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Way Downstream In Maryland, green taxpayers earmarked some $1.2 million for endangered wildlife. Some 46,000 tax forms rolled into the Comptroller’s Office with voluntary donations for the Chesapeake Bay and
In West Virginia, the state this week denied a mining company called Goals Coal from expanding operations near an elementary school. The turn-down was a huge victory for activists who have rallied for months against the coal company. Ed Wiley, the grandfather of a Marsh Fork pupil, is even walking 455 miles to Washington as you read this to call attention to pollution and dangers from the mining … In Virginia, the diminished blue crab population is finally prompting regulators to consider expanding a ban on harvesting females. At its meeting August 29, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission likely will consider banning the taking of egg-bearing females during two weeks in July … Our Creature Feature is a tall tale of a most unusual Texas roundup — of 21 penguins and one octopus. You read that right: 21 penguins were rescued on a blistering hot south Texas highway after a truck carrying the creatures from the Indianapolis Zoo to Galveston overturned. |
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Endangered Species Fund, which is divided between the Chesapeake Bay Trust, a non-profit grant-making organization, and the Wildlife and Heritage Division of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The average donation per return was $26, bringing in $80,000 more than last year. Since 1990, taxpayers have donated more than $8.5 million, restoring countless acres of wetlands, planting thousands of trees and protecting numerous species of threatened plants and animals.
In Annapolis, another landmark tree falls. Car doors opening against the red oak at 187 Duke of Gloucester Street dug a cavity into the trunk that makes the tree vulnerable to winds. Over three years, arborists monitored the rotting wood with electromagnetic radar waves before the city’s decision to fell it. Its wood will be contributed to the artisans of Chesapeake Woodturners …
Two trucks — the other full of snakes and alligators — were headed south when one of them had the accident. Authorities said that four penguins perished, but the rest of them and the octopus survived. A state trooper told Reuters, “We’ve worked several wrecks involving cows, horses, pigs, even fish. But this is the first time where the live animals were penguins.”