animals, in desperate search for food and water, are destroying crops and forest watershed people rely on for food and drinking water.

When the deer devour fruits, vegetables and other plants, it leads to erosion and runoff into the ocean that alters the island’s coral reef — another important food source.

“Molokai has the longest continuous fringing reef in the United States, and it’s one of our community’s greatest assets,” said Russell Kallstrom, information co-ordinator for the Nature Conservancy’s Molokai program. “When ungulates overpopulate an area, that erosion impacts not just the reef, but people’s lifestyle and the subsistence lifestyle that’s there.”

The reefs around Molokai are getting more runoff and sedimentation than expected and at least part of it is caused by erosion from the deer, said Greg Asner, a Hawaii-based marine ecologist.

Sedimentation that settles on the coral can kill it, said Asner, who heads Arizona State University’s Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science. “Fish, invertebrates like crabs, lobsters, you name it — they all rely on that same habitat.”

The deer problem has persisted for years but is getting worse, according to Glenn Teves, a Molokai native and the University of Hawaii’s county extension agent for the island.

“They started moving into the farm area and are just raising hell,” said Teves, who owns a small farm on Molokai.

“It’s a perfect storm,” he said. “What farmers did was they started fencing off their areas, but not all farmers could afford the fencing. So you may be protecting yourself, but you’re just pushing the deer into the another farmer’s place.”

Options for controlling the population include more hunting, aerial sniping and fencing that protects certain areas. Sterilizing deer is difficult and expensive, and no one wants to poison or eradicate them.

If healthy deer are killed, slaughter houses could process the meat into hamburger for food banks and others in need, Teves said. Even composting the carcasses of unhealthy animals has been considered, he said, “so we can use it to bring the land back.”

Hawaii Gov. David Ige recently issued an emergency disaster declaration for Maui County, which includes Molokai, so the state could “take immediate measures to reduce and control the axis deer populations and to remove and dispose of the carcasses quickly.”

Maui County’s mayor, Mayor Michael Victorino, said the disaster proclamation also can help unlock state and federal funding to mitigate some financial losses. ”Our agricultural sector has sustained substantial pasture and crop damage from axis deer in search of food,” he said.

Maui county recently set aside $1 million to address the problem, splitting it among Molokai and two other islands — Maui and Lanai — where axis deer were brought in the 1950s and now are damaging farms, ranches and forests.

A bill last year to allocate another $1 million died in the state Legislature after pushback from Molokai residents who feared the deer would be wiped out. State lawmakers are again trying pass a measure for funding to help manage the deer.

“They trample sea bird burrows, and their grazing and trampling causes soil erosion, causing siltation of reefs that support fish people eat as well, and ultimately, watersheds and fresh water production,” said Jeff Bagshaw, an outreach specialist for the state’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife in Maui County.

Hunting can help control the deer, but Bagshaw says hunters tend to shoot bucks, which increases “harem-size” and doesn’t do much to decrease the overall population.

In 2019, fewer than 400 residents on Molokai were issued hunting permits, he said. Statewide the number was about 10,600. Nearly 1,500 permits were issued to non-residents, many who come to Hawaii specifically to hunt, but coronavirus restrictions in 2020 meant far fewer people came to the state for leisure.

Because of the overpopulation, there is no daily bag limit on deer nor a designated hunting season.

A number of other non-native species have become established in the islands, including goats and pigs. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the hoofed animals are among the largest contributors to ecosystem degradation and extinction in Hawaii, where plants and animals that evolved in isolation over millions of years lack natural defences against introduced species.

In addition to causing to environmental damage, the starving deer population has become a public nuisance. Dead ones are rotting around the island, including along shorelines where people fish, swim and surf.

Private landowners are responsible for disposing of dead deer on their property, while state and county agencies have to clean up dead deer on public lands.

And people who regularly drive on Molokai say the normally skittish deer have become more brazen while seeking food and water and pose a serious roadway hazard.

“Just driving down the highway, herds will suddenly decide to cross, and so a lot of people have had their vehicles totalled as a result of impacts with deer,” said the Nature Conservancy’s Kallstrom.

