Category: National

(PALM BEACH, FL) — Brad Edwards knows that what you are about to read may be difficult for some to accept.

A victims’ rights lawyer from Florida, Edwards has been in pursuit of the truth about financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s life and crimes for nearly two decades. He would be the first to say that Epstein caused incalculable damage and trauma to hundreds of women and girls.

In fact, long before Epstein became known worldwide for his crimes, Edwards presciently told a federal judge, “Because of [Epstein’s] deviant appetite for young girls, combined with his extraordinary wealth and power, he may just be the most dangerous sexual predator in U.S. history.”

That was 17 years ago.

Back then, hardly anyone listened.

In the years since, Edwards and his co-counsel — on behalf of Epstein’s victims — have sued Epstein, his estate, the federal government and several financial institutions, recovering hundreds of millions of dollars for more than 200 survivors of Epstein’s sex abuse and trafficking. He knows the victims’ stories as well as anyone and, in the course of all the litigation, he has reviewed an expansive amount of non-public documents and evidence related to the late Epstein, who died by suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking of minors.

Now, as the Trump administration finds itself in the midst of a firestorm over its decision not to release any additional investigative files on Epstein — after promising to produce a so-called “client list” of people connected to Epstein who may have participated in illegal acts — Edwards has decided it’s important to share what he’s learned about Epstein, much of which contradicts what many have come to believe about the case.

“Jeffrey Epstein was the pimp and the john. He was his own No. 1 client,” Edwards told ABC News. “Nearly all of the exploitation and abuse of all of the women was intended to benefit only Jeffrey Epstein and Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual desires.”

Edwards describes the enigmatic Epstein as living, essentially, two separate lives: one in which he was sexually abusing women and girls “on a daily basis,” and another in which he associated with politicians, royalty, and titans of business, academia, and science.

“For the most part, those two worlds did not overlap. And where they overlapped, in the instances they overlapped, it seems to be a very small percentage,” Edwards said. “There were occasions where a select few of these men engaged in sexual acts with a select few of the girls that Jeffrey Epstein was exploiting or abusing — primarily girls who were over the age of 18.”

“That conduct was coercive, it was exploitative, and it was bad. But it’s a small fraction of the men he was associated with,” Edwards said. “And he was abusing hundreds of women, if not a thousand. And it’s a very small fraction of those women that he was sending to men. That conduct was secondary to his abusive conduct. [Epstein] abused all of these women.”

Edwards said he is bound by attorney-client privilege and cannot ethically reveal the names of any of Epstein’s alleged associates without permission from his clients. But he said he has seen no indication that Epstein kept a list of those men, or that he made it a practice to use those instances to blackmail or extort the men, even though those men may have been legitimately concerned that Epstein had compromising information that he could use against them.

“It’s difficult to even discern, when he would send a woman to one of his friends, whether that was even a motivation. What he was not is a person on the top of a sex trafficking operation that was sending women to powerful people around the world so that he could make money. It was not a business,” Edwards said. “And I think the few examples that we have, the known examples, have led to this belief that he must have been doing that with all of the women that he was abusing. That must have just been his gig. But that wasn’t what he was doing on a daily basis. He’s a sexual abuser and predator himself.”

If Epstein kept a list of those men, Edwards said he’s not seen it.

“Did Jeffrey write the names of these people down? I’ve never seen that. I only know of certain of these individuals because of representing clients,” Edwards said. “I’ve never seen a list of people that Jeffrey Epstein kept that would say, ‘Here’s a list of men that I’ve sent women to,’ or a mix-and-match where it’s like, ‘I sent this woman to this man.'”

“That’s just not something that he was keeping,” Edwards said. “And it would be highly, highly unlikely that Jeffrey Epstein would keep a list of the people that he sent these women to. I’d imagine he would just remember it. It isn’t that many women, and it isn’t that many men.”

Over the last few months, as the controversy surrounding the on-again, off-again plan to disclose Epstein-related documents has dominated the news cycle, Edwards said he has heard from dozens of survivors concerned about the circus-like atmosphere that is forcing them to relive traumatic experiences and threatens to expose their identities, even if inadvertently. Any public release of information, Edwards said, should redact identifying information about Epstein’s victims.

