All articles tagged with #cemeteries
Researchers found that East Lawn Cemetery in Ithaca harbors roughly 5.5 million Andrena regularis ground-nesting bees, one of the largest such aggregations on record, counted using emergence traps. The site supports crop pollination and urban biodiversity, reinforcing cemeteries as valuable habitats and prompting efforts to protect nest sites and encourage citizen reports of similar aggregations.
Cornell researchers estimated 3–8 million Andrena regularis bees living underground beneath East Lawn Cemetery near Cornell Orchards, using emergence traps to count and arriving at 5.5 million as a midpoint. The finding underscores how cemetery grounds can host massive, understudied ground-nesting bee populations and highlights how nearby orchards provide forage, reinforcing cemeteries as biodiversity hotspots.
Researchers find Ithaca’s East Lawn Cemetery hosts about 5.5 million Andrena regularis ground-nesting bees—one of the world’s largest known aggregations—estimated using emergence traps. The study, highlighting cemeteries as biodiversity refuges and the importance of wild pollinators for crops, also details emergence timing, brood parasitism by nomad bees, and a new global citizen-science project to document such aggregations.
Israeli forces bulldozed and disturbed graves at al-Batsh cemetery in Gaza City during a search for a captive’s body, destroying tombstones and scattering remains; hundreds of graves were examined and the site’s landscape altered, deepening the pain of families who cannot mourn properly as rights groups and the UN warn of widespread cemetery destruction and missing bodies across Gaza.
Israeli forces have desecrated at least 16 cemeteries in Gaza, with satellite imagery and videos revealing ruined gravestones, upturned soil, and unearthed bodies. The intentional destruction of religious sites violates international law and may amount to war crimes, according to legal experts. While the IDF claims the actions are part of a search for hostages seized by Hamas, evidence suggests cemeteries have been used as military outposts. The desecration has sparked outrage and calls for international intervention to protect Palestinian civilians and uphold the dignity of the dead.
Tunisia is facing a public health crisis as the bodies of drowned migrants, including children and pregnant women, wash ashore on its coast. Morgues and cemeteries are overflowing, and authorities are considering "radical solutions" such as quickly allocating a cemetery for immigrants and providing refrigerated trucks to transport decomposing bodies. The first three months of 2023 have been the most fatal for people escaping Africa for Europe since the migrant crisis in 2017, with more than 800 bodies washing ashore in the region of Sfax last year. Tunisia's coast guard has prevented more than 14,000 migrants from departing in boats during the first three months of this year.