CNN — You can help Mother Nature in a battle for survival. Pollinators, which provide one out of every three bites of our food, are struggling. Five butterfly species in the United States have gone extinct since 1950, and dozens more are on the verge of extinction according to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.

”There are 30% fewer butterflies flying around in your yard, on the farm, in natural areas than there were 20 years ago,” says Scott Black, Xerces Society’s executive director. The monarch butterfly is in a steep decline having lost about 90% of its population in North America since the 1990s.

Bees aren’t faring any better. More than a quarter of North American bumblebees are at risk of extinction with both bees and butterflies declining by a shocking 1 or 2% a year, according to a report in the National Academy of Sciences.

“Will we have the crops that we need to sustain us?” asks Black, “It’s a very serious issue.”

Climate change, habitat loss and pesticide use are mostly to blame, say scientists. “It’s kind of this trifecta of threats that are really pushing pollinator populations down,” warns Black. But all is not lost.

“Anybody can help no matter how large or small their landscape- whether you live in a tiny yard or you’re a farmer or you manage a parks department,” says Black. “You can make real substantial changes for pollinators.”

Give to these pollinator charities

Non-profits like Xerces Society and Pollinator Partnership work with farmers, companies, private citizens and governments. They spread the word about pesticides’ impact on pollinators and encourage more eco-friendly approaches to pest control. The groups also encourage seeding native plants that attract pollinating fauna to agricultural fields, roadsides, parks and gardens.

But donations alone won’t solve the problem, says Black. He encourages turning your yard and garden into a welcoming place for butterflies, bees, beetles and birds.

Plant and they will come (even in winter)

Plant native wildflowers in your yard. “Contrary to popular belief, the fall and the winter can actually be a great time to plant and put down seed as well,” says Kelly Bills, executive director of Pollinator Partnership.

Not only will those flowers bring you joy throughout the year; native wildflowers are the best source of food and shelter for pollinators like bees and butterflies. When you plant flowers that are native to your region, they flourish with less watering and upkeep.

Leave the leaves for overwintering creatures

Fallen leaves are perfect nesting sites for native bees, moths and butterflies. “It’s a place for them to basically tuck away and get through the winter until spring,” says Bills. Leaving the leaves doesn’t mean that you leave four inches of leaves on your turf grass.

“Maybe even just thinning them out and leaving them in some parts of your yard. You’re really gonna get that nutrition filtered back into your soil which will help your grass in spring and summer,” says Bills.

A little mess helps

You can help bees by cutting your dead flower heads off and leaving the stems.

“A lot of those stems become hollowed out and pithy and the bees actually hibernate in them over winter,” says Bills.

If you can’t stand how the stems look without flower heads, you can bundle cut stems and leave them on the side of the yard as nesting sites. Ecologists also encourage leaving some fallen branches and logs if you can for pollinators like beetles and bees to overwinter.

Avoid pesticides, encourage pests’ natural enemies

Pesticides and weed killers may kill what you don’t want in your yard, but they also kill off beneficial insects. It’s one of the leading causes of insect and pollinator die-off, says Black.

When it comes to homeowners, “Pesticides are mostly used for cosmetic purposes. They’re used to make your garden perfect. Do we need those perfect landscapes? I would say no,” says Black. You should be able to control pests with non-chemical methods like planting native vegetation that not only attracts bees and butterflies but also draws pests’ natural enemies.

Spread the word with yard signs

Your neighbors may begin to wonder why you are digging out grass and replacing it with wildflowers. Yard signs can let them know that you’re helping bees and butterflies. Those gardening signs are available with many memberships in pollinator charities along with planting guides. “Pollinator signs, no pesticides signs, ‘leave the leaves’ signs – that’s incredible education,” says Black.

Become a citizen scientist

You can also take part in seed collection and restoration projects to open up habitat near you. Pollinator Partnership’s Project Wingspan program trains citizens in the Midwest and Great Lakes region to collect and identify seeds. Volunteers learn to clean seeds and redistribute them in areas that need more habitat for the endangered monarch butterfly and rusty patched bumble bee. The non-profit is working to enhance and create 18,000 acres of habitat.