“They would benefit from the story eventually dying off. But the story is not going to die off as long as there’s this lack of transparency that is allowing for conspiracy theories to continue to fester and get out of hand,” Edwards said. “So the best thing would be: Protect the victims’ names, release everything else, so that the world can see what is real, versus what is total fiction, and then everybody can move on.”

But the recent decision by the Trump administration to rule out further disclosures would seem to impact categories of material known to be in the possession of federal authorities, including Epstein’s financial records, details of his international travel, logs of boat trips to his U.S. Virgin Islands estate, and inventories of what was found in searches of his mansions in New York and elsewhere. And it raises questions whether those records, if made public, could finally lead to a better understanding of how a college dropout from Coney Island managed to accumulate astounding wealth and proximity to power — a transformation that has long defied ready explanation.

“It’s very strange to me that somebody who rarely leaves his house is somehow able to get meetings with people. And they will travel from literally all over the world to meet with him on his time, at his place, under his circumstances. Which only just leaves more questions than answers,” Edwards said. “And the fact that they’re not releasing anything is, I think, just kind of fanning the flames of the conspiracy theory that everybody that he was meeting with had something to do with illegal sex. And I know that’s not true.”

“We are all for transparency,” said Edwards. “I think the world needs to know who Epstein was, what he was doing, how he made his money, who he was meeting with, and how he might have operated in other areas of business and politics. And all of that could be done through the release of documents and knowledge that is currently within the Justice Department, with what they have. But now there’s this about-face where they were going to release everything and now all of a sudden they’re releasing nothing. I think there is a middle ground there that the public deserves.”

Edwards notes that the government’s files could also shed light on those who assisted or enabled Epstein to abuse so many women, and could finally answer speculation that Epstein was an intelligence asset of the U.S. or a foreign nation.

“[The government] should know whether or not he was an intelligence asset, whether he’s ever done work with the government, whether he’s ever had a deal with the government before,” Edwards said. “I would assume that that is also within the Epstein files. I don’t know that information. I would like to know.”

But for Edwards, the primary concern should be for the survivors of Epstein’s abuse — and he worries that the victims are an afterthought in the ongoing Washington power struggle.

“I think some [victims] believe that the government protected him, and there’s this outrage because they believe that [Epstein] was always more important than they were, and that’s why this was allowed to go on for so long. So if there was evidence that his political or other connections assisted, I think that they would want to know it,” Edwards said. “But more so, they just want this to die off. And they see it’s not dying off because of the way that it’s being handled right now. In fact, somehow there’s more attention to it today than there was when he was abusing them.”

For the well-being of the survivors, Edwards is hopeful there will soon be a resolution that will allow the victims to move on.

“I just wish everybody would step back and remember real people were hurt here, and let’s try to do what’s in their best interest, as opposed to politicizing this whole thing and making it the right versus the left,” he said. “All of that is hurting the people who are already hurt.”

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(CALVERAS COUNTY, CA) — A mother and her 9-year-old son, who got stranded in a remote forest overnight on their way to a Boy Scout camp in California, were rescued after crews searching for the missing family found handwritten notes by the woman asking for help, authorities said.

Authorities credited the notes and other “breadcrumbs” left for search crews in helping find them within hours of being reported missing.

The two were traveling from Sacramento to Camp Wolfeboro in Calaveras County on Friday afternoon when they got lost in a remote area after losing the GPS signal, authorities said. The 49-year-old mother became disoriented trying to retrace their steps, and their vehicle got stuck in the dirt, stranding them in the dense forestry, according to Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Lt. Greg Stark.

“It was a very remote location, with severe terrain, deep canyons, dense forestry,” Stark told ABC News. “That area is known for poor radio reception and poor cell service.”

Their family reported them missing early Saturday afternoon after the camp reported them overdue and they were not answering their cellphones, according to the sheriff’s office.

A volunteer search and rescue team that was already conducting training in the area was deployed, and authorities began working on a timeline and possible route based on their destination and last known location.

The search and rescue team “began assessing the terrain and the complex network of interconnecting, labyrinth-like roads to establish effective search parameters,” the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office said. The search involved four-wheel drive vehicles, and California Highway Patrol air assets were requested, the office said.

