【推荐1】Inside a fishbowl, the goldfish — a species of carp native to East Asia, bred for aesthetic delight and traditionally believed to bring good fortune — is among the easiest of pets to keep. But released into the wild, the seemingly humble goldfish, freed from glass boundaries, can grow to large proportions. They can even kill off native marine wildlife and help destroy fragile and economically valuable ecosystems.

“They can eat anything and everything,” said Christine Boston, an aquatic research biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Over the past several years, Ms. Boston and her colleagues have been tracking invasive goldfish in Hamilton Harbour, which is on the western tip of Lake Ontario (安大略湖), about 35 miles southwest of Toronto.

Their study, published last month in the Journal of Great Lakes Research, could help pinpoint goldfish populations for culling, said Ms. Boston, who is the lead author. “We found out where they are before they start spawning (产卵),” she said. “That’s a good opportunity to get rid of them.”

The fast-growing female goldfish, Ms. Boston noted, can also reproduce several times in one season. “They have the resources,” she added, “and they can take advantage of them.” Their football-shaped bodies can swell to a size that makes them too large a meal for predators (捕食者) — up to about 16 inches long. The feral goldfish are also destructive, uprooting and consuming plants that are home to native species.

Nicholas Mandrak, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Toronto Scarborough, studies in the “dramatically increase” of the wild population in the past two decades. Their spawning explosion, he said, resulted partly from people in densely-populated areas releasing pets in urban ponds. He added, environmental managers tend to forget the goldfish. “They just assume, ‘It’s been there for 150 years — there’s nothing we can do about it.’”

The problem is not unique to Canada. In Australia, a handful of unwanted pet goldfish and their offspring took over a river in the country’s southwest. And the discovery of football-size creatures in a lake in 2021 even led British officials to beg their citizens: “Please don’t release your pet goldfish into ponds and lakes!”

People wrongly believe that because goldfish are “small and cute” they won’t pose a problem when released into the wild, said Anthony Ricciardi, a professor of invasion ecology at McGill University in Montreal.

Goldfish, he added, are just a small part of a vast invasion of non-native species whose outcomes can be unpredictable, and in some cases, are worsened by climate change.

“Under human influence, beasts are moving faster farther in greater numbers, reaching parts of the planet they could never reach before,” he said. “We’re talking about the redistribution of life on Earth.”

【推荐2】During the last week of Fu Bao’s public viewing earlier this month, visitors endured waiting for 5—6 hours just to give a glance at the panda for only five minutes, as Everland Panda World restricted viewing time to manage the flood of visitors.

Born to parents Ai Bao and Le Bao in July 2020, Fu Bao is South Korea’s first naturally-born panda. In the days following her birth, Everland’s social media channels offered fans a steady diet of Fu Bao videos, pulling in more than 1.2 million subscribers and, as of February, over 500 million accumulated views. The most recent videos are now filled with warm and sincere messages from viewers.

Thanks to Fu Bao’s widespread popularity, her zookeeper has also found himself in the spotlight, becoming a bit of a social media star himself. Often referred to as her grandpa, Kang Chul-won offered hi own farewell message to Fu Bao, noting that the South Koreans’ special love for her all began with social media videos shared during the pandemic when the zoo was closed. She brought help and happiness to a society in many ways that was having a difficult time due to the virus. He said people visited the social media sites every day so it felt like he was raising her together with them. They cared so much for her and shared the same emotions of raising a baby panda together during such difficult times.

Fu Bao will be transferred to China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Sichuan Province. Everland says that she will be kept alone at Everland Panda World for a month to prepare her to adjust to her new environment before her overseas transfer, which will be carried out in accordance with international rules.

【推荐3】The zebra belongs to the horse family. One of nature’s great mysteries is why the zebra has stripes. One theory is that the stripes help the zebra cool down. On hot days the black stripes get a lot hotter than the white area of the zebra and under the black stripes there are special layers of fat for protection. Hot air then rises off the black stripes, forcing colder air down around the white areas, cooling the zebra down This, however, is just a kind of theory. The stripes can also confuse predators when zebras stay with other animals in great numbers.