___

Follow Caleb Jones on Twitter: @CalebAP

Caleb Jones, The Associated Press

A rare yellow lobster, named Banana, 

has been caught off the coast of Maine

A rare yellow lobster has been caught off the coast of Maine and has been lovingly named Banana.

© From University of New England

 The odds of catching a yellow lobster are about one in 30 million.

The University of New England (UNE) said in a news release that Banana was caught by lobsterman Marley Babb and donated to the university on Wednesday. The yellow color comes from a pigment in the lobster's shell and the odds of catching one are about one in 30 million, according to the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine.

Babb contacted the Maine Department of Marine Research (DMR) after his once-in-a-lifetime catch to see if they would be interested in housing the lobster.




Lindsey Forrette, a lab coordinator and chemical hygiene officer in the School of Marine and Environmental Programs said Babb drove two hours from his location in Tenant's Harbor to drop off Banana.

"UNE has cultivated strong connections with lobstermen and Maine DMR," Charles Tilburg, director of the School of Marine and Environmental Programs said in a statement. "It was through those connections that (researchers) learned about Banana and Lindsay was able to coordinate with Marley from there."



The University of New England is sharing an $860,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) with the Maine Department of Marine Resources, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, and Hood College in Maryland to study the impact that a warming Gulf of Maine is having on lobster larvae and their success in growing to adulthood.

"Banana is about a pound to a pound and a half and is settling in nicely here," Forrette said.

Canada plans hydropower push as Biden looks to clean up U.S. grid

By Nia Williams and Allison Lampert

© Reuters/JP Moczulski FILE PHOTO: 

High voltage electrical power transmission lines in Toronto

CALGARY, Alberta/ MONTREAL, (Reuters) - Canada sees an opportunity in U.S. President Joe Biden's push to achieve a carbon-free electrical grid by 2035: hydropower exports.

With Canadian crude exports taking a hit from Biden's decision to scrap the Keystone XL oil pipeline, Ottawa is increasingly focused on sales of clean energy.

Around 60% of the 4 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity consumed in the United States in 2019 came from fossil fuels, government data show. Biden's push to convert that to clean energy gives Canada, the world's third-largest producer of hydropower, a window to sell more hydro exports to its southern neighbour.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Reuters last week the United States is interested in boosting hydro imports. In a separate interview Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said combining Canada's clean energy with U.S. wind, solar and geothermal power was a priority for early talks between the two countries.

"We do think that's a big economic opportunity," Wilkinson told Reuters.

A White House spokesman, asked about Canadian hydro exports, said the new administration is "leaving no sources of renewable energy off the table."

Canada generated about 440 billion kilowatt-hours from hydropower in 2020, just over half its maximum installed capacity. Canada's electricity exports to United States dropped in 2019 to a six-year low of 47 billion kilowatt-hours, worth C$1.9 billion ($1.5 billion), influenced by factors like water levels and domestic demand, Canada Energy Regulator specialist Matthew Hansen said.

While a massive U.S. effort to build renewable energy infrastructure might meet Biden's targets, an interconnected grid and sharing resources with neighbouring countries would keep energy more affordable, said Steve Clemmer, director of energy research and analysis with the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists.

"Having the hydro from Canada gives some more flexibility to control costs," Clemmer said.

POWER STORAGE

Hydro Quebec, Canada's largest electricity producer, has already been working to advance two new high-voltage lines to neighbouring New England and New York.

"We share Prime Minister Trudeau's optimism and we are enthused by President Biden's commitment....as we believe HQ can play a major role in our neighbours' decarbonisation efforts, at the lowest cost possible to rate payers," said Hydro Quebec spokeswoman Lynn St-Laurent.

When more renewable energy comes online, power storage facilities that Canada's reservoirs provide to the U.S. grid should become even more valuable, experts said, noting reservoirs can function like giant batteries. When demand is low but the sun is shining or wind is whipping, the power generated can pump water for release later to run a turbine when electricity is needed.

"There's this version of Canadian hydro not only being firm (capacity) but being something like a battery. That's the big picture informing the vision of some policymakers," said Justin Gundlach, senior attorney at the New York University School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity.

Potential problems include integration of cross-border grids. Local communities often object to efforts to build more high-voltage transmission lines. Another worry: provincial utilities may be leery of long construction times for power projects and lack of finalised U.S. clean energy regulations.