Amid the search, campers in the area reported seeing a vehicle matching the description of the missing persons around 4 p.m. on Friday — helping confirm that search crews were in the right area, the sheriff’s office said.

Helping to further narrow the search area: At approximately 5:40 p.m. Saturday, the search and rescue team located a handwritten note left by the mother asking for help, authorities said. It was posted at an intersection of a remote Forest Service Road. A second note was found nearby.

The sheriff’s office released images of the notes, which were both dated July 11 and both said “HELP.”

“Me and my son are stranded with no service and can’t call 911,” one of the notes stated. “We are ahead, up the road to the right. Please call 911 to get help for us. Thank you!”

The other note urged rescuers to “follow the strips of brown sheet,” which was made out of a paper bag, Stark said.

They also left a trail of rocks on the road to point in their direction in case the notes blew away, Stark said.

About a mile from the second note, at approximately 6:30 p.m. Saturday, the searchers found the mother and son and their vehicle, the sheriff’s office said.

Stark credited the notes with being “extremely helpful” in finding them so quickly.

“There’s hundreds of square miles of elaborate roadworks out there,” Stark said. “They were in the search area, but putting the handwritten notes posted at the intersections — that absolutely accelerated the timeline in which they were found.”

The search team was able to free the stuck vehicle and help bring the mother and son back to the command post, where their family was waiting for them, the sheriff’s office said.

“It was obviously a very emotional reunion,” Stark said.

The sheriff’s office highlighted other efforts by the woman and her son to assist in the search, including keeping the vehicle’s hazard lights on at night for searchers on the ground and in the air to see. The son also periodically used his whistle to deploy three short bursts, an international signal for help, the sheriff’s office said.

Staying with their vehicle was also a key move, Stark said.

“If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you’re going, the best course of action is to stay with your car — it’s the largest object out there, easily seen by aircraft or found by searchers,” Stark said.

“They did what they should have, and it certainly worked out well,” he said.

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(SAND POINT, ALASKA) — A 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck near Sand Point, Alaska, on Wednesday, prompting a tsunami warning from the National Weather Service.

The warning was later downgraded to an advisory, according to the agency.

Sand Point is located on northwestern Popof Island, off the Alaska Peninsula. It’s approximately 600 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska.

The earthquake struck 54 miles south of Sand Point, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

The tsunami advisory is in effect from South Alaska and the Alaska Peninsula to Kennedy Entrance and Unimak Pass, Alaska, on the Pacific Coast.

In addition to Sand Point, Alaskan cities Cold Bay and Kodiak are included in the advisory area.

Kodiak Police told ABC News sirens sounded in the city, which indicates to move to high ground. Any impacts in the area would be expected to arrive at approximately 2:40 p.m.

There have not been any reports of damage from the earthquake in Kodiak, according to police.

Michael Ashley of Cold Bay Lodge told ABC News he was working outside when he noticed things shaking, but says it “wasn’t very intense.”

Cold Bay was under the tsunami warning, but Ashley said “residents are not concerned since we are 100 feet above sea level.” He says these large quakes are common for the area in the summer.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(QUINAULT, WA) — At least one person is dead and two others have been injured in a small plane crash in a remote area of Olympic National Park in Washington, authorities said.

The incident occurred on Tuesday evening at approximately 6:50 p.m. when park rangers were notified of a crash in the Quinault area of Olympic National Park on a steep slope north of the Irely Lake Trailhead, according to a statement from the National Park Service.

“Rangers immediately coordinated a response with Naval Air Station Whidbey Island Search and Rescue,” officials said. “The three occupants of the plane — a Murphy SR3500 Moose — were transported to a Level 1 Trauma Center.”

Authorities said that two occupants were being treated for their injuries and that one person died due to the crash.

Officials have not yet publicly identified the people involved in the incident and have given no details about what might have caused it in the first place.

The cause of the accident is unknown and is currently under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.

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(WASHINGTON) — One week after announcing an end to the requirement that passengers remove their shoes when undergoing airport security screening, the Department of Homeland Security could also alter another post-9/11 mainstay of air travel – the amount of liquid ounces that people can take with them onboard commercial planes.

“The liquids I’m questioning, so that may be the next big announcement is what size your liquids need to be,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said at an event in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. “We’re looking at our scanners, what we have put in place in TSA, multi-layered screening process that allows us to change some of how we do security and screening so it still is safe.”

