NAKBA 2

West Bank ILLEGAL SETTLER & IDF violence is growing. Will it open another front in the Israel-Hamas war?

Jeffrey Fleishman
Mon, November 13, 2023

Reservist soldiers, settlers and volunteers from Israel and the United States take part in weapons training Thursday in a building under construction in Mitzpe Yair, an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)


Tzvika Mor gripped his gun and spoke of how his son — kidnapped by Hamas and driven to the Gaza Strip more than a month ago — might have to die to show that Israel will never relent in the battle over this ancient land of olive groves, prophets and enmity.

Mor and his wife moved to the occupied West Bank as Jewish settlers nearly a quarter of a century ago, raising eight children, including Eitan, a security guard at a music festival who was among about 240 people taken hostage Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked Israel and killed at least 1,200. Mor said he would rather his son be executed by his captors than for his nation to cede any territory or give in to any demands by Hamas.

“This is our only land. We have no other,” said Mor, 47, a former paratrooper with a graying beard, who sat on a bench in the shadow of the Tomb of Abraham in this dangerously divided city 17 miles south of Jerusalem. “We have to be able to sacrifice our relatives. It is my oldest son, the first to call me dad. But we cannot be weak.”

Tzvika Mor speaks during a phone interview with a radio station at his home in Kiryat Arba, an Israeli settlement that neighbors Hebron in the occupied West Bank. Mor's 23-year-old son, Eitan, was kidnapped by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Mor’s is the pervading sentiment of many settlers, who believe this arid landscape west of the Jordan River, where the Muslim call to prayer mingles with the stun grenades of Israeli soldiers, was granted to them by God. Armed settlers man checkpoints and at times descend on Palestinian lands, disrupting the olive harvest and blocking villages in deadly provocations that have led to retaliatory knifings and ambush shootings by Palestinians.

Read more: Israeli voices questioning war are faint: ‘Some people are calling us traitors’

The decades-long expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank has been condemned by the international community as a jigsaw-like strategy to prevent a contiguous Palestinian state in a region about the size of Delaware where about 500,000 Israelis — up from about 300,000 in 2010 — live in segregated enclaves among 2.7 million Palestinians. It is a perilous alchemy in a nation where aspects of life, including architecture and the designs of highways and villages, are orchestrated by the Israeli government in what human rights groups call an apartheid system that denies Palestinians the same rights as Israelis.

The Israeli outpost of Asael, along the 317 highway in the South Hebron Hills portion of the occupied West Bank. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

The Hamas attack in October has hardened the settler movement. As Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza grinds on amid bombed buildings and the deaths of more than 11,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, violence in the West Bank is accelerating and threatens to open another front in the conflict.

Read more: A divide over the Israel-Hamas war flares at UC Berkeley Law

That fervor has only intensified and become more bloody as the Israeli army has stepped up raids in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since its 1967 war with Arab nations, to search for Hamas militants. Eighteen Palestinians were killed in Jenin in recent days in airstrikes and gun battles between militants and Israeli soldiers. Over the last month, at least 167 Palestinians, including 45 children, in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli forces, according to the United Nations, which also reported that Jewish settlers have killed three Palestinians. Three Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks.

Thunderous gunfire and sorrowful praise for God punctuated a mass funeral for 14 Palestinians killed after Israeli forces raided the refugee camp in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, on Nov. 10, 2023. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

“I don’t want to carry this gun. I don’t want to go into a bomb shelter two times a day,” said Mor, who lives in the Kiryat Arba settlement neighboring Hebron. But, he added, the Palestinians "have to realize this land belongs to us.”

President Biden has urged the Israeli government to rein in radical settlers, saying they were “pouring gasoline” on a conflict that endangers the Middle East: “It has to stop," he said in late October. "They have to be held accountable. It has to stop now.”

Read more: Gaza diary: What life is like under daily airstrikes, blackouts and scarcity

But the settlers, often with the tacit backing of Israeli soldiers, and sometimes dressed in military fatigues, are woven into the fabric of the country’s identity. Many of them are calling for Jewish settlements to return to Gaza if Hamas is defeated. Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who speaks with biblical zeal of Jewish vigilance and has been convicted of racism charges against Arabs, has called for the arming of West Bank settlements. Applications for gun licenses in the settlement of Efrat have risen from about four a month to more than 1,000 since Oct. 7.

“Do not stop for a moment,” Ben-Gvir posted on social media. “Arming Israel — for the safety of us all.”

Amin Hatem, bottom left, takes in her surroundings after her family packed up their belongings to leave their homes — with other 250 Palestinians in the West Bank village of Khirbet Zanuta. The community made the decision to leave due to Israeli settler violence and harassment. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Palestinian families pack up their belongings to leave the village of Khirbet Zanuta in the occupied West Bank. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

In recent weeks, nearly 1,000 Palestinians have fled small villages and farms, some of them packing up beds, sheep and even roofs to escape settler threats, according to B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group. For some, it is reminiscent of the Nakba, or catastrophe, that unfolded amid the 1948 Arab-Israeli war when villages were taken over by Israelis and renamed as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled from their lands.

“They came to my home last night and beat me. Five men with masks on,” said Ahmed Jaber, a Palestinian living in Susiya, which is south of Hebron. “They pointed their guns at my daughters who are 7 and 9. They had a panic attack. The men told me to shut up when I tried to get them away from my children.” He added: “I have no intention of leaving. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

The settler movement is a mix of nationalists, religious ideologues and those seeking new lives. Long established settlements, such as Efrat, have the feel of a well-to-do Southern California bedroom community. Their residents are less extreme than ones living in Kiryat Arba and others. But the aim is the same: Israeli domination. The rhetoric and style vary from vigilantes hunkered at illegal outposts to a more systematic and established air of control that includes trained security forces and working relationships with bordering Palestinian towns.

A vehicle passes by a checkpoint at the entrance to Mitzpe Yair, an Israeli settlement near the town of Susiya, in the occupied West Bank. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

The settler movement embodies the radical right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who for years has relied on the courts, bureaucracy and the army to blunt any progress toward a two-state solution.

Oded Revivi, the mayor of Efrat, whose pistol pokes out from the back of his trousers, said Israel has endured a “vicious cycle” of violence since its forces pulled out of Gaza in 2005, which led to Hamas taking control of the territory.

Read more: Hamas militants destroyed the kibbutz; these SoCal residents mourn and help rebuild

“They chose Hamas in Gaza,” Revivi said of the Palestinians, who in the West Bank are governed by the Palestinian Authority, which is viewed as corrupt and ineffective by many Palestinians.

