Wildlife

Stinging Invasion

Beaches on England’s picturesque Cornwall coast were forced to close as an unprecedented number of Portuguese men o’war washed ashore.

The floating colonies of tiny organisms working together have tentacles that reach up to 165 feet in length and can deliver an extremely painful sting.

The Cornwall Wildlife Trust says the foreign invaders were blown in by strong southwesterly winds. The warm-water creatures typically live far out to sea.

Monarchs in Peril

While declining monarch butterfly populations from Mexico to eastern Canada have received the most attention in recent years, scientists at Washington State University Vancouver say western populations are now at greater risk of extinction.

“In the 1980s, 10 million monarchs spent the winter in coastal California. Today there are barely 300,000,” said biologist Cheryl Schultz.

The exact causes of the decline are unknown, but Schultz fears habitat destruction and pesticide use across the West, where the monarchs breed, are the likely culprits.