Researchers at UBC, the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions and University of Bern projected the impact that different global temperature increases and ranges of fishing activity would have on biomass, or the amount of fish by weight in a given area, from 1950 to 2100. Their simulations suggest that climate change has reduced fish stocks in 103 of 226 marine regions studied, including Canada, from their historical levels. These stocks will struggle to rebuild their numbers under projected global warming levels in the 21^st century.

“More conservation-oriented fisheries management is essential to rebuild over-exploited fish stocks under climate change. However, that alone is not enough,” says lead author Dr. William Cheung, professor in the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF). “Climate mitigation is important for our fish stock rebuilding plans to be effective.”

The research team, including co- author Dr. Colette Wabnitz of Stanford Centre for Ocean Solutions, used computer models to find out the climate change levels at which over-exploited fish stocks cannot rebuild. Currently, the world is on track to exceed 1.5 degrees of warming relative to preindustrial levels and approach two degrees in the next few decades, says Dr. Cheung.

The study projected that, on average, when fisheries management focuses on the highest sustainable catch per year, the additional climate impacts on fish at 1.8 degrees Celsius warming would see fish stocks unable to rebuild themselves.

If people around the world fished only three quarters of the annual highest sustainable catch, fish stocks would be unable to rebuild at a higher degree of warming, 4.5 degrees.

“Tropical ecoregions in Asia, the Pacific, South America and Africa are experiencing declining fish populations as species both move further north to cooler waters and are also unable to recover due to fishing demands,” said Dr. Cheung. “These regions are the ones that feel the effects of global warming first and our study shows that even a slight increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius could have a catastrophic effect on tropical nations that are dependent on fisheries for food and nutrition security, revenue, and employment.”

In a worst-case scenario, where nothing is done to mitigate global warming, including meeting internationally agreed targets, and where overfishing beyond sustainable targets occurs, fish stocks globally would drop to 36 per cent of current levels, the study projects.

“To rebuild fish stocks, climate change must be fully considered,” said co-author Dr. Juliano Palacios-Abrantes, IOF postdoctoral fellow. “We live in a globalized world, where situations are interconnected. We are seeing this most significantly in tropical regions, but also in the Arctic, where many exploited species are slow to mature, or Ireland, Canada and the USA, with high fishing mortality rates. These climate effects, even when we looked at conservation-focused scenarios, are making it too difficult for fish stocks to bounce back.”

Dr. Cheung says that due to climate change, the world is unlikely to return to historical levels of fish stocks. “We are at a turning point. What we need is a coordinated global effort to develop practical and equitable marine conservation measures to support effective biomass rebuilding under climate change,” he added. “These need to recognize the ways that marine biodiversity contributes to livelihood and economies, particularly in tropical marine ecoregions, as well as requiring more stringent limits on fishing activities to achieve greater biomass rebuilding potential.”

Antimicrobial resistance has become one of the greatest threats to public health globally. It occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines, making it difficult to treat infections. Because of this, there is a pressing need for the development of new antimicrobial drugs to combat infections.

A new study by scientists from the University of Portsmouth and Naresuan and Pibulsongkram Rajabhat Universities in Thailand explored whether hydroquinine, which is found in the bark of some trees, could inhibit any bacterial strains. Hydroquinine is already known to be an effective agent against malaria in humans, but until now there has been little investigation into its drug-resistant properties.

The findings, published in the Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease journal, suggest the antimicrobial properties of the organic compound make it a potential candidate for future clinical investigation.

Dr Robert Baldock from the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Portsmouth, said: “Using bacterial killing experiments, we found that hydroquinine was able to kill several microorganisms including the common multidrug-resistant pathogen pseudomonas aeruginosa.

“Characteristically, we also discovered that one of the main mechanisms used by these bacteria to escape killing activity of the drug was upregulated with treatment — indicating a robust response from the bacteria.

“By studying this compound further, our hope is that it may in future offer another line of treatment in combatting bacterial infections.”