“We’re definitely afraid that what happened on Oct. 7 could happen here,” said the mayor, adding that his community of 15,000 settlers, which is bordered by Palestinian villages, has increased its police patrol cars fourfold to eight. Many Israelis in Efrat, he said, see “every Arab as a potential terrorist.”

Oded Revivi, mayor of Efrat, in the occupied West Bank, on Nov. 5, 2023. 

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

“Can we allow ourselves this vulnerability?” said Revivi, who, two days before the Hamas attack, invited Israeli officials along with 40 local Palestinians to his home for an annual gathering to ease tensions. “We need to find [a solution] that is new.”

South of Efrat toward Hebron, the landscape rolls with olive groves and Palestinian villages surrounding settlements. Minarets and concrete Israeli guard towers touch the sky. On a narrow street leading into Hebron, where about 700 settlers occupy an enclave in the historic center of a city of more than 200,000 Palestinians, Israeli soldiers fired stun grenades. A dog sidled through wisps of white smoke. The air quieted. The soldiers drove away. Such scenes are common — a fleeting provocation or perhaps something worse — and then life’s rhythms return amid the old stones and sequestered neighborhoods.

An Israeli soldier steps away from a checkpoint near a fence separating the Palestinian and Israeli sides in Hebron's Old City. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Reservist soldiers, settlers and volunteers train in the Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Yair in the West Bank. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

David Lev stepped past a man scrubbing the floor and a woman praying at the Tomb of Abraham. He comes here once a month and sometimes recounts Old Testament stories he’s known since childhood. The tomb’s architecture — Arabic calligraphy is carved above; holy books in Hebrew lie beneath — speaks to the history that Abraham was revered by both Muslims and Jews. Lev was in no mood to contemplate the sensitivities and nuances of a long and unsettled coexistence. He was angry. His nephew, an Israeli soldier, was killed Oct. 7.

“This is my home. I was given this home by God,” said Lev. “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people. There are Arabs who live here.” He spoke of revenge and punishment for the Hamas attacks and said that Jews were a “unique mutation,” a people whose religious and national identity were one. Unless the Arabs abide by the rules of Israel, he noted, they’ll have to leave, adding, in reference to Hamas, “the ideology of Islamic jihad is to conquer every soul they can.”

Worshipers read Scripture inside the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in the occupied West Bank. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Lev left the tomb and walked down the steps into the courtyard, where six young men, all army reservists, waited with rifles in the shade. Another man, Dani Shukrun, whose family settled here from Europe after the 1967 war, spoke of the Holocaust and how the Hamas murder of Jews last month “goes back to the same story of Jews being slaughtered.”

Shukrun had driven to Hebron from Mitzpe Yair, a hilltop outpost overlooking the Judean Desert, where settlers in military uniforms train with rifles in an unfinished synagogue. He wore Ray-Bans; graying curls fell over his shoulders. He seemed more chilled hippie than militant settler. But he carried a rifle and a pistol, which fell from its holster and clattered over the stones. He said that Hamas must be destroyed, but that he could live with Palestinians who do not support violence.

“I’m a Jew threatened in my own country,” said Shukrun, who in calmer times works as a tour guide. He patted his weapon, resigned, like so many on both sides in this conflict, to the grievances and bloodshed that have beset generations since Israel’s war for independence in 1948.

Down the main street past the tomb, soldiers stood amid shuttered buildings and a metal gate that separated Jews from Palestinians. Cats lingered around a trash bin. Tear gas here is fired by remote control, but there was no sting in the air, although gunfire echoed for a moment in the hills.

Noam Arnon, a spokesman for Hebron’s Jewish community, sat in his study with the windows open. The Muslim call to prayer drifted in. He said that Palestinians should never be given their own state or Israeli citizenship, but that “peaceful Arabs” are welcome to live under an “Israeli umbrella.”

Israeli soldiers stand guard at Shuhada Street, also known as King David Street, in the Old City of Hebron. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

He opened a book on the 1929 massacre of Jews by Arabs in this city. He sees a cycle repeating itself, although he acknowledged that the grandfather of a Palestinian neighbor “did [help] save the lives of Jews” during that rampage. He suggested such assistance would not come today, adding that Israeli settlements should be expanded in the West Bank and returned to Gaza once Palestinians living there are expelled. “An historic tragedy” was made, he said, when Israel pulled out of Gaza and allowed Hamas to govern.

Read more: A stone, a bullet, a burial. A Palestinian boy’s death in the West Bank signals wider unrest

It was nearly dusk when Tzvika Mor arrived at the tomb for prayers. He said his son was kidnapped when militants overran a music festival and murdered an estimated 260 people. He doesn’t know if his eldest boy is dead or alive.

He looked up to the high, ancient walls over the tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs, known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque, where Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli American, murdered 29 Palestinians in 1994. A dedication on his grave reads that he "gave his soul for the people of Israel, the Torah and his country."

Mor spoke of a long-ago Jewish king and said with a father’s confidence that the Israeli army knows where “to bomb and where not to bomb” to bring the kidnapped home.

The sun sets on the Cave of the Patriarchs, a popular religious shrine for both Jewish and Muslim worshipers in the Old City of Hebron. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Mor spends his time these days talking to students. He tells them they are in a religious war.

“There’s no place for the weak,” he said, “only those willing to give up their lives.” He stresses that his son would rather die than have Israel negotiate an exchange of Hamas prisoners for Israeli hostages.

The students listen to him and applaud; they are used to men who speak in such ways with guns slung over their shoulders. “National pride and God will protect us,” he tells them.

Mor and his wife moved to Kiryat Arba from Tel Aviv in 1999 as Jewish settlements were expanding and the Oslo peace accords between Israelis and Palestinians were fraying. “We wanted to do something important for the state of Israel,” he said as a breeze lifted.

His family endured intifadas and bombings. He believes there is little chance for Israelis and Palestinians to live together: His plan is to divide the population of Gaza “into 20 portions” and send them to live in Arab countries.

Tzvika Mor embraces son Roee, 12, before heading out for the day. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

“We can’t allow our enemies to be too close to us anymore,” he said.

He lifted his gun and headed off to pray. Not far away, beyond an Israeli checkpoint, a Palestinian family kept the children close as night fell across the olive groves.

Times foreign correspondent and photographer Marcus Yam contributed to this report.

Wolves have returned to California after nearly 150 years. Not everyone is happy

QUIT GRAZING FOR FREE ON PUBLIC LANDS

Adam Popescu in Tule River Reservation, California
Mon, November 13, 2023 at 4:00 AM MST·8 min read

Photograph: Getty Images

A sinewy skull, two hooves and a shriveled hide are all that’s left of the 650-pound cow.

