The Northern lights (aurora borealis) lights up the night sky above the Molenviergang in Aarlanderveen, the Netherlands, early on 11 May 2024. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of America has warned that the strongest geomagnetic storm for 20 years is set to hit Earth, making the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, visible at much lower geomagnetic latitudes than usual. (Photo by Josh Walet/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A climate change activist plays a violin in Times Square as Manhattan is shrouded in haze and smoke which drifted south from wildfires in Canada, in New York City, New York, U.S., June 7, 2023. (Photo by Maye-E Wong/Reuters)

An aerial view of lambs as General Directorate of Agricultural Enterprises of Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry expects lamb births to increase in winter period, compared to previous years, in Karacabey facilities of Bursa, Turkiye on September 16, 2024. (Photo by Mustafa Yilmaz/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Cassowaries are large, flightless birds related to emus and (more distantly) to ostriches, rheas, and kiwis”, writes Olivia Judson in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. How large? People-size: Adult males stand well over five foot five and top 110 pounds. Females are even taller, and can weigh more than 160 pounds. Dangerous when roused, they’re shy and peaceable when left alone. But even birds this big and tough are prey to habitat loss. The dense New Guinea and Australia rain forests where they live have dwindled. Today cassowaries might number 1,500 to 2,000. And because they help shape those same forests – by moving seeds from one place to another – “if they vanish”, Judson writes, “the structure of the forest would gradually change” too. (Photo by Christian Ziegler/National Geographic)

A country music fan cools off in the wind on the second day of the Stagecoach country music festival in Indio, California April 26, 2014. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

A tomtit bird flies past a squirrel running on a fence after a snowfall in a park in Almaty, Kazakhstan, January 12, 2016. (Photo by Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)

A sledding dog is covered in ice after spending the night in the open air with his musher at the polar base of Val-Cenis, as they ready for the next stage of the 12th edition of “La Grande Odyssee” sledding race across the Alps on January 17, 2016 in Val Cenis Lanslevillard. (Photo by Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/AFP Photo)

A man walks on the road between Nouahibou and Nouakchott, where three Spanish aid workers were abducted in Mauritania, December 3, 2009. (Photo by Rafael Marchante/Reuters)