Drug-resistant bacteria occur in more than 2.8 million infections and are responsible for 35,000 deaths per year. Common antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” cause diseases including sepsis, urinary tract infections, and pneumonia. Statistics show bloodstream infections with the bacteria — P. aeruginosa are associated with high mortality rates of between 30 and 50%.

The study recommends further investigation into the antimicrobial resistance properties and side effects of hydroquinine.

Dr Jirapas Jongjitwimol from the Department of Medical Technology at Naresuan University added: “Our future research aims to uncover the molecular target of hydroquinine. This would help our understanding of how the compound works against pathogenic bacteria and how it could potentially be used in a clinical setting.”

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State air quality planning agencies in the U.S. Great Lakes region are now using models custom-designed by NASA to monitor ground-level ozone pollution, informing their decisions on how to best meet federal air quality standards to protect public health.

Assessing how the unique weather along Lake Michigan’s shoreline affects ground-level ozone is no easy task – the complex lake and land breezes across the Great Lakes area result in high levels of this type of air pollution and make it difficult to monitor. But it’s vital to understanding how this pollution circulates in the region. With NASA Earth observations, states can better understand how to account for the complex variations in wind patterns and pressure differences along the shores of Lake Michigan.

Ozone pollution at the surface is dangerous for human health and a greenhouse gas that can contribute to climate change – but the increase in temperatures driven by climate change can also cause more frequent high-ozone days for local communities. Unhealthy amounts of ground-level ozone pollution can aggravate lung diseases such as asthma, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis, and increase the frequency of asthma attacks – especially in children and the elderly. That’s why states are required to meet federal air quality standards.

In addition to wind and weather, NASA provides other Earth observations that affect the complex environment around the Great Lakes – such as lake surface temperature and vegetation data. So while the unique weather of the Lake Michigan shoreline can create pockets of high levels of ground-level ozone, NASA Earth observations can help decision makers understand how the unique weather of the Great Lakes region impacts levels of this greenhouse gas in their communities.

More about this project can be found in the NASA Earth Applied Sciences Program story, Tracking Ozone Pollution in the Great Lakes Region.

The study was published Aug. 25 in the open-access journal Communications Earth & Environment.

“The record-breaking heat events of recent summers will become much more common in places like North America and Europe,” said lead author Lucas Vargas Zeppetello, who did the research as a doctoral student at the UW and is now a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard. “For many places close to the equator, by 2100 more than half the year will be a challenge to work outside, even if we begin to curb emissions.”

“Our study shows a broad range of possible scenarios for 2100,” he added. “This shows that the emissions choices we make now still matter for creating a habitable future.”

The study looks at a combination of air temperature and humidity known as the “heat index” that measures impact on the human body. A “dangerous” heat index is defined by the National Weather Service as 103 F (39.4 C). An “extremely dangerous” heat index is 124 F (51 C), deemed unsafe to humans for any amount of time.

“These standards were first created for people working indoors in places like boiler rooms — they were not thought of as conditions that would happen in outdoor, ambient environments. But we are seeing them now,” Vargas Zeppetello said.

The study finds that even if countries manage to meet the Paris Agreement goal of keeping warming to 2 C, crossing the “dangerous” threshold will be three to 10 times more common by 2100 in the U.S., Western Europe, China and Japan. In that same scenario, dangerous days could double by 2100 in the tropics, covering half the year.

In a worst-case scenario in which emissions remain unchecked until 2100, “extremely dangerous” conditions, in which humans should not be outdoors for any amount of time, could become common in countries closer to the equator — notably in India and sub-Saharan Africa.

“It’s extremely frightening to think what would happen if 30 to 40 days a year were exceeding the extremely dangerous threshold,” Vargas Zeppetello said. “These are frightening scenarios that we still have the capacity to prevent. This study shows you the abyss, but it also shows you that we have some agency to prevent these scenarios from happening.”

The study uses a probability-based method to calculate the range of future conditions. Instead of using the four future emissions pathways included in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, the authors use a statistical approach that combines historical data with population projections, economic growth and carbon intensity — the amount of carbon emitted for each dollar of economic activity — to predict the likely range of future CO2 concentrations.