Hydro Quebec's proposed New England Clean Energy Connect project has secured state and federal permits but could face a fall referendum. Opponents, including the Natural Resources Council of Maine, argue it will displace U.S. clean energy projects at a time when Biden is touting domestic production.

"We hope that facts, science and trust in the robust regulatory review of the project will prevail," Hydro Quebec's St-Laurent said, adding other projects would not reduce emissions on the same scale as quickly.

(Additional reporting by Steve Scherer in Ottawa and Valerie Volcovici in Washington; Editing by Denny Thomas and David Gregorio)

CANADA

Judge rejects request for injunction to pause new federal firearms prohibitions

OTTAWA — A judge has rejected a request from firearms owners to suspend a sweeping ban on many gun models while their full arguments against the prohibitions are considered by the court.

In her ruling, Federal Court Associate Chief Justice Jocelyne Gagné says the applicants failed to put forward clear and non-speculative evidence that they would suffer irreparable harm if the ban remains in effect pending a final ruling on the case.

The federal government outlawed a wide range of firearms by cabinet order in May, saying the guns were designed for the battlefield, not hunting or sport shooting.

The ban covers some 1,500 models and variants of what the government considers assault-style weapons, meaning they can no longer be legally used, sold or imported.

The measure has met with stiff criticism from some firearms owners and the federal Conservatives, who question the value of the ban.

Gagné dismissed several arguments from the owners seeking an injunction, including the notion of irreparable harm from not being able to use specific firearms for hunting or shooting.

She said Canadians wishing to engage in these activities can choose from a large range of non-restricted firearms that may reasonably be used for these purposes.

Gagné also rejected arguments about the loss of gun culture, saying it was not clear how the regulations affected such a culture.

Fuller arguments on the constitutionality of the regulations are expected to take place over the next several months.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 9, 2021.

The Canadian Press

HOW COLD IS IT? IT IS SO COLD THAT

Crack in LRT rail line due to extreme cold causing delays on Edmonton transit

Extreme cold temperatures have caused a (SECOND) crack in the city’s LRT rail line, causing delays on the transit system.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal Back in January 2020, transit employees manually operated the rail crossing arms on 111 Street just south of 51 Avenue as a result of a rail fracture. Another crack near the same intersection was identified Monday evening as a result of the extreme cold and is causing delays on the transit system.

A cracked rail as a result of the deep freeze was discovered in the area of 51 Avenue Monday night, resulting in service delays of about 10 minutes at Southgate and Century Park Stations throughout Tuesday.

Trains are currently running on a single track through the affected area, meaning trains have to stop and wait for those heading in the opposite direction to pass. Metro Line trains are turning back at the South Campus Station and not travelling through to Southgate or Century Park Stations.

Repair crews will be braving the bitter cold at 7 p.m. to work on fixing the track, Trevor Dennehy, the city’s general supervisor of transit facilities maintenance, said in a Tuesday statement.

Crews will be working all night with the goal of having regular service back up and running for the Wednesday morning commute. Edmonton is under an extreme cold warning and temperatures are expected to drop to -29 C overnight with a windchill of -40 C.

“Our crews will be working all night with the goal of having regular service restored for Edmontonians by tomorrow morning. We greatly appreciate all of our staff who go above and beyond to make repairs in such bitterly cold temperatures,” Dennehy said.

This is the second straight winter that a LRT rail line has fractured as a result of the extreme cold weather. A crack was found near the same intersection last January but on a different part of the rail. Another one caused delays near 34 Avenue. At the time, Dennehy said the two cracks were the first issues with the city’s LRT rails in 10 years.

BC INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE EXTINCT

Conklin linguist one of the last fluent speakers of endangered Nuxalk language

Hank Nater remembers when someone could walk the streets of Bella Coola, B.C. and hear people speaking Nuxalk, the language of the Indigenous Nuxalk people.

It was 1972 when Nater first travelled to Bella Coola as a linguistics student with the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. His professor tasked him with recording and studying the language, which was considered endangered.

Nater, who lives in Conklin, quickly became one of the few remaining people alive fluent in the language. When he returned to Bella Coola in 2017 to work on a book about the language, he could not hear Nuxalk in the streets. There are only three fluent Nuxalk speakers left in the community, all of them elders in their 70s and 80s.

