Top tips for super sandcastles: explore the weird world of sand

07 Aug 2021

Taken from the August 2021 issue of Physics World.

Building sandcastles is one of the little pleasures of a holiday on the beach, but what do you really know about the science of these structures? Ian Randall grabs his bucket and spade to explore the weird world of sand science

(Courtesy: Shutterstock/DVY)

A peerless edifice rises into a brilliant blue sky. Around a central, vaguely pyramidal tower, dozens of spires and turrets of assorted shapes and designs jut out between battlements and buttresses. Around the base runs a fortified wall, behind which a watchful dragon emerges from a body of water, while a lighthouse beams down from one side of the imposing structure.

This isn’t the design of a new Physics World head office [alas! – ed.], but that of a colossal sculpture that recently broke the Guinness World Record for the tallest sandcastle ever built. Crafted from 4860 tonnes of sand, spanning 32 m wide and rising to a height of 21.16 m, the castle (see photo above) was constructed by Dutch artist Wilfred Stijer and his 30-strong team of sculptors. It was built, with the aid of an elaborate wooden scaffold, in July 2021 in the Danish seaside village of Blokhus, in North Jutland. Thanks to a layer of glue applied to its surface after completion, the super sandcastle is expected to remain on display for visitors to enjoy until February or March next year, when the next heavy frost will set in.

But working with sand isn’t as easy as it looks. Before Stijer and his team’s success, the world’s tallest sandcastle was a 17.65 m tall structure built in the German seaside resort of Binz by another Dutch sand-sculptor, Thomas van den Dungen. No stranger to pushing sand to its limits, he had previously helped to create the world’s longest sand sculpture (27.3 km) and the largest number of sandcastles built in one hour (2230).

However, Van den Dungen’s previous two attempts to break the tallest-sandcastle record failed after one edifice collapsed days before completion, and the other was foiled by a flight of protected shore swallows that had nested on the construction site. None of us are likely to build anything as ambitious when we’re holidaying on the beach, but is there anything that science can tell us about how to make the perfect sandcastle?

Slippery when wet

A good place to start is with Matthew Bennett, an environmental scientist at the University of Bournemouth in the UK, who in 2004 was commissioned by Teletext Holidays to identify the UK’s best beaches for making sandcastles. Different beaches have different types of sand, so his job was to find out which has the best material to work with.

Arming his students with buckets and spades, Bennett sent them to the 10 most popular beaches in the UK at the time, with instructions to collect samples of sand from each. Once they had brought the material back to the lab, his team dried the sand, poured it into beakers, added water and turned each full container upside down. “We then piled weights on each ‘lab-castle’ top and noted the total weight [it could sustain] before collapse,” Bennett explains.

The key to a strong sandcastle, the team found, was to mix one bucket of water to every eight buckets of sand. That 8:1 volume ratio, which was the same for all 10 locations tested, is in fact roughly the same composition found on real beaches around the point where the water comes nearest to the shore at high tide.

According to Bennett, this perfect ratio ensures that the water helps only to bind the sand, rather than act as a lubricant. Too much water and your structure will flow and collapse, which is what happens when sandcastles meet their natural predator, the tide. Too little, on the other hand, and the sand crumbles.

In fact, the strength of a pile of sand depends on two factors. The first is the structure of individual grains. Those that are more angular and irregular will lock together better than grains that have become rounded by virtue of having been transported a long way – a process that abrades them through the action of wind and waves. It’s why sand containing lots of microscopic, angular fragments of broken seashells is good for building strong sandcastles, Bennett explains. The other, more important, factor is the amount of water held between them, with smaller grains holding more water.

Bennett’s study led him to name Torquay in the south-west of England as Britain’s best place for sandcastles, thanks to what he calls “its delightful red sand”. Close in second is Bridlington in East Yorkshire, with Bournemouth, Great Yarmouth and Tenby all tying for third. “It was a simple but effective experiment,” Bennett recalls, explaining that he still uses the investigation as a fun way to engage people in geological concepts.

He admits, though, that any sand can, in principle, be used to make sandcastles – and that the selection of Torquay’s red sand as the “winner” of his 2004 study was in no small part down to its attractive aesthetic properties. It did help, however, that the sand in question originated more than 200 million years ago when Britain, which was then located in the interior of the supercontinent Pangaea, was part of a desert that outsized the Sahara. Torquay’s sand therefore has lots of fine grains, which Bennett says boosts its cohesive properties.

Bridges, not too far

For a physicist, a sandcastle is simply a structure made of a compacted granular material (sand) mixed with a liquid (water or seawater). But how does this water help sand grains to stick together? The answer lies in the surface tension of the films of water that form between the grains. Just as the surface of water in a test tube curves up at its edges due to adhesive forces between the glass and the liquid, so water forms tiny “capillary bridges” between sand grains. These bridges pull the grains towards each other, minimising the surface area between the water and air while increasing the surface area between water and the sand to which it is attracted.

Now, while an 8:1 ratio of sand to water might be the best for sculpting, it turns out that wet sand is still stable – i.e. acting as if it were a solid – over a wide range of water contents. There’s obviously something odd about the force that holds sand together, which is what inspired Stephan Herminghaus, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self Organization in Göttingen, Germany, to take a close look at the phenomenon.

1 Sandcastles in the lab To model the role water plays in binding grains of sand, a team led by physicist Stephan Herminghaus from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self Organization in Göttingen, Germany, created 3D images of wet glass beads using X-ray microtomography. (Top) These computer models of the beads (yellow) show the 3D “capillary bridges” (blue) that pull the beads towards each other, just as they do in real sand. (Above) More of the capillary bridges (white regions) form as the amount of water between the grains increases (left to right). (Reprinted by permission from Springer Nature: Nature Materials 7 189 © 2008)

Rather than studying sand itself, he and his team turned to a model system made of wet, glass beads that were of similar size and shape to sand. Using X-ray microtomography – a technique that creates digital cross-sectional images of an object without damaging it – they were able to create 3D images of the beads and examine what happens as more water is added to the fake sand. The tiny capillary bridges, which initially link two separate grains, begin to get bigger and merge, forming increasingly complex structures that often look like a series of ring pulls from drinks cans stuck together (figure 1).

As the bridges grow, they come into greater surface contact with the grains, which increases the binding effect of the water thanks to its attraction to the sand grains. At the same time, however, the concave arch of the capillary bridge becomes less pronounced, reducing the negative pressure in the water As the negative pressure of the water is what draws the grains together, reducing it causes the grains to be drawn together less.

The two effects balance out, meaning that the simulated sand retains the same stickiness as more water is added to it. However, the rule was found to break down once the water occupied around 15% of the sand pile, or 35% of the total available pore space between the grains. Beyond that limit, the integrity of the pile began to weaken.

You don’t need much water to create big, tall sandcastles: small capillary bridges act like a glue between grains of sand

“The remarkable insensitivity of the mechanical properties [of the pile of sand] to the liquid content is due to the particular organization of the liquid in the pile into open structures,” the researchers note in their 2008 paper (Nature Materials 7 189). In other words, we now know why you don’t need much water to create big, tall sandcastles: it’s all down to the small capillary bridges, which act like a glue between grains.