The statistical approach “gives plausible ranges for carbon emissions and future temperature and has been estimated statistically from and validated against historical data,” said co-author Adrian Raftery, a UW professor of statistics and of sociology with an adjunct appointment in atmospheric sciences.

The authors translated the higher carbon dioxide levels into a range of global temperature increases, then looked at how that would affect global monthly weather patterns.

“The number of days with dangerous levels of heat in the mid-latitudes — including the southeastern and central U.S. — will more than double by 2050,” said co-author David Battisti, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the UW. “Even for the very low-end estimates of carbon emissions and climate response, by 2100 much of the tropics will experience ‘dangerous’ levels of heat stress for nearly half the year.”

The results underline the need to both reduce future greenhouse gas emissions and to protect populations, especially outdoor workers, against dangerous heat. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the James S. McDonnell Foundation and the Tamaki Foundation.

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Here’s a trick question. Can #1 plastics — otherwise known as PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastics — go in the recycling bin?

Bet you thought the answer was yes. That’s only half right. It’s a trick question because the answer’s complicated. Most curbside recycling programs accept #1 plastics for recycling, but only certain forms of it. Bottles that hold various products—shampoo, salad dressing, water, and soda — are almost always accepted. Other types of #1 plastic containers — made by a method called thermoforming — are not accepted or used in the recycling stream.

That may be about to change.

What Is Thermoforming?

Thermoforming is a method of creating packaging by stretching a heated sheet of plastic over a mold to make a desired shape. Clamshell containers — which have a hinged side similar to clams — are one common type of thermoformed packaging. These containers are used to package salad greens, berries, cherry tomatoes, bakery items, egg cartons, and more. They cannot be recycled with PET bottles because the two types of plastic, although both categorized as #1 plastic, are chemically different and melt at different temperatures.

As far as plastic packaging goes, thermoformed packaging isn’t all bad. It:

• Is lightweight.
• Can protect food from going to waste (food waste is a major climate change culprit). It’s also used for packaging blisters, medical packaging, and many other types of packaging.
• Is recyclable.
• Can be made with recycled PET (rPET) as well as a variety of other polymers.

If we could recover more thermoform packaging and add it to the recycling stream, it would represent a positive step toward reducing waste and the need for drilling more oil to support our packaging needs.

There’s a growing demand for recycled PET, especially in the textile industry, which uses it to make polyester. If we can introduce efficient recycling technology, those thermoformed #1 plastic clamshells do have value.

Current Stats on Recycling Plastic PET

Even though it is highly recyclable, the recycling rates for PET plastic packaging are disappointing. Lack of access to recycling systems and low participation among consumers and businesses contribute to poor recycling rates.

As of 2020:

• PET plastic bottles have a recycling rate of about 27%, even though most curbside recyclers accept those items.
• Only 54% of Americans have access to recycle thermoformed PET plastics such as egg cartons and fruit containers.
• Only 9% of thermoformed PET plastics are recycled.

That means that way too much recoverable PET plastic is taking up space in our landfills or incinerated. At the same time, more oil is needed to make virgin plastics used in packaging.

Challenges of Recycling PET Thermoform Packaging

There are challenges to recycling PET thermoform packaging, which is why it often goes to waste. These are some of the problems:

• In contrast to PET plastic bottles, there is no deposit on food packaging, so it’s solely up to the consumer to recycle.
• Adhesives used for labels don’t separate from containers and gum up recycling machinery.
• Paper labels mix in with the PET plastic.
• Thermoformed plastics have less viscosity and are more brittle, making these plastics unsuitable for bottle production. So it’s essential to separate thermoformed PET from other PET containers when recycling.
• Not all materials recovery facilities have sorting equipment that can separate thermoformed packaging from other plastics.
• Consumer confusion about whether thermoformed plastics can go in curbside bins.