“Wolf kill,” said William McDarment, a rancher on the Tule River Reservation in Tulare county, California. “Picked clean in less than a week … See those tracks.”

The prints are the size of McDarment’s palm, and all around the carcass.


Related: 841+1: beloved mischievous otter who swiped surfboards gives birth to pup

The land on the reservation is high desert meets alpine, 55,000 acres of scrub and redwoods bordering Sequoia national forest. About two years ago, the reservation – which has more cattle than people – was devastated by the Windy fire, which sparked in 2021 after lightning struck here. Years of drought made for perfect kindling and 97,000 acres burned, including many of the reservation’s 300ft-tall sequoias. Losing some of the biggest trees on Earth was a spiritual hit for the Tule River Indian Tribe’s 500 members.

“But it opened up the forest, which is good,” says McDarment, who spent 30 years fighting wildfires for the US Forest Service. Fires supercharged grass growth, providing food for cows, and helping cash-strapped cowboys like him who rely on the land.

The fires brought another change: wolves.

After the blaze, the reservation became a perfect place for den sites and hunting. Wolves love open forests, too, and the reservation had plenty – plus beefy cows. In July, a gray wolf pack was spotted in nearby Sequoia national forest after a nearly 150-year absence in southern California. The pack – an adult female and four cubs – has left residents and wildlife enthusiasts cheering, but locals wonder if big predators belong in the modern world and what dangers they can be for cattle ranchers.

“You can’t kill a wolf even if it kills your cattle because wolves are federally protected,” McDarment adds. “So, what do we do?”

The problem is so much has changed since wolves were last in California. The species once roamed across America, but by the 1920s they were hunted to extinction in the Golden state.

There just wasn’t enough space for people and the predator to coexist. But with conservation efforts and renewed legal protections wolves have made a comeback. About 6,000 now inhabit the lower 48 states. In California, they are protected by the state’s Endangered Species Act, which amounts to a $100,000 fine or jail time.

Wolves officially came back to the Golden state in 2011. Since then, about 40 have entered, mostly claiming California’s north-east corner. The new pack is 200 miles south in the Sequoia national forest, a stone’s throw from the reservation, and a perfect hideout since “you can’t hunt or ranch on national forest land”, notes Jordan Traverso, the communications lead for California’s department of fish and wildlife.

They need to hide, Traverso adds, because while many in California’s left-leaning cities cheered the wolves’ return, those living in and around them, like cattle ranchers, have little recourse if a wolf kills their livestock, which is why wolves are “so controversial”.

These wolves aren’t likely to wander into your big city backyard, but they are moving in search of territory and that’s what’s making people in Tulare county jittery. That also explains why California is actually a progressive paradox: it is both an environmental bellwether that influences everything from emissions to endangered species policy, which boosts conservation, but it’s also filled with large-scale agriculture and industrial farming which can often pollute and destroy the land.

Fires supercharged grass growth, providing food for cows and helping cash-strapped cowboys. Photograph: Guardian Composite/Getty Images

This push and pull is “ironic”, notes Howie Wolke, “since we’ve destroyed nature for hundreds of years and now we want to protect it”. Wolke spent 40 years as a wilderness guide, drafted legislation with Dick Cheney to protect 1m acres in Wyoming in the 1980s and served six months in prison after destroying a backcountry road.

He knows wildlife because he’s lived around it his whole life, even seeing wolves kill elk from his porch in Montana. What’s happening here is “part of a wider national battle about land and space. There’s too many people,” which causes tension “when a large predator comes home. Of course wolves will lose. But why do we assume we humans should decide whether wildlife lives or dies? If you, your wife, your kids and your dog have a right to exist, so do wolves.”

No animal divides us like wolves, notes Traverso, who tells me that if “the public discover the new pack’s exact location, even wildlife lovers”, their days are “numbered”.

That’s because even locals like McDarment, who have lived in these mountains his whole life, are skeptical about wolves returning. “How did a male and female come 200 miles and meet here,” he asked as we drove on the reservation. “This is darn rough country. Maybe the government flew them in?”

“We didn’t,” replies Traverso. “The wolves walked down looking for mates.”

But last year, two captive wolf hybrids did escape from a nearby wolf sanctuary, says Tricia Stever-Blatter, who heads the Tulare County Farm Bureau. “Did more wolves escape?”

“The wild wolves aren’t mine,” says John Waller, who runs Kennedy Meadows Wild Canine Conservation with his wife Natalie just over the mountain from the reservation. When we speak, the heavyset Brit with a cowboy hat and military background admits their animals escaped when snowfall knocked down a fence. But they don’t breed wolves here, they breed wolf-dog hybrids. And his fugitives only fled for two hours, he explains as he pets one of the escapees, a gray-coated female who licks his hand like a dog. “Truth is, I’m for the new pack. Our goal is to breed pure wolves and release them into the wild to help the species. We’re waiting on permits, so it’s a matter of time.”

These wolves aren’t likely to wander into your big city backyard, but they are moving in search of territory and that’s what’s making people in Tulare county jittery. 

Photograph: Getty Images

Ecologist Michelle Harris claims wolves have a right to return since “they’ve been here longer than we have. But saying that isn’t popular,” she adds, “this is ranching country.”

We wouldn’t know about the wolves if not for Harris. In July, the 28-year-old was behind the wheel of her Subaru when something darted across the road. She stopped the car as the creature trotted up a hill, paused in the trees and stared back at her. “Then it howled and I took its picture,” Harris recalls, not flinching as a mosquito stings her forehead. “You can’t have a healthy ecosystem without wolves. We should celebrate.”

John Guthrie, 54, a sixth-generation cattleman in Porterville, says she misses the point. It’s not that ranchers hate wolves, “it’s the opposite. I respect nature but we need balance.”

Guthrie, who also grows oranges, walnuts and almonds, hasn’t lost any cows, but figures it’s “only a matter of time”. His cattle also graze around the forests wolves have reclaimed, but more than cows are at stake. “It’s the livelihoods of families like mine.”

That debate isn’t happening, he says, because of a “rural-urban disconnect” that’s “heavily political. A large segment of this country doesn’t understand where our food comes from and how fragile that balance is. What do wolves mean for the everyday lives of those who provide food? I like wildlife, I live in it, but do we need wolves? You can’t blindly say ‘yes’, and I don’t think it’s the wisest thing for people in cities to encourage.”

