Nature and the Environment

Broadway Oyster Bar Invites You to Suck It at Crawfish Fest This Weekend

The mighty mud bug is the star of this month's food festival at Broadway Oyster Bar (736 South Broadway; 314-621-8811), and chef Brad Hagen is pulling out all the stops (and all the crawfish) to make this a feast worthy of the Big Easy. Gut Check spoke with Broadway Oyster Bar's Mary Moramarco to ... More >>

Hard Sell: For Matt Damon and company, the message is the message in Promised Land

Mountain Lion in DeKalb County: The 5th Sighting Since September

This mountain lion was photographed with a wildlife cam on private land in the wee hours of Wednesday, December 12. By my count, that's the fifth sighting of a big cat in Missouri since September 10. As we've said several times before, this could be different  cougars or all the same cougar; it ... More >>

Ghostly Image is Missouri's 33rd Mountain Lion Sighting Since 1994

Related content: - Meandering Missouri Mountain Lion Last Seen in Michigan- Petition Aims to Stop Senseless Killing of Missouri's Mountain LionsThe Missouri Department of Conservation has confirmed the sighting of a mountain lion outside the town of Ellington in Missouri's Reynolds County. A trail c ... More >>

Recycling Up Fivefold in St. Louis -- Though City Diverts Just 10 Percent of Waste

It's been six months since all St. Louis households have had access to curbside recycling via those blue alley dumpsters or roll-out bins. And already city officials say they're seeing a huge uptick in the amount of waste diverted from landfills. Though there is definitely room for improvement.

Pal Joeys: Two New Kangaroo Babies at the Saint Louis Zoo

The population of the Saint Louis Zoo increased by two over the winter, but the cuteness factor just grew exponentially. Kasbeth the Matschie's tree kangaroo and Conundrum the red kangaroo both gave birth to lima bean sized babies back in January; now those younguns are big enough to start venturing ... More >>

Cri Cri the Harbor Seal Is Dead

The Saint Louis Zoo announced that Cri Cri the harbor seal has died at the Indianapolis Zoo. She was in transit to St. Louis from London, Ontario's Storybook Gardens with three other harbor seals when handlers discovered two of those seals, Nunavut and Atlantis, were dead. The truck carrying them de ... More >>

White-Nose Syndrome Confirmed in Missouri Bat Population

The Missouri Department of Conservation knew it was coming, but now it's official: White-Nose Syndrome has been confirmed in a population of bats in an undisclosed Missouri cave. In 2010, symptoms were spotted on a little brown bat in Pike County, and five gray bats also showed symptoms in a public ... More >>

Michelle Higgins and Anthony Higgins, Sr: St. Charles Couple Hoarded Reptiles, Lived in Filth

​A St. Charles couple kept 157 snakes and lizards in their split-level rental property, as well as at least 1,500 live mice to feed them, and one dog. The snakes were housed in clean cages -- the problem was all the animal waste, which the couple, Michelle Higgins and Anthony Higgins, Sr., did not ... More >>

It's the actors who need rescued in trapped-whale saga Big Miracle

March of the Penguins

Area Wolves Seek Transportation for the Holidays

This holiday season while families gather and write down their Christmas lists, Rachel Broom, director of development at the Endangered Wolf Center (6750, Tyson Valley Rd, Eureka) will continue her search for transportation for the 42 wolves, wild dogs, and foxes that call the center home. Located ... More >>

Swimming the River des Peres: Daredevil Affects EPA Policy on St. Louis River

Hercules Agrees to $245K EPA Fine Over Clean Air Act Violations

​A chemical manufacturing plant in Louisiana, Missouri, just north of St. Louis, failed to properly monitor for leaks of hazardous air pollutants, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency charges -- leading to a $245,521 fine. The settlement was filed in federal court this morning, four years ... More >>

Mr. Popper's Penguins and Chill Frozen Yogurt

Robin WheelerCoffee and chocolate frozen yogurt topped with Valrhona chocolate shavings at Chill.​ What screams summer movies more than a penguin farce that takes place during a Manhattan winter? Perhaps Mr. Popper's Penguins was meant to mentally cool us while we watch a bunch of misplaced ... More >>

Arizona Wildfires Threaten Missouri-Raised Mexican Gray Wolves

Photo courtesy of Regina MossottiThe Arizona wildfires might have the power to impact almost half the population of Mexican gray wolves living in the wild. These one-month-old pups live at the Endangered Wolf Center in Eureka.​Look at those faces. Outside of a moon scene on a novelty T-shirt o ... More >>

Cicada Cuisine: Six Ways to Cook the Critters

Wikimedia CommonsYummy cicadas​ Sick of cicadas? You can lower their population by eating them. Oh, come on. People all over the world eat insects without getting grossed out. With rising food prices, the U.S. shouldn't be so quick to poo-poo cheap sources of protein. And considering all the ... More >>

How To Survive a Mountain Lion Encounter

funnyaussiesigns.comYou, too, can survive a mountain lion encounter.​Another mountain lion was confirmed in Missouri this week. The Department of Conservation concluded Wednesday that paw prints photographed April 20 in Macon County in north-central Missouri were almost surely those of a cougar. F ... More >>

The Perfect Mother's Day Gift (For Those Who Despise Mom's Special Day)

Behold your nose. The UMSL corpse flower!​We know how it is. You love your mother, but deep down you harbor a true resentment for her special day. For you, Mother's Day is the worst kind of made-up holiday, requiring you to either present Mom with something mawkishly sentimental or face the conseq ... More >>

Missouri Congressman Wants to Kill Funding for Climate Change

Luetkemeyer: Insert tinfoil hat above.​Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-9th District) is proud of his view that global warming is a myth. So proud, in fact, that last weekend he attached a provision onto a budget bill that would ban the United States from funding the Intergovernmental Panel on Cl ... More >>

Hot Enough For You?