None of this means we can’t do better. In fact, there is an array of stakeholders working to improve the circularity of PET packaging.

Working Towards Closed-Loop Recycling of PET Thermoform Packaging

A few years ago, Driscoll’s, the berry company, recognized the lost opportunities of thermoform-to-thermoform recycling. In collaboration with packaging suppliers, a materials recovery facility (MRF), and other industry brands, Driscoll’s became part of The Alliance for PET Thermoform Recycling to remove barriers to thermoform recycling.

In 2021, Driscoll’s and their suppliers achieved a 9% rate of rPET thermoform packaging in their clamshell packaging. Before then, their suppliers used rPET from bottles, but not from thermoform packaging. (Overall, Driscoll’s clamshells use about 80% rPET — including 40% pre-consumer content, 30% rPET from bottles, and 21% virgin plastic.)

The success of this type of material-specific collaboration may serve as a model for other challenging materials in the recycling stream.

Solutions

Another collaboration comes from The Recycling Partnership. In June 2022, it launched its PET Recycling Coalition, which is working to improve the circularity of PET recycling. Its purpose is to create “scalable solutions to packaging and system challenges” and accelerate “the shift to a circular economy that uses fewer finite resources.”

As stated on its website, the Recycling Partnership’s plans include:

• Increasing PET capture rates by upgrading the efficiency of the recycling system
• Optimizing the flow of recycled PET by technology and infrastructure updates at sortation facilities and PET reclaimers
• Bolstering PET recycling through expanded access and effective messaging in local recycling programs

How Consumers Can Support PET Circularity

The success of PET circularity initiatives will come largely from industry and infrastructure. But you can play a role, too.

Send a message that you prefer sustainable alternatives. Buy products made with recycled #1 plastics or biodegradable packaging. When you are shopping, read the package to see if it’s made from recycled content. If brands put in the effort and expense to source rPET, they’ll let you know. Look for the term “post-consumer content” and a percentage.

Call your recycling company and see which #1 plastics they accept. It’s tempting to toss everything with a #1 on it in the bin. If the company doesn’t accept it, though, that’s called wish-cycling and can do more harm than good.

Do your bit by sorting plastics at home and ensuring they are clean and dry when placed in your recycling bin. Be careful not to put thermoformed plastics in the bin if your recycling system does not accept them. But there may be a store or other location where you can drop off these plastics for recycling. Ask your local recycler and also search the Earth911 database for a drop-off location near you. Nothing happens in our recycling system until you take the first step.

Support extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation at state and local levels. EPR programs can include deposit and incentive programs that make it profitable to collect recyclables. Take the time to ask your local waste management office to add comprehensive recycling for all plastics, not just #1 plastic.

A group of researchers at the Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research, led by Thomas Frölicher, has now investigated whether marine heatwaves co-occur in combination with extreme events in other potential marine ecosystem stressors. In addition to heat, potential stressors also include high acidity levels in the ocean. “For the first time, we have quantified the frequency of compound events in which marine heatwaves happen together with extreme acidity,” says Friedrich Burger, postdoctoral researcher and first author of the study just published in the journal Nature Communications. Extreme events of high ocean acidity are occurrences where the proton concentration in seawater is higher than normal.

Compound events especially frequent in the subtropical oceans

The main finding of the study, which is based on monthly observations from the surface open ocean from 1982 to 2019, is that marine heatwaves and extreme ocean acidity events occur relatively often together. This means that the negative impacts of past marine heatwaves were potentially exacerbated by extreme acidic conditions. “We can show,” says ocean modeler Friedrich Burger, “that these compound events are most common in the subtropical oceans, but comparably rare in the high latitudes and tropical Pacific.”

The co-occurrence of marine heatwaves and ocean acidity extremes in regions such as the subtropical oceans is caused by an increase in acidity at higher temperatures. However, if the

temperature increase causes also other effects, such as less mixing of relatively more acidic subsurface water with surface water, a heatwave can also reduce acidity and thus decrease the frequency of compound events. This happens in the Southern Ocean or the tropical Pacific. “To determine the relative frequency of combined extreme events, it is crucial to understand the effects of heatwaves on the circulation, biology, and chemistry of the respective ocean region” says Jens Terhaar, co-author of the study.