A thumping good time

But is there a theoretical limit on how high you could build a sandcastle? That was a question that Daniel Bonn, a physicist at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, set out to explore with his colleagues in 2012. They did this by pouring various amounts of wet sand into plastic cylinders of various diameters, before cutting away the mould and seeing how high the columns could be made before they collapsed.

The team found that columns give way when they buckle elastically under their own weight. Given this, the researchers determined that the maximum possible height of a sand column increases in proportion to the base radius of the column to the power 2/3. Do the maths and you’ll see that to build a column of sand twice as high as your friend, you need to make its radius √8 ≈ 2.8 times as big. From measurements of the elastic modulus of the wet sand, meanwhile, they concluded that the optimum strength is achieved at a liquid volume fraction of around 1%.

Size matters By pouring wet sand into plastic cylinders, researchers at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands led by Daniel Bonn found that the maximum possible height of a sand column is proportional to the base radius of the column, to the power 2/3. (Courtesy: Mehdi Habibi)

That figure differs from the ratio Bennett found in his bucket-and-spade study, which is perhaps not surprising given that real sandcastles tend not to be cylindrical, as in Bonn’s study, but often more conical. After all, a cone shape maximizes the stability of a sandcastle structure, as a modelling study published by Wenqiang Zhang from Zhengzhou University in China revealed last year (IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 514 022071).

Asked about practical tips for budding castle sculptors, Bonn says that compaction is key to stability. That’s why professional sandcastle builders usually use machines called “thumpers” that mechanically compact sand before it’s used by repeatedly stomping down on the ground. Compacting sand helps to shorten its capillary bridges, making the sand stronger.

What’s also useful is polydisperse sand containing a wide range of grain sizes. While we tend to think of sand as being made just of quartz, for geologists the term refers to any particles of worn rock ranging in size from 62.5 μm up to 2 mm. Expert castle builders in fact often favour sculpting with “river sand”, which has even finer clay particles ranging in size from 0.98 to 3.9μm. According to Bonn, river sand effectively puts small grains in the pockets between the large ones, thereby creating more capillary bridges and a stronger structure.

Clays, in other words, act as a “glue” between particles, even when there is little or no water. But if you haven’t got river sand, you can get a similar effect using seawater. As your sandcastle dries, salt crystals get deposited on the grains of sand, acting as a substitute glue. It’s one added advantage of building sandcastles at the seaside.

The sands of time

But even if there isn’t a nearby ocean to keep things wet, capillary bridges can form between sand grains as a result of vapour spontaneously condensing inside porous materials and between adjacent surfaces. Known as “capillary condensation”, this phenomenon can affect not only adhesion but also properties such as corrosion and friction in a wide variety of settings. In fact, the ancient Egyptians might even have benefited from making capillary bridges by pouring water onto sand in order to make it easier to pull heavy stonework across (see box).

Capillary condensation is usually described by an equation drawn up by the British physicist and mathematician William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) in 1871. It links macroscopic properties such as pressure, curvature and surface tension, but the equation also holds at the microscopic scale. Indeed, it has proven to be surprisingly accurate even down to a scale of around 10 nm.

To investigate why this might be, a team led by the Nobel-prize-winning physicist Andre Geim at the University of Manchester recently fabricated the smallest capillaries possible. Some only one atom high, they were created from layers of atom-thin mica and graphite, separated by narrow strips of graphene that served as spacers. Geim and his team found that these tiny capillaries can accommodate only a single layer of water molecules within them (Nature 588 250).

Studying condensation in these capillaries, the team realized that the Kelvin equation remains an excellent description even at the molecular scale – even though at these dimensions, water changes its properties as its structure becomes more discrete and layered. “This came as a big surprise. I expected a complete breakdown of conventional physics,” says lead author Qian Yang. “But the old equation turned out to work well.”

According to the team, however, the qualitative agreement between the equation and reality is also fortuitous. Capillary condensation under ambient humidities creates pressures of around 1000 bars – more than found at the bottom of Earth’s deepest oceans. This pressure may hold the grains in a sandcastle together, but it also fractionally deforms the tiny capillaries in the researchers’ experiments, counteracting the altered properties of water at the molecular scale.

“Good theory often works beyond its applicability limits,” admits Geim. “Lord Kelvin was a remarkable scientist, making many discoveries but even he would surely be surprised to find that his theory – originally observed in millimetre-sized tubes – holds even at the one-atom scale. In fact, in his seminal paper Kelvin commented on exactly this impossibility. So our work has proved him both right and wrong, at the same time.”

Water like an Egyptian

(Courtesy: Sir John Gardner Wilkinson, 1854)

If building sandcastles doesn’t satisfy your construction itch, it turns out that sand and water can be used to help make far more elaborate structures. Writing in a paper published in 2014 (Phys. Rev. Lett. 112 175502), a team led by Daniel Bonn – a granular physicist from the University of Amsterdam – argued that the ancient Egyptians used water to harden desert sand. This tougher stuff allowed the Egyptians to move sledges bearing heavy stones more easily about when constructing pyramids and other colossal monuments.

The inspiration for this notion came from a roughly 3900-year-old mural that once adorned a wall in the tomb of Djehutihotep, one of the most influential nomarchs (or provincial governors) in Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, which ran from about 2050 to 1780 BCE. The decoration depicted a giant colossus of Djehutihotep – the height of four men – being pulled on a sledge across the desert by 172 workers (pictured above).

What’s interesting is that the figure standing at the front of the sledge in the mural is pouring water on the sand over which the giant statue is soon to be hauled, while two other slaves replenish his supply. Egyptologists had long dismissed this curious action as a ritual, but Bonn and colleagues experimentally demonstrated that adding a certain amount of water to sand stiffens it by forming microscopic “capillary bridges” (see main text).

These bridges lower the friction coefficient of the sand, while also stopping sand from piling up in front of the sledge or letting it sink into the sand. Specifically, the team found that the coefficient of dynamic friction halves when the water content of the sand reaches around 5%. Anything more, however, and the friction rises, even surpassing the value for dry sand at a 10% water content.

It gets everywhere

Examining the physics of sand and the capillary forces that hold it together is useful for more than just building the best sandcastle. For example, the imaging techniques developed by Herminghaus and his team to study glass beads can be applied to grain–liquid–air interfaces more broadly. That work could therefore yield practical applications away from the seaside – from stopping powders clumping up to improving our ability to anticipate and prevent landslides.

Nailing down the mechanical properties of wet sand can also inform construction efforts. After all, most roads, railways, houses and buildings are built on sandy soils, but these need to be stable if such structures are to survive. Water can reinforce sand piles, which helps them become more stable, but it can also be a danger in reducing compaction.

As any civil engineer knows, building on un-compacted sand risks “quicksand”, a builder’s nightmare. Consisting of loose sand saturated with water, quicksand can initially appear solid. But being a non-Newtonian fluid, the quicksand liquefies when agitated, for example through a ground tremor. It forms a suspension and loses its viscosity, allowing objects to sink into the sand.

