Tagged: environment

Warm winter weather led to stink bugs showing up earlier than usual this year — bad news for soybean farmers because redbanded stink bugs can destroy entire fields if left unchecked.

The threat comes as high prices and drier weather prompted Louisiana and Mississippi farmers to boost soybean acreage from last year.

RAMAH, La. — Birders and wildlife enthusiasts have a chance to view endangered North American wood storks on July 21 at the Sherburne Wildlife Management Area between Baton Rouge and Lafayette.

The wildlife management area's south farm is drained each year at midsummer to enhance wetland growth before being flooded in the fall as waterfowl habitat and to stimulate crawfish production.

When the banks are drained, the exposed crawfish attract North American wood storks, which have been listed as endangered since 1984.

The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources says an agreement with the St. Martin Parish School Board has been hammered out to save 640 acres of cypress and hardwood forest under threat of being logged in the Atchafalaya basin.

The school board had allowed the tract to be logged but environmental groups recently intervened and threatened to sue. The lawsuit prompted DNR's conservation plan, according to Dean Wilson, the head of the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper.

Environmentalists oppose cypress logging in south Louisiana because the trees are so hard to grow back.