Compound events in the ocean are increasing strongly

As a result of climate change and continuing CO2 emissions, extreme events such as marine heatwaves and ocean acidity extremes will continue to increase in frequency, and so will compound marine heatwave and ocean acidity extreme events. Earth system model simulations conducted by the Bern researchers show that the number of days in which marine heatwaves and high acidity events co-occur increases 22-fold at a global warming of 2 °C compared to pre-industrial conditions. “This large projected increase may have severe impacts on marine ecosystems,” said Thomas Frölicher, co-author.

A team led by Frölicher had already shown the impact of marine heatwaves in a 2018 Nature study. The conclusion was that ocean heatwaves can irreversibly damage ecosystems and may pose a threat to fisheries. Although there is evidence that marine organisms can be further harmed by the concurrence of warm and acidic seawater conditions, still relatively little is known about the biological effects of co-occurrences of marine heatwaves and ocean acidity extremes.

This study was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.

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The finding comes from the study of hillsides in a far north region of Russia, where the researchers also found a significant and rapid increase of collapsed hillsides. The collapses feature landslides that gradually expose more of the permafrost for thawing — and more carbon for release.

Global climate models don’t account for the once-frozen carbon set free by these collapsing hillsides. The researchers say that needs to change.

The findings were published July 15 in The Cryosphere, a journal of the European Geosciences Union. They are the first based on the use of satellite imagery to estimate carbon release from slumping Arctic hillsides.

“Permafrost landscapes are expected to change profoundly over the next decades,” said Simon Zwieback, a University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute assistant professor and one of the research paper’s authors. “Among the many consequences of this is the release of greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide, which can exacerbate climate change.”

Similar thaw slumps are also widespread in Russia’s Yamal Peninsula in Siberia, in northwestern Canada and in Canada’s Arctic archipelago.

Doctoral student Philipp Bernhard of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich and Irena Hajnsek of the Zürich institute and the German Aerospace Center also worked on the research. Zwieback and Hajnsek were Bernhard’s Ph.D. advisors.

The work focused on 10,500 square miles in the northern Taymyr Peninsula of Russia’s Siberia, an area bounded by the Byrranga Mountains to the south and the Kara Sea to the north.

The researchers compared satellite images from two time periods — 2010-2017 and 2018-2021 — to note elevation changes and movement of debris and of the slump’s exposed leading edge. They then incorporated a soil organic carbon map and made assumptions about the ground’s ice content and its carbon stores to calculate the amount of organic carbon released.

An ice sheet covered the entire study region around 130,000 years ago, with subsequent periods of ice retreat and advance covering a smaller and smaller area.The most recent retreat occurred at the end of the last ice age and was largely completed 12,000 years ago.

Satellite images revealed the spread of thaw slumps in areas containing remnants of that long-ago ice sheet.

A retreating sheet usually leaves behind substantial quantities of ice covered by clay, sand, gravel and rocks, particularly along the ice sheet’s edges. The retreating sheet that once covered the present-day Taymyr region created several of these ice-rich zones, referred to as ice-marginal zones. Two of those zones are in the researchers’ study area.

Images of the study area showed an increase in slumps from 82 in the 2010-2017 study period to 1,404 in the 2018-2021 period, with nearly all of that increase occurring during the region’s extremely warm 2020.

The images also showed that the annual volume of affected material increased by about 43 times from the first to second periods.

“The extreme warmth was compounded by there being a lot of ground ice close to the surface,” Zwieback said. “This is due to the long-term legacy of past ice ages but also to the fact that so much of this old ice is still there because summers are usually cool and there are no fires.

“And the ice is not well protected by insulating organic layers because there’s not much life in the harsh climate,” he said.

Alaska has thaw slumps but not nearly as many as those in Canada and Russia. Alaska also has other hillslide deformations caused by thawing permafrost, and these may contribute to climate change, Zwieback said.

