Increasing woody vegetation may boost populations of Georgia’s gamebird

Northern bobwhite quail have dropped by almost 90%. Changing landscapes may be why.

University of Georgia

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Georgia has been a destination for quail hunters for more than a century. But recent declines in its bobwhite population have researchers searching for answers to boost the popular gamebird’s numbers.

A new study from the University of Georgia suggests the birds’ survival may depend on where they choose to roost. Unfortunately, they’re not always very good at choosing ideal spots.

Northern bobwhite quail are native to the central and eastern U.S., ranging from Florida to Michigan to Texas. But they’re difficult to spot and even more difficult to keep alive.

“There’s an old-timer saying: Bobwhite quail are good at doing one thing, and that’s dying,” said Justin Hill, corresponding author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.

Georgia’s bobwhite population has dropped by almost 90% since the 1960s, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, likely because the open, shrubby landscapes they depend on have become increasingly scarce.

The researchers examined the birds’ habitat choices and found that bobwhite with a stronger preference for woody cover were more likely to survive than the birds that roosted in less protected areas.

Where bobwhites spend the night may affect how long they survive

Wildlife researchers use habitat preferences to guide decisions about which habitat types to protect or restore. But an animal’s preference for a specific habitat doesn’t always show whether that habitat improves the animal’s chances of surviving or reproducing.

Researchers followed 169 radio-tagged bobwhite to 720 nighttime roosts over two fall and winter seasons in southern Indiana. They compared where the birds chose to sleep with the habitat available around them.

The birds largely preferred grasslands, areas that had recently been burned or otherwise cleared and were growing back, and spots near dense shrubs, briars and young trees, which the researchers refer to as woody cover. The researchers found birds that roosted in areas with abundant woody cover were about twice as likely to survive as birds that chose other roost sites.

Despite its name, woody cover does not mean a forest. It can include blackberry or plum thickets, young trees and overgrown fence rows.

“It’s a patch of any woody-stem vegetation that’s really kind of thick, nasty, difficult that you wouldn’t want to walk into,” Hill said.

That unpleasantness, at least from a human perspective, is precisely what appeals to quail.

Bobwhite quail live on the ground and rely on sudden, short bursts of flight to escape danger. Dense vegetation provides refuge from predators, including hawks, foxes and other animals pursuing the birds.

Northern bobwhite: ‘Poster child’ for health of shrublands

Hill described bobwhite as a kind of “poster child” for these ecosystems because many other declining species rely on the same landscape. This type of environment also supports songbirds, rabbits, wild turkey, deer and other wildlife.

The study’s findings could help wildlife managers determine which types of habitats are most beneficial to large groups of animals and prioritize restoring those areas accordingly.

“A person standing nearly anywhere in good quail habitat should be able to face in several directions, throw a softball and reach a patch of woody cover,” Hill said.

A bobwhite is released by researchers. (Submitted video)

The research reinforces something wildlife managers have long recognized: Woody cover is an important part of good quail habitat. But it’s not just nice to have for the northern bobwhite.

It may help them survive.

Published in Oecologia, the study was co-authored by James Martin, a professor in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and director of its Gamebird and Managed Ecosystems (G.A.M.E.) Lab. Additional co-authors include Emily McCallen of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

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Journal

Oecologia

DOI

10.1007/s00442-026-05952-z

Article Title

Northern Bobwhite roost site selection influences survival during the non-breeding season

 

Iberian rabbit: species hidden by Spain and Portugal for 2 million years

Copyright Daniel Burón - wildnatfilm.com

By Jesús Maturana

Published on 18/07/2026 - EURONEWS

A CSIC team and universities in Spain, Portugal and the UK say the European rabbit is in fact two species split 2 million years ago, one now in decline.

For more than a century, scientists took it for granted that only a single species of rabbit lived on the Iberian Peninsula, at most divided into two regional variants. A study published in 'Biological Conservation' now calls that into question.

According to its authors, from the Institute for Advanced Social Studies (IESA-CSIC) and research centres in Portugal and the United Kingdom, it is in fact a case of two species with separate evolutionary histories: two lineages, a single label.

The study 'When taxonomy lags behind evolution: Consevation implications of cryptic diversity in the Iberian rabbit' (PDF (source in Spanish)), coordinated by Rafael Villafuerte and Miguel Delibes-Mateos together with researchers from the TRAMAS group, distinguishes between the Iberian rabbit ("Oryctolagus algirus") and the European rabbit ("Oryctolagus cuniculus").