Wolves are neither monster nor romantic symbol – and they rarely attack humans or livestock. When the government reintroduced 41 wolves to Yellowstone national park in 1995, ranchers in Montana and Wyoming were up in arms. Over the next eight years, wolves killed just 256 sheep and 41 cattle in those states (states with millions of livestock).

“Instead of decimating cows,” Wolke says, “wolves reduced elk numbers, so willow and aspen trees came back. So did birds and beavers, which improved wetlands.”

While no one knows how many cows have been killed here, wolves cause less than 4% of US cattle deaths. California is offering full market value for cow kills, but it’s hard to prove that wolves are at fault, and usually requires DNA tests. “Just having wolves around spooks cows,” Guthrie points out, “and that can prevent them from giving birth.”

It seems wolves are all locals want to talk about. Fear is the central theme, says Greg King, the author of The Ghost Forest: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods. “Ranchers fear for their livestock and humans fear for themselves. Fear is destructive. Maybe we can’t have it all.”

And when locals get spooked, wolves often pay the price. Case in point – December 2018, when a northern California rancher saw a wolf feeding on a calf. Investigators determined the calf probably died of pneumonia, but that wolf was found dead on the side of a road, riddled with .22 caliber rounds. A rancher was arrested, but officers couldn’t prove that he pulled the trigger, so they let him go. That could happen here.

“Some ranchers have already taken matters into their own hands,” McDarment admits. Guard dogs may be a fix, so could corralling cattle, but that’s “hard to do with cows so spread out”.

Dire wolves, camels, and other extinct giant mammals that used to live in North America

DIRE WOLVES,CAMELS & SABRE TOOTH CATS,OH MY

Jenny McGrath
Tue, November 14, 2023 

Dire wolves, camels, and other extinct giant mammals that used to live in North America


Aunt Spray/iStock/Getty Images Plus

North America used to be crawling with giant mammals, from dire wolves to big cats.


Horses and camels evolved on the continent while others, like bison, crossed over from Asia.


Most of these mammals went extinct around 10,000 years ago and scientists are still debating why.

Towering 13 feet tall and weighing a hefty 7 tons, the African elephant is the biggest land mammal on Earth. But that wasn't always the case.

Tens of millions of years ago, shortly after the dinosaurs went extinct, mammals grew to epic proportions, dwarfing the animals we see today.

"There used to be cow-sized wombats in Australia, and there were armadillos the size of cars in South America," Emily Lindsey, an assistant curator at the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum, told Insider.


Some evolved on these continents while others crossed the Bering Land Bridge, which once connected Asia and Alaska.

The Bering Land Bridge once connected Asia and North America, allowing animals to cross back and forth.National Park Service

North and South America were home to woolly mammoths, mastodons, giant sloths, and much more.

Columbian and woolly mammoths

Mammoth skeletons are found in many countries all over the world.Markus Matzel/ullstein bild via Getty Images

Height: 12 to 13 feet tall (Columbian mammoths); 9 to 11 feet tall (woolly mammoths)

Weight: 10 tons (Columbian mammoths); 4 to 6 tons (woolly mammoths)

When did they go extinct? 13,000 to 10,000 years ago (Columbian mammoths); 4,000 years ago (woolly mammoths)

Two types of mammoths roamed North America. Both are members of the proboscidean family, which also includes modern elephants, and stem from a species that evolved in Africa 5 million years ago.

The Columbian mammoth arrived in North America about 1.5 million years ago, traveling over the Bering Strait, which once connected Asia and Alaska. They fanned out at least as far south as Mexico, possibly all the way to Costa Rica.

In North America, "you only get the woolly mammoths up in the north, starting around the Great Lakes," Lindsey said. They arrived later, roughly 100,000 years ago, and didn't venture as far south.

One of the woolly mammoth's most distinctive features is its thick fur. The Columbian mammoth was far less shaggy.

American mastodons

Several nearly complete skeletons of mastodons have been found throughout North America.Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images

Height: 8 to 10 feet tall

Weight: 4 to 5 tons

When did they go extinct? Around 11,000 years ago

A tad smaller than their woolly mammoth relatives, American mastodons were also more widely spread. Their fossils have been found all over the continent, from Alaska to central Mexico.

Some mastodon fossils show them living in North America as far back as 16 million years ago. The forest dwellers likely fed on trees and shrubs.

In addition to their smaller stature, mastodons had shorter, straighter tusks than mammoths. But paleontologists mainly distinguish them by their teeth. Mammoth molars are fairly flat. American mastodons have bumpier molars.

Camels

Two camelids, Camelops (left) and Hemiauchenia (right) have been found in North America.National Park Service illustration by Benji Paysnoe

Height: 7 feet tall

Weight: 1,800 pounds

When did they go extinct? 10,000 years ago

"We think of camels as this very exotic creature that we associated with very different places, with sand dunes, but camels actually are native to North America," Lindsey said.

Its relatives evolved 44 million years ago during the Eocene period. Over time, Camelops made its way to the Canadian Yukon and Mexico, making its home in woodlands, grasslands, and wetlands.

The Camelops was about a foot taller than modern camels, but it's difficult to tell from their fossils if they had a hump.

These animals crossed the Bering land bridge into Asia 7 million years ago and gave rise to modern camels. More recently, they arrived in South America via the Isthmus of Panama, another land bridge that formed between North and South America 3 million years ago.

Some of Camelops' ancestors went extinct, Lindsey said. Others continued to evolve. "Those are the llamas and guanacos that you see in South America today," she said.

Horses

Early horses evolved from small animals with many toes to something more similar to the longer-legged, hoofed animals we know today.AP Photo/M. Spencer Green

Height: 4.5 feet tall (Equus scotti)

Weight: 1,100 pounds (Equus scotti)

When did they go extinct? About 10,000 years ago

Over 50 million years ago, horses started evolving in North America. There were many species, all different from today's versions.

"When they start out, they're very small," Lindsey said, comparable to small dogs. Instead of hooves, they had five toes on their feet.

Then, 15 million years ago, the landscape and climate started changing. It was drier. Grasslands emerged.

Horses became larger, with longer legs and fewer toes. Some migrated to Eurasia, becoming zebras and wild Asian horses.

"Then they get wiped out in the Americas and brought back about 12,000 years later when the Spanish come," Lindsey said.

Short-faced bears

The short-faced bear was far larger than a grizzly when it stood on its hind legs.Daniel Eskridge/Stocktrek Images

Height: 11 feet tall when standing on their hind legs

Weight: 1,500 to 2,200 pounds

When did they go extinct? Between 12,7000 and 11,000 years ago

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the Arctodus simus cast a looming shadow over boreal forests, plains, tundra, grasslands, and subtropical woodlands. Known as the short-faced bear, it ranged across the US and Canada, into Florida.

