NEWS

Who were the winners of this year’s Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, the photo contest that funds conservation projects through laughter?

Answer: Click on the link below to see the winners—and laugh at the photos and captions. 

Read More: Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards Gallery of Winners and Finalists → 

Washington State boasts 22 million acres of forestland. The Department of Natural Resources manages about 3 million acres of that forestland, and of those, 545,000 acres of trees are now dead or dying. That's an area equivalent to more than 500,000 football fields.

PHOTO © U.S. FOREST SERVICE

A plan created under the previous administration involved hiring hunters to kill barred owls, which are outcompeting protected spotted owls. Some Republican members of Congress joined animal rights activists to stop the hunt. Now, some timber companies have aligned with environmentalists who are in favor of killing the barred owls.

"Durable, renewable and biodegradable, wood is an ideal material for everything from furniture to cutting boards. And as we grapple with the aftermath of synthetic materials, such as forever chemicals and microplastics, the humble material growing in our literal backyards is suddenly looking pretty appealing again. But how do you know it wasn’t clearcut from a rainforest?"

After a year of work, the U.S. Forest Service will go back to the drawing board to update the Northwest Forest Plan, which designates where logging can occur on 25 million acres of forests in Oregon, Washington, and northwest California.

PHOTO © Cecilio Ricardo