Latest Wetlands News

Flood gates are dropped from a plan to protect the Jersey Shore's back bays from catastrophic storms

Dec. 20, 2024 13:56 PM EST

MANASQUAN, N.J. (AP) — The federal government has dropped huge gates at the mouths of three inlets, as well as internal waterway barriers from a plan to protect New Jersey's back bays from the type of catastrophic flooding they endured during Superstorm Sandy. Instead, the U.S....

Giant sloths and mastodons lived with humans for millennia in the Americas, new discoveries suggest

Dec. 20, 2024 10:45 AM EST

SAO PAULO (AP) — Sloths weren’t always slow-moving, furry tree-dwellers. Their prehistoric ancestors were huge — up to 4 tons (3.6 metric tons) — and when startled, they brandished immense claws. For a long time, scientists believed the first humans to arrive in the Americas...

In Florida, the Miccosukee fight to protect the Everglades in the face of climate change

Dec. 20, 2024 10:01 AM EST

EVERGLADES, Fla. (AP) — As a boy, when the water was low Talbert Cypress from the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida rummaged through the Everglades’ forests, swam in its swampy ponds and fished in its canals. But the vast wetlands near Miami have radically changed since...

Takeaways from AP's story on the Miccosukee's fight to protect the Everglades

Dec. 20, 2024 09:52 AM EST

EVERGLADES, Fla. (AP) — The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida has long fought to heal and protect the Everglades and what remains of their ancestral lands. Decades of massive engineering projects for development and agriculture severed the vast wetlands to about half its...

Takeaways from AP's story on Everglades restoration efforts

Dec. 19, 2024 18:23 PM EST

EVERGLADES, Fla. (AP) — The Everglades in South Florida were once about twice the size of New Jersey. Wildlife was abundant and water flowed freely from the Kissimmee River to Lake Okeechobee to the Florida Bay. But decades of engineering projects partitioned and drained the water, invasive...

In Florida, a race is on to save the Everglades and protect a key source of drinking water

Dec. 19, 2024 18:13 PM EST

EVERGLADES, Fla. (AP) — In a region of Florida known as the River of Grass, John Kominoski plops into hip-deep waters. Blobs of brown periphyton – a mishmash of algae, bacteria and other organisms – carpet the surface. The air is thick and sticky as Kominoski, a Florida...

To save a dying swamp, Louisiana aims to restore the Mississippi River's natural flow

Dec. 03, 2024 20:13 PM EST

GARYVILLE, La. (AP) — Louisiana has long relied on a vast levee system to rein in the Mississippi River and protect surrounding communities from flooding. But cutting off the natural flow of the river with man made barriers has been slowly killing one of the nation's largest forested wetlands. ...

Some of those Ocean Spray cranberries come from a bog in Massachusetts

Nov. 27, 2024 11:09 AM EST

MIDDLEBORO, Mass. (AP) — Weeks before Thanksgiving, some of the cranberries that will be on dinner plates Thursday were floating on the Rocky Meadow bog in southeastern Massachusetts. The cranberries have turned this pond pinkish crimson. Several workers, up to their waist in...

Louisiana's governor raises major doubts about a stalled $3 billion coastal restoration project

Nov. 21, 2024 17:44 PM EST

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry raised serious objections Thursday to a $3 billion project long hailed as key to restoring the state's eroding coastline, decrying the growing cost and predicting dire harm to a coastal culture dependent on fishing, shrimping and oyster dredging. ...

Environmental group tries to rebuild sinking coastline with recycled oysters

Oct. 02, 2024 10:55 AM EDT

Jonathan Phillips says he thinks about Louisiana’s disappearing coastline every day. As a commercial fisherman and member of the Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha tribe, he sees water levels rising in Plaquemines Parish firsthand. He grew up in Marrero but spent a lot of time as a child in...