Category: English

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Scott Solomon, Teaching Professor of BioSciences, Rice University

The central premise of the blockbuster film “Project Hail Mary” is a long-shot mission with a familiar goal: Save humanity from extinction. While the details of the threat facing humanity are new to this story, moviegoers are used to bingeing on popcorn while watching a heroic quest to save the Earth from certain doom. And like so many popular movies of this genre, from “Armageddon” to “Interstellar,” the hero’s journey involves a seemingly impossible mission into space.

The film’s release is well timed for the new era of space exploration. NASA’s Artemis II mission, which launched on April 1, 2026, is sending four astronauts around the Moon on a path that will take them deeper into space than any humans have ever traveled.

The flyby mission is primarily about testing equipment for a lunar landing in 2028. But the broader plan was outlined in detail in March 2026 by NASA officials: to establish a permanent base on the Moon.

NASA is not alone in its lunar ambitions. Private space companies SpaceX and Blue Origin are developing next-generation spacecraft, rovers and drones to facilitate the American Moon base. And other nations, notably China, are working toward their own lunar outposts.

These nations and corporations see the Moon as a stepping stone toward more ambitious goals: a major human migration into deep space, including Mars.

Given the moment, it’s worth reflecting on what those investing billions in human space exploration, whether tax dollars or private funds, are trying to accomplish. As a biologist, I recognize the limitations of humans as space explorers. As I explain in my book, “Becoming Martian: How Living in Space Will Change Our Bodies and Minds,” while biologists have learned a lot about how the conditions of space affect the human body and mind, sending people on longer missions deeper into space will expose people to unknown health risks.

Boldly going

Plans to send people to the Moon and beyond are accelerating. NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, has argued that beating China to the Moon is a matter of national security, calling the Moon “the ultimate high ground.” He has also promoted the economic benefits of establishing a space economy that includes mining and manufacturing on the Moon.

Subcommittees in both the House and Senate have passed bills to codify these initiatives into law – making the goal of creating a permanent base on the Moon official U.S. policy. They appear to have bipartisan support, and votes in both houses of Congress are expected soon.

The United States and China are targeting landing humans on Mars in the 2030s, with the intention of building infrastructure that enables long-term habitation.

In March 2026, NASA also announced that the agency intends to test nuclear propulsion during an uncrewed flight to Mars in 2028. Nuclear-powered rockets have the potential to substantially reduce the time it takes to reach Mars, which would make crewed flight to the red planet more feasible.

Humans or robots?

But why do people need to go to Mars? As with the Moon, the purported motivations for both the U.S. and China establishing a human presence on Mars are scientific, economic and geopolitical. Yet these are distinct objectives that are often conflated.

In terms of science, NASA has had dramatic success with its Mars rovers, including the discovery last year of a potential biosignature that could be the best evidence yet that the planet was once home to microbial life.

Robotic missions also have a lower price tag and a higher acceptable risk margin than human missions. While Isaacman remains publicly committed to the Artemis program and its human spaceflight goals, the agency’s plan also includes a suite of robotic missions to the Moon’s surface it hopes to develop in partnership with companies, universities and international partners.

Likewise, some economic objectives, such as establishing mining and manufacturing facilities, could be accomplished using AI-equipped robots, such as those Tesla is developing. Robots are a long way from being able to accomplish the full range of tasks that a human can do, but prioritizing robotic activities could lower the exposure that people have to the hazards of space.

If having people on the Moon and Mars is indeed necessary to achieve these objectives, let’s be clear about the risks that the people undertaking these missions will be assuming.

Space and the human body

While scientists have learned a lot about how space affects the body during the six decades of human spaceflight, there are still significant blind spots. Among them are the effects of deep-space radiation.

The 24 Apollo astronauts who traveled to the Moon are the only people who have ever been past the Van Allen radiation belts, an area of space surrounding our planet formed by Earth’s magnetic field.