That’s a particular problem in the Netherlands, where Bonn is based, which has lots of quicksand on land reclaimed from the sea using dikes. Known as “polder”, this land cannot be built on immediately, forcing builders to have to wait several years for the sand to compact before starting construction. “If it is not compacted,” says Bonn, “you can sink away and get stuck in it.”

The perfect mix

So before you hit the beach, let’s recap. For a truly breath-taking sandcastle, select a location with a decent amount of finer-sized sand. Take wet sand from around the high-tide mark, which will give you the ideal 8:1 ratio of sand to water. Compact your material to increase stability. If you want a tall tower, aim for a wide base and a conical shape. Then simply unleash your creativity. You’ll have a masterpiece on your hands…until your structure is, inevitably, washed away by the incoming tide.

SURREALIST HOME WORLD

NASA’s Juno spacecraft launched 10 years ago on August 5, 2011, and there are so many reasons to celebrate that successful launch. Since arriving in orbit around Jupiter in 2016 the mission has yielded amazing discoveries and extraordinary images, like this one of Jupiter’s complex cloud systems. Jupiter’s splendor has never been on better display, and we hope Juno keeps going for many more years to come. Image credit: NASA et al.

Squirrels are helping scientists develop more agile smart robots

AUGUST 6, 2021

BERKELEY, Calif. — Squirrels – the acrobats of the animal kingdom – are helping scientists develop more agile smart robots. Engineers from the University of California-Berkeley say they’ve gotten to the bottom of the split-second thinking these bushy-tailed rodents display.

These lightning quick reflexes enable them to leap and land on the sturdiest wall or the flimsiest branch. The breakthrough will likely lead to advances in artificial intelligence in the coming years.

Researchers say nimble machines could search for survivors in collapsed buildings or rapidly access landslides and other disaster zones. In the study, the team enticed free roaming squirrels with peanuts as high-speed cameras captured their skillful maneuvers.

(Left to right) UC Berkeley researchers Nate Hunt, Judy Jinn, Lucia Jacobs and Aaron Teixeira.

“As a model organism to understand the biological limits of balance and agility, I would argue that squirrels are second to none,” says former UC Berkeley doctoral student Nathaniel Hunt, now an assistant professor of biomechanics at the University of Nebraska, in a university release.

“If we try to understand how squirrels do this, then we may discover general principles of high performance locomotion in the canopy and other complex terrains that apply to the movements of other animals and robots.”

What keeps squirrels from falling?

The team changed the flexibility, the length of the gap squirrels had to clear, and the position of the landing perch during their experiments with the animals.

“When they leap across a gap, they decide where to take off based on a tradeoff between branch flexibility and the size of the gap they must leap,” Hunt explains. “And when they encounter a branch with novel mechanical properties, they learn to adjust their launching mechanics in just a few jumps. This behavioral flexibility that adapts to the mechanics and geometry of leaping and landing structures is important to accurately leaping across a gap to land on a small target.”


Study authors carried out a series of experiments in a grove of eucalyptus trees in the university’s botanical garden. Fox squirrels that roam the campus grounds grabbed and swung with astonishing creativity, running less and jumping further on weaker branches. It took only five tries to work out the best landing spot on the most flexible rods without faltering.

To reach the highest perch, the squirrels used their “parkour” skills to bounce off a wall to adjust speed and get to the food. Interestingly, the study finds a squirrel’s pliability was six times more critical than distance in deciding whether to jump.

Squirrels know their sharp claws will save them, the researchers explain. Their natural abilities are foolproof that none actually fell, despite wobbly leaps and overshooting or undershooting their landings.

“They’re not always going to have their best performance — they just have to be good enough,” Dr. Hunt continues.

“They have redundancy. So, if they miss, they don’t hit their center of mass right on the landing perch, they’re amazing at being able to grab onto it. They’ll swing underneath, they’ll swing over the top. They just don’t fall.”
Applying squirrel physics to new technology

Exploration and innovation come into play as squirrels search for the most reliable strategy as they move around.

Fox squirrel, apparatus, and experimenters on UC Berkeley campus.

“If they leap into the air with too much speed or too little speed, they can use a variety of landing maneuvers to compensate,” the Nebraska researcher says.

“If they jump too far, they roll forward around the branch. If they jump short, they will land with their front legs and swing underneath before pulling themselves up on top of the perch. This combination of adaptive planning behaviors, learning control and reactive stabilizing maneuvers helps them move quickly through the branches without falling.”

During tricky jumps, squirrels would re-orient their bodies to push off a vertical surface to adjust speed and ensure a better landing. The best comparison for humans is when people participate in parkour, a sport where people leap, vault, or swing to quickly traverse obstacles (like city buildings) without the use of any equipment.

“I see this as the next frontier: How are the decisions of movement shaped by our body? This is made far more challenging, because you also must assess your environment,” says UC Berkeley biologist Robert Full.

“That’s an important fundamental biology question. Fortunately, now we can understand how to embody control and explain innovation by creating physical models, like the most agile smart robots ever built.”

The study appears in the journal Science.

The Language of Bears
New research reveals a curious connection between British Columbia’s Indigenous language families, and the genetic variability of bears.

Among British Columbia Indigenous language groups, the name for grizzly bears varies. But there are patterns to these names that suggest something interesting about the landscape in this region. Photo by Nick Garbutt/NPL/Minden Pictures

by Gloria Dickie
August 5, 2021 | 

Along the central coast of British Columbia, grizzly bears go by many names. In the Sgüüx̣s language spoken by the Kitasoo Nation and the Sm’algyax language of the Gitga’at Nation, they are known as medi’ik. And in the Haíɫzaqvḷa, It7Nuxalkmc, ‘Wuik̓ala, and Xai’xais languages, bears are called nan. The reasons for such differences of language, new research suggests, may be similar to the reasons that grizzly groups differ genetically in the region.

A new study has found a remarkable geographical alignment between distinct grizzly bear genetic groups and three Indigenous language families—Tsimshian, Northern Wakashan, and Salishan Nuxalk—in coastal territories, suggesting that the rich landscape has similarly shaped both bears and humans.

“Bears are great teachers,” says Lauren Henson, the study’s lead author and a research fellow at the Raincoast Conservation Foundation. “People were using the same watersheds and the same salmon accesses for millennia. So, perhaps it would be more surprising if there wasn’t overlap between bear culture and human culture.”

Regions with a high degree of biological and cultural diversity, such as the Amazon Basin, Central Africa, and Indomalaysia/Melanesia, are considered biocultural hotspots. However, these are often determined by measuring species richness and linguistic diversity, explains Henson. Examining the finer scale of genetic groups within a species, she says, is an emergent aspect of biocultural research.

To assess how bears may be related across the landscape, Henson and her colleagues at the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, the Hakai Institute,* and other organizations, in collaboration with the Nuxalk, Heiltsuk, Kitasoo/Xai’xais, Gitga’at, and Wuikinuxv Nations, analyzed bear hair samples collected over a 23,500-square-kilometer area of the British Columbia central coast. This research revealed three distinct genetic grizzly groups—and that each group appeared to overlap with the language family of that given area.