"The short-faced bears were huge," Lindsey said. They were far larger than 8-foot-tall grizzly bears and "would've been terrifying."

Studies have shown that its muzzle was perhaps not as short as its name suggests. Some researchers also think the bear may have been an omnivore instead of solely a meat eater.

Dire wolves

Dire wolves weren't as big as depicted on "Game of Thrones," and they weren't closely related to modern wolves.La Brea Tar Pits and Museum

Height: 3 feet tall at the shoulder

Weight: 130 to 150 pounds

When did they go extinct? An estimated 10,000 years ago

Dire wolves were big. "But they're not as big as they're shown in 'Game of Thrones,' I'm sorry to say," Lindsey said. She calls them the linebacker version of wolves, about 20% larger than gray wolves.

Once thought to be the cousins of gray wolves, dire wolves evolved separately over 5 million years ago in North America. The finding came courtesy of ancient DNA.

Lindsey said the news was surprising because they're so similar behaviorally and morphologically. For example, they likely lived in packs like modern dogs, wolves, and coyotes.

Researchers know quite a bit about how dire wolves hunted, too. "Scientists have looked at injuries in dire wolves, as well as saber-tooth cats, that were found in the tar pits," Lindsey said.

They found injuries to the fossils' paws and skulls. "That's consistent with the type of injuries we see in, say, wolves today that are chasing down animals on the landscape," Lindsey said. A wolf's prey might trample its toes or kick it in the head.

Saber-tooth cats

Some types of saber-tooth cats had teeth as long as 7 inches.Andrew Milligan/PA Images via Getty Images

Height: 3 feet at the shoulder (smilodon and scimitar)

Weight: 300 to 500 pounds (scimitar cat); up to 750 pounds (smilodon)

When did they go extinct? Roughly 10,000 years ago (smilodon); between 10,000 and 28,000 years ago (scimitar)

You may have grown up calling them saber-toothed tigers, but the smilodon isn't a close relative of tigers. Their common name comes from their impressive canine teeth, which could be up to 7 inches long.

Another genus of saber-tooth cats, Homotherium, is known as scimitar cats. Their teeth weren't as long as smilodon and were serrated like a steak knife. Like the smilodon, they lived in North America during the Pleistocene. The two cats were similarly widespread, from the Yukon to Florida.

But these two predators had different prey, according to a study from a few years ago. While the smilodon went after tapirs (pig-like animals with trunks) and deer, scimitars preferred baby mammoths.

"Saber-tooth cats tend to get a lot of injuries in their lower back, which is consistent with this idea that they were ambush predators," Lindsey said. The smilodons would sit and wait before leaping onto a large animal and wrestling it to the ground.

"It's very easy to torque your back that way," Lindsey said. "And so they get a lot of lower back arthritis type of injuries."

Lindsey was also part of a study that diagnosed a smilodon with hip dysplasia based on a CT scan of a fossil. "It's an animal that probably couldn't have survived to adulthood as it did without other animals taking care of it," she said. "So that indicates that these are probably social creatures. There's all kinds of amazing, fun things you can learn from bones."

Giant sloths

Giant ground sloths lived up to their names. They were huge and didn't live in trees like their modern descendants.Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Height: 19.6 feet when upright

Weight: Up to 3 tons

When did they go extinct? 10,000 years ago or into the Late Holocene

For most extinct Pleistocene megafauna — animals weighing more than 100 pounds — there are still living analogs. Instead of mammoths, there are elephants. Camelops has its camel and llama relatives.

"But you don't have anything in the world that is even kind of like a 3,000-pound sloth," Lindsey said. "That's just something that is completely gone."

Unlike their modern counterparts, these behemoths spent most of their time on the ground instead of in trees.

North America had several species of giant sloths. Among the largest were the Eremotherium, which have mostly been found in the southeast along Florida and the Gulf Coast, as well as in Central and South America.

"They like sort of the wetter, more tropical regions," Lindsey said. "They got to be about the size of elephants." While very large, the Eremotherium wasn't as big as the Megatherium — another species of giant sloth — which lived throughout South America.

The giant sloths had a diverse diet, including being able to reach higher into the trees thanks to their stature and ability to stand on their hind legs. Exactly when they went extinct is disputed, but their adaptability may have helped them survive a bit longer than many other mammals they lived alongside.

American lion

American lions were about as tall as modern lions but weighed much more.National Park Service

Height: 4 feet at the shoulder

Weight: Up to 770 pounds

When did they go extinct? Between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago

Saber-tooths weren't the only big cats that made their home in North America. Panthera atrox was one of the largest members of the cat family ever.

"The American lions were huge," Lindsey said. "They're much, much bigger than modern lions."

While fairly rare in the fossil record, there's evidence the big cats did make their way throughout North America. Scientists have found their bones and teeth from Canada to Mexico.

Researchers have debated about whether these gigantic cats are more closely related to modern lions or jaguars. Its skull shares similarities with lions', but its jaw resembles those of jaguars and tigers.

Due to its enormous size, the American lion was able to make meals out of bison and wild horses.

Ancient bison

The mummified remains of a steppe bison, Bison priscus, were found in present-day Alaska after it was preserved over 28,000 years ago.Katherine Frey/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Height: 7.5 feet tall

Weight: 3,500 pounds

When did they go extinct? Roughly 10,000 years ago

Unlike the Camelops and horses that evolved in North America, other big beasts migrated in. That includes ancient bison.

"They are the most recent arrivals into North America of all the Pleistocene megafauna," Lindsey said.

The first bison species appeared around 3 million years ago in South Asia and China. Eventually, some crossed the Bering Land Bridge. They start showing up in the North American fossil record between 300,000 and 130,000 years ago.

The ancient bison, Bison antiquus, was 25% larger than those living today. Their territories included grasslands, woodlands, and wetlands from Canada to Mexico.

Another species of bison on the continent was the Bison priscus or steppe bison. A recent study suggested modern bison — Bison biso — evolved from this species.
Why did they go extinct?

Was it the changing climate, human interactions, or a combination that caused so many large mammals to go extinct around 10,000 years ago?

"That is something that scientists have been debating for about 70 years," Lindsey said. The climate was changing at the end of the Ice Age on a global scale. Humans were also spreading throughout the world.