By trapping radiation from the Sun and from deep space, our planet’s magnetic field is part of what makes Earth habitable for us and other life forms. The Moon and Mars lack magnetic fields, so radiation levels on their surfaces are substantial. NASA researchers are now conducting experiments on rodents using simulated galactic cosmic rays, which are largely blocked by Earth’s magnetic fields. Preliminary results suggest that this type of radiation may impair cognitive abilities, but the actual effects on people are unknown.

Similarly, while medical researchers know that floating in a zero-g environment causes muscle atrophy and bone density loss during long stays on the International Space Station, they know relatively little about how partial gravity affects muscles and bones. The Moon has one-sixth the gravity of Earth, and Mars has a little over one-third.

Pilots on Earth can simulate partial gravity for up to 30 seconds at a time during parabolic flights, but only the 12 Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon have ever experienced it for longer than that. The longest they stayed was about three days. Scientists can only speculate about whether prolonged exposure to the partial gravity of the Moon or Mars would have consequential health effects.

Human interest

Sending robots to space avoids having to deal with risks to human health. But there are downsides. Not only do robotic space missions have fewer capabilities than crewed missions, they often fail to capture interest and imagination and demonstrate national prestige in the same way that human missions can.

The four members of the Artemis crew will captivate people worldwide watching their daring mission around the Moon, much like moviegoers root for Ryan Gosling’s character in “Project Hail Mary” as he boldly seeks to save humanity from certain doom on the big screen.

That human interest is the common link that ties together public and private space ambitions worldwide. While robotic missions are more practical and cost effective, they simply don’t inspire the masses the way a human crew can. Beyond achieving any economic, political or scientific goals, space exploration is ultimately about people doing difficult things.

This article was updated with news of the launch of Artemis II.

I am the author of the book Becoming Martian published by MIT Press

– ref. From Artemis II to ‘Project Hail Mary’, spaceflight captures audiences when it centers on people because human space travel is hazardous – https://theconversation.com/from-artemis-ii-to-project-hail-mary-spaceflight-captures-audiences-when-it-centers-on-people-because-human-space-travel-is-hazardous-279147

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Marcia Zug, Professor of Family Law, University of South Carolina

The first parents convicted of involuntary manslaughter for a mass school shooting committed by their child were Jennifer and James Crumbley. The Crumbleys were convicted in 2024, after their 15-year-old son Ethan killed four students at Oxford High School in Michigan in 2021.

In March 2026, Colin Gray became the first parent convicted of murder for a mass shooting carried out by his child. His son, Colt, 14, killed two students and two teachers in 2024 at Apalachee High School in Georgia.

Critics of the Crumbley and Gray decisions worry that holding parents responsible for school shootings may lead to parental accountability for a broad range of children’s actions.

This is possible, but I believe it is unlikely.

That’s because parents already have long been held liable for the actions of their children, as Baylor law professor Dyllan Taxman notes. The previous failure to find parental liability for gun dangers was the exception.

But even if the Crumbley and Gray convictions do not portend the beginning of parental convictions for a new and wide-ranging category of parental actions, they do suggest a growing belief that parents who allow their children easy access to guns are dangerous and unfit.

As a family law scholar, I think this changing view about parental gun ownership may have significant ramifications for parents in other legal contexts, most notably custody determinations.

Guns and best interests

Child custody decisions in the U.S. are based on a court’s determination regarding the “best interest of the child.” Irresponsible gun ownership can be a factor in such conclusions, but historically such considerations have been rare.

This absence is shocking given the well-documented dangers that unsecured firearms pose. Since 2020, firearms have been the leading cause of death for children between the ages of 1 and 19. The statistic includes accidental shootings as well as homicides and suicides. The vast majority of child gun deaths occur at home. And more than 4.6 million children live in a home with at least one unlocked and loaded firearm.

The failure to routinely consider parental gun practices, including gun storage and children’s access, in custody determinations is notable – not just because unsecured guns pose a significant danger to children, but because other less substantial risks regularly factor into custody decisions.

