Floods frighten humans, help animals
 | | PHOTOGRAPHS BY KEITH LADZINSKI | | The chocolate-colored waters rushed down mountainsides and frightened and shocked people around Yellowstone National Park. But could the historic floods actually restore the iconic and culturally important landscape?
“As humans, we often think that floods are disastrous, and fires are disastrous, but they're really only disastrous because we put human lives and property in harm's way,” Scott Bosse, director of American River’s Northern Rockies office, tells Nat Geo. “They’re extremely healthy for rivers, and especially for a river like the Yellowstone.”
Stoneflies will benefit, as will the American Dippers who feast on them. So will osprey, eagles, and river otters, says Pat Byorth, who directs Trout Unlimited’s Montana Water Project. “This is a complete remodel of the aquatic ecosystem and it's a beautiful thing.”
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| Life goes on: A flock of American White Pelicans (pictured above), one of the largest birds in North America, floats along the Yellowstone River, searching for fish. Pictured at top, the torrent carried away mature trees and devoured whole sections of roads.
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN WENDLE | | The race is on: Can authorities save West Africa’s endangered lions? The rare branch of lions, more closely related to India’s Asiatic big cats than to those in Africa’s southern savannah, fetch high prices from poachers. Nat Geo, accompanying conservationists, gets close to them in this absorbing account: “We hear paws crunching through dry leaves close by. We’ve been here all night, staking out the bait, but are suddenly very awake.” (Above, in Senegal, a radio-collared female named Florence lies alongside a female pride member.)
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH VIA ULLSTEIN BILD/GETTY IMAGES | | The hunt for history: Until the Nazis shut it down, a German institute had housed the world’s first known LGBTQ+ archive. For decades, people have searched for the remnants of the collection, much of it confiscated by Hitler’s thugs in 1933 (pictured above). The trail, Nat Geo’s Nina Strochlic reports, led to a dumpster in Vancouver decades later.
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 | ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREW FAZEKAS
| | Hitched to a parallelogram: With mostly moonless nights this week look for the brightest star in the Summer Triangle. Vega is the placeholder for Lyra, a small constellation that looks like an equilateral triangle hitched to a parallelogram (pictured above). Just below Vega, those with keen eyesight or binoculars will notice a pair of stars known as Epsilon Lyrae. These celestial twins are themselves double, forming a spectacular quadruple star system known as the “Double-Double.” Lyra is also home to the Ring Nebula, a pale, doughnut-shaped circle that is a shell of gas thrown off by a dying star. Astronomers think that our sun will undergo the same death throes. No need to worry; that won’t be for another three billion to five billion years! —Andrew Fazekas
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 | | Spotted hyenas are wonderful teachers about the diversity of life. They are just one of many species that can open our minds about how queer biology and behavior naturally occurs throughout the animal kingdom. | | | Christine Wilkinson
| Conservation biologist, Nat Geo Explorer
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| The quest to save winter: Swiss glaciologist (and amateur violinist) Felix Keller has a plan to stop Morteratsch Glacier’s retreat. Like photographer and Nat Geo Explorer Ciril Jazbec, he grew up in the Alps when snow was plentiful. Keller, who wants to recycle glacial meltwater, has tested a prototype of one of the “snow cables” that, hanging over the glacier, would shower it with 30 feet of snow annually (pictured above, part of an out-of-season post on our Instagram page that has more than 100,000 likes). “People say this is completely nuts,” he admits to Nat Geo about his effort. “Maybe they’re right.”
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| This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, Heather Kim, Jen Tse, and Monica Williams. Have an idea or feedback? We'd love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. Missed yesterday’s newsletter? It’s here! | |
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