Here on New Zealand"s rugged South Island, the waters of Lake Tekapo display such striking electric-blue colors because of glacial silt flowing into the lake, carried by the braided Godley and Macauley Rivers, seen at the bottom of our image. Found in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, and North America, they"re expert at diving under the water"s surface to catch bottom-dwelling fish. Great cormorants are among the great anglers of the avian world. Now water flows freely around the monument at high tide, making the tiny island fortress a real island for the first time in more than a century. But in 2014, the causeway was removed and replaced by an elegant, curving bridge above the tidal flats. A crude, elevated causeway built in the 19th century once connected Mont-Saint-Michel to the mainland, allowing visitors to walk across to the spectacular rock. Rising majestically out of the bay, Mont-Saint-Michel is once again a true island, at least during high tides. All the events will take place in a strict Covid "bubble" system to ensure safety at the Games. Over the next 10 days, about 600 athletes will compete in 78 different events across six sports-alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, biathlon, snowboarding, para ice hockey, and wheelchair curling. The 2022 Winter Paralympics begins today in Beijing, as the Chinese capital becomes the first city to host both the summer and winter editions of the Paralympic Games. But with the concerted efforts of Indian and Nepalese wildlife authorities, the population of greater one-horned rhinos has slowly built back up to around 3,700 today. These unique creatures have staged a remarkable comeback from the verge of extinction in the early 20th century, when their numbers had dwindled to a precarious low of around 100 animals. This year"s WWD theme is "recovering key species for ecosystem restoration"-key species like the greater one-horned rhinoceroses you see here in northeastern India"s Kaziranga National Park. Today is World Wildlife Day, the UN-sponsored tribute to efforts that protect the plants and animals that make our world so special. Beyond the mountain, the 369-square-mile park also includes valleys, waterfalls, old-growth forest, and pristine alpine meadows famous for summer wildflowers.
![old screensavers gif old screensavers gif](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ComplexSnivelingFennecfox-size_restricted.gif)
It was just the fifth national park in the United States. Mount Rainier is the crown jewel of its namesake national park, designated March 2, 1899, by President William McKinley. By the end of the war, that number had increased to nearly 500. And though the need for nurses was urgent, the army had set a quota for just 160 Black nurses. At the time, all who served in the Army Nurse Corps were women, and the units were all segregated. The women are shown in between training exercises while they await deployment to the South Pacific near the end of World War II. To celebrate the start of Women"s History Month, our homepage photo features a candid shot of members of the US Army Nurse Corps in 1944.