"These two things are so closely tied in time, the climate changes and the spread of human populations, it's been really hard to say to what degree each of those factors was involved in the extinctions," Lindsey said.

Humans may have more of an impact than just hunting, too. A 2023 paper tied fires started by humans to some of the extinctions in what is now California.

If that did have an impact on the animals in that region, the causes might vary for others. "Different ecosystems are going to have different parameters of what pushes them to the brink," Lindsey said. "But there is something about the combination of humans and an unstable climate or a rapidly changing environment that pushes ecosystems again and again towards tipping points."

Read the original article on Business Insider
View comments (13)

Tapfumaneyi Masaya: Abducted Zimbabwe opposition activist found dead

Ish Mafundikwa - Harare
Tue, November 14, 2023 

Tapfumaneyi Masaya's body was found on the outskirts of Harare, according to CCC

The wife of an abducted Zimbabwe opposition activist has identified her husband's dead body.

Tapfumaneyi Masaya, from the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), was reported to have been bundled into a car by armed men.

A police spokesperson said that the other abductee was released for unknown reasons.

Masaya's abduction is the latest in a series of kidnappings involving opposition and rights activists.

His wife said a body found on the outskirts of the capital, Harare, from where he was snatched, was that of her husband.

The CCC said Masaya, a cleric, along with a fellow activist, was campaigning for its candidate in a parliamentary by-election in a low-income constituency in Harare, when they were forced into a car in broad daylight.

Police spokesperson Paul Nyathi confirmed to the BBC the other person kidnapped, Jeffrey Kalosi, was freed under still-to-be-clarified circumstances by the captors.

The by-election was triggered, along with several others across the country, following a letter to the speaker of parliament by a self-proclaimed interim secretary-general of the CCC, alleging that some of the party's MPs had ceased to be CCC members.

The speaker announced that the seats were vacant, despite the party leadership disowning Sengezo Tshabangu, who it said was acting at the behest of the ruling Zanu-PF party.

Zanu-PF has vehemently denied responsibility saying some aggrieved CCC leaders are behind Mr Tshabangu.

Masaya's alleged abduction is the most recent in various kidnappings taking place of opposition party members and human rights activists.

They date back to the days of the late former President Robert Mugabe.

• 'Tortured Zimbabwe abductees' may face prosecution

• Peter Magombeyi: Zimbabwe union leader found after 'abduction'

There has been an uptick in the abductions, which the opposition blame on government security agents, since August's disputed general elections that saw President Emmerson Mnangagwa returned by 52.6% of the vote.

CCC leader, Nelson Chamisa, who also lost to Mr Mnagnagwa in 2018, polled 44.03%. The opposition has refused to accept the result, citing gross irregularities.

Earlier this month, Takudzwa Ngadziore, an opposition MP, filmed a gun-toting man chasing him. The MP was later found outside Harare, reportedly naked and tortured.

He says he was injected with an unknown substance. Despite a clear image of the person chasing him on the video, the police are yet to make an arrest.

In October, unknown assailants kidnapped and tortured James Chidhakwa, the former opposition MP for Mabvuku-Tafara, where the late Masaya was abducted.

In early September, a CCC councillor-elect and a party colleague were captured and released after being tortured.

Zanu-PF and the authorities dismiss the abductions as a stage-managed effort to tarnish the government's image.

Meanwhile, the Speaker of Parliament

In a related matter, the speaker of parliament, has recalled 13 more CCC MPs who Mr Tshabangu said were no longer CCC members. This was despite a High Court ruling freezing all instructions by Mr Tshabangu until a case is heard to determine his authority.

Scientists have discovered what may be the first 'vampire' virus

SHOULD NAME IT BELALUGOSIUM

Carolyn Y. Johnson
Updated Tue, November 14, 2023

The discovery started with an undergraduate class designed to teach students basic laboratory techniques, asking them to isolate phages from soil samples and study them using genetics.

 (Getty Images) (Getty Images)

In March 2020, Tagide deCarvalho saw something truly strange - something she thinks no other scientist has ever seen before: a virus with another, smaller virus latched onto its "neck." The backstory of this viral attachment is like a master class in how wild and weird biology can be.

The two microbes are both bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, that were harvested from a clump of dirt in Poolesville, Md. Bacteriophages, also called simply phages, are among the most abundant organisms on Earth. There can be millions in a gram of dirt.

But with a special kind of microscope that uses a beam of electrons to capture images, deCarvalho witnessed a truly bizarre moment - kind of like a wildlife photographer who captures an animal behavior that no one had anticipated.

"I could see literally hundreds of them had this little guy attached at the neck, and it was clearly not random," said deCarvalho, who manages the Keith R. Porter Imaging Facility at University of Maryland at Baltimore County. "We know that viruses can do some amazing, interesting things. But this is just another new thing that no one could have predicted we would see."

In a recent study in the Journal of the International Society for Microbial Ecology, deCarvalho and colleagues explain how the viral odd couple likely came to be. The small virus, called MiniFlayer, lost the ability to make copies of itself inside cells, which is how viruses reproduce. So evolution devised a clever, parasitic workaround. MiniFlayer takes advantage of another virus, dubbed MindFlayer, by grabbing onto its neck, and when they enter cells together, MiniFlayer utilizes its companion's genetic machinery to proliferate.

Is it an embrace? A stranglehold? DeCarvalho compares the relationship to viral hitchhiking. Her collaborator, Ivan Erill, a computational biologist at UMBC, likens it to a vampire sinking its teeth into its prey. It's not a perfect analogy, but he notes that sometimes, when they find MindFlayer alone, they can find "bite marks" where MiniFlayer's tendrils were attached.

"Viruses will do anything. They are the most creative force of nature," Erill said. "If anything is possible, they will come up with a way to do it. But no one had anticipated that they would do something like this."

The strange universe of viruses

The discovery started with an undergraduate class designed to teach students basic laboratory techniques, asking them to isolate phages from soil samples and study them using genetics. DeCarvalho has been working with the program for seven years and says that for many of the students, seeing the phage is an exciting moment, like when expecting parents see the ultrasound of a fetus for the first time.

In this case, undergraduates Jenell Lewis and Hira Ahmed isolated and named their phage MindFlayer in 2019. But genome sequencing returned puzzling results, suggesting some kind of contamination. When deCarvalho looked at it with a microscope, she noticed not one phage, but two.

The "virosphere," as scientists call the strange universe of viruses, is known to include elements called "satellites" that have lost their ability to replicate inside cells. Usually, satellites overcome this deficiency by integrating into the genome of the cells that they infect. They lurk there until another virus, a "helper" that has the missing ingredients, happens to enter the cell. The satellites then seize the opportunity to make copies of themselves.

