Jessica McKenzie

Audubon: This Bar-tailed Godwit Decoy Delivers Folk Art with a Contemporary Feel

By the time artist David Personius was growing up in the 1950s, carved wooden bird decoys were largely a thing of the past—collector’s items for folk art aficionados like his dad. European settlers, inspired by Native Americans creating avian replicas out of natural materials to attract live birds, picked up the practice of carving fake fowl. Those decoys became a vital tool for commercial hunting in the 1800s, a trade that slashed migratory bird populations and helped drive the Passenger Pigeon to extinction before the practice was banned. Eventually, the invention of plastic decoys for sport hunting in the 20th century made the handmade versions obsolete. But folk artists like Personius have kept the tradition alive.

Personius carved his first few decoys for personal use when he went duck hunting with his dad. He turned the hobby into a career after graduating from college in the 1980s, and spent a decade selling meticulously crafted shorebirds at art fairs and waterfowl shows across the country. “I feel fortunate that I was at it long enough and had enough experience and talent to create my own little style,” he says. Unfortunately, it was also a hard way to pay the bills—so Personius set his carving tools aside to work in publishing, then in horticulture. He finally returned to the craft 14 years ago, now living in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Bulletin: Murder, mayhem, and minerals: The price of the renewable energy revolution

It’s not as if the human and environmental toll of mining is a particularly well-kept secret. But the full extent of the damage from mining for the rare earth elements and other metals that go into electronic devices, electric vehicles, solar panels, and countless additional components of modern life can be hard to wrap one’s mind around—unless the mountain of evidence is laid out end-to-end, as in Vince Beiser’s new book Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future. The book begins with an overview of what Beiser calls “critical metals,” where they come from, and the history of their discovery and extraction, before moving on to the current state of mining and processing critical metals today.

Demand for these substances has soared in the Information Age and is projected to keep climbing. (One factoid that stood out: “Just one Tesla Model S can contain as much lithium as ten thousand mobile phones.”) The environmental damage caused by the production of critical metals is continuing to mount—and could grow in unexpected ways if, for example, companies begin mining the sea floor.

Still, humans need these substances, especially for the renewable energy technologies needed to stem climate change. There is no Cinderella-shoe solution. There are always trade-offs. As Beiser writes, “When it comes to mining, the choice is never between bad and good but only bad and less bad.”

Beiser’s question is, in the end, how can the world mine better? How can the damage—to people, to places—be minimized? He also examines the various ways to limit mining by increasing recycling (itself a dirty and dangerous business that could stand to be improved) and reducing demand for metals in the first place.

Bulletin: Americans elect a climate change denier (again)

It was Election Day in America. Four people, including two poll workers, died in flash floods in Missouri. The National Weather Service recorded 3.75 inches of rainfall in St. Louis the day before, nearly three times as much as the previous daily record for November 4. “We can’t necessarily attribute one instance, one event, to the effects of climate change, but we are having these extreme rainfall events happening more frequently, and they will continue to increase in frequency,” National Weather Service meteorologist Melissa Delia told the local public radio station.

It was Election Day in America. Residents of the 25 North Carolina counties most impacted by Hurricane Helene, which was made rainier, more powerful, and more likely because of climate change, voted in higher numbers than the rest of the state after the elections board expanded voting options for those areas. Voters in Florida also adjusted to storm-related upheaval after the one-two punch of hurricanes Helene and Milton. Dozens of precincts across the state had to move polling places as a result of hurricane damage, and Gov. Ron DeSantis changed voting procedures to allow greater flexibility for worst-hit areas. Like Helene, Hurricane Milton was both more intense and rainier because of climate change. The two storms combined killed more than 260 people across Florida and the southeastern United States.

Audubon: Capturing the Elusive White-bearded Antshrike—in Thread

Artist and birdsong researcher Ana Luiza Catalano’s embroidered portrait brings a shy species—and its song—into feathery focus.

Bulletin: Meteorologist John Morales: There’s rapid intensification, there’s extreme rapid intensification—and then there’s Hurricane Milton

Fresh on the heels of Hurricane Helene, Hurricane Milton is barreling towards the Florida peninsula and is likely to make landfall near Tampa Bay metropolitan area, home to more than 3.1 million people, sometime late Wednesday or early Thursday. Tampa Mayor Jane Castor issued a stark warning to the city’s residents: “There’s never been one like this. Helene was a wake-up call. This is literally catastrophic. I can say without any dramatization whatsoever, if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you’re going to die.”

When Miami-based meteorologist John Morales wrote in the Bulletin last week that Hurricane Helene was a “harbinger” of the future, who knew that the future would come so soon?

I caught up with Morales in between his frequent on-air appearances on NBC6 to discuss what makes Hurricane Milton so remarkable, and so remarkably dangerous—particularly if it hits Tampa Bay head on. We also discussed what was going through his mind during an emotional moment on air, when he realized that Hurricane Milton had become a Category 5 storm in less than a day.