Noem didn’t indicate when the updated policy announcement might be made.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in 2006 implemented a policy limiting liquids, gels and aerosols in passenger carry-on luggage to 3.4-ounce containers or smaller, to lessen the chances of liquid explosives being brought onboard commercial aircraft.

Noem announced on July 8 that DHS was ending the nearly 20-year requirement that passengers remove their shoes for inspection before boarding commercial aircraft. The policy was implemented in 2006 after the so-called “shoe bomber,” Richard Reid, unsuccessfully attempted to detonate plastic explosives concealed in his shoes onboard a flight from Paris, France to Miami, Fla. On Dec. 22, 2001.

Noem said during last week’s announcement that DHS was able to terminate the shoe removal policy due to the “layered security” by the TSA now place. These layers include additional officers at security checkpoints, new scanners and technology and the recently enforced REAL ID requirement, Noem said.

Secretary Noem was also asked about the current threat environment in the United States.

“We have the threat from terrorists that are in our country today that we need to remove,” she said. “We also have the crimes that are happening on our streets by those individuals that are murderers and rapists that affect families immediately.”

Noem said the U.S. critical infrastructure is also vulnerable to attack and pointed to various cyber incidents that have occurred in the past year.

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(PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C.) — A Georgia father drowned after saving five people from a rip current at a beach in South Carolina, according to the Pawleys Island Police Department.

At approximately 4:45 p.m. on Sunday, police received a call for “multiple swimmers in distress” in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, and once on the scene, they discovered one person was missing and a “search was initiated.”

Then at approximately 6:15 p.m., the body of the missing person was found and identified as 38-year-old Chase Childers, officials said.

Officials later found out that Childers — a former professional baseball player for the Baltimore Orioles’ minor league team and police officer — and one other individual entered the water to help a family of five, with Childers getting “caught in the rip current.”

“He died trying to save others,” police said.

Childers’ family said in a statement that they are “devastated by the tragic loss of our beloved Chase Childers” and that the news feels “surreal, incredibly hard to grasp and profoundly unfair.”

His family described his death as a “heroic act,” where he paid the “highest sacrifice with his life in front of his three children and wife.”

“Word are hard to find at the moment,” the family said in a statement shared on social media.

Childers leaves behind three children and his wife, the family said. He would have turned 39 next month, his brother-in-law confirmed to ABC News.

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(WYOMING) — More geological changes are occurring at Yellowstone National Park, as another hole forms in one of the park’s basins.

The hole is a blue water spring, discovered by geologists in April as they conducted routine maintenance of temperature logging stations at Norris Geyser Basin, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The pool, located in the Porcelain Basin sub-basin west of a patch of vegetation known as “Tree Island,” was not there during their last visit to the area in the fall, according to the USGS.

The water is light blue in color and is about 1 foot deep below the rim. It’s geological features indicate it formed as a result of a hydrothermal explosion — an event caused by pressure changes that result from the transition of liquid water to steam, according to the USGS.

The pool measures about 13 feet in diameter and is surrounded by numerous small rocks about 1 foot across. The rocks are covered by light gray, sandy mud.

It is “not surprising” that a hydrothermal explosion occurred at the site, as it has happened several times in recent decades, according to the USGS. The North Geyser Basin is the “most dynamic” area in Yellowstone, the agency said.

High-resolution satellite imagery indicates that the hole was not present on Dec. 19, but images taken on Jan. 6 show a depression that had formed in the area. By Feb. 13, the pool had been filled with water, the satellite images show.

More will hydrothermal explosions will likely be recorded, as a monitoring station installed in 2023 can detect geophysical data indicating an explosion.

In April 2024, a “small” explosion at the Porcelain Terrace left a crater measuring several feet across in diameter, according to the USGS.

A hole that formed in Yellowstone’s Biscuit Basin, near Old Faithful, in July 2024 was also attributed to a hydrothermal explosion, according to the National Park Service.

While that hole likely formed in a single major explosive event, the newest thermal feature appears to have formed by multiple small events that initially threw rocks but later threw silica mud a short distance, creating a small pit that became filled with silica-rich water.

Geologists estimate that the feature probably started to develop on Dec. 25, with further activity occurring through late January and early February, according to the USGS.

