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Story of the day

🌿 Good News

Aldabra's giant tortoises, counted at about 180,000 (opens in a new tab)

Metro reported on October 12 about a University of Exeter and Seychelles Islands Foundation study in Ecology and Evolution. Exeter, which announced the work on October 7, says the team used tortoise counts from 2018 to 2022 and estimates about 180,000 Aldabra giant tortoises on the atoll, the highest figure yet for this population, and more than the human population of Seychelles. The university describes a recovery from fewer than 1,000 animals in the 19th century, after Aldabra became a strict nature reserve in 1981 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982. Researchers call the number a baseline, not a finish line. Drought, rising seas, and invasive species are still in the picture.

Why it's cozy: Tortoises take their time, and so did this comeback from fewer than a thousand animals, the reward for guarding one atoll since 1981.

Metro (opens in a new tab) · University of Exeter (opens in a new tab)

More from this day

📖 Audiobooks

Anne of Green Gables, read aloud (opens in a new tab)

LibriVox volunteers read L. M. Montgomery's 1908 novel about Anne Shirley, an orphan whose imagination is too big for the quiet house that takes her in. The cozy part is the belonging: school, kitchen, and a home she talks into loving her. Start it when you want a long, gentle book in your ears.

Why it's cozy: Anne Shirley slowly wins a place in the household that took her in, and volunteer readers passing her story along make the welcome feel shared.

Listen on LibriVox (opens in a new tab)

🌿 Good News

Chinook salmon move back up the Klamath (opens in a new tab)

Mongabay reported on October 12 that after four dams came out of the Klamath River in 2024, Chinook salmon returned to habitat blocked for about a century. The article says 7,742 salmon passed the former dam sites soon after removal, and more than 13,000 did in 2025, reaching 88 percent of their known historical habitat in the basin. A researcher quoted there cautions that historical population levels still need several generations of successful spawning, plus better habitat and water quality. Removing the dams was a large step, not the last one.

Why it's cozy: With four dams gone from the Klamath, Chinook are swimming back into water shut to them for generations, a homecoming that began when people made room.

Mongabay (opens in a new tab)

🪶 Quote · public domain

“Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive—it's such an interesting world.”

L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables (1908)

Why it's cozy: Anne meets an uncertain road with questions instead of worry, and her gladness at all there is to find out is catching.

Project Gutenberg (opens in a new tab)

📚 Hopeful book pick

Legends & Lattes: an orc, a shop, a fresh start (opens in a new tab)

Travis Baldree's 2022 novel sends a retired orc adventurer to open the first coffee shop in a city that does not know coffee yet. Low stakes, a small circle of regulars, and a lot of pastry. The story stays with the shop: who comes in, what they order, and whether Viv can leave the sword behind.

Why it's cozy: Viv hangs up her sword to sell coffee in a city that has never tasted it, and the regulars who drift in for pastry become her circle.

Amazon (opens in a new tab)Find it at your library (opens in a new tab)As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

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