Justin Nobel

December 04, 2008 — Sometime around 1970, a crate, or perhaps it was a cage, shipped from somewhere in South America, landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Inside were monk parakeets, bright green birds native to the savannahs and scrubland of

November 26, 2008 — An English turkey breeder named Jesse Throssel brought birds that were so meaty they had trouble mating naturally to the Portland International Livestock Show around 1930. Throssel’s turkeys, called broad breasted bronzes, were a hit. In the 1950

November 19, 2008 — Ellicottville got buried on Monday; by nightfall the western New York town was under two and a half feet of snow. Glenwood, just twenty miles away, had two inches. The culprit was a lake effect snow storm. Unlike typical winter storms, which can sprawl

November 14, 2008 — President-elect Obama’s phone has been ringing off the hook. Democrat leaders call to congratulate, world leaders want to talk policy and special interest groups hope that Obama will pay better attention to their cause than the Bush administratio

November 05, 2008 — Chicagoans silently streamed tears and New Yorkers thronged the streets as Barack Obama delivered his presidential acceptance speech last night but the fervor was also felt in Kogelo, a village in western Kenya and the ancestral homeland of President-e

October 29, 2008 — Texas is infested with wild hogs, as are Louisiana and Florida, and now an ever-expanding population is sweeping south to north, wreaking havoc in states like Oregon, Wisconsin and Missouri. Wild hogs are smart, athletic and elusive, which makes them a

October 22, 2008 — Of the 289 whooping cranes brought to central Florida since 1993 under the guidance of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service only 31 have survived and just nine chicks have hatched in the wild. After meetings last month in which models were presented that

October 16, 2008 — More and more people are going into the wild. But unlike the book by Jon Krakauer, or Sean Penn’s movie, where Christopher McCandless torches his money in the desert, these wilderness seekers are spending big bucks. Wildlife watchers generated $1

October 09, 2008 — In 1731 a Dutch commission described the shipworms that literally ate the dikes of Holland as a “horrible plague.” Almost two-hundred years later shipworms chewed their way through the piers and wharves of San Francisco. But these despised,

October 01, 2008 — The bright, white object ranchers discovered in a field in southeastern Colorado last July fell from the sky and may be the only one of its kind. It is neither a meteorite nor an extraterrestrial, although it has attracted attention on par with