Perceived moral dangers, such as a child’s exposure to profanity or a parent’s nonmarital relationship, are common factors in custody determinations. Similarly, exposure to secondhand smoke or a child’s obesity are also frequent considerations.

Consequently, while the consideration of parental gun behaviors is not entirely absent from custody decisions, its relative rarity suggests a deliberate unwillingness to link them with parental fitness considerations.

The Crumbley and Gray convictions suggest this reluctance may be waning.

Loss of custody as a deterrent

School shootings are relatively rare, but custody disputes are not.

Consequently, if irresponsible gun ownership becomes a common consideration in custody decisions, the implications for gun safety could be substantial. That’s because this approach avoids the pitfalls of previous gun control attempts.

Unlike other gun safety measures, the consideration of gun ownership in custody cases largely avoids Second Amendment concerns regarding the constitutional right to bear arms. As William & Mary law professor James Dwyer notes, in child custody cases the state operates “outside the bounds of the (Constitution) … to the extent of being freed from the restrictions ordinarily generated by the constitutional rights of others.”

The result is that constitutionally protected behaviors are frequently considered in custody decisions.

In the 2011 South Carolina case Purser v. Owens, for instance, the family court considered the mother’s abortion in its best-interest analysis and held that having an abortion demonstrated the mother was irresponsible and thus unfit.

In the 2003 Virginia case Roberts v. Roberts, a father lost custody for his statements that women cannot do what men do.

And in the 1985 Colorado case In re Marriage of Short, a court affirmed parents’ religious beliefs are a relevant factor in custody determinations.

As these cases demonstrate, the fact that some harmful parental behaviors are also constitutional rights doesn’t mean they’re excluded from custody determinations.

A second benefit of raising gun ownership in a custody dispute is that the parent raising this issue does not need to be a gun control advocate. They don’t need to dislike guns, and they can even be a gun owner themselves.

For gun ownership to become relevant, a parent simply needs to argue that the other parent’s gun practices are irresponsible compared to their own. If this increases a parent’s custody prospects, it can be assumed many parents will make this argument.

Parents are paying attention

For parents facing accusations of irresponsible gun practices, the potential loss of custody should provide a strong incentive for modifying their gun behavior.

Case law demonstrates that parents routinely refrain from behaviors that could hurt their custody case. And there is every reason to expect the same result with gun ownership.

Importantly, the Gray case already proved that parents are paying attention to these trends. During his trial, it was revealed that about a week before the September 2024 shooting, Gray’s estranged wife – and Colin Gray’s mother – Marcee Gray, did an internet search for “school shooter parents charged with manslaughter.”

Then, after reading articles about the Crumbley cases’ convictions, she called Colin and asked him to secure his guns. Although Colin ignored his wife’s warning, the next parent might listen, especially when the warning is coming from a divorce attorney.

Should irresponsible gun ownership become a common factor in custody disputes, parents will be advised to secure their guns, and many will heed this advice, I believe. The Crumbley conviction almost prevented Colt Gray’s access to firearms.

Marcia Zug does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Irresponsible parental gun ownership could become a factor in custody disputes – https://theconversation.com/irresponsible-parental-gun-ownership-could-become-a-factor-in-custody-disputes-278251

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jonathan Entin, Professor Emeritus of Law and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Case Western Reserve University

The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence isn’t the only important anniversary in 2026. This year also marks the 75th anniversary of an extraordinary case of student activism that helped lead to the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing segregated schools.

In April 1951, 16-year-old Barbara Rose Johns organized a student strike to protest the shabby conditions and inadequate education at her segregated Black high school in Prince Edward County, Virginia.

Prince Edward County is located about 65 miles southwest of Richmond and around 30 miles east of Appomattox, or 48 kilometers, in a part of Virginia known as Southside. African Americans constituted almost half the population, but they were largely prevented from voting before passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and could not eat in local restaurants before passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The public schools were segregated, and for decades there was no Black high school at all.