The former occurs naturally in Portugal and western Spain, while the latter dominates the eastern part of the peninsula and is the source of the populations introduced in Europe, Oceania and the Americas, where it often behaves as an invasive species.

https://images.euronews.com/articles/stories/09/84/26/98/808x439_cmsv2_204c1c82-9c7b-5eea-94ef-83a2c7883421-9842698.jpg

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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320726003137?via%3Dihub#f0010 

The two animals diverged roughly two million years ago, when they became isolated in different refuges during glacial periods: one in the Ebro valley, the other in the Gulf of Cádiz. Since then, the researchers explain, they have barely interbred to any significant extent, despite looking very similar at first glance.

What sets them apart

The differences are not confined to the genome. The Iberian rabbit is smaller, with darker fur, smaller litters and earlier sexual maturity than the European species.

They also differ in their gut microbiome, the composition of their meat and the parasite communities they harbour. In Villafuerte's words, "the two species have always been there; what has changed is our knowledge of them".

https://images.euronews.com/articles/stories/09/84/26/98/808x1154_cmsv2_05aa4aa2-345d-5563-a380-b45a158da900-9842698.jpg

https://images.euronews.com/articles/stories/09/84/26/98/{{w}}x{{h}}_cmsv2_05aa4aa2-345d-5563-a380-b45a158da900-9842698.jpg

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320726003137?via%3Dihub#f0010 

The authors themselves point to precedents: something similar happened with giraffes, long grouped in a single species until genomics revealed that there were in fact four, or with African elephants, now divided into savannah and forest species.

Why does the discovery matter?

This is the aspect that most worries the researchers. While European rabbit populations remain stable or are even increasing across much of their range to the point of causing agricultural damage in some areas, the Iberian rabbit is in marked decline in Portugal and south-western Spain. Managing both as if they were the same species, they argue, has masked the severity of that fall.

The problem is not just statistical. Game restocking operations usually release European rabbits (source in Spanish), which are more abundant and prolific, into areas where only the Iberian rabbit previously lived. That can accelerate its replacement through competition and hybridisation, Delibes-Mateos warns: "We cannot go on managing as a single species two rabbits that have evolved separately for almost two million years".

The issue goes well beyond the animal itself. The rabbit is prey for up to 40 predator species, including the Iberian lynx and the Spanish imperial eagle, so its conservation status shapes that of much of Mediterranean wildlife.

Formally recognising the two species would, according to the authors, make it possible to design monitoring programmes, recovery plans and hunting regulations tailored to each lineage, instead of applying criteria devised for just one of them.

Precambrian rabbit - Wikipedia

J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) said that the discovery of a fossil rabbit in Precambrian rocks would be enough to destroy his belief in evolution

 

Bone ‘fingerprints’ unlock hidden stories of underwater caves

Griffith University

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image: 

Griffith University PhD Candidate Meg Walker examines retrived megafauna fossils from Engelbrechts cave in Mount Gambier, South Australia.

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Credit: Steve Trewavas

Bones preserved in underwater caves offer a rare and powerful window into the past – but until now, researchers have had limited tools to understand how the remains of extinct megafauna and other animals came to be found in their underwater graveyards.  

New research led by Griffith University changes that.  

“By analysing animal bones from two underwater cave systems in South Australia, we have revealed how different cave environments leave distinct preservation ‘fingerprints’ on skeletal remains,” said Meg Walker, a PhD Candidate supervised by Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution Director Professor Julien Louys.  

“Backed by radiocarbon-dated bones, we tracked how skeletons accumulated and were modified over decades and centuries in underwater caves, then compared them to those buried in dry caves. 

“Using a range of methods, from the macro to the micro, we looked at features associated with wet and dry caves. 

“Things like spatial distributions of the bones and their surfaces, down to elemental compositions and proteins trapped in ancient cells.”  

The results were clear: underwater caves often preserved bones remarkably well, maintaining their structure and surfaces in exquisite detail.  

Yet these same environments also left unique chemical and biological traces, shaped by light levels and aquatic life.  

Different types of algae and plants grew in cave waters near bright entrances, often on bone surfaces where they left unique signatures.  

But in the midnight regions of the caves, where light never reaches and no plants grow, bones stayed pristine.  

Bones left in dry caves, by contrast, did not show these signatures, and were instead eaten by land-based bacteria, and marked by plant roots in the form of long grooves. 

