Animal Magnetism

Green Turtle Mila Zinkova (CC Licensed)

It's Wildlife Wednesday at Missing Links. Today, animals find their way home, find a new home, and more.

• Starving squirrels are swarming the suburbs, and perishing plastered to pavement. Why? One mystery leads to another: where have all the acorns gone?
• A new study suggests that animals such as sea turtles -- that find their way home across vast distances -- may be able to identify a specific, unique magnetic field signature of the place where they were born.
• This is depressing: traces of antidepressants in water make fish less able to survive. We're really dreading the point in the future when we read a study about the negative affect of pharmaceutical pollution on, say, puppies.
• The Galapagos are thought of as a wonderland of biodiversity, but there's an area that is home to even more species of land and sea animals: a group of Antarctic islands.
• The much-discussed Colony Collapse Disorder is also affecting European bees, but lawmakers hope to fend off further problems with bee recovery zones.