Genetic groupings within species can often be explained by natural or human-made barriers on the landscape—high mountains, wide waterways, roads—that prevent movement and gene flow across populations. In interior grizzly populations, between central British Columbia and Wyoming, for instance, scientists have identified many genetic fractures and a few genetically isolated populations, owing to the millions of people living in the area, says Bruce McLellan, a wildlife ecologist recently retired from the British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations who was not involved in the research.

However, Henson and her team found that these factors couldn’t explain the pattern of genetic differences found in British Columbia’s coastal grizzlies. “Bears are all-terrain vehicles,” she says. “They can swim. They can climb mountains. They’re pretty adaptable.” Moreover, the central coast isn’t heavily developed—there aren’t a lot of roads and there aren’t a lot of people.

Henson believes it’s possible that variations in food and resources found along the coast have instead facilitated these diverse genetic groups. “Perhaps it’s less about what’s not allowing them to move and more about what’s allowing them to stay,” she says. And because bears and people have shared food and space for millennia, it follows that people might respond to the environment in a similar way, allowing for a rich diversity of languages to evolve in parallel.

“It really surprised me how these language groups and the areas of these distinct bear populations were one in the same,” says William Housty of the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department and coauthor of the study. “I’d never thought of it in that context—that the bears are separated geographically from each other the same way that we are from our neighbors.”

Clayton Lamb, a wildlife scientist at the University of British Columbia and University of Montana who is unaffiliated with the study, notes that the research makes a significant contribution to scientists’ understanding of genetic fragmentation, “in that distinct genetic groups can be identified in relatively intact landscapes.”

Such findings also have implications for the management of grizzly bears in British Columbia. Though genetic variations don’t always dictate a subspecies or change the physical appearance of an animal, they can identify groups of bears that are closely related and signal their adaptive capacity to respond to changes in the environment. Ideally, wildlife managers maintain population health by protecting a wide swath of genetic diversity to foster resilience. But British Columbia’s government divides grizzlies into population units that don’t follow the bears’ unique genetics, breaking up otherwise continuous groups and managing them differently. Though Lamb notes that many factors must be weighed when defining population units—diet similarities, contemporary movement between populations, and population size—“historical genetic signatures, such as those investigated here, inform how best to delineate these boundaries.”

“It’s really important to look at these bears at a ground-level scale,” adds Housty. “Management at a high level may not protect and maintain genetic diversity.”

* The Hakai Institute and Hakai Magazine are both part of the Tula Foundation. The magazine is editorially independent of the institute and foundation.

Saving Salmon for the Bears

The Wuikinuxv Nation is conducting research to figure out how much salmon to set aside to help the bears

Salmon makes up a substantial part of the diet of grizzly bears living near 

Rivers Inlet, British Columbia. Photo by John E. Marriott

by Larry Pynn
August 7, 2021 | 

Twenty-two years after at least 15 salmon-starved grizzlies were shot to protect residents of a small Indigenous village on British Columbia’s central coast, that same First Nation is preparing to prioritize the bears’ claim to the fish. The Wuikinuxv Nation is willing to reduce its own catch of wild Pacific sockeye from Rivers Inlet to provide more for grizzlies during an age of reduced spawning returns.

“In this era of low fish abundance, how do we take care of bears?” says Megan Adams, a Raincoast Conservation Foundation researcher and lead author of a new study, supported in part by the Hakai Institute,* designed to determine how to achieve peaceful coexistence with bears by sharing the salmon harvest. “If people can compromise their catch by 10 percent … bear population density can increase by 10 percent,” she says.

The fjord of Rivers Inlet boasted annual returns of up to 3.1 million sockeye from 1948 to 1992. It was the third-largest run in the province, with more than enough fish to support commercial and Indigenous food/ceremonial fisheries, and to see grizzly bears through their winter hibernation.

Squeezed by factors such as historical overfishing, myriad changes in the ocean, diminished spawning habitat due to logging, and receding glaciers—which result in warmer temperatures in spawning tributaries—salmon returns dropped off dramatically starting in 1993. They hit rock bottom in the fall of 1999, when fewer than 10,000 sockeye showed up at the Wuikinuxv village of ‘Kìtit about 400 kilometers northwest of Vancouver along the Waanukv River.

Emaciated grizzlies desperately wandered the streets, prowled around homes for scraps, rummaged through garbage, and put frightened residents on high alert. “They were starving,” recalls Jennifer Walkus, a study coauthor and an elected councilor with the Wuikinuxv Nation.

The toll of grizzlies shot that season as a threat to humans included an adult female that “just had no energy left and was put down with her cubs,” Walkus says.

The grizzly bear is featured in Wuikinuxv culture, including as crests on houses, ceremonial poles, and other items, and in dances handed down by families over generations. “It was one of the hardest things that the village had to go through,” Walkus says.

The Wuikinuxv Nation responded with a plan to reduce bear-human conflicts by removing attractants that might otherwise draw bears into the village: residential garbage is collected door-to-door three times a week during the salmon season rather than left outside, and the entrails of human-caught salmon go back into the river, Walkus says.

But the move to voluntarily reduce their salmon harvest is the latest and most ambitious initiative by the Wuikinuxv to help the bears and keep the community safe.

“There is an incredible awareness—almost an accountability to bears,” says Adams, who conducted the study for her doctoral thesis at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.

Adams’s research explored how much salmon the bears would need, and how much catch the Wuikinuxv would need to give up to make that available.

To determine the bears’ needs, Adams and her colleagues analyzed hair samples from 51 bears, using stable isotope analysis to calculate the proportion of salmon in their annual diet. They found that from 2013 to 2017, salmon represented about 63 percent.

Raincoast Conservation Foundation researcher Megan Adams studied how much salmon the grizzly bears near Rivers Inlet, British Columbia, would need to thrive. Seen here with Patrick Johnson, a member of the Coastal Guardian Watchmen, the two were collecting bear hair samples near a Wuikinuxv village. Photo by Grant Callegari

To estimate the number of salmon passing through the Waanukv River, the Wuikinuxv use underwater sonar scanners as well as conduct test catches from boats.

Since the 1990s, sockeye returns have averaged about 250,000 annually. Adams and her colleagues calculated that if the community harvests about 45,000 fish, that still leaves adequate salmon for the bears.

The Wuikinuxv Nation currently does not harvest at that rate—annual catches are less than one percent of the return. But if stocks rebuild and one day a commercial fishery is reintroduced, that could tip the balance against the bears. By doing its research now, the community can push to implement the precautionary principle on future harvest levels. “The nation wants to be ready to advocate not only for themselves but also for wildlife,” Adams says.

Jonathan Moore, an aquatic ecologist at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia who did not participate in the study, says the research is consistent with both Canada’s reconciliation initiatives and Wild Salmon Policy, which recognizes that salmon “play a key role in natural ecosystems, nourishing a complex web of interconnected species.”