Doe Run Settles with EPA: Lead Company to Close Herculaneum Smelter, Spend Millions

Photo: Jennifer SilverbergDoe Run smelter in Herculaneum.​The Environmental Protection Agency announced today that St. Louis-based Doe Run -- North America's largest lead producer -- has agreed to spend approximately $65 million to correct violations of environmental laws at ten of its lead mining ... More >>

Study Confirms Orangutans Lazier Than the Laziest Human You Know

Orangutan at Rest: How very stereotypical.​That orangutan you see at the zoo doing nothing but sitting on its rump staring at you (no matter how hard you bang on its plexi-glass cage), is indeed as lazy as you thought. According to a new report penned by anthropology professor Herman Pontzer at Wa ... More >>

St. Louis To Begin Curbside Recycling Citywide, Part of Paid Trash Collection

Coming to a neighborhood near you!​Just got off the phone with a couple of city officials who tell Daily RFT that St. Louis is indeed going forward with curbside recycling. The recycling service will be part of the new pay service for trash pickup that the city is implementing to offset budget sho ... More >>

Jonathan Katz: Wash U Prof Tapped By Obama to Solve Gulf Oil Crisis is "Homophobe, Climate Change Denialist"

Image sourceJonathan Katz describes himself as "a homophobe and proud"​Washington University physics professor Jonathan Katz is part of a five-man team of the nation's "best scientific minds" assembled by the Obama administration to help BP stem the flow of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. He' ... More >>

Global Warming & Meteorologists: A "Hot" Topic?

reedypress.comCorrigan says everything in Missouri is political, even the weather. ​Is global warming real?Finally, somebody has asked the experts. Thank you, Don Corrigan, editor and co-publisher of the Webster-Kirkwood and South County Times newspapers. In his new book, Show Me Nature's Wrath, a ... More >>

St. Louis Zoo Replaces Dead Polar Bears with Electronic Proxies

Okay, so the story in today's business section of the Post-Dispatch is mostly about how a company that sells holiday decorations is opening an office in downtown St. Louis. (Yes, exciting!)But the real news is the photo (below) that accompanied the story.Post-Dispatch, Section B1, 11/13/2009​If yo ... More >>

Tree Time

Cold Hard Facts

Happy Earth Day

No One Saw This Coming: PETA Urges Zoo to Close Polar Bear Exhibit

flickr.com/photos/79947165@N00The zoo's polar bear confines.The other day we noted how the Saint Louis Zoo's last polar bear, Hope, died this week from cancer at the age of 23. Now today...wait for it...that's it...just a second...more...okay, here it comes...PETA announced that it is urging the zoo ... More >>

Otter in Mourning

The River Otter Journal, Fall/Winter 2008Splash, Slide and Chambers in happier days.A moment of silence, please, for Splash the otter, who died three months ago at age ten after an infection from an abscessed tooth spread to his heart. And another moment for his brother and littermate Slide, who sti ... More >>

Isn't It Time the Saint Louis Zoo Rethinks Its Position on Elephants?

www.helpelephants.comThis morning's Post-Dispatch has a rather alarming story buried back on page D3. Another of the Saint Louis Zoo's elephants has been diagnosed with a potentially deadly strain of herpes. According to the daily, the two-year-old Asian elephant Maliha is currently showing no sympt ... More >>

Fancy Birds

Long walk

Elephant Treament Lands Saint Louis Zoo in "Hall of Shame"

This just in from the In Defense of Animals organization: Our very own Saint Louis Zoo has landed in the "Hall of Shame" for the confinement and treatment of its elephants. Visitors to the zoo over the past few years may have noticed a foot brace on Clara (an elephant that was euthanized in 2007 at ... More >>

Look Out Below!: Arborists from around the world descend on Forest Park for the International Tree Climbing Championships

Stop the Flooding: Eat a Muskrat!

Stop the Flooding: Eat a Muskrat!

Malcolm eats a tin of armadillo. Hmmm, it tastes like salmon mousse.

RFT readers show their deep admiration for skunks.

Green Teams: The Cardnials scramble to join the ranks of the environmentally conscious

Frog-gone It!

Malcolm never saw a frog’s leg he couldn’t keep down, until...

Dried Weaver Ants With Eggs

Weaver ants are a tad dry for Malcolm’s discriminating palate, but the Democratic presidential primary provides plenty to chew on.

Jin Yang Silkworm Pupa

This week: Silkworm pupa out the Jin Yang.

Buzzkill

See all those little suckers? Did you know that they're an invasive species and a linchpin of modern agriculture? That they're dying off by the million and no one's sure why?

Sylvilagus Floridanus (Eastern Cottontail)

Webster Groves

Flocka Alpaca

Roland Smoked Sliced Octopus

$1.99
DiGregorio Market
5200 Daggett Avenue

Dance of the Penguin

That whole talking animal genre? Let's be done with it.