In 1939, following years of pressure by Black residents, the white authorities opened a high school for African Americans. That segregated institution was named for Robert Roosa Moton, who had been raised in Prince Edward County and served as an administrator at Hampton Institute in Virginia before being appointed as the second head of Tuskegee Institute following the death of Booker T. Washington.

The new building became severely overcrowded almost immediately. Although it was designed for a maximum enrollment of 180, attendance reached 219 the year after it opened and 377 in 1947.

The following year, the school board put up three temporary outbuildings to accommodate the overflow. Many Black residents scorned these buildings as “tar paper shacks” because of their covering and dilapidated condition. They had inefficient wood stoves that provided limited heating, and their thin walls often leaked when rain fell.

The shabbiness of these interim structures became a source of continuing tension, as negotiations between the Black community and white authorities for a more permanent facility dragged on inconclusively into early 1951.

Johns makes her move

As an 11th grader at Moton High School, Johns began talking with some of her fellow students about taking action to protest the shacks and improve their education.

On April 23, 1951, someone lured Moton’s principal, Boyd Jones, out of the building on the pretext that two students were in trouble elsewhere in town. After Jones left, Johns summoned the student body to the auditorium, where she exhorted her peers to walk out to protest the deplorable condition of their school.

Johns also sent a letter to Oliver W. Hill and Spottswood W. Robinson III, two Richmond civil rights lawyers who worked closely with the NAACP, asking for their legal assistance.

The strike went on for two weeks. During that time, Hill and Robinson met twice with hundreds of students and parents. The meetings grew out of the lawyers’ initial skepticism about litigating over school conditions in rural Prince Edward County, where they feared that plaintiffs would be subject to severe physical and economic retaliation.

Those meetings persuaded Hill and Robinson that the Black community broadly supported an effort to obtain desegregation rather than mere improvements in the separate Black schools. The lawyers therefore filed their lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of scores of Black students and parents, alleging that segregated schools violated the 14th Amendment.

Victory – and messy history

Johns’ initiative had both short- and long-term consequences.

In the immediate aftermath of the strike, the all-white school board fired Jones, whom they regarded as having put the students up to their activism despite his – and the students’ – insistence that the whole affair was a student initiative.

The lawsuit – and other similar suits filed in South Carolina, Delaware and Kansas – failed in the lower court. The plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court, which reversed those judgments and ruled in the consolidated case called Brown v. Board of Education that segregated public schools were unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the student strike at Moton, Johns’ family feared that she would be in physical danger if she remained in Prince Edward County for her senior year. They sent her to live with her uncle Vernon Johns, a minister and outspoken civil rights advocate, in Montgomery, Alabama.

Johns graduated from Drexel University and worked for many years as a public school librarian in Philadelphia before her death in 1991.

The post-Brown history of Prince Edward County is very complicated. White authorities closed the public schools for five years to avoid desegregation. For a long time afterward, virtually all the white children went to a private academy that opened when the public schools closed.

But that messy history cannot detract from the courage and impact of Barbara Johns.

In December 2025, her statue replaced that of Robert E. Lee as one of the two Virginians displayed in the U.S. Capitol. Johns is there – along with George Washington.

Jonathan Entin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. 75 years after she led a student strike that helped end school segregation, Barbara Rose Johns now stands in the US Capitol where Robert E. Lee once did – https://theconversation.com/75-years-after-she-led-a-student-strike-that-helped-end-school-segregation-barbara-rose-johns-now-stands-in-the-us-capitol-where-robert-e-lee-once-did-273531

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Christine Keiner, Chair of the Department of Science, Technology, and Society, Rochester Institute of Technology

With the world struggling to get oil supplies moving from the Middle East, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich raised eyebrows with a social media post highlighting a radical idea: Use nuclear bombs to cut a new channel along a route that would avoid Iranian threats in the Strait of Hormuz.