Ms Walker and the team, including specialist cave divers from the Cave Divers Association of Australia, collected historical animal bones from two underwater caves, Green Waterhole and Gouldens Sinkhole, near Mount Gambier, South Australia. 

Native and non-native animals included cows, kangaroos, emus, sheep, pigs, dingoes, rabbits, possums, quolls and swamp rats – some of which may date to the very first European arrival and establishment of the city in the 1840s.  

By studying these bones, the researchers hoped to better understand how the fossil remains of extinct megafauna also ended up in these underwater caves, and under what sort of environmental conditions. 

“This study has delivered the first framework for interpreting how megafauna fossils formed, survived, and changed in underwater caves,” Miss Walker said. 

“It will provide archaeologists and palaeontologists worldwide with a powerful new tool for reconstructing past environments and histories in these challenging conditions.” 

The study ‘Neotaphonomic characteristics of vertebrate site formation in underwater caves’ has been published in PLOS One.

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Journal

PLOS One

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0343896 

Rabbits running rampant: Australia overrun by invasive species

Cover image: FOCUS © FRANCE 24
Issued on: 24/06/2026

05:55 min

In much of the world, rabbits are seen as harmless, fluffy pets. But in Australia, they’re an economic and environmental disaster. Introduced for sport hunting by British settlers in the mid-19th century, rabbits faced no natural predators. As a result, their population exploded across the continent within decades. Despite mass eradication campaigns, hundreds of millions of rabbits remain today, devastating the landscape and tormenting Australian farmers. FRANCE 24’s Grégory Plesse and Quentin Théron report

BY:
Gregory Plesse
Richelle HARRISON PLESSE

Animals in the Universe

Laurel Thompson

 June 24, 2026

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Image by Arnaud Mariat.

Fatal physics

Astrophysicists analyzed light and energy into their components, and figured out how they work together to form stars, black holes, supernovas. Observation of a red shift showed them that galaxies are moving away from us faster than previously thought. If all objects started from the same point, the universe is 13.58 billion years old and will probably exist for another 19 or 20 billion years when star formation will have ceased and galaxies will have burned out. It will continue expanding indefinitely, collapse into a hot nuclear state like the one that preceded the Big Bang, or else be torn apart by the mysterious gravitational force of dark energy. Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years, so it appeared relatively early in the universe’s life, and is now halfway through its expected existence. Multi-celled animals appeared 600 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion. Homo sapiens emerged roughly 800,000 years ago. Irrespective of global warming, the Sun will get hotter and brighter as it ages. It will evaporate the oceans, degrade the atmosphere and eventually engulf Earth. The last animals will die out as early as 500 million years from now.

Fatal abundance

Unless there is an emergency like an earthquake or a flood, it is the world of images and words that dominates peoples’ attention in a fast-moving powerhouse like the North American economy. An interesting and absorbing secondary reality replaces the one around us that we see and touch and depend upon to survive. This secondary reality is made of language and is built upon models controlled by people who own property. It portrays government as the dutiful partner to investors who must be kept happy so that so that they don’t leave the country, and working people can continue to have jobs so that they earn the wherewithal to buy more things. Fast talkers monitor the abundance of man-made objects that spill out of shops and fill peoples’ vision as far as the eyes can see. They tell stories that advertise the use of products, and manicure the boxes that greet your eyes when you open up on Google. After the Civil War, abolitionists were defenceless against aggrieved white landowners who persuaded Andrew Johnson to change the outcome of the battle they had fought so hard to win. Plantation owners re-asserted their right to determine the fate of former slaves. They had the President’s ear, and since not enough programs were put in place to help freedmen and freedwomen get on their feet and start a new life, white peoples’ hokum made people forget about the reality of whips and chains until the 1970s.

People can both sense and talk at the same time, you might argue, but talking uses linguistic representations, and they belong to a different form of knowledge from sense perception. Representations belong to language, and language is a tool for promoting self and getting control over the world. Perception, on the other hand, is not about control. It just receives what exists. Listens. Savours. Perception is sensing what is there. It registers the reality of what exists and picks up on patterns in it. What exists is the universe.

The two behaviours are very different, representing and receiving, yet representations tend to take precedence when you are surrounded by talkers, and live in a place where manufacturing and selling objects are key to survival. The whole project of North America is a race to manufacture things that can be sold on the market so that you earn enough money to keep a roof over your head. Except for Mennonites and Doukabours, there is no other vision except make a buck.