“As a functioning language, it’s actually extinct,” said Nater. “It’s still being taught in local schools and we still have the old recordings, so the language is as preserved as it can be.”

Nater has maintained relationships with community leaders in Bella Coola. In the past, Nater has worked with the community to develop a curriculum for teaching Nuxalk. This includies developing an alphabet because it is an oral language. Any cultural knowledge was recorded in icons or totems.

Nater’s book summarizes his knowledge of the Nuxalk language and will be released in the next few months. In 65 pages, it includes details on phonetics, grammar and a Nuxalk-English dictionary.

As a linguist, Nater said preserving the language is important, even if it is on the verge of extinction. How the language sounded, and how it was influenced by the land and culture helps future generations understand their ancestors.

“I feel fortunate to have learned the language to such an extent where they need some of my help,” said Nater. “But it’s the result of things that have been done in collaboration with many other people.”

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), three-quarters of Indigenous languages in Canada are “definitely,” “severely” or “critically” endangered.

The most recent data on languages spoken in Canada comes from the 2016 census, which found only 20 per cent of First Nations people could converse in an Indigenous language. This is a six per cent drop from 2006.

“If we continue down the current path, First Nations languages, like many Indigenous languages around the world, may be lost,” states a 2019 report from the Assembly of First Nations. “It is essential that drastic actions are taken to offset the erosion and loss of First Nations languages.”

Nater says much of Western and European societies take their languages’ history for granted. It’s easy to pick up Shakespeare to see how English has evolved, he said. But, this is not the case for many Indigenous languages which were erased through smallpox and the residential school system.

For anyone hoping to learn Nuxalk, Nater said they would have their work cut out for them. The phonetics of the language can be difficult for most people to grasp. Some sentences consist of one long word.

“If you think you can handle it, I would say go right ahead,” said Nater. “There are many different levels of looking at a language but as long as you have the motivation, go for it.”

swilliscraft@postmedia.com

Sarah Williscraft, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Fort McMurray Today

 

New treatment process will reduce phosphorous load

The city of Winnipeg has an interim plan to remove phosphorus from sewage going to Lake Winnipeg. The plan has garnered some New applause from lake stakeholders but they aren't pleased with the timelines.

BC Health authority CEO steps down after report released into alleged misspending

Provincial Health Services Authority CEO Benoit Morin has "left the organization" on the same day a report was shared into alleged misspending by the health authority under his watch.

© Sarah Leavitt/CBC Former PHSA CEO Benoit Morin was

 accused by whistleblowers of writing off roughly $7 million 

in unusable masks from a Montreal-based vendor.

The independent report, commissioned for and shared by B.C.'s Ministry of Health, comes after CBC News brought forward concerns raised by multiple sources, who claimed PHSA had purchased, and eventually written off, roughly $7 million dollars worth of face masks from a Montreal-based vendor.

The whistleblowers also criticized a decision to re-do $17 million worth of renovations at PHSA headquarters, for an added cost of $400,000, in order to supposedly to give Morin a better view of downtown Vancouver and the North Shore Mountains. They also accused 18 PHSA executives and their assistants of enjoying catered meals in the early days of the pandemic.

In its review of the alleged misspending, Ernst & Young found "no evidence of any pre-existing relationship" between Morin and the Montreal-based mask vendor, but did observe a disconnect between the CEO, the board of directors and PHSA staff regarding "the appropriate course of action to pursue" when it came to recourse.

Specifically, the review found PHSA staff wanted "to start legal action" after it was determined the masks did not meet B.C.'s PPE testing protocols, but that Morin and the board disagreed, preferring to negotiate. When that failed, the report says, other PSHA executives pursued legal action without informing the board nor Morin.

Ernst & Young also reports that the Montreal-based vendor filed for bankruptcy in January 2021 and that "the likelihood of any significant recovery" is low.

Staff dismissed, at least in part, over 'lack of loyalty'

The report also states that several staff departures, including PHSA's chief internal auditor were tied, at least in part, to "a perceived lack of loyalty to, and/or friction with" Morin.

