Mice may drive Lyme disease more than deer

Hunting season on mice?

By Amanda Watford, Rhode Island Current

For more than three decades, researchers have been tracking ticks, mice, oak trees and other wildlife in a New York forest to better understand what makes Lyme disease more likely to spread.

Their latest findings challenge some long-held assumptions — including the idea that deer are a major driver of Lyme disease risk.

Researchers at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, a nonprofit environmental research group, found that white-footed mice, not white-tailed deer, are closely linked to the number of young blacklegged ticks, the life stage most likely to infect people with Lyme disease.

A year with a large mouse population was followed by about a 40% increase in nymphal ticks the following year. But more mice don’t necessarily mean a higher percentage of ticks carrying Lyme bacteria. Researchers initially expected the two to rise together because white-footed mice are especially good at transmitting the bacteria to ticks.

The researchers found that other animals, including skunks, squirrels and opossums, also feed larval ticks. Because those animals are less efficient at transmitting the bacteria, the mix of hosts can affect how many ticks become infected.

In other words, mouse populations can help predict how many ticks there will be, but not necessarily how many will carry Lyme bacteria.

The researchers also found that large crops of acorns can set off a chain reaction: More acorns mean more food for mice, which can mean more ticks two years later.

Trump EPA Takes ‘Yet Another Sledgehammer’ to Clean Water Act

“This proposal declares open season on the nation’s waterways” 

Jessica Corbett for Common Dreams

Donald Trump’s administration sparked fresh fury on Friday when it proposed a supplemental rule to further gut Clean Water Act protections for streams and wetlands in the wake of a “catastrophic” US Supreme Court ruling three years ago.

The supplemental proposal from the Department of the Army and Environmental Protection Agency builds on their widely criticized proposed rule from November for defining “waters of the United States” (WOTUS)—both of which go further than the high court did with its 2023 decision in Sackett v. EPA.

While the American Petroleum Institute and some Republicans in Congress joined Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Adam Telle and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in promoting the new proposal, environmental and public health advocates sounded the alarm.

Starting Saturday, don't get mistaken for Bambi's mom

Stand out during Hunting Season with Orange Safety Clothing

During hunting season it’s safety first, fashion second. The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) reminds the public that it’s time to wear your fluorescent orange clothing and embrace high visibility fall fits. Bright and bold, orange clothing helps keep you safe while outdoors. 

Starting this weekend with archery deer season, anyone in state management areas and undeveloped state parks during hunting season must wear at least 200 square inches (a hat or vest) of orange from Saturday, Sept. 12 through Sunday, Feb. 28. Archery hunters are exempt from this requirement during archery deer season. For more details, visit www.dem.ri.gov/orange.

For a complete breakdown of hunting season dates and regulations, please review the 2026-27 Hunting and Trapping Regulation Guide available online at www.eregulations.com/rhodeisland/hunting and at local sales agents.

 For more information on DEM programs and initiatives, visit www.dem.ri.gov. Follow DEM on Facebook, Twitter (@RhodeIslandDEM), or Instagram (@rhodeisland.dem) for timely updates. Follow DFW on Facebook and Instagram (@ri.fishandwildlife) to stay up to date on news, events and volunteer opportunities. You can also subscribe to DFW’s monthly newsletter here.

And Make sure you abide by these rules, too.

For the humor-impaired, this is satire.

URI biologist to lead $4 million NSF grant to advance wetland restoration in Rhode Island and Louisiana

Funding supports Ying Zhang’s project to advance wetland resilience across U.S. coastal systems

Kristen Curry 

Students in Ying Zhang’s lab conduct field
sampling at Succotash Marsh in South Kingstown
this summer, part of the groundwork
assessing biomarkers in marsh
monitoring. (URI Photo / Y. Zhang)

Ying Zhang, professor of cell and molecular biology at the University of Rhode Island, recently received a $4 million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to co-lead a collaboration with Louisiana State University to improve coastal wetland management in both states.

A computational biologist, Zhang, of South Kingstown, brings to the project a background that includes computer science and expertise in microbial diversity and molecular ecology. 