He says the study is important for looking not just at salmon populations but “salmon systems,” and their wider importance to both humans and wildlife. “It is a system that has totally changed over the decades,” he says. “Bears and people still need fish.”

Walkus hopes the study creates a ripple effect that extends to Canada’s federal fisheries department in favor of “more holistic management practices” regarding wild salmon.

The Wuikinuxv principle of n̓àn̓akila means to watch over someone as a guardian or protector. For grizzlies, it also means a bellyful of salmon before a long winter’s rest.

*The Hakai Institute and Hakai Magazine are both part of the Tula Foundation. The magazine is editorially independent of the institute and foundation.

FTC Official Criticizes Facebook for Terminating Political Ads Probe

The Associated Press Aug 7, 2021

A Facebook App logo is displayed on a smartphone in Arlington, Va., 

on March 25, 2020.

 (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)


WASHINGTON—A senior Federal Trade Commission official is criticizing Facebook’s move to shut down the personal accounts of two academic researchers and terminate their probe into misinformation spread through political ads on the social network.

Facebook wrongly used a 2019 data-privacy settlement with the FTC to justify shutting down the New York University researchers’ accounts this week, Samuel Levine, acting director of the FTC’s consumer protection bureau, said in a letter Thursday to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Levine also said Facebook failed to honor a prior commitment to notify the FTC in advance of taking such an action.

Facebook maintained that the researchers violated its terms of service and were involved in unauthorized data collection from its massive network. The academics, however, say the company is attempting to exert control on research that paints it in a negative light.


The NYU researchers with the Ad Observatory Project had for several years been looking into Facebook’s Ad Library, where searches can be done on advertisements running across Facebook’s products.

The access was used to “uncover systemic flaws in the Facebook Ad Library, to identify misinformation in political ads, including many sowing distrust in our election system, and to study Facebook’s apparent amplification of partisan misinformation,” Laura Edelson, the lead researcher behind NYU Cybersecurity for Democracy, said Wednesday.

Facebook agreed in a 2019 consent decree settlement with the FTC to pay a record $5 billion for alleged violations of the privacy of users’ personal data.

But Levine said in his letter that the consent decree allows Facebook to create exceptions to data collection restrictions “for good-faith research in the public interest.”


“While it is not our role to resolve individual disputes between Facebook and third parties, we hope that the company is not invoking privacy—much less the FTC consent order—as a pretext to advance other aims,” the letter says.

Facebook’s action against the NYU project also cut off other researchers and journalists who got access to Facebook data through the project, according to Edelson, the NYU lead researcher.

The researchers offered Facebook users a web browser plug-in tool that let them volunteer their data showing how the social network targets political ads.

But Facebook said the browser extension was programmed to evade its detection systems and vacuum up user data, creating privacy concerns.

In a blog post late Tuesday, Facebook said it takes “unauthorized data scraping seriously, and when we find instances of scraping we investigate and take action to protect our platform.”

Facebook representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday on Levine’s letter.

Levine wrote that after Facebook wrongly asserting its actions against the researchers were required under the consent decree, it later acknowledged that was inaccurate. “While I appreciate that Facebook has now corrected the record, I am disappointed by how your company has conducted itself in this matter,” he told Zuckerberg.

Facebook says it makes information on political ads available through its Ad Library and provides “privacy-protected data sets” to researchers through other means.

Facebook didn’t admit wrongdoing in the 2019 settlement.

The FTC opened an investigation into Facebook in 2018 after revelations that data mining firm Cambridge Analytica had gathered details on as many as 87 million Facebook users without their permission.

In addition to privacy concerns, the FTC and Facebook have been wrangling over antitrust issues. The agency and 48 states and districts sued Facebook in December, accusing the tech giant of abusing its market power in social networking to crush smaller competitors. They were seeking remedies that could include a forced spinoff of the social network’s Instagram and WhatsApp messaging services.

A federal judge recently dismissed the antitrust lawsuits, saying they didn’t provide enough evidence to prove that Facebook is a monopoly. The ruling dismissed the FTC’s complaint but not the case, giving the agency a chance to file a revised complaint.

By Marcy Gordon

Dresden tech cluster touts strength as TSMC mulls plant in Germany
08/07/2021 

CNA file photo

Taipei, Aug. 7 (CNA) Silicon Saxony, a semiconductor cluster in Dresden, Germany, has touted its strength as a technology hub as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) considers the possibility of building a plant in the European country.

In a recent statement to CNA, Silicon Saxony CEO Frank Bösenberg said his association has transformed itself into one of the five largest semiconductor clusters in the world and become very competitive as an investment destination.

In the ICT industry, a cluster refers to a network of strategically interconnected businesses and institutions in a particular geographic area.

While the market has suspected TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, will choose Dresden as the base for its investments in Germany, Bösenberg did not comment directly on the market speculation.

However, he said Silicon Saxony is highly capable of developing chips for emerging application use, including automotive electronics and 6G communications.

Dresden is home to the largest semiconductor cluster in Europe, with tech giants such as contract chipmaker GlobalFoundries, automotive electronics chipmaker Infineon and auto part supplier Bosch having their investments there and forming Silicon Saxony.

In an annual general meeting held on July 26, TSMC Chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) disclosed his company is considering the possibility of setting up a production base in Germany, but said discussions on the investment plan were still at at an early stage.

Liu said TSMC has been communicating with its clients in Germany to find out whether such an investment plan will benefit them.

In his statement, Bösenberg noted that automotive electronics chips have served as a driving force in Silicon Saxony's development, while several renowned auto makers, including BMW, Volkswagen and Porsche, have production facilities nearby.

In addition, 6G communications, robotics, the Internet of Things, quantum computers and software have also become a focus of Silicon Saxony's research and development efforts, he said.

Taking advantage of Silicon Saxony, Bösenberg said, several major enterprises including GlobalFoundries, Infineon, Bosch, Zeiss and Vodafone either have invested in the past four years or will invest over the next 16 months, with a combined value expected to hit 8 billion euros (US$9.46 billion).

In addition to Germany, TSMC has also said it is considering expanding investment in the United States and Japan in order to meet strong demand from its customers in those markets.

According to TSMC, construction of a US$12 billion 5 nanometer wafer plant in the U.S. state of Arizona is progressing smoothly, with production at the fab expected to begin in 2024.

Ray Yang (楊瑞臨), a supervisor at the Industrial Technology Research Institute's (ITRI) Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center, said TSMC's investments in Japan and Germany are likely to differ from its investment in the U.S.

Unlike the Arizona plant, which will use the 5nm process, Yang said, TSMC's plants in Japan and Germany are expected to use specialty processes, which will cater auto clients in the two markets.

For example, Yang said in Japan, TSMC is expected to directly supply chips for clients such as Sony Coro, which manufactures sensors for auto production.

Yang said automotive electronics are expected to become the mainstream for semiconductor development over the next few years, following 5G applications and high performance computing devices.


(By Lin Yu-li, Chang Chien-chung and Frances Huang)

Enditem/M

Coronavirus Today: A tale of two Americas


BY AMINA KHAN

STAFF WRITER 

 Los Angeles Times

AUG. 6, 2021 


Good evening. I’m Amina Khan, and it’s Friday, Aug. 6. Here’s what’s happening with the coronavirus in California and beyond.

