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Sometimes I wonder if the Biblical plagues of ancient Egypt have lingered in one form or another. Blooms of toxic algae, which occasionally turn water a blood-red color, are on the increase. Gnats and lice have been supplanted by deer ticks, which I’d argue are even worse, and there is no shortage of hail in season. Frog outbreaks may not have occurred since Pharaoh’s time, but poisonous cane toads imported to Australia are now running amok there, decimating all manner of native animals. And currently, swarms of locusts are causing great hardship in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya.
Here in the Northeast, we are blessedly free of the kind of swarm-feeding grasshoppers that continue to cause suffering in Africa. Nonetheless, locusts have become such a problem that in 2014 the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) declared the locust a Regulated Invasive Species, meaning it “cannot be knowingly introduced into a free-living state.” In other words, locusts are only legal in an environment from which they can’t escape. » Continue Reading.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has announced that invasive zebra mussels were discovered in late January 2020 in Delta Lake, which supplies water to DEC’s Rome Fish Hatchery. Subsequent water testing at the hatchery confirmed the presence of zebra mussel veligers (larvae) in an outdoor raceway.
Every once in a while, as I’m tramping through the winter woods on my snowshoes, it occurs to me that I am walking on top of frogs.
New York State bear hunters took 1,505 black bears during the 2019 hunting seasons, the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation is reporting.
On a walk one winter afternoon, I spotted two white objects darting across a snow-covered field. White on white, they were difficult to identify at first. It was a short-tailed weasel chasing a snowshoe hare!
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has announced that the statewide Trees for Tribs “Buffer in a Bag” application period is now open.
I have always admired nature’s mutineers: animals and plants that thwart the recognized system and do their own thing. As a child I was the sole member of my own duck-billed platypus club, endeared to this creature with the bird-like bill, beaver-style tail, and shocking ability to lay eggs.
February is generally the coldest month of the year; the heart of winter; a time that finds many of us patiently waiting, if not longing, for spring. Perhaps that’s why the preferred gift for a cold, wintry Valentine’s Day is a fresh bouquet of colorful, fragrant, cut flowers.
North American 
The Hadley Business Association has announced an open air art exhibition, set to take place at the Maple in April Festival, on April 25-26, 2020.
Whenever I spy a pileated woodpecker traversing the sky, I pause to watch its weird undulating flight. The jerky rise-and-drop movement of this large woodpecker is endearingly gawky – like a mini pterodactyl visiting from the Cretaceous period. This time of year, the bird’s bold crimson crest flashes in stark contrast to the mostly-muted colors of winter.
Some people show their love of the Adirondacks through marathon outings. Saratoga artist Takeyce Walter will demonstrate her love for the region with an artistic marathon.
Whenever the subject of 
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