A red-bellied turtle basking on a log next to a pocket of wetlands at Point Breeze on the Schuylkill River doesn’t know that it is threatened, legally speaking, or that its home is tiny compared to the once-expansive ecosystem that used to stretch far beyond its current territory. The controversy over a planned warehouse development
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Philadelphia is a city of old houses that offer, as anyone who lives in anything from a two-story row house to a grand Victorian knows, plenty of gaps where wildlife can slip in. Bats, flying squirrels and especially gray squirrels and raccoons can end up making a home in old crawl spaces, chimneys and in
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Many of us are committed to living sustainably, but few of us have given much thought to dying sustainably. But as with any other phase of our life cycle, the impact of our death can vary based on the choices we make. What we do with the deceased body is the obvious place to start:
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In the fall of 2020 Maria DiMauro, an artist who lives in Old City, opened her Facebook account and clicked through pictures of warblers, vireos and catbirds that had died by crashing into Center City windows. She saw more than just dead birds. The pictures had been taken on October 2, 2020 by Stephen Maciejewski,
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The Trust for Public Land has released its 2023 edition of ParkScore, which rates and compares park systems for cities across the country. Philadelphia is pretty much where it was in 2022, ranking 31 out of the 100 most populous cities in the country this year versus 32 last year. Behind that ranking are several
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The renovation of the Cobbs Creek Golf Course hit a small hurdle on May 10 as the Cobbs Creek Foundation sought approval from the Philadelphia Art Commission of the next phase of its construction, a pumphouse and reservoir for irrigating the golf course, with the commission asking the foundation to return at a future meeting
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On April 15 the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education announced that it had parted ways with executive director Michael Weilbacher. Reached by Grid for comment, Weilbacher, who had run the organization since 2011, responded by email with a statement. “I am so proud of what the Schuylkill Center’s staff accomplished over the last 12 years
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The biggest muskie that Eric Hinkley has landed in the Schuylkill was almost four feet long. Muskie (short for muskellunge) are possibly the most challenging (and awesome) game fish to catch in North America. The long and muscular ambush predators sit and wait for food to swim by, but their discriminating eye makes it hard
MoreEveryone is invited to a baby shower taking place from June 22 to 23 at Independence Mall in Philadelphia. There’s no need to bring gifts. Just be ready to advocate for Atlantic sturgeon, which will be hatching right about then a mile to the east, in the Delaware River. The shower will be held by
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Without life to animate it, to hold it in a characteristic pose or to propel it through the air, a dead bird on the sidewalk can look like a rag or clump of dead leaves. But when I got a little closer to the mystery clump next to the Ciocca Subaru dealership in Gray’s Ferry,
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