It’s become clear that the pandemic has split the country into two Americas: one that considers the virus a critical threat and embraces vaccines, masking and other public health measures, and one that does not. But few probably feel the split as acutely as healthcare workers caring for patients in coronavirus hotspots.

Doctors and nurses in these areas are dealing with two Americas of their own: the one inside hospital walls, where an influx of COVID-19 patients are struggling to breathe; and the one outside, where few seem to acknowledge the full threat of the virus.

That’s the reality for Peyton Thetford, a nurse at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital. In the hospital’s intensive care unit, he moves patients from their backs to their stomachs and then onto their sides every two hours to help keep their oxygen levels up. But when he steps outside, he sees hardly anyone wearing masks.

“It’s kind of like the movie ‘Groundhog Day,’ where you wake up and everything’s the exact same and you can’t do anything to change it,” he said. “You’re just coming to work and watching people die.”

Almost all of the COVID-19 deaths these hospital workers are seeing would probably have been avoided if the victims had been vaccinated. But the national campaign to get lifesaving shots into arms has come up against stiff resistance from conservative states in the South and Midwest — areas that, with relatively lower vaccine coverage, are now seeing their COVID-19 caseloads skyrocket.

That’s certainly the case in Alabama, with just 40% of residents 12 and older fully vaccinated, the lowest rate in the nation. There, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has jumped in the last month from about 213 to 1,736. If that rate of increase continues, experts warn that within another month, the state’s hospitals could top the January peak of 3,089 patients.

The problem is that many people seem more worried about the vaccine than the virus — even though the virus has accounted for more than 600,000 deaths in the United States alone and left countless others suffering from long-term health consequences.

“I don’t want to be a guinea pig,” said Renee Dunn, 43, a manager of a fast-food restaurant in Heflin, a tiny east Alabama town. She worried that the vaccines were manufactured too quickly, and her mother had a bad reaction to a vaccine this year, suffering sore joints, fever and confusion. Her son, meanwhile, had to miss a few days of work after getting his first COVID-19 shot.

Dunn did say there was something that could change her mind: full FDA approval of a vaccine, which could come as soon as next month. (The vaccines are currently authorized for emergency use after going through clinical trials and an intensive review process.)

Other county residents were more resistant. Pharmacist Ryan Jackson is vaccinated, but he’s heard people voice every argument against getting a shot: fear that vaccines could lead to infertility (they don’t), the belief that the risks of COVID-19 have been exaggerated (they haven’t), and claims that the vaccines contain microchips for government tracking (they do not).

“You hear the conspiracy theories; they don’t trust the government, a lot of political factors,” Jackson said. “It’s just a complete distrust of everybody in authority.”

Much of that vaccine hesitancy falls along well-worn political lines. Americans most likely to reject vaccines, experts say, are those who voted for Donald Trump, live in small towns and rural areas, and are younger than 70.

Still, many GOP leaders have begun to combat anti-vaccine narratives. In Alabama, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey has said it is time for the vaccinated to push back. “It’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks,” she told reporters last month. “It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.”

Even with Americans divided along these lines, there seems to be some room to move the needle on vaccines. Some conservative states with the highest rates of average daily new coronavirus cases — Alabama among them — are now seeing the biggest jumps in vaccination rates. At his pharmacy, Jackson said he’d also seen an uptick in demand.

“It’s not too late,” he said. “I think the longer we go, people will see that we’re not growing extra limbs and third eyeballs. More people will come around.”
By the numbers

California cases, deaths and vaccinations as of 10:11 a.m. Friday:

Track California’s coronavirus spread and vaccination efforts — including the latest numbers and how they break down — with our graphics.


To boost or not to boost?

It’s no secret that the pandemic has most severely affected the poor — not just the poorest individuals, but the poorest countries as well. The virus is ripping into nations across Africa, where only 1.5 in every 100 people have had at least one shot, and ravaging populous countries such as Indonesia, where vaccination rates are low.

Meanwhile, rich nations such as Germany, France and Israel are moving to provide booster shots to certain groups, such as the elderly. With vaccination rates relatively high, they argue that it helps everyone if they strengthen their own immunity while also looking to help other nations.

That argument didn’t seem to pass muster with the World Health Organization. This week, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged mainly well-off, highly vaccinated nations to hold off on offering booster shots until all countries, including poorer ones currently being ravaged by the virus, can provide more of their people with their first shots.

Tedros proposed a nonbinding booster moratorium to be observed at least through September, with a goal of ensuring that all nations first vaccinate at least 10% of their population.

“We cannot, and we should not, accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines using even more of it while the world’s most vulnerable people remain unprotected,” Tedros said from Geneva.

Some public health experts have said it makes both ethical and practical sense to support the moratorium call. After all, the longer the virus remains in circulation in vulnerable, unvaccinated populations around the world, the more time, money and deaths it will cost. More dangerous variants that crop up in places where the virus can circulate freely will inevitably make their way to those richer nations.

The fact that some countries are moving toward booster shots while much of the world remains unvaccinated is “a moral outrage and a public health miscalculation,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “No country will be safe from this continually mutating virus until all countries have gained access to vaccines.”

Others said they disagreed with the WHO’s call for a moratorium, arguing that there are vulnerable groups within rich countries who need boosters, and denying them an additional shot wouldn’t ease the sharp vaccine disparities between rich and poor countries.

“I strongly disagree with the WHO’s call to restrict booster shots,” Leana Wen, of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, wrote on Twitter. “Yes, we need to get vaccines to the world (which also includes helping with distribution, not just supply), but there are doses expiring here in the US. Why not allow those immunosuppressed to receive them?”

Public health experts say it’s not the first time that the WHO has argued that wealthy countries should be fighting the pandemic beyond their own borders.

“The WHO services 194 sovereign entities, not just the most powerful ones,” said J. Stephen Morrison, the director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “In that sense, Tedros is reflecting the desperation of his constituency — he’s reflecting back the anger, resentment and desperation they’re experiencing right now.”

The Biden administration hasn’t taken a position on the need for booster shots. Still, it appeared to dismiss the need for a moratorium.

“We definitely feel like it’s a false choice, and we can do both,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.

The U.S. says it has provided more than 110 million vaccine doses to 65 countries. But the WHO said that more than four-fifths of the more than 4 billion doses administered worldwide have gone to a group of wealthier countries that are home to less than half the global population. This is untenable, the agency said.

“We need an urgent reversal from the majority of vaccines going to high-income countries to the majority going to low-income countries,” Tedros said.

Regardless, Morrison said the WHO’s plea was unlikely to alter richer nations’ vaccination policies.

“I don’t think it’ll be effective at stopping rich countries from pursuing it,” he said. “Every day, the list gets longer — there’s a proliferation of countries moving toward boosters.”

California’s vaccination progress

See the latest on California’s vaccination progress with our tracker.