Beneath Yellowstone National Park lies a complex and extensive volcanic system. The park is thoroughly monitored by the USGS and the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

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(NEW YORK) — The nation’s largest police force is “criminal at its core,” according to a new federal lawsuit by former interim New York City Police Commissioner Thomas Donlon.

Donlon said the NYPD “functions as a racketeering enterprise,” at the direction of Mayor Eric Adams.

In addition to Adams, the lawsuit named Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Kaz Daughtry, Chief of Department John Chell and former Deputy Commissioner Tarik Sheppard among others.

“Senior leadership had abandoned lawful governance and engaged in outright malfeasance by using the NYPD to consolidate political power, obstruct justice, and punish dissent,” the lawsuit said. “The Defendants engaged in a coordinated pattern of racketeering activity that was deliberate, sustained, and directed from the highest levels of the NYPD and City Hall.”

The accusations in Donlon’s lawsuit are “absurd,” Adams’ press secretary, Kayla Mamelak Altus, said in a statement in response to the lawsuit.

“These are baseless accusations from a disgruntled former employee who — when given the opportunity to lead the greatest police department in the world — proved himself to be ineffective. This suit is nothing more than an attempt to seek compensation at the taxpayer’s expense after Mr. Donlon was rightfully removed from the role of interim police commissioner,” Altus said.

“The NYPD is led by the best, brightest, and most honorable professionals in the nation — and their results speak for themselves: crime continues to fall across the city, with shootings at the lowest level in recorded history. We will respond in court, where we are confident these absurd claims will be disproven,” she added.

Adams appointed Donlon interim commissioner in 2024 after Edward Caban resigned the post following an FBI search of his home. Caban has not been charged with any wrongdoing and said at the time he was resigning because the raids “created a distraction.”

In the complaint, Donlon said he was commissioner “in name only” and true authority remained with an inner circle of Adams’ loyalists.

“The Defendants undermined Donlon’s authority by blocking his merit-based promotions and instead elevating unvetted individuals of their choosing. The Defendants then fraudulently used Donlon’s official Police Commissioner stamp — without his consent — to legitimize and carry out their corrupt scheme,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit also accused several of the defendants of carrying out “a calculated and deeply personal act of vengeance” by orchestrating the false arrest of Donlon’s wife and leaking it to the press. Donlon’s wife was arrested for expired car insurance last December, sources told the New York Post.

“This was not a mistake. It was a deliberate abuse of power designed to punish and intimidate Donlon for exposing their misconduct,” the lawsuit said. “This coordinated humiliation was a direct warning: the NYPD Defendants would stop at nothing to silence and personally destroy Donlon, even if it meant violating the constitutional rights of his spouse.”

Donlon is looking for compensatory, emotional and punitive damages as well as injunctive relief, with “the full extent of damages incurred by Donlon are to be determined at trial.”

Adams is currently running for a second term as mayor, but chose not to run in the Democratic primary and will run for reelection as an independent instead.

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(NEW YORK) — The largest Mars meteorite ever found on Earth was sold at a Sotheby’s auction in New York on Wednesday for $4.3 million.

The Martian rock, known as NWA 16788, weighs more than 54 pounds, is nearly 15 inches long and is 70% larger than the next biggest piece of Mars that has been recovered, according to the auction house.

Sotheby’s said the piece broke from the surface of Mars following a recent asteroid strike and traveled more than 140 million miles across the Solar System.

It crashed in the Sahara Desert in the Agadez region of Nigeria and was found by a meteorite hunter in November 2023, Sotheby’s said.

“This is the largest piece of Mars on planet Earth. The odds of this getting from there to here are astronomically small,” Cassandra Hatton, vice chairman of science and natural history at Sotheby’s, said in a video posted online. “Remember that approximately 70% of Earth’s surface is covered in water. So we’re incredibly lucky that this landed on dry land instead of the middle of the ocean where we could actually find it.”

The auction house said the reddish brown rock is “unbelievably rare” because meteorites from Mars make up just 400 of the 77,000 officially recognized meteorites. According to Sotheby’s, the rock that was sold represents 6.5% of all Martian material currently on Earth.

Hatton said a sample of the rock was sent to a specialized laboratory to be tested for Maskelynite glass, which is only found in meteorites.

