The wild chain reaction making eggs more expensive
Why egg prices, big cats, and wetland loss are all part of the same story
It’s the last Wednesday in January, and we’re at $270 in FUZZ FUNDS for this month’s conservation donation. On Friday, I’ll suggest a few different ideas for our giving and invite everyone to vote over the weekend to decide where this month’s support should go.
We’re also approaching our first 50 subscribers! Thanks for spreading the word to your family and friends — the beginning of any new media project is a grind, and all your support is deeply appreciated. I’m doing daily videos on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube to help build those audiences up too, so if you’re in any of those places, feel free to say hey.
Onto the news.
How lost wetlands are making your eggs more expensive
Want the quick version of this story? I covered it in video form on Instagram.
We tend to think of environmental issues as distant problems - melting ice caps, disappearing rainforests, or endangered species in far-off places. But sometimes they show up in unexpected ways, like in the price of your breakfast eggs.
The U.S. is currently experiencing what experts are calling the largest animal pandemic in history. "By any metric, you look at animal epizootics, basically animal-based-pandemics, this is the largest one we've ever had," Dr. Maurice Pitesky told Business Insider. This avian influenza outbreak has led to the culling of over 26 million birds since October alone - more than 7% of the nation's flock.
The virus's deadly reach extends far beyond poultry farms. In December, a wildlife sanctuary in Washington state lost 20 big cats to bird flu, including four cougars and a half-Bengal tiger. The Wild Felid Advocacy Center believes their cats were infected either through respiratory secretions from wild birds or contaminated meat, highlighting how deeply this virus has penetrated our ecosystem and how hard it is to control. The remaining animals are still in quarantine today.
At the heart of this crisis lies a deeper environmental change. The loss of natural wetlands, particularly in states like California, has forced wild waterfowl - natural carriers of avian influenza - to find new homes closer to farms and agricultural areas. This proximity, along with the packed conditions of factory farms, creates perfect conditions for disease transmission.
The solution might lie in better surveillance and tracking systems to predict where the virus will strike next — not an easy technological problem to solve. But the most effective long-term strategy could be something we should have been doing anyway: preserving and restoring natural wetlands to help maintain the natural spacing between wild and domestic animals.
Just as few would expect egg prices to be linked to wetland loss, there's another surprising connection in wetland conservation: some of its strongest advocates are hunters. Organizations like Ducks Unlimited, founded by waterfowl hunters in 1937, have evolved from their sporting roots to build broad coalitions that include corporate partners, environmental groups, and government agencies. The combination of hunter-conservationist expertise in wetland management and new partners' resources has proven remarkably effective - DU has helped conserve over 15 million acres across North America.
These unexpected connections - from egg prices to unlikely conservation alliances - remind us that ecosystem health and human interests are deeply intertwined, in ways that can both challenge and inspire us to better protect the wild places we all depend on.
Thanks to subscriber Betsy for the idea for today’s lead. Lead photo by Dan Myers.
Over the rainbow bridge 🌈
Sad news out of the Saitama Children’s Zoo in Japan, where legendary manul matriarch Tabby passed away on January 28. She’s the mother of Bol, the runner-up in this year’s Manul World Cup covered in last Wednesday’s newsletter.
Manul life expectancy is about six years in the wild; it’s usually 8-10 in zoos. Tabby made it to 16, and she’s quite possibly the longest-lived manul ever. (The second oldest, Petenka, passed in Utah’s Hogan Zoo late last year at 14.)
By the way — I got the question why I call them manuls, when they're sometimes referred to as Pallas's cats elsewhere. There's generally a trend in conservation toward moving away from the names of an animal's European discoverer — for instance, Peter Simon Pallas popularized the chubby cats in the west, but they were known by manu-ul, or "wild cat," in Mongolian long before. So that's the name I'll typically use, and try to respect the convention across other species, too.
Quite a run for Tabby. Rest in Manulhala, as they of the Manul subreddit say.
Quick links!
More cool tech in conservation. Scientists deployed cutting-edge underground tracking devices to spy on black-footed ferrets - the elusive endangered species once thought extinct until 1981. The Smithsonian-led project fitted five ferrets with special trackers before releasing them at Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, aiming to finally understand how these mysterious creatures behave in their extensive underground prairie dog burrow networks. By also tracking 50 prairie dogs, researchers hope to map the complex 3D structure of these underground ecosystems for the first time.
I’m a few weeks late to this but I’m fascinated by this story of four lynx mysteriously appearing in the Scottish Highlands, sparking a manhunt (cat-hunt?) that ended with their capture and removal to a wildlife park. While the UK has been debating the official reintroduction of these native cats for years - studies suggest the Highlands could support up to 400 lynx - this unauthorized "rogue rewilding" effort was condemned by conservationists as reckless and dangerous to both the animals and local ecosystem. The semi-tame lynx were released in sub-zero temperatures with only some straw bedding and dead chicks for support, highlighting why careful planning and community buy-in are crucial for successful species reintroduction.