Gingrich’s March 15, 2026, post linked to an article that labeled itself as satire. Gingrich has not clarified whether his endorsement was serious. But he is old enough to remember when ideas like this were not only taken seriously but actually pursued by the U.S. and Soviet governments.

As I discuss in my book, “Deep Cut: Science, Power, and the Unbuilt Interoceanic Canal,” the U.S. version of this project ended in 1977. At the time, Gingrich was launching his political career after working as a history and environmental studies professor.

Improving global trade and geopolitical influence

The idea for a new canal to move oil from the Middle East had emerged two decades earlier, in the context of another Middle East conflict, the Suez crisis. In 1956, Egypt seized the Suez Canal from British and French control. The canal’s prolonged closure caused the price of oil, tea and other commodities to spike for European consumers, who depended on the shipping shortcut for goods from Asia.

But what if nuclear energy could be harnessed to cut an alternative canal through “friendly territory”? That was the question asked by Edward Teller, the principal architect of the hydrogen bomb, and his fellow physicists at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Livermore, California.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration had already begun promoting atomic energy to generate electricity and to power submarines. After the Suez crisis, the U.S. government expanded plans to harness “atoms for peace.”

Project Plowshare advocates, led by Teller, sought to use what they called “peaceful nuclear explosions” to reduce the costs of large-scale earthmoving projects and to promote national security. They envisioned a world in which nuclear explosives could help extract natural gas from underground reservoirs and build new canals, harbors and mountainside roads, with minimal radioactive effects.

To kick-start the program, Teller wanted to create an instant harbor by burying, and then detonating, five thermonuclear bombs in an Indigenous village in coastal northwestern Alaska. The plan, known as Project Chariot, generated intense debate, as well as a pioneering environmental study of Arctic food webs.

Teller and the Livermore physicists also worked with the Army Corps of Engineers to study the possibility of using nuclear explosions to build another waterway in Panama. Fearing that the aging Panama Canal and its narrow locks would soon be rendered obsolete, U.S. officials had called for building a wider, deeper channel that wouldn’t require any locks to raise and lower the ships along its route.

A sea-level canal would not only fit bigger vessels; it would also be simpler to operate than the lock-based system, which required thousands of employees. Since the early 1900s, U.S. canal workers and their families had lived in the Canal Zone, a large strip of land surrounding the waterway. Panamanians increasingly resented having their country split in two by the racially segregated, colony-like zone.

Crossing Central America

Nuclear explosions appeared to make a new sea-level canal financially feasible. The greatest impetus for the so-called Panatomic Canal occurred in January 1964, when violent anti-U.S. protests erupted in Panama. President Lyndon B. Johnson responded to the crisis by agreeing to negotiate new political agreements with Panama.

Johnson appointed the Atlantic-Pacific Interoceanic Canal Study Commission to determine the best site to use nuclear explosions to blast a seaway between the two oceans. Funded by a $17.5 million congressional appropriation – the equivalent of around $185 million today – the five civilian commissioners focused on two routes: one in eastern Panama and the other in western Colombia.

The Panamanian route spanned forested river valleys of the Darién isthmus and reached 1,100 feet above sea level. To excavate this landscape, engineers proposed setting off 294 nuclear explosives along the route, in 14 separate detonations, using the explosive equivalent of 166.4 million tons of TNT.

This was a mind-blowing amount of energy: The most powerful nuclear weapon ever tested, the Soviet “Tsar Bomba” blast in 1961, released the energy equivalent to 50 million tons of TNT.

To avoid the radioactivity and ground shocks, planners estimated that approximately 30,000 people, half of them Indigenous, would have to be evacuated and resettled. The canal commission considered this a formidable but not impossible obstacle, writing in its final report, “The problems of public acceptance of nuclear canal excavation probably could be solved through diplomacy, public education, and compensating payments.”

A not-so-hot idea, in retrospect

As explored in my book, marine and evolutionary biologists of the late 1960s sought to study the project’s less obvious environmental effects. Among other potential catastrophes, scientists warned that a sea-level canal could unleash “mutual invasions of Atlantic and Pacific organisms” by joining the oceans on either side of the isthmus for the first time in 3 million years.