According to Ernst & Young, Morin sought to have the auditor terminated for their role in "examining the conflict of interest allegation" against him. The board of directors eventually did fire the employee, citing their "handling of the conflict of interest allegation" as well as their perceived "capacity to continue with the organization."

As Trump trial opens, evidence mounts Capitol attack was planned

On December 19, Beverly Hills salon owner Gina Bisignano read a tweet from president Donald Trump: "Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"

© Brendan SMIALOWSKI Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as they storm the US Capitol hoping to reverse his loss in the presidential election

 Democrats allege Donald Trump encouraged the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol in an address to supporters just before it took place

"We'll be there," replied Bisignano, one of tens of millions who saw the summons to Washington to battle Trump's election defeat.

Meanwhile Ethan Nordean in Washington state and Enrique Tarrio in Florida were online making their January 6 plans as leaders of the extreme-right Proud Boys.

Nordean, according to a court filing, on December 27 appealed to followers for funds to buy protective gear and communications equipment.

A week later he and Tarrio told followers in a podcast to wear black, and said they would have to be prepared to fight.

"We are looked at almost like soldiers of the right wing," said Tarrio. "This stuff is real. We are in a war."

In the ranks of the extremist Proud Boys or Oath Keepers, among QAnon conspiracists and hardcore fans of the Republican president, the message was clear weeks ahead: Trump wants you to head to Washington to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's election win on January 6.

© ALEX EDELMAN

Supporters of US president Donald Trump protest outside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021

As Trump stands trial in the US Senate for incitement of insurrection, increasing evidence in court filings shows the attack on the US Capitol was premeditated.

- 'Set to boil' -

After Trump's tweet many fans announced plans to travel to Washington, some simply for a final pro-Trump rally.

But others spoke of halting the certification itself and inflicting pain on "traitors" in Congress.

They prepared for it. Dozens brought combat helmets, stun guns, body armor, communications equipment, and bear and pepper spray. A handful had firearms.

The night before, someone planted pipe bombs at two different locations near to the Capitol. The bombs never went off, and may have simply sought to draw police away from the Capitol as the assault began.

The alleged leaders of the attack, those appearing most organized, according to court filings, were the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

In late December in Berryville, Virginia, some 60 miles (100 kilometers) west of Washington, Thomas Caldwell was allegedly organizing for serious violence.

Described as a "commander" of the Oath Keepers, a violent far-right group of mostly ex-military and police, Caldwell planned to meet just outside Washington with members of armed militia from around the region.

"Let them try to certify some crud on capitol hill with a million or more patriots in the streets. This kettle is set to boil," he said on Facebook.

"They have morphed into pure evil even blatantly rigging an election and paying off the political caste. We must smite them now and drive them down," he added.

- Storm the Capitol -

In Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, QAnon and Proud Boy follower Kenneth Grayson, 51, was likewise preparing.

On December 23, court filings show, he texted to family and friends: "I'm there if Trump tells us to storm the fucking Capitol ... they are not going to steal this election."

In Georgia attorney William Calhoun was angry about Biden's alleged steal of the election. After the election he had already been reported to the FBI for calling for an armed attack on Washington.

On December 29 he posted: "Being physically present in Washington on January 6 is of key importance. We the people have no other realistic option to communicate our unwavering intent to demand fair elections now and forever -- or else."

A week later he announced he was on his way to Washington "to let them know this is their last chance to Stop The Steal -- or they are going to have bigger problems."

- 'The steal is stopped' -

The morning of January 6, Ronnie Sandlin of Memphis Tennessee and Nathan Degrave of Las Vegas, Nevada, made a video of their plans.

"I think it is time to take the Capitol and I don't say that lightly," said Sandlin.

"If we need to occupy the Capitol, we will occupy the Capitol....one o'clock is when it is all going to go down."

After the attack, participants declared success, having done what they planned to do.

"Today the American People proved that we have the power," Calhoun posted.

"We occupied the Capitol and shut down the Government -- we shut down their stolen election shenanigans."

Proud Boys Nicholas Ochs of Hawaii and Nicholas DeCarlo of Texas streamed a video from the scene.

"We came here to stop the steal," said Ochs.

"That's what I came down here to do. We fucking did it," said DeCarlo.

"It may resume, but the steal is for now stopped. You're welcome, America!" Ochs replied.

pmh/ec