Now she’ll bring that interdisciplinary background to lead this new project at URI, with Hui Zhou in URI’s Department of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, Erin Peck in URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography, and colleagues at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and Roger Williams University. 

Zhang’s diverse training gives her a unique perspective on solving problems across traditional disciplinary boundaries, she said.

The Ecological-Economic Collaboratory for Advancing coastal wetland REstoration and REsilience (EcoCARE) project addresses the need for expanded research on coastal wetland restoration in both regions. A team of scientists, practitioners, policy experts, and stakeholders from Rhode Island and Louisiana will develop innovative methods in AI-enhanced modeling, wetland valuation, molecular biomonitoring, and restoration financing.

Although Zhang has led previous NSF grant-funded initiatives, including a CAREER award and an EPSCoR fellowship, she is now leading the multi-institutional EPSCoR project for the first time under the Focused Collaborations Program. She has been meeting with the team since last fall and is looking forward to the work getting underway.

How volunteers and researchers at URI work together to better understand our environment

Become a citizen scientist

By Jessica Minker, Rhode Island Current

Across Rhode Island, volunteers are helping scientists answer big environmental questions, from tracking water quality in local ponds and streams to uncovering the secret lives of bobcats. These “community scientists” collect or analyze data that supports scientific research. 

They include Veronica Berounsky and Elise Torello, whose time and commitment helped researchers at the University of Rhode Island better understand our state’s unique environments.

Get involved

Learn more about these citizen science projects at these links

• About Watershed Watch
• Volunteer With Watershed Watch
• Explore Watershed Watch’s 2026 data dashboard
• Explore Narrow River’s water quality data dashboard since 1992
• About the Rhode Island Bobcat Project
• Bobcat Reporting Form

Do right by your kitty

Indoor moves prove easier than expected for most cats and owners

By University of Adelaide

Edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Andrew Zinin

Moving a pet cat from an outdoor lifestyle to living indoors is easier than many owners expect, according to new research that could help improve feline welfare, protect wildlife and ease concerns about keeping cats contained.

Australian and New Zealand researchers surveyed 87 cat owners, revealing that most who transitioned their pets to indoor living reported the change was ultimately worthwhile, with the benefits to both cats and owners outweighing the challenges.

The study, published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science, found that while owners initially worried about their cat's happiness and behavior, more than two-thirds said the process was easier than expected.

Lead author Dr. Julia Henning, from Adelaide University's School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, said the findings challenge the perception that cats cannot adapt to an indoor lifestyle.

"Many people worry that keeping a cat indoors will be stressful for their cat, but our findings suggest that the transition was often easier than expected," Henning said.

Why are some animals considered ‘pests’?

It comes down to culture and convenience

Elan Abrell, Wesleyan University

Turkey pecking at his reflection in the back of my car.
Photo by Will Collette

After wild turkeys attacked an 83-year-old woman in May 2026, sending her to the emergency room for stitches, police warned residents of Alameda, California, to avoid interacting with the animals. 

Wild turkeys can be particularly aggressive during mating season. They can also damage property: digging up gardens, staining decks with their droppings and occasionally attacking cars and windows when they mistake their own reflections for rival turkeys.

Turkeys may be a nuisance to Alameda’s human residents, but they have also been highly valued by multiple cultures throughout the history of North America. Given these threats to human safety and property, is it fair to call this quintessentially American bird a pest?

As an anthropologist who studies human-animal interactions, I have found that the idea of a “pest” is a flexible concept that changes over time and across cultures. Just as one person’s weed can be another’s wildflower, the category of pest is a subjective one that depends on social, aesthetic and economic values within a particular culture.

If Turkeys decorate American dinner tables and are pardoned by presidents, are they still pests?

Labeling an animal a pest typically justifies the use of harmful or deadly methods to remove undesirable species from human spaces. But these methods can lead to costs that far outweigh their benefits, causing unnecessary suffering for not only the so-called pests, but also for humans, other animals and entire ecosystems.

Understanding why people label certain animals pests can help society respond to potential conflicts while minimizing harm to both humans and animals.