Plans for the nuclear waterway ended by the early 1970s, not over concerns about marine invasive species but rather due to other complex issues. These included the difficulties of testing nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes without violating the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 and the huge budget deficits caused by the Vietnam War.

Despite the geopolitical and financial constraints, the sea-level canal studies employed hundreds of researchers who increased knowledge of the isthmus and its human and nonhuman inhabitants. Ironically, the studies revealed that wet clay shale rocks along the Darién route meant nuclear explosives might not work well there.

But for Project Plowshare’s biggest proponents, atomic excavation remained a worthwhile goal. In 1970, in their final report, the canal commissioners predicted that “someday nuclear explosions will be used in a wide variety of massive earth-moving projects.” Teller shared their commitment, as he explained near the end of his life in the 2000 documentary “Nuclear Dynamite.”

Today, given widespread awareness of the severe environmental and health effects of radioactive fallout, it is hard to envision a time when using nuclear bombs to build canals seemed reasonable. Even before Gingrich’s post sparked ridicule, press accounts described Project Plowshare using words like “wacky,” “insane” and “crazy.”

However, as societies struggle with disruptive new technologies such as generative AI and cryptocurrency, it is worth remembering that many ideas that ended up discredited once seemed not only sensible but inevitable.

As historians of science and technology point out, technological and scientific developments cannot be separated from their cultural contexts. Moreover, the technologies that become part of people’s daily lives often do so not because they are inherently superior, but because powerful interests champion them.

It makes me wonder: Which of the high-tech trends being promoted by influencers today will amuse, shock and horrify our descendants?

Christine Keiner received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation, and Eisenhower Foundation for the initial stages of this research.

– ref. Bypass the Strait of Hormuz with nuclear explosives? The US studied that in Panama and Colombia in the 1960s – https://theconversation.com/bypass-the-strait-of-hormuz-with-nuclear-explosives-the-us-studied-that-in-panama-and-colombia-in-the-1960s-278851

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Eve Bohnett, Assistant Research Scholar, Center for Landscape Conservation Planning, University of Florida

Florida is home to a host of diverse wildlife you can’t find anywhere else. Most people know of manatees and Florida panthers. But you might never have heard of the Big Cypress fox squirrel, a subspecies found only in southwest Florida.

At up to 2 feet, 3 inches (68.5 centimeters) long, including its tail, and weighing roughly 3 pounds (1.36 kilograms), the Big Cypress fox squirrel is a heavyweight compared with its cousin, the eastern gray squirrel. But while gray squirrels can thrive across much of the eastern U.S. and Canada, the Big Cypress fox squirrel’s habitat is limited to five Florida counties south of the Caloosahatchee River.

This means every new road, canal and subdivision takes a bigger bite out of its world.

Because this squirrel is so shy and hard to spot, no one knows how many remain, which is one reason the state of Florida lists it as threatened. Historically, it moved through cypress swamps, pine savannas and hardwood forests. But these days, it often navigates a patchwork of golf courses, parks and low-density neighborhoods, crossing open lawns and scattered tree canopies to reach safe cover.

As the links between habitable areas disappear, Big Cypress fox squirrels are funneled into a few risky travel routes. This can cause their populations to become isolated from each other and more vulnerable to decline.

As a landscape conservation researcher, I study how wildlife moves through changing environments and how urban design can support that movement. My most recent research, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Florida and Florida State University, focused on the Big Cypress fox squirrel. Our team asked one practical question: How can city planning and landscape design support wildlife movement as the region grows?

A new approach

What’s new about our work is that we paired connectivity modeling – a method that maps how easily animals can move across a landscape – with an approach to urban design that organizes landscapes along a gradient from dense urban areas to natural habitats. This approach helps planners match conservation strategies to each setting, or transect zone – urban, suburban, seminatural, such as parks and golf courses, and core habitat, or undisturbed areas.

