Taking a shower
To help grey-headed bats cope with extreme heat in the Australian summer earlier this year, parks workers in Melbourne installed 32 specially designed sprinklers to mimic light rain showers near the city’s largest colony. Customised tweaks reduced hazards such as damage from cockatoos. The bats soon learned to fly through the water.
Ill wind
Offshore windfarms in the North Sea reduce the local population of over-wintering red-throated divers by 94 per cent, according to Scientific Reports. Ten kilometres from the turbines, there is still a 54 per cent reduction in numbers. Following windfarm construction, the diver population within the overall study area fell by 29 per cent.