Coronavirus cases are still ticking upward in Los Angeles County, but at a slower rate, my colleague Luke Money reports — offering a possible sign that the region’s early reinstatement of its mask mandate may be paying off.

The county began requiring everyone, even the fully vaccinated, to wear masks in indoor public spaces in mid-July. And while it’s still early, Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer pointed to some promising numbers. L.A. County saw a 22% rise in reported cases for the week that ended Sunday, compared with the prior week; the rest of California saw a 57% jump in cases over the same period.

“It’s hard to say with 100% certainty that this was the factor that tipped us to have a slightly better slowing of spread than other places,” Ferrer said of the early mask mandate, “but I know for sure it contributed, just because the data [are] really conclusive on the importance of masking indoors and how that does, in fact, reduce transmission.”

Still, as Delta continues to spread, two L.A. City Council members have introduced a proposal to require proof of COVID-19 vaccination for anyone looking to enter indoor public spaces. And the chair of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, Hilda Solis, has issued an executive order that compels county employees to demonstrate that they’ve been vaccinated by early fall.

Solis cited an 18-fold increase in coronavirus cases in the county and a fivefold increase in hospitalizations — mostly involving unvaccinated people — since the county lifted its social distancing restrictions in June and Delta began its inexorable spread.

“As vaccinations continue at a pace slower than what is necessary to slow the spread, the need for immediate action is great,” Solis said.

As the new school year looms, my colleague Howard Blume breaks down some interesting coronavirus data from Los Angeles Unified’s summer school program: Coronavirus infections rose steadily over the five-week program, but ultimately appear to have affected a small share of students and staff.

The rise in infections, detected through regular coronavirus screening, does seem to parallel the rise of the highly contagious Delta variant. Summer school classes started June 21 or 22, depending on grade level, and concluded on July 23. During the first week, the district logged 20 infections among students. During the final week, it recorded 59 infections, with a total of 174 student cases over the five weeks. Among staff, two cases were found the first week and 16 were recorded on the last, for a total of 53 cases over the course of the program.

Most of these cases were contracted off campus, but there were a few that may be related to participating in summer school — a total of 12 cases over the five weeks, 11 of them students. And officials say these figures show no cause for alarm for when schools reopen Aug. 16.

“Yes, the Delta variant is more transmissible. That’s just general knowledge,” said school district medical director Dr. Smita Malhotra. “But our mitigation measures — such as our upgraded ventilation systems, our required masking, our robust testing program — will help to keep our schools as safe as possible.”

The 81st Sturgis Motorcycle Rally kicked off in the Black Hills of South Dakota on Friday, despite the ever-present threat of the Delta variant.

Organizers are expecting at least 700,000 people to descend on Sturgis, home to less than 7,000 residents, during the 10-day event. That’s in spite of the fact that hundreds of participants were infected after last year’s rally, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded appeared to be a “superspreader event.”

Health experts say big gatherings offer fertile ground for the virus to trigger a massive wave of infections, but that didn’t seem to worry rallygoers who said they came to escape the stress and restrictions of life back home.

“I’m going to live free,” said Mike Nowitzke, who made his first trek to the rally from Illinois to celebrate his 50th birthday.

In Latin America, the pandemic has plunged millions of Latin Americans into poverty, and young people are suffering the consequences, my colleague Patrick J. McDonnell reports. Take Marlon Ashanga, a boatman in Peru who loaded his wife, two kids and virus-stricken father into a canoe and guided them three days upriver, deep into the Amazon rainforest.

“People were getting sick everywhere, and we were scared,” recalled Ashanga, a boatman in Belen, a port district of bustling street stalls and homes on stilts. “In the forest, we could rely on natural remedies. And I knew we wouldn’t starve.”

Felipe Solomón Valles went the other way. He was with his wife teaching in a remote village when the contagion hit. The couple and their infant slipped out in a banana boat and trekked through the bush lugging their belongings to escape stay-at-home orders enforced by police, in an effort to reach their families.

More than a year later, both young men, who each survived debilitating cases of COVID-19, now must find ways to support their families in a nation battered by the pandemic. Valles and his wife are unemployed, while Ashanga barely scrapes by.

They’re not alone: The pandemic has plunged millions of Latin Americans into poverty and reversed modest progress toward equality, as young people find themselves caught between surging unemployment and shrinking opportunities.


Your questions answered

Today’s question comes from readers who want to know: Does a journalist asking about my vaccination status violate HIPAA?


In a word: No.

You may recall that U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia told a reporter that asking if she was vaccinated was “a violation of my HIPAA rights.” Days later, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott told a reporter asking the same question, “I think that’s HIPAA.”

Both these statements are incorrect, my colleague Jessica Roy explains. Here’s why.

HIPAA, short for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1966, only covers the information that specific healthcare-related entities can share about you without your consent. A journalist asking questions in an interview or news conference is not a healthcare-related entity, and so HIPAA does not apply to them.

“I think that the major thing for people to understand with regard to HIPAA is that it’s very specific,” said Ankit Shah, a pediatrician with a law degree who teaches health law as a lecturer at USC. “Healthcare entities have your information and are prohibited from sharing it without your consent. That’s it. That’s HIPAA.”

“People always apply [HIPAA] to everybody. It’s not applicable to everybody. Only healthcare providers, health plans, and their business associates,” Shah added.

Here’s a helpful list of examples that are totally fine to do and do not in any way violate HIPAA:
A journalist asking someone if they’re vaccinated
A bouncer at a bar requiring proof of vaccination from patrons before they enter
Door-to-door outreach asking whether people are vaccinated

Of course, if someone who is not a healthcare entity asks whether you’re vaccinated, you do not have to tell them. But they’re not violating HIPAA when they ask — and they can choose not to employ you or allow you in for a drink. As Roy put it, “Americans enjoy many rights, but entry to happy hour is not one of them.”

The pandemic in pictures

Yoon Dong Kim, left, and Stacy Kim at Arroyo Cleaners in Pasadena. The Kims bought their first dry cleaner in La Cañada Flintridge in 1988, operating it for nearly three decades as they raised their children.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

For many Korean immigrants in the Southland, owning a dry cleaner has offered a path to a better life for the next generation — though one with struggle and sacrifice, as parents worked 13-hour days and inhaled potentially hazardous chemicals.

But now, many Korean dry cleaners — already dwindling in number before the pandemic — find themselves on the verge of financial collapse, their futures uncertain, as companies consider permanent work-from-home arrangements and office attire grows ever more casual.

This story by my colleague Andrew J. Campa offers a look into the lives of these immigrants — many middle-aged or older — struggling to stay afloat. I was struck by this image of Yoon Dong Kim and Stacy Kim, owners of Arroyo Cleaners in Pasadena, surrounded by their life’s work. Check out the story — it’s well worth a read.

Conservation
‘People think you’re an idiot’: death metal Irish baron rewilds his estate

Lord Randal Plunkett at Dunsany Castle. He turned from a steak-eating bodybuilder with no interest in land, to a vegan on an environmental mission. 