Seaweeds are not plants – and six other surprising facts about aquatic flora

Crucial to life on earth

Alexander Bowles, University of Oxford

Hidden beneath the water’s surface is a botanical world that is among nature’s most innovative and ecologically important.

As I highlighted in a recent paper, an extraordinary range of adaptations have evolved in aquatic plants for life beneath the water’s surface. Some flower underwater, others capture animals in ingenious traps. Here are seven facts that show how these remarkable organisms challenge our assumptions about what plants are and how they survive.

Many people think of plants as nice-looking greens. Essential for clean air, yes, but simple organisms. A step change in research is shaking up the way scientists think about plants: they are far more complex and more like us than you might imagine. This blossoming field of science is too delightful to do it justice in one or two stories. This article is part of a series, Plant Curious, exploring scientific studies that challenge the way you view plantlife.

1. Plants can’t stop returning to water

When we think of plants, we often picture life on land: forests, grasslands and meadows. Yet throughout their evolutionary history, plants have repeatedly returned to the water, where they first evolved. Around 500 million years ago, plants moved from water onto land. Since then, many have moved back. Scientists estimate that the aquatic lifestyle has evolved independently more than 100 times across different plant groups.

Water lilies float their leaves on the surface, duckweeds drift freely and seagrasses live entirely submerged in the ocean. Some of these groups made their return over 100 million years ago. The repeated evolution of aquatic plants is one of nature’s most striking examples of convergent evolution.

Why Trump’s move to gut the Endangered Species Act likely won’t hold up in court

Trump seems to hate all animals

Patrick Parenteau, Vermont Law & Graduate School

Piping plovers lay their eggs on the ground. They
became an endangered species as development encroached
on their habitat and made it harder for their chicks
to survive. Under the Same Moon/Flickr, CC BY

The Trump administration has decided that destroying the habitat of endangered species is not harmful.

Think about that.

Habitat loss is the No. 1 reason species become endangered. Red-cockaded woodpeckers need mature long-leaf pine forests to reproduce. Endangered western monarch butterflies depend on pesticide-free milkweed for food. Pacific salmon must have clean, cool rivers for spawning. If coastal water becomes too polluted, manatees will starve.

Yet, on July 14, 2026, the U.S. Department of Interior formally rescinded the so-called harm rule under the Endangered Species Act, removing language that has protected species from losing millions of acres of habitat.

As a law professor who has followed these issues for over five decades and litigated early cases under the Endangered Species Act, I believe this effort to gut the nation’s premier wildlife conservation law is unjustified and unlawful.

I see several reasons the rule change is not likely to survive the legal challenges that have already begun.

Would Hunters Take a Lyme Disease Vaccine?

We Asked

By Bram Sable-Smith

(Kyle Pyatt for KFF Health News)

It’s tick season, possibly the worst in a decade.

More and more Americans are being exposed to these parasites as climate change expands the range where they can survive. 

That means more people are also exposed to the bevy of health conditions they can cause, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever, the alpha-gal-triggered red meat allergy, and, most common of all, Lyme disease.

For the latter, there may be some additional protection on the horizon. Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Valneva announced this spring they plan to seek regulatory approval for a vaccine to protect against Lyme disease. A previous vaccine for Lyme became available in the late 1990s but was pulled only three years later due to lawsuits, public fear of side effects, and a lack of interest.

It’s unclear whether this latest stab at a Lyme disease vaccine will get a warmer reception if it’s approved, especially in the postcovid era of vaccine skepticism.

For a sense of how it might go over with rural populations at high risk of Lyme, KFF Health News spoke with a group of hunters.

Few people spend more time in the woods exposed to ticks.

At the same time, as a collective, hunters skew conservative, rural, and male, according to a survey from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. And these are identities associated with increased hesitancy about or resistance to vaccines, according to Ashley Kirzinger, associate director for Public Opinion and Survey Research at KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

At the same time, few people spend more time in the woods exposed to ticks and the possibility of Lyme disease.