Support farms that are pollinator-friendly

Try to buy food from farmers who grow their produce in ways that sustain butterflies and bees.

Xerces certifies food grown sustainably while maximizing crop health with the “Bee Better Certified” seal found on everything from blueberries to almond milk.

“If consumers are putting out the demand that they want food and produce from bee-friendly farms, that can be a big help to get other farmers on board,” says Bills.

CNN — Amateur archaeologists in England have unearthed one of the largest Roman dodecahedrons ever found, but mystery surrounds what it was actually used for.

The 12-sided object is one of just 33 known to exist in Roman Britain, and one of approximately 130 in the world. It is considered “one of archaeology’s great enigmas,” according to the Norton Disney History and Archaeology Group, an amateur group based in the English region of Lincolnshire where it was found in June.

Measuring about 3 inches across, the dodecahedron is hollow and covered with 12 holes of varying sizes.

The 1,700-year-old object will be displayed at the Lincoln Museum from May 4 until early September.

“It’s a real pleasure to have the Norton Disney dodecahedron joining us… just a stone’s throw from where it was found,” Andrea Martin, exhibitions and interpretations manager at the museum, said in a Lincolnshire County Council press release. “To have the opening of the display coincide with the Lincoln Festival of History is a real coup.”

The release describes the dodecahedron as “one of the largest examples” discovered.

However, experts still aren’t sure exactly what the Romans used the dodecahedron for.

“It is completely unique,” said Richard Parker, secretary of the Norton Disney History and Archaeology Group, adding that no similar objects have ever been found. He said that, unlike other dodecahedra, this one is undamaged.

“Ours is absolutely in a fabulous condition. It’s complete, undamaged, and it clearly was considered of great value by whoever made it and by those that used it,” Parker said. “So there must have been a very important reason for it to be deposited in the ground in the way that it was.”

Parker told CNN there are no descriptions of the dodecahedron in Roman literature, and they have not been depicted pictorially in mosaics. There are also several features that make it difficult to discern what its intended purpose was. All of the dodecahedra are of different sizes, meaning they were not used for measurement, he said. Because it is undamaged with no signs of wear, it is unlikely to have been a tool, Parker added.

Parker’s group does have one working theory, however.

“Most likely they were some form of religious or ritual object,” he said. “The Romans were a very superstitious lot, and generally required signs to allow them to make decisions in their daily lives.”

One indication supporting that idea is that the object was found near a small Roman mounted rider god figurine with “strong religious connections,” Parker said. The artifact was discovered in 1989 by metal detectorists, and the figurine is “often found on temple sites.”

The organization plans to return to the dig site later this year to conduct further excavations, which Parker hopes will help establish context on how the area was used. Parker said he is optimistic that the mystery will be solved because this dodecahedron was found in an archaeological excavation area, whereas “many of those that were found 200 or 300 years ago had no context to where they were found.”

“It is quite a complex story to tell that we’re just starting to tease out,” he added.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Employees of the Richmond Wildlife Center in Virginia are doing their best to act like mother foxes as they feed and care for an orphaned kit that found her way into their care.

In a video posted to the center’s Facebook page, Executive Director Melissa Stanley is shown wearing a red fox mask and rubber gloves while feeding the tiny kit from a syringe. The kit sits on top of a large stuffed animal fox that is supposed to look like her mother, Stanley said.

The same Facebook post explained why staff are wearing the mask to feed her, minimizing human sounds, creating visual barriers and taking other precautions. “It’s important to make sure that the orphans that are raised in captivity do not become imprinted upon or habituated to humans,” the post said.

All those measures make it more likely the kit could be reintroduced into the wild someday.

Stanley said in an interview that the kit was admitted to the center on Feb. 29 after a man walking his dog found her in an alley in Richmond. Thinking she was a kitten, he turned her over to the Richmond Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She was less than 24 hours old and her umbilical stump was still attached.