Photograph: Patrick Bolger
Trees, grasses and wildlife are returning as Lord Randal Plunkett recreates a vanished landscape in County Meath

Rory Carroll
@rorycarroll72
Sat 7 Aug 2021 

Lord Randal Plunkett strides through the hip-high grass of Dunsany, a 650-hectare (1,600-acre) estate in the middle of Ireland, trailed by an invisible swarm of midges and his four jack russell terriers: Tiny, Lumpy, Chow and Beavis & Butt-Head.

The cattle and sheep are long gone, so too are the lawns and many of the crops. In their place is a riot of shrubs, flowers and trees, along with insects and creatures that call this fledgling wilderness their home.

It is probably Ireland’s most ambitious attempt at rewilding on private land, an attempt to recreate a vanished landscape in a swath of County Meath, 20 miles north-west of Dublin.

According to the UN, the world needs to rewild and restore an area the size of China to meet commitments on nature and the climate – but not everyone applauds Ireland’s pioneering effort. “You’d be surprised when you live in a castle how many times people think you’re an idiot,” says Plunkett, the 21st baron of Dunsany.


Royal family urged to lead rewilding efforts and transform estates

The 38-year-old, who was once a steak-eating bodybuilding death metal fan with no interest in land, is now vegan and on an environmental mission.

He still loves death metal, and sports a ponytail and (fake) leather jacket, but he decided seven years ago to turn over 300 hectares of his estate to nature – no livestock, planting, sowing or weeding.

Some people considered it disgraceful neglect of an estate associated with agricultural innovation, he said. “They just thought I was a complete waster. Decadent, a fool. One farmer said I should be ashamed of myself for destroying the farm.”

Plunkett says vindication has come in multiple forms. Before, the estate had just three types of grass, now it has 23. “I didn’t do it, the birds did.” Trees regenerated and multiplied – oak, ash, beech, Scots pine and black poplar. “I see a lot of saplings growing that I haven’t planted.”

Lush, diverse vegetation attracted butterflies and other insects – “it’s like a buffet for them” – which drew more birds, including rarely seen woodpeckers, barn owls, red kites and sparrowhawks.

“I heard the call of a corncrake. I had to Google it to know what it was.” There have also been sightings of snipe and stoats and an unconfirmed report of red squirrels.

Botanists from Trinity College Dublin have started visiting to study the transformation. Last year Dunsany became the first Irish member of the European Rewilding Network, an advocacy group for wildernesses across Europe. In one striking success, wildcats have returned to Dutch forests after centuries of absence.

Ireland has a poor environmental record, despite its green image. In the 1980s it had more than 500 rivers and lakes with pristine water, now there are just 20, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. About 250,000 hectares of wetlands have been lost in the past two decades. Pollution from farming is widely blamed.

Lush, diverse vegetation has attracted butterflies and other insects.

 Photograph: Patrick Bolger

The state has an ambitious tree-planting scheme but critics say too many of the new forests are sitka spruce, which carpet soil with acidic needles and smother wildlife.

“We’re a fantastic country for remembering our history and culture but absolutely terrible at looking after our environment,” says Plunkett.

The Plunketts are one of Ireland’s most storied families. Installed at Dunsany since 1402, their fortunes rose and fell over the centuries.

Oliver Plunkett, a Catholic archbishop, was executed in England in 1681 on suspicion of a “popish plot”; he was canonised in 1975. Horace Plunkett championed rural development and farming innovations in the early 20th century. Other Plunketts were leading figures in politics and the arts.


How maverick rewilders are trying to turn back the tide of extinction

Randal became the 21st baron after his father, Edward, died in 2011. Educated in the US, England and the Netherlands, he wanted to make films, not manage a farm and high-maintenance castle. “I’ve never been a country bumpkin. I saw it as a burden, a life of servitude.”

Uneasy about the climate crisis, at first Plunkett tried converting the estate to organic farming. When concern about the planet turned to alarm, he became vegan and decided to let a chunk of the estate revert to nature.

He also resolved to block poachers and horse-mounted hunters: “I decided to go to war.”

Plunkett patrolled the estate’s forests and meadows, confronted interlopers, filmed them, summoned police and threatened legal action. “I’ve been threatened to my face and on social media with being beaten up, having my tyres slashed, you name it.”

He is bracing for the resumption of hunting season: “Come September, all hell breaks loose.”

Plunkett runs Dunsany on income from the remaining farm land, which is mostly tillage, and from film-making.

His first full-length indie feature, The Green Sea, which he wrote and directed, was released last month. A dark mystery filmed at Dunsany, it tells the story of an American writer who moves to a remote Irish setting and is haunted by characters from her novel. The title came from the landscape around the castle. “It’s a sea of green.”

Plunkett, who recently had a baby daughter with his fiancee, allows small groups to visit the estate but does not want big crowds. “Paths, signs, a cafe? No.”

He intends to continue making films – the next is a horror film – and to look after the estate in hope his daughter will eventually take over.

In keeping with family tradition, the vegan baron will not purge inherited furniture – not even the tiger-skin rug with head – but adds his own touches. “I might be the first generation here to bring in Ikea,” he says.

INDIA

Huge surge in cyclone events on Western coast in recent years
By: FE Online |
August 07, 2021 11:15 AM

Significantly, the government also said that the occurrence of cyclones on the Eastern coast of the country has remained the same as before.



Singh in his reply also said that there has been a significant rise in the global average temperature which is expected to cause more such disastrous weather events.

The central government has told the Parliament that the frequency of extremely damaging tropical cyclones has increased in the Arabian Sea region in the last few years. The government statement comes in the wake of the coastal states like Maharashtra, Kerala, Gujarat and Karnataka facing multiple tropical cyclones this year including Tauktae cyclone that took a heavy toll on lives and property. Significantly, the government also said that the occurrence of cyclones on the Eastern coast of the country has remained the same as before, the Indian Express reported.

Minister of Science and Technology Jitendar Singh was speaking in the Parliament replying to various questions asked by different MPs. Singh in another significant statement said that there has been a surge in extreme weather events in recent decades in different parts of the country. Singh said that an analysis of the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal regions over a period of 1891–2020 revealed that the Arabian Sea or the Western coast of the country is experiencing more tropical cyclones than before.

In his reply to the question asked by MPs Subrat Pathak (BJP) and Chandra Sekhar Sahu (BJD) about the number of deaths in recent tropical cyclones in the country, the minister said that the highest death toll was registered in the Tautkae cyclone early this year with a total of 118 deaths registered. The second-highest number of casualties were reported in the Amphan cyclone in the year 2020 with 98 deaths. He further revealed that the number of deaths recorded in Cycline Titli(2018) and Cyclone Nilam(2012) was 78 and 75 respectively.

Quoting from the report of the Indian Meteorological Department’s (IMD) analysis over the last 50 years (1970 2019), Singh said that the frequency of extreme weather events including extremely damaging tropical cyclones has increased. The information was revealed by the Minister in reply to the question raised by BJP MP Ranjanben Dhananjay Bhatt. Bhatt wanted to know if the rising temperature was fuelling more such weather events. Singh in his reply also said that there has been a significant rise in the global average temperature which is expected to cause more such disastrous weather events.