Little research on such a large geographic scale as that in the Taymyr Peninsula exists about thaw slumps. The work of Zwieback, Bernhard and Hajnsek shows that the carbon release from thawing Arctic hillsides must be accounted for in assessing the Arctic’s carbon cycle. Researchers also need to quantify how much of it is turned into greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide.

“The big challenge is to quantify and predict where, when and how much carbon dioxide is released,” Zwieback said.

The greatest uncertainty in forecasting global sea level rise is how Antarctica’s ice loss will accelerate as the climate warms. Two studies published Aug. 10 and led by researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California reveal unexpected new data about how the Antarctic Ice Sheet has been losing mass in recent decades.

One study, published in the journal Nature, maps how iceberg calving – the breaking off of ice from a glacier front – has changed the Antarctic coastline over the last 25 years. The researchers found that the edge of the ice sheet has been shedding icebergs faster than the ice can be replaced. This surprise finding doubles previous estimates of ice loss from Antarctic’s floating ice shelves since 1997, from 6 trillion to 12 trillion metric tons. Ice loss from calving has weakened the ice shelves and allowed Antarctic glaciers to flow more rapidly to the ocean, accelerating the rate of global sea level rise.

The other study, published in Earth System Science Data, shows in unprecedented detail how the thinning of Antarctic ice as ocean water melts it has spread from the continent’s outward edges into its interior, almost doubling in the western parts of the ice sheet over the past decade. Combined, the complementary reports give the most complete view yet of how the frozen continent is changing.

Iceberg Calving

“Antarctica is crumbling at its edges,” says JPL scientist Chad Greene, lead author of the calving study. “And when ice shelves dwindle and weaken, the continent’s massive glaciers tend to speed up and increase the rate of global sea level rise.”

Most Antarctic glaciers flow to the ocean, where they end in floating ice shelves up to 2 miles (3 kilometers) thick and 500 miles (800 kilometers) across. Ice shelves act like buttresses to glaciers, keeping the ice from simply sliding into the ocean. When ice shelves are stable, they have a natural cycle of calving and replenishment that keeps their size fairly constant over the long term.

But in recent decades, the warming ocean has been destabilizing Antarctica’s ice shelves by melting them from below, making them thinner and weaker. Satellite altimeters measure the thinning process by recording the changing height of the ice, but until this study, there hasn’t been a comprehensive assessment of how climate change might be affecting calving around the continent.

That’s partly because satellite imagery has been challenging to interpret. “For example,” said Greene, “you can imagine looking at a satellite image and trying to figure out the difference between a white iceberg, white ice shelf, white sea ice, and even a white cloud. That’s always been a difficult task. But we now have enough data from multiple satellite sensors to see a clear picture of how Antarctica’s coastline has evolved in recent years.”

For the new study, Greene and his co-authors synthesized satellite imagery of the continent in visible, thermal infrared (heat), and radar wavelengths since 1997. Combining these measurements with an understanding of ice flow gained from an ongoing NASA glacier-mapping project, they charted the edges of ice shelves around 30,000 linear miles (50,000 kilometers) of Antarctic coastline.

Losses from calving have outpaced natural ice-shelf growth so greatly that the researchers think it’s unlikely Antarctica can grow back to its pre-2000 extent by the end of this century. In fact, the findings suggest that greater losses can be expected: Antarctica’s largest ice shelves all appear to be headed for major calving events in the next 10 to 20 years.

Mapping 36 Years of Ice Loss

In the complementary study, JPL scientists have combined almost 3 billion data points from seven spaceborne altimetry instruments to produce the longest continuous data set on the changing height of the ice sheet – an indicator of ice loss – from as early as 1985. They used radar and laser measurements of ice elevation, accurate to within centimeters, to produce the highest-resolution monthly maps of change ever made of ice loss.