Testing determined the rock is an olivine-gabbroic shergottite, which is a relatively new type of Martian meteorite, according to an April 2024 report from researchers the U.S. and Canada. It was formed from the as magma on Mars slowly cooled, Sotheby’s said, and contains materials such as olivine, which is also found in Earth’s upper mantle.

“This isn’t just a miraculous find, but a massive data set that can help us unlock the secrets of our neighbor, the red planet,” Hatton said.

Prior to going up for auction at Sotheby’s, the rock was in a public exhibit at the Italian Space Agency in Rome during the 2024 European Researchers’ Night and in a private gallery in Arezzo, Tuscany.

It’s unclear who the current owner is and if the Martian rock will be in a public or a private collection.

Also up for auction was a Ceratosaurus skeleton from the late Jurassic period, about 154 to 149 million years ago, which was sold for $30.5 million, and the skull of a Pachycephalosaurus from the late Cretaceous period 72 million to 66 million years ago for $1.75 million.

Wednesday’s auction, containing 122 items, is part of Sotheby’s Geek Week, which holds sales for items related to natural history, the history of science and technology, and space exploration.

Among the items up for sale on Thursday, the final day of Geek Week, include a first generation of Apple-1 computer from the first batch of 50 built by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976.

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(DINOSAUR RIDGE, Colo.) — Researchers have discovered evidence of one of the largest dinosaur mating “dance arenas” in present-day Colorado.

Previous studies have identified a couple of “dinosaur lek” areas — where male dinosaurs likely congregated to perform courtship displays for females, primarily for the purpose of finding a mate — at Dinosaur Ridge, 20 miles west of Denver.

However, using high-resolution drone photography and photogrammetry to make 3D models of the sandstone at Dinosaur Ridge, a team reexamined the area to see if there were more markings on the surface.

What they found were dozens of lek traces tightly clustered together, suggesting the area was once a site to perform mating rituals, similar to some modern-day birds.

“So, these trace fossils, we interpret them to be evidence of dinosaur courtship activities, just from kind of process of elimination,” Caldwell Buntin, co-author of the study and a lecturer at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, told ABC News.

Buntin said the team ruled out that these “scrapes” were caused by dinosaurs digging for food and water, from marking their territories or from colonial nesting, which is when animals build their nests close together in groups.

“Basically, these were a lot of organisms that were coming together, performing some kind of activity that would include building some kind of nest to display to a female, and then maybe doing some kind of a dance or scraping activity, which generates a lot of the scrapes around the nest display structure,” Buntin said.

The scrapes belong to theropod dinosaurs, characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb, which were alive during the Cretaceous period, between 145 million and 66 million years ago.

It’s not clear which species made the scrapes, but they were likely three to four feet high at the hip and were between 2.5 and 5 meters (8 to 16 feet) long, from the size of an emu to the size of an ostrich, according to Buntin.

There’s a “spectrum of different scrapes,” according to Buntin. Some are simple, shallow toe claw marks, indicating one or two scrapes from the left and right legs. There are also longer scrapes overprinting one another, resembling a wagon rut.

Additionally, there are semicircular bowl-shaped marks “associated with a step backward” with a second set of scrapes “indicating a counterclockwise or a clockwise turn.” Lastly, there are deep bowl-shaped marks with some shallow toe claw marks, Buntin said.

In terms of behavior, Buntin said these dinosaurs most resemble that of banded plovers, which are small shorebirds.

“Basically, they will dig out a nest display, basically a fake nest, to be able to show a female that, ‘Hey, I’m a strong male. I can dig this. I can make a good, strong place for you to lay your eggs,'” Buntin said. “And then when a female comes to visit, they’ll perform a dance which consists of kind of bowing, bobbing, raising their wings out, creating some scratches around the sides of that display nest.”

The authors emphasized that the site is public, meaning anybody can visit and see the scrapes for themselves compared to other scrap sites, which are on federally protected land.

“It does really make it a very, very unique site, because not only does it have this amazing like type behavior displayed, but it also is so accessible for lots of people to be able to see it and understand better about the behavior of these wonderful animals that we can see now,” Neffra Matthews, study co-author and former employee of the Bureau of Land Management, told ABC News.

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