It wasn’t all bad
Once reduced to a population of fewer than 100, the snow leopards in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan are making a steady recovery. A World Wildlife Federation study shows that there are now at least 134 snow leopards in the country, up from just 96 in 2016, after years of dedicated conservation efforts. Difficult to study in steep mountain terrain, the leopards were tracked by 310 cameras set up across northern Bhutan. While in many places snow leopards are threatened by poaching and climate change, Bhutan’s leopards have actually expanded their range into new locations. On Sept. 3, 2020, Sauhry Turner, 26, gave birth to Jasmine, her first baby with her husband Jeremy, 33, in Ocala, Fla. The commercial cleaning business professional was nervous about giving birth during the pandemic, but little did she know that exactly one year later, she would go into labor again to birth Jessica, her second daughter. And a few weeks ago, Juliet, her third daughter, was born—yet again on Sept. 3. The three sisters were all 20 inches long and weighed approximately 7½ pounds. The odds of three siblings with the same birthday are just 48,627,125 to 1. “For whatever reason, Sept. 3 has become our family’s lucky day,” said Jeremy. When Tina and Josh Fey traveled from Texas to Pensacola Beach for an anniversary celebration, they were not expecting to help a 10-foot-long mako shark make its way back to deep waters. After they saw that the shark had run aground on a Florida beach, the couple—who are not related to the comedian Tina Fey—called local authorities, but were offered no help. So they joined with other beachgoers to rescue the shark, which angrily thrashed its tail, then calmly swam away after a few strong pushes. “I hope everybody else that comes to beaches and sees a distressed animal like that, they help them out” said Josh.