The unparalleled detail in the new record reveals how long-term trends and annual weather patterns affect the ice. It even shows the rise and fall of the ice sheet as subglacial lakes regularly fill and empty miles below the surface. “Subtle changes like these, in combination with improved understanding of long-term trends from this data set, will help researchers understand the processes that influence ice loss, leading to improved future estimates of sea level rise,” said JPL’s Johan Nilsson, lead author of the study.

Synthesizing and analyzing the massive archives of measurements into a single, high-resolution data set took years of work and thousands of hours of computing time on NASA’s servers. Nilsson says it was all worth it: “Condensing the data into something more widely useful may bring us closer to the big breakthroughs we need to better understand our planet and to help prepare us for the future impacts of climate change.”

News Media Contacts

Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874

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In a paper published today in BioScience, “Rewilding the American West,” co-lead author William Ripple and 19 other authors suggest using portions of federal lands in 11 states to establish a network based on potential habitat for the gray wolf — an apex predator able to trigger powerful, widespread ecological effects.

In those states the authors identified areas, each at least 5,000 square kilometers, of contiguous, federally managed lands containing prime wolf habitat. The states in the proposed Western Rewilding Network, which would cover nearly 500,000 square kilometers, are Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

“It’s an ambitious idea, but the American West is going through an unprecedented period of converging crises including extended drought and water scarcity, extreme heat waves, massive fires and loss of biodiversity,” said Ripple, distinguished professor of ecology in the OSU College of Forestry.

Gray wolves were hunted to near extinction in the West but were reintroduced to parts of the northern Rocky Mountains and the Southwest starting in the 1990s through measures made possible by the Endangered Species Act.

“Still, the gray wolf’s current range in those 11 states is only about 14% of its historical range,” said co-lead author Christopher Wolf, a postdoctoral scholar in the College of Forestry. “They probably once numbered in the tens of thousands, but today there might only be 3,500 wolves across the entire West.”

Beaver populations, once robust across the West, declined roughly 90% after settler colonialism and are now nonexistent in many streams, meaning ecosystem services are going unprovided, the authors say.

By felling trees and shrubs and constructing dams, beavers enrich fish habitat, increase water and sediment retention, maintain water flows during drought, improve water quality, increase carbon

sequestration and generally improve habitat for riparian plant and animal species.

“Beaver restoration is a cost-effective way to repair degraded riparian areas,” said co-author Robert Beschta, professor emeritus in the OSU College of Forestry. “Riparian areas occupy less than 2% of the land in the West but provide habitat for up to 70% of wildlife species.”

Similarly, wolf restoration offers significant ecological benefits by helping to naturally control native ungulates such as elk, according to the authors. They say wolves facilitate regrowth of vegetation species such as aspen, which supports diverse plant and animal communities and is declining in the West.

The paper includes a catalogue of 92 threatened and endangered plant and animal species that have at least 10% of their ranges within the proposed Western Rewilding Network; for each species, threats from human activity were analyzed.

The authors determined the most common threat was livestock grazing, which they say can cause stream and wetland degradation, affect fire regimes and make it harder for woody species, especially willow, to regenerate.

Nationally, about 2% of meat production results from federal grazing permits, the paper notes.

“We suggest the removal of grazing on federal allotments from approximately 285,000 square kilometers within the rewilding network, representing 29% of the total 985,000 square kilometers of federal lands in the 11 western states that are annually grazed,” Beschta said. “That means we need an economically and socially just federal compensation program for those who give up their grazing permits. Rewilding will be most effective when participation concerns for all stakeholders are considered, including Indigenous people and their governments.”

In addition to Beschta, Wolf and Ripple, authors from Oregon State include J. Boone Kauffman, Beverly Law and Michael Paul Nelson. Daniel Ashe, former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and now the president of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, is also a co-author.

The paper also included authors from the University of Washington, the University of Colorado, the Ohio State University, Virginia Tech, Michigan Technological University, the University of Victoria, the Turner Endangered Species Fund, the National Parks and Conservation Association, RESOLVE, the Florida Institute for Conservation Science, Public Lands Media and Wild Heritage.