Zebras have excellent hearing and eyesight and can run at speeds of up to 56 kilometers per hour. They also have a powerful kick that can cause serious injury to a predator, like a lion, or an African wild dog. Usually the lead male of the herd stays at the back of the group to defend against predators if necessary, while the females and youngsters escape danger.

Zebras are herbivores that feed only on plants and lives mostly by eating grasses, although they also might eat a bit of the leaves and stems of bushes. They eat grasses for many hours each day, using their strong teeth. Spending so much time chewing wears the zebras’ teeth down, so their teeth keep growing all their lives. As the dry season arrives and the grasses die back, zebra herds travel to find more food and water holes for drinking. Most zebras have no specific territories. They travel from place to place, never staying in one area very long.

【推荐1】Food waste is a serious problem. In 2010, nearly 133 billion pounds worth of food was transported to U.S. landfills. Food waste is truly a waste to all of humanity. That’s because when you throw out a rotten apple or a moldy container of leftovers, you’re not just throwing away the food, but all the resources that went into producing it.

Water plays a major role in food production, and as a result, food waste translates to a large amount of water wastage. All foods have a water footprint, the direct and indirect water that goes into producing a certain food, although some footprints are larger than others. In general, meats tend to need the most water for production, primarily because of the amount of food the animal needs. Also, larger animals aren’t as efficient in terms of meat production as smaller animals like chickens or turkeys, and the bigger beasts therefore have a larger water footprint.

Food waste has environmental impacts, too. “If you put all the food waste into one country, it would be the world’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter,” says Brian Lipinski, an associate in the World Resource Institute’s Food Program. Decomposing (分解) food that makes its way into landfills releases methane (甲烷), which is significantly more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide.

All is not lost, however. There are many efforts underway to cut food loss at every level. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency recently called for a 50 percent reduction in food waste by 2030. Meanwhile, Portland launched a citywide composting (堆制肥料) program a few years ago. And at the retail (零售) level, the former president of Trader Joe’s recently opened a store near Boston that sells surplus food donated by grocery stores at low prices.

Still, waste can’t be avoided. There’s never going to be some ideal or perfect way to eliminate it all. Fortunately, change at any level, whether it’s as a supplier, retailer or consumer, will help ease the impact of food waste on natural resources.

【推荐3】The Bitter Truth Behind Vanilla

Vanilla is one of the world’s most popular spices and an important ingredient in products ranging from chocolate to perfume. However, the wholesale price of vanilla has reached up to $600 per kilogram, when just a few years ago it fetched a tenth of that. What is happening?

Madagascar supplies more than 80 percent of the world’s natural vanilla. In the 19th century, the French introduced Bourbon vanilla to their African island colony. Today, vanilla represents 20 percent of Madagascan exports, worth around $600 million at current prices. However, it is a difficult crop to grow. A vine takes three to four years to mature.     1     Nine months later, the green beans must be hand-picked when perfectly ripe to optimize their vanillin content (the compound that gives vanilla its flavor). Months of blanching(焯水), sweathing(焖煮) and gradual drying in the sun are then necessary to produce the aromatic(芳香的) spice. Six hundred hand-pollinated blossoms yield about six kilos of green beans, which convert to one kilo of dried beans.

The price of Madagascan vanilla was once set by the government.     2     Madagascar’s government was eventually forced to end its price-fixing regime(体制). Food giants such as Unilever and Nestlé also increased their use of synthetic vanillin, which can be produced from reliable sources, adding to the pressure. For 30 years, Madagascar’s vanilla farmers earned just a pittance, and many ended up leaving the business. But even with fewer producers, the price of natural vanilla stayed low.

It was not until public tastes started shifting towards all things natural that farmers’ fortunes revived. From around 2011, some manufacturers began focusing once more on natural vanilla. In 2015, Nestlé announced plans to use only natural ingredients in five years, and Hershey’s followed suit.     3     Extreme weather, weak crop-security, and exporters who hoard inventory(囤货) and speculate (做投机买卖) on further rises have also kept prices high.

    4     To prevent theft of their now rather valuable crops, farmers have taken to harvesting the beans early, thereby reducing the overall quality of the crop. That forces the government to make greater efforts to enforce penalties(处罚). If it manages this, Madagascar could yet savor the benefits of its near monopoly(垄断).