Understanding the enemy

Wetlands a Vital Link in Ecosystem Chain for Hundreds of Species

Appreciating these vital lands

By Bonnie Phillips / ecoRI News staff

Amanda Andrews cradled the tiny eastern red-backed salamander in her hands.

“It’s warmer now,” she said. “It’s moving more.”

Bottom of Form

She had found the salamander in the damp, chilly soil under a rock in the North Woods at the University of Rhode Island, 225 acres of forest, wetlands, and streams adjacent to the college campus on Flagg Road.

It was a rainy, cool, late April evening, and the salamander was sluggish in the cold at first. After spending some time in the 18-year-old West Greenwich resident’s warm hand, it became more active, scooting around her palm.

Andrews said it wasn’t her first time holding one of the creatures.

“These are like the ones in my garden,” she said. “I catch them all the time in my yard.” Her mother Sandy, standing nearby, laughed and added, “We live for this.”

Leave the babies alone!

Respect Wildlife - Don't Touch!

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) asks the public to give baby wildlife some space, especially fawns – the tiny spotted deer that are often mistakenly thought to be “abandoned” when they’re right where Mom left them. 

As tempting as it may be to “rescue” a lone fawn, touching or moving it is putting its survival at risk. 

“In nature, it’s normal for a fawn to be hidden in grass or brush for the first week after birth, as it can’t yet follow its mother,” said Dylan Ferreira, a wildlife biologist in DEM's Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW). “Sometimes well-intentioned people wrongly assume that a fawn is abandoned and take it home and try to rescue it, but the mother is usually nearby and returns to feed it. If you see a fawn alone, please leave it alone – it does not need help and should not be handled.”

Marine life finds new home at base of wind turbines

How sea critters and wind turbines co-exist

URI Ph.D. student Emmanuel Oyewole
conducting field work at the South Fork
Wind farm turbines.
(Photos courtesy Emmanuel Oyewole)

As lobsters migrate to colder waters due to climate change, Jonah crabs are becoming one of the most important species for fisheries in Southern New England.

“As the biomass of the American lobster declines due to climate-related changes and shifting ocean conditions, many fishermen have adapted by targeting other valuable species, and the Jonah crab has become a major alternative,” said Emmanuel Oyewole, a first-year Ph.D. student in the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography. 

“The Jonah crab used to be considered a bycatch species and thrown back because lobster was so lucrative. As lobsters became less abundant, people started to realize that the Jonah crab is a viable and delicious alternative.”

Oyewole is conducting a study that is partly funded by a grant from The Nature Conservancy into how offshore wind farm structures are impacting the growth and habitats of Jonah crabs.

Oyewole prepares Jonah crab muscle samples for analysis in URI’s Ocean Ecogeochemistry Laboratory.

“Ecologically, Jonah crabs also play an important role in the marine food web,” said Oyewole, who is from Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Nigeria, a town in the southwestern part of the country. “They are both predators and prey, helping to maintain balance within benthic ecosystems. Because they are closely connected to seafloor habitats, they can help us understand how offshore wind farm structures may influence local biodiversity, habitat use, and the productivity of fisheries.”

When turbine foundations are installed on the seafloor, their hard surfaces become desirable habitats for marine organisms to attach, grow, and live, just as they do on natural rock or reefs. As algae, barnacles, mussels, and other small marine life, settle on these structures, these smaller organisms attract larger species such as crabs and fish that come to feed, hide, or seek shelter.

“The turbines can create a kind of ‘mini ecosystem.’ They provide food and habitat, which can draw marine life into the area and potentially change how species use the surrounding environment,” said Oyewole. “The question is whether they are increasing the overall amount of marine life in the ocean by creating new production or simply concentrating animals that were already living in the surrounding areas.”

The data Oyewole collects and analyzes will benefit the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by local commercial fishermen.

How to feed your garden birds without spreading disease

Keep your backyard birds healthy

Richard Gregory, UCL

The outbreak of a mysterious and deadly disease in finches in British gardens in 2005 set alarms bells ringing for conservationists. A decade later, the extent of that disease in greenfinches and chaffinches was reported. And now, bird scientists are beginning to understand how feeding birds in our gardens might be linked to their health and survival.