MiniFlayer is a satellite, but unlike the typical version, it doesn't have the ability to hide inside cells. That leaves it with a conundrum: How to make sure it ends up in the cell with its helper at the same time.

"What this virus has done is say, okay, I'm going to attach to my helper, attach to its neck - and travel with my helper until we find a new cell," Erill said.

This is par for the course in microbiology, where tactics like molecular piracy and hijacking have been honed over millions of years of evolution. Bacteria are wildly outnumbered by their viral predators, putting them in an ongoing evolutionary arms race. Bacteria develop defenses, and viral phages develop counter-defense strategies. Phages parasitize other phages.

Researchers are interested in using phages, the natural predators of bacteria, as medicine. Phage therapy can be used to target harmful infections, an approach that could become more important as antibiotic-resistant bacteria have become a growing threat.

Terje Dokland, a microbiology professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who was not involved in the study, said the observation of the two attached phages was "intriguing" but called for more images and research to draw firmer conclusions about the interaction, and to tease out whether the two viruses are really co-infecting cells.

The authors hope to collaborate with groups that use a different form of electron microscopy to understand what's happening more clearly. Unlike a vampire, deCarvalho points out, the MiniFlayer isn't sucking something out of MindFlayer.

"We don't know whether or not the satellite is injecting its DNA into the helper or if it's just hitchhiking along for a ride and then falling off, like a tick," deCarvalho said. "Hopefully someone else will pick up this work and figure out that really interesting question."

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=PHAGES

 https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BIOPHAGES

 https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=PHAGE

 https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BACTERIOPHAGE

JFK: What The Doctors Saw: New Paramount+ Documentary Reveals Hidden Autopsy Details

Aayush Sharma
Tue, November 14, 2023 

Photo Credit: Bettmann | Contributor via Getty Images


Paramount+ plans to release JFK: What The Doctors Saw this fall, incorporating the doctors’ latest evidence into a film. The documentary will be making its way to the aforementioned streaming platform on Wednesday, November 14.

John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was shot and killed on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, while traveling through Dealey Plaza in a presidential motorcade. About half an hour after the shooting, the motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where medical professionals declared Kennedy dead.

Many debates have occurred regarding what happened to John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Assassin’s bullets reportedly killed JFK as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas. The documentary will reveal precise details of the day and whether Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone perpetrator.

JFK: What The Doctors Saw: Parkland Memorial doctors reveal what happened in the trauma room

Paramount+ recently released the JFK: What The Doctors Saw trailer, offering a glimpse into events within Parkland Memorial Hospital. Medical professionals in the clip recounted events when the President’s body arrived and their reactions to the autopsy report. Meanwhile, a doctor claimed, “Certain government individuals tampered with crucial evidence to conceal the president’s murderer.” Moreover, the film presents doctors arguing a bullet hitting JFK entered his throat, implying a front-entry wound. This implies the possibility of two gunmen, with Oswald firing from the rear.

The synopsis of the upcoming documentary reads, “In never-before-seen footage from this reunion, the doctors share in vivid detail their indelible memories of what they did and saw in Trauma Room 1. Several doctors present that day continue to assert that what they observed resembled an entry wound – a bullet hole in JFK’s throat – an observation that contradicts what numerous official investigations have told Americans. This revelation would indicate that someone shot the President from the front, challenging the decades-old government narrative that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.”

The upcoming documentary details the fateful day and explores Lee Harvey Oswald’s potential sole involvement.

US, Asian Nations Not Ready to Finalize Economic Accord at APEC

Eric Martin and Jenny Leonard
Mon, November 13, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- The US and 13 Asian partner nations will fall short of announcing the completion of an economic accord at a regional summit in San Francisco led by President Joe Biden, as differences over trade linger after about a year of negotiations.

The countries have made progress on some so-called pillars of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, but trade — in particular rules for digital commerce and labor — has proved more difficult, according to people familiar with the process, who asked not to be identified without permission to speak publicly.

 Negotiations will likely continue in the months ahead, they added.

One of the people said that the administration had planned this week to announce completion of talks regarding some trade areas, including agriculture and competition.

The US Trade Representative’s office declined to comment on Monday night.

Biden is hosting American partners at the the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, the first time that the gathering is taking place in the US since 2011. He also plans to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday, their first encounter in a year.

The framework is Biden’s way to counter China’s growing influence and marks the most significant American economic engagement in the region since President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2017. It stops short, however, of reducing tariffs like a traditional free-trade agreement, which some countries have sought.

Yet the new initiative has run into some of the same problems and opposition as that earlier effort, known as the TPP.

Read More: Biden, Xi to Announce Deal for China to Crack Down on Fentanyl

One of the people said that Democratic senators who have been critical of past free-trade agreements like Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts had made clear to the administration that they would only support the trade approach if it included strong labor and environmental protection, but those were not ready to be announced this week.

Both face reelection next year, but Brown will be running in a state that Trump won easily in 2016 and 2020.

Free trade agreements have proved divisive in the US ever since Bill Clinton agreed to the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico in 1993. Trump condemned the accord, saying it had cost hundreds of thousands of American manufacturing jobs and spent much of his administration renegotiating it.

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai leads talks on the trade pillar. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has been leading negotiations on two other IPEF pillars that are further along.

She also led negotiations on a supply-chain pillar that was completed earlier this year and intends to avoid the sort of disruptions that occurred during the coronavirus pandemic.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

Forests key to climate fight along with cutting fossil fuels, study suggests

Jake Spring
Updated Mon, November 13, 2023

A view of a deforested area in the middle of the Amazon forest in the municipality of Uruara, Para, Brazil

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Restoring global forests could sequester 22 times as much carbon as the world emits in a year, according to a scientific study published on Monday, making the case that trees are a key tool in confronting the climate crisis along with cutting fossil fuels.

The study considers restoring forests where they would naturally exist if not for humans, either by allowing degraded woodlands to regrow or by reforesting denuded areas, but excludes areas vital to agriculture or already turned into cities.


Reaching the world's full potential for restoration would draw out an estimated 226 gigatonnes of excess carbon from the atmosphere - or roughly one-third the amount added to the atmosphere since the industrial revolution, the research finds.

"There cannot be a choice between nature and decarbonising. We absolutely must take steps to achieving both simultaneously," said ecologist Thomas Crowther of Switzerland's Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.

The paper, published in the journal Nature by Crowther and more than 200 other researchers, offers a major update to a 2019 paper that sparked fierce debate in the scientific community.