And manufactured objects are attention traps. They are interesting to look at. They take attention to get working. They require attention if they do not work. They require energy to keep on functioning. They heat up the atmosphere. Their demands steal time away from sensing where you are. The yawning freezer on the other side of the horizon, and the endless kilometres you must travel before you meet a dust particle or a chunk of rock? Hidden by the abundance of things floating around in your field of vision, or else waiting to be put away in the front living room. North Americans have so much stuff, they don’t need reality anymore.

Fatalistic thinking

Capitalist formation occurred early in Europe’s history because the habit of extraction and exploitation created a strong push towards upward wealth redistribution. Persuaded by punishments like the rack, and property-owners’ voices, peasants found it hard to resist co-optation into a system of hierarchical control. Industrialization simply reinforced deeply structural and historical relations. Colonized by the British and the Normans during the 12th century, Ireland was under Catholic rule when Oliver Cromwell chopped off the head of Charles I and used his New Model Army to confiscate large amounts of Royalists’ land, much of which he gave to Protestant settlers in the form of plantations. Thousands of Catholic peasants were shipped to the Caribbean and North America as indentured servants.

Karl Marx read William Howitt’s Colonization and Christianity (1838) at the British Museum, and later on, Henry Morgan’s Ancient Society (1877) gave him a lively account of Iroquois culture in North America. Maybe nations didn’t have to go through the stage of capital formation first if they could find a way to resurrect indigenous communalism? By 1880, several colonial revolts e.g. Haiti, Algeria, Taiping, Sepu, Ireland, Africa, told him that peasant populations were capable of figuring things out on their own. In the Russian mir he found a form of communalism that was still viable.

Marx and Engels analyzed the American Civil War for the New York Tribune, but they never actually visited the United States. Despite its not having a feudal past to pave the way for capitalist development the way Europe did, North Americans would not be where the first socialist revolution would occur, in any case. Cheap land gave workers an outlet for their frustration. Slavery undermined solidarity across racial lines. White supremacy emerged victorious after the Civil War. Capital accumulation was on a fast track where work was key to wealth, and wealth was the only object of work. Indigenous people had been severely reduced in number. Given the fast turnover in products, inventors could reach a high standard of living simply by pinching pennies and working hard. After 1776, American capitalists would go to war at least 400 times in search of new markets i.e. the Mexican War.

Socialism didn’t stand a chance. Fake diamonds. Fake croissants. Fake penicillin. Anything to make a buck. No sales tax on financial asset exchanges means that stocks can be sold easily at no cost. When private equity firms purchase companies that went bankrupt there is no requirement that they take responsibility for the purchased company’s liabilities. Patent monopolies protect inventions from being copied by competitors. Lax laws hand enormous wealth to a tiny group of mostly white Europeans.

A legitimate question

So why did the universe encourage fish, elephants and whales to evolve on Earth if American settlers were going to duplicate Europe’s class system, steal resources from the Global South, and change the climate with their manufactured products? Why did it even bother to invent horses and giraffes in the first place if they were going to get asphyxiated in half a billion years when the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere gets too low for photosynthesis to occur so all the plants will die. Is the universe some kind of fiend?

This question becomes pertinent as European nations convince themselves that a sick ethno-state is worth protecting from international law, and that re-armament is necessary to thwart an attack by Putin who has the nerve to dislike seeing Russian schools punctured by Ukrainian drones. What virus infects Merz’s brain to make him so paranoid he wants to start a war with the most nuclear-armed country on the planet, that lost 27 million people fighting the Nazis during World War Two, and for whom any attacks on its soil are existential? Does he want to kill all animals prematurely?

Fatal physics, fatal abundance, and fatalistic thinking have led Northern Europeans to a place with no exit. Long before frogs and rabbits will have a chance to croak their last croak and hop their last hop, they submitted themselves to vision of racial and intellectual superiority that reduced the universe to a machine, that destroyed the climate, and made citizens subservient to fascists, Zionists and tech bros. Meanwhile, the universe just watches. It is looking for evidence of awareness of its ominous presence, but all it hears are more speeches, and more bombs. 500 million years is a long time, long enough to wake up and get control over the insidious ideology that made white people think they are the smartest folks in the room. Would the universe have liked them better if instead of words and images, they’d followed the Moon the way indigenous people do? The universe doesn’t do likes. You have to like it.

This is part one of two.