Major new guidance on bird feeding released by the UK’s largest nature conservation charity, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), asks that we feed birds seasonally and safely.

Feeding birds in gardens is helpful, especially during winter when birds might be facing food shortages. But summer feeding should be paused because this is a time when natural food sources such as caterpillars, bugs and flies are much more abundant. In summer, the benefits of feeding the birds are less obvious. Limiting summer bird feeding also limits the spread of disease, which happens more prominently when birds gather in numbers to share food and water.

Scientists now know that the disease detected in finches in the 2000s is trichomonosis, caused by a microscopic parasite called Trichomonas gallinae. It typically infects the bird’s throat and has been known for many years to affect pigeons and doves, along with birds of prey. Birds can act as carriers or succumb to the disease. Quite how this parasite spilled over into finches is uncertain, but probably happened through the sharing of food or water.

Studies show that this parasite can persist in moist bird feed for up to five days and in water up to 30 hours, especially in milder conditions. July to October is the peak time for disease outbreaks in finches.

The disease causes lesions in the bird’s throat that interfere with its ability to swallow. This causes the bird to regurgitate food and water, and eventually die. It can spread between birds when they feed one another during courtship, when feeding chicks or through regurgitation at food or water sources in gardens. Poorly birds appear fluffed up and lethargic. Some may have messy or wet feathers around their beak and often shake their heads as they try to swallow. It’s a sad sight.

Trichomonsis has had devastating consequences in bird populations across the UK and into mainland Europe. Greenfinches and chaffinches have been hit hardest. Greenfinch numbers are down by 65% and chaffinch down by 36% since 1995. Bullfinches also catch this disease and die, and a range of other birds may contract the disease – some of which are already declining in numbers.

Save the Bay volunteers count nearly 600 seals along Rhode Island coastline

Seal population drops

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

Photo by Will Collette

Volunteers for Save the Bay counted 22% fewer seals when conducting their annual census of the marine mammal along Rhode Island’s coastline in mid-March. A third of those counted were found on or around Block Island.

The nonprofit environmental advocacy group held its point-in-time count on Wednesday, March 18, when the high temperature reached into the mid-30s off Block Island and winds were between 5 to 10 mph. 

Counts are typically held in March because that’s when the peak number of harbor seals are seen in the Narragansett Bay before they migrate further north, Save the Bay spokesperson Juan Espinoza said. 

“They kind of thrive in spring,” Espinoza said in a phone interview.

Leave Ninigret, Trustom Pond et al. alone, dammit!

Wildlife Refuges on Trump’s Hit List 

By Gina-Marie Cheeseman

Trustom Pond. Photo by Will Collette

The Trump administration has wildlife refuges in its sights. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service head Brian Nesvik launched a review of the National Wildlife Refuge System and the National Fish Hatchery System. The review will look for “refuges or hatcheries established for a purpose that no longer aligns with the mission. It will also look for operational funding and the workforce.

The NWRS has 573 refuges on more than 96 million acres of land and five Marine National Monuments on 760 million acres of submerged lands and waters. Half of FWS employees work for the NWRS. The NFSH stocks over 122 million fish per year. President Theodore Roosevelt created the Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge off Florida’s coast as the first unit of the NWRS.” Congress created the NFHS in 1872 to help the production of fish for food. 

Wildlife refuges are places set aside to protect wildlife and their habitats. The NWRS and the NFHS protect 700 species of birds, 220 species of mammals, 250 species of reptiles and amphibians, and more than 1,000 species of fish. Wildlife refuges welcome more than 67 million visitors per year, generate over $3 billion in economic activity, and support more than 41,000 jobs.

More than a thousand sightings reported to new URI bobcat watch project

High interest in URI’s statewide bobcat project

Kristen Curry

Photo / Peter Green

Once eradicated from Rhode Island, bobcats have returned over the past few decades and are now being spotted more frequently across the state. That fact has been verified in just a matter of months through the Rhode Island Bobcat Project, led by University of Rhode Island researchers and local partners, including Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management and the Wildlife Clinic of Rhode Island.