Wildlife center staff initially tried to locate the kit’s mother and her den site so they could reunite them. They found the den site, but were told by the grounds superintendent that the foxes had been trapped and removed. Stanley said she suspects the fox kit either fell out of a trap or off the back of the trapper’s truck.

Staff at the wildlife center have been taking turns feeding the kit every two to four hours, all while wearing the fox mask. In addition to the large stuffed animal meant to mimic the kit’s mother, staff also put a smaller stuffed red fox in her enclosure. She cuddles up to the smaller stuffed animal at the end of the video.

The goal is to release animals back into the wild, not only to give them a greater chance of survival, but to recognize their own species and to reproduce to carry on their wildlife population,” Stanley said.

To that end, the center immediately began looking for other red fox kits of the same age and weight within the rehabilitation community. Staff located three other kits in a rehabilitation setting in northern Virginia. The fox kit will be transferred to the Animal Education and Rescue Organization, which plans to eventually release the kits back into the wild together.

CHICAGO (AP) — An 8-week-old arrival from Alaska chirps loudly before devouring ice chips in the nursery at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium.

He is Pup EL2306 — proper name to be determined — a northern sea otter who was found alone and malnourished in the remote town of Seldovia in October and taken to the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward.

Shedd, one of only a few facilities in the United States with the resources to care for rescued otters, was contacted by the SeaLife Center and the aquarium’s otter team made the cross-country journey with the fluffy brown marine mammal who arrived in Chicago at the end of November.

“Caring for a little otter pup is just like caring for an infant,” including round-the-clock feeding, said Lana Gonzalez, a manager of penguins and otter at Shedd. “He also needs to get groomed. Sea otters have a very dense coat — there’s anywhere from a 700,000 to a million hairs per square inch, and that’s what they use to keep themselves warm. They don’t have a thick layer of blubber or fat like other marine mammals do, so taking care of that coat is very important.”

An otter mother would typically teach her offspring to groom. The aquarium team acts in her place to encourage the pup’s healthy development.

On Wednesday, otter supervisor Tracy Deakins entered the pup’s enclosure with clean white towels and encouraged him to leave the water. Deakins pointed to different spots on his fur and the pup responded by licking or rubbing it with his paws.

The pup will remain in Shedd’s Regenstein Sea Otter Nursery for a few months, building bonds with the staff, and he will eventually be introduced to the otter habitat and the five other otters at the aquarium.

Part of the growth process is moving pups from formula and small bits of clam to other solid foods. Gonzalez mentions the clam is “restaurant quality” and sustainably sourced.

Rescued pups are usually designated by the federal government as non-releasable and the Shedd experts said pups need their mothers for the first year of life.

“Once we bring him into our care he won’t be released back out into the natural environment, they’re just too used to people. But the good news is that he’ll be able to be an ambassador for his species here at the aquarium, so we’re really happy about that,” said Gonzalez.

(CNN)- It’s not often that the words “TSA” and “adorable” come together in the same sentence. Long lines, discarded items, a sometimes-grumpy atmosphere – not much to love there.

But those two words are a natural pairing when it comes the Transportation Security Administration’s annual canine calendar. The agency announced its 2024 version on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday – and let’s just say these safety-minded, hard-working pooches are positively precious.

The calendar honors the more than 1,000 explosives-detection canines working across the United States. Adorning the cover is Dina, winner of the 2023 cutest canine contest.

This gal is a 3-year-old German Shorthaired Pointer who works at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. She was “one of several TSA canines who worked at Super Bowl LVII in Phoenix” back in February, according to a TSA news release.

But the doggie love doesn’t stop at the cover. Inside are a year’s worth of dogs starting with Gina-Gina, a regal looking Belgian Malinois that works at LaGuardia Airport in New York.

Actually, there’s more than year’s worth of dogs as the calendar offers up a few bonus canines at the end.

The calendar has plenty of dog factoids, too, such as this from May: “Canines possess a sense of smell more sensitive than even the most advanced man-made instrument. Their sniffers are powerful enough to detect substances at concentrations of one part per trillion—about the same as a single drop of liquid in 20 Olympic-size swimming pools.”