Our method is unique because it integrates wildlife connectivity data directly into actionable design solutions for each zone, rather than proposing a single corridor. This allows planners to design landscapes that support wildlife movement in ways that can be replicated anywhere. In suburban neighborhoods, for example, wildlife crossings and native plants provide safer movement options.

Importantly, this approach is not specific to preserving just this species of squirrel. Planners and conservationists can use it to maintain wildlife movement alongside development across Florida and beyond. This includes other priority areas along the Florida Wildlife Corridor where development constrains animal movement.

To develop our approach, we used habitat suitability models developed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission using detailed land-cover data and verified squirrel observation records kept by Florida Natural Areas Inventory and universities in Florida and Arizona. Then we converted this data into what landscape conservationists call a resistance map, which shows how difficult it is for a Big Cypress fox squirrel to move across the landscape.

We applied the model across the squirrel’s known range in southwest Florida, with a focus on rapidly developing areas around Fort Myers and Naples. We then identified where movement is concentrated and where it gets squeezed into narrow pathways.

Squeezing through ‘pinch points’

Our model showed that the squirrel’s best habitat persists in a network of pinch points, bottlenecks where development and infrastructure funnel movement into a limited set of pathways.

In the broader southwestern Florida region, those bottlenecks show up near urbanizing areas such as Naples, Fort Myers and Bonita Springs. In Fort Myers, for example, squirrel movement was funneled into just a few narrow routes, such as urban parks in highly developed areas and less developed spaces such as golf courses and residential neighborhoods with tree cover. Movement was more diffuse near wetlands and along the Caloosahatchee River.

This means that even in built-up areas, a few connected strips of trees, water edges and open space make a big difference, because they may be the only workable routes left.

We also found that many important habitat patches and connections fall outside protected areas. Rather, they lie on private and intensively managed lands, such as residential yards, golf courses, agriculture and landscaped spaces that are regularly maintained. In fast-growing southwestern Florida, that means long-term conservation depends not only on preserves but also on how neighborhoods, road projects, parks, golf courses and vacant lots are planned and maintained.

From wildlife science to real-world design

Instead of creating just one wildlife corridor, we design solutions for different types of landscapes along a city-to-nature gradient. From dense urban areas to natural habitats, this lets us keep the landscape connected using a network of green infrastructure while matching conservation actions to how the land is used and how squirrels are likely to move through it.

In urban and suburban areas, squirrels are using the remaining open spaces, such as parks and low-density residential areas, but these landscapes can function as ecological traps as well as population “sinks,” where risks such as vehicle collisions are higher.

Roads, highways and railroad tracks are major sources of habitat fragmentation and wildlife mortality, so one priority is to make it safer for wildlife to cross.

Our study proposes canopy bridges and other wildlife crossings. Other helpful measures include traffic-calming strategies, signage and “green street” design, which integrates vegetation, stormwater management and safer road layouts to reduce risks for both wildlife and people.

We also propose retrofitting existing infrastructure in urban areas with elements such as green roofs, living walls, bioswales – channels that help keep stormwater clean – rain gardens and permeable pavement. These features add vegetation, absorb stormwater and reduce heat, while also making urban areas easier for wildlife to navigate.

In suburban areas, priorities include planting native vegetation in yards, parks and roadside buffers and improving road crossings where animals are most at risk.

In seminatural areas such as golf courses, opportunities include restoring native vegetation and maintaining “stepping stone” habitats. These are small patches, such as tree clusters and bushes, that animals can use as safe stopovers while moving across developed landscapes.

This kind of green infrastructure can reduce flooding, improve water quality, lower urban temperatures and create recreational spaces – benefits that support both wildlife and the people who live alongside them.

Eve Bohnett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Better urban design could help save Florida’s threatened Big Cypress fox squirrel – https://theconversation.com/better-urban-design-could-help-save-floridas-threatened-big-cypress-fox-squirrel-276827