The new findings show that, while forests can help to combat climate change, it is counterproductive to use them to offset future greenhouse gas emissions, Crowther said. Any additional emissions will exacerbate climate change and extreme weather, damaging forests and hurting their ability to absorb carbon. That would negate the benefits of an offset, he said.

The idea of earning an offset through simply planting trees "is now categorically against what the science says," Crowther said.

Crowther said he plans to attend the upcoming United Nations COP28 climate summit in Dubai to deliver that message to policymakers.

"This paper has to be the one to kill greenwashing," he told Reuters.

TREE CONTROVERSY

The research follows on a landmark 2019 study also co-authored by Crowther, indicating that 205 gigatonnes could be sequestered by forest restoration. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff read the study and was inspired to work with the World Economic Forum to develop its initiative to plant a trillion trees.

But the paper and the trillion trees effort - which was quickly endorsed by then-U.S. President Donald Trump - set off a controversy among scientists and environmentalists.

Many scientists - as well as Swedish activist Greta Thunberg - said trees were being presented as an overly simplistic cureall for the climate crisis that could distract from efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels, the main culprit for climate change.

Crowther said the response drastically oversimplified the paper's message.

More than 40 scientists wrote in the journal Science that the 2019 study may have inflated the carbon sequestration potential of forest restoration by 4-5 times by considering tree planting in non-forest ecosystems among other oversights.

Joseph Veldman, an ecologist at Texas A&M University and lead author of that criticism, said he thinks the new paper still exaggerates how much carbon could be sequestered, potentially by half.

He said the 226 gigatonne figure includes carbon sequestered in places that are "inappropriate" for planting trees, like at high altitudes, and overly rely on forest gains in savannas, among other concerns.

"This is like the absolute, absolute upper bound of what could possibly ever be fathomable," Veldman said. "You're never going to get there. It's unwise and it's not feasible."

Crowther said that while the current and previous study show where trees could be planted, it did not mean that they necessarily should be planted there.

The study's authors specify that restoration must be done a certain way to be effective.

They argue that forests must be diverse, rather than mass plantings of a single species, and restoration must serve local community needs.

Cristina Banks-Leite, a tropical ecologist, teaches the 2019 Crowther paper and a paper that criticized it in the first week of her master's course at Imperial College London to illustrate the debate around forests in the scientific community.

Doing such complex measurements for the whole world is always going to have some flaws, but also improves with technology advances, she said.

The paper also finds that protecting existing forests is more beneficial than trying to regrow them. Of the total carbon sequestration potential, only 39% would come from reforesting denuded areas. Most of the carbon gains, an estimated 61%, would come simply from protecting forests that are still standing and allowing degraded woodlands to recover.

"The take-home message - that the forest that we have should be protected - is absolutely foundational and correct," said ecologist Nicola Stevens at University of Oxford, who had co-authored the criticism of Crowther's earlier paper.

(This story has been corrected to say 226 gigatonnes of carbon, not carbon dioxide, in paragraph 3)

(Reporting by Jake Spring; Editing by Katy Daigle and Sandra Maler)

Forests could absorb much more carbon, but does it matter?

Sara HUSSEIN
Mon, November 13, 2023 

A new study finds forests could absorb vastly more carbon with better protection (MAURO PIMENTEL)


Protecting forests globally could vastly increase the amount of carbon they sequester, a new study finds, but given our current emissions track, does it really matter?

For Thomas Crowther, an author of the assessment, the answer is a resounding yes.

"I absolutely see this study as a cause for hope," the professor at ETH Zurich said.

"I hope that people will see the real potential and value that nature can bring to the climate change topic."

But for others, calculating the hypothetical carbon storage potential of global forests is more an academic exercise than a useful framework for forest management.

"I am a forester by trade, so I really like to see trees grow," said Martin Lukac, professor of ecosystem science at University of Reading.

However, he considers forest carbon potential calculations like these "dangerous," warning they "distract from the main challenge and offer false hope."

Crowther has been here before: in 2019 he produced a study on how many trees the Earth could support, where to plant them and how much carbon they could store.

"Forest restoration is the best climate change solution available today," he argued.

That work caused a firestorm of criticism, with experts unpicking everything from its modelling to the claim that reforestation was the "best" solution available.

Nodding to the furore, Crowther and his colleagues have now vastly expanded their data set and used new modelling approaches for the study published Monday in the journal Nature.

They use ground-sourced surveys and data from three models based on high-resolution satellite imagery.

The modelling approach is "as good as it currently gets," acknowledged Lukac, who was not involved in the work.

- 'Achieve climate targets' -

The study estimates forests are storing 328 gigatons of carbon less than they would if untouched by human destruction.

Estimates of the world's remaining carbon "budget" to keep warming below the 1.5C range from around 250-500 gigatons.

Much of the forest potential -- 139 gigatons -- could be captured by just leaving existing forests to reach full maturity, the study says.

Another 87 gigatons could be regained by reconnecting fragmented forests.

The remainder is in areas used for agriculture, pasture or urban infrastructure, which the authors acknowledge is unlikely to be reversed.

Still, they say their findings present a massive opportunity.

"Forest conservation, restoration and sustainable management can help achieve climate targets by mitigating emissions and enhancing carbon sequestration," the study says.

Modelling and mapping the world's forests is a tricky business.

There's the scale of the problem, but also the complexity of what constitutes a forest.

Trees, of course, but the carbon storage potential of a woodland or jungle is also in its soil and the organic matter littering the forest floor.

- Trees versus emissions? -

Ground-level surveys can offer granular data, but are difficult to extrapolate.

And satellite imagery covers large swathes of land, but can be confounded by something as simple as the weather, said Nicolas Younes, research fellow at the Australian National University.

"Most of the places where there is potential for carbon storage are tropical countries... these are places where there is persistent cloud cover, therefore satellite imagery is very hard to validate," he told AFP.

Younes, an expert on forest remote sensing, warns the complexity of the study's datasets and modelling risks introducing errors, though the resulting estimates remain "very valuable".

"It will not show us the exact truth for every pixel on Earth, but it is useful."

One objection to quantifying forest carbon potential is that conditions are far from static, with accelerating climate change, forest fires and pest vulnerability all playing a role.

And, for Lukac, whatever potential forests have is irrelevant to the urgency of cutting emissions.

The study's estimated 328 gigatons "would be wiped (out) in 30 years by current emissions," he said.

Crowther, who advises a project to plant a trillion trees globally, rejects an either-or between forest protection and emissions reduction.

"We urgently need both," he said.