URI’s researchers just passed the 1,000-sighting mark this winter, a good sign for the cat species and public interest in the animal. These reports will help URI Assistant Professor of Quantitative Ecology Kathleen Carroll and Ph.D. student Christopher Hickling better understand the animal’s movements, habitat use, and population dynamics.

Each cat receives a formal scientific designation, as well as a memorable ‘bird’ name, like Cooper here, the fourth bobcat in the state to be tracked with a GPS collar as part of the Rhode Island Bobcat Project. (URI Photo / Quest Lab)

Carroll and Hickling say that bobcats’ increasing presence in Rhode Island is positive, while the cat makes for an intriguing and accessible subject and has piqued public interest.

The information that URI’s team has gathered from public reports, alongside camera traps and GPS radiocollars, will help them identify where bobcats rest, hunt, and travel. Such valuable data is critical in developing recommendations for land management practices that balance human use with wildlife conservation.

“Bobcats in Rhode Island appear very tolerant of people compared to bobcats in other states,” Carroll said. “This makes sense since Rhode Island is so densely populated. In other states, cats can be more wary; here, they are walking across driveways at night.”

“We are happy people are excited about seeing bobcats and interested in their importance for biodiversity,” Carroll added. “The reports we’ve received will enable us to better support their populations here in the future.”

Carroll and Hickling in URI’s Natural Resources Science department share some updates on what they have observed since their bobcat survey launched in September:

DEM announces spring activities schedule

Great education programs for young and old

Starts early in March

Hatch, bloom, and explore this spring with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW)! Connect with the outdoors and learn some new skills this season; from fishing days to hunter education classes to guided walks, there’s something for everyone. Join the fun with DFW’s Aquatic Resource Education, Hunter Education, Wildlife Outreach and volunteer staff to learn, explore, and enjoy! Most programs are free and family friendly. Below is a list of programs and registration information.   

Aquatic Resource Education Program 

Youth Fly Fishing Day

Fly fishing isn’t just for adults – this introductory class is designed for youth ages 10-15. Volunteers from Trout Unlimited, Rhody Fly Rodders, and United Fly Tyers of Rhode Island will teach students about the equipment needed to fly fish, how to tie flies, how to cast a fly rod, fishing techniques, and more. Lunch is provided. A parent or guardian must be present for the duration of the class. 

Registration is required; registration opens March 9. 

• Date: Saturday, April 18
• Time: 9 AM – 3 PM
• Location: Addieville East Farm, Mapleville, RI
• Registration: For more information and to register, email sean.martin@dem.ri.gov

Introduction to Freshwater Fly Fishing

Learn the art of fly fishing! Volunteers from Trout Unlimited, Rhody Fly Rodders, and United Fly Tyers of Rhode Island will teach participants what equipment is needed, how to tie flies and knots, how to cast and so much more. Equipment and lunch are provided. Families with children 10 and older are welcome. Space is limited; registration is required and opens April 13. 

• Date: Saturday, May 30
• Time: 9 AM – 3 PM
• Location: Addieville East Farm, Mapleville, RI
• Registration: Email kimberly.sullivan@dem.ri.gov.
• Cost: $30 per person

Microbes under the snow: The hidden (and vulnerable) world that fuels spring

There's life under all that snow

By Anna Gray

New research by URI soil microbiologist Patrick Sorensen reveals the vulnerable process taking place as snowpacks shrink.

When snow blankets the landscape, it may seem like life slows down. But beneath the surface, an entire world of activity is unfolding. “Unlike many plants or some animals, which tend to go dormant or are much less active during winter, soil microbes are actually very active under winter snowpacks,” says Patrick Sorensen, a soil microbiologist and assistant professor of soil ecology and biogeochemistry in the University of Rhode Island’s Department of Natural Resources Science.

All winter, soil microbes decompose organic matter, releasing nutrients that are critical for plants. By spring, these nutrients are perfectly timed to fuel new growth. Warming winters and reduced snow cover can disrupt this timing, allowing nutrients to wash into streams, escape into the air, or leave plants short of what they need.