During the middle of March each year, the ornamental cat’s claw vine (Dolichandra unguis-cati) bursts into bloom in Sri Lanka, and this year is no exception. The entire creeper gets…
RANOMAFANA and ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — While many U.S. travelers dream of the fabled forests of Madagascar, for Malagasy conservationist Mahandry Hugues Andrianarisoa, 28, it was the verdant landscape of upstate…
While out on routine coastal surveys this past summer, a group of researchers noticed something odd. There were huge clusters of small, black mussels clinging on to wood stumps, plastic…
The natural world that many of us knew as children is slipping away as the environmental crisis escalates and native species we adored move on or perish; while world leaders dither.
The Con X Tech Prize just announced its second round will be funding 20 finalists each with $3,500 to create their first prototypes. Some 150 teams submitted ideas that use…
In Whāingaroa/Raglan on New Zealand’s (NZ’s) west coast, trapping for introduced mammals that prey on endangered native birds is something of a competitive sport. Karioi Project, a local conservation NGO…
The global trade of products that come at the expense of tropical forest is driving many primate species closer to extinction, a new study suggests. The research, published June 17…
Last April, a male Burmese python led researchers at the Big Cypress National Preserve in the Florida Everglades straight to a 17-foot female that was carrying 73 developing eggs. The…
When the British explorer James Cook circumnavigated the islands that he would later call New Zealand in 1769, he described the birdsong on the densely forested archipelago as “deafening.” One…
It’s hard to imagine how the oceans might operate without the sway of human activity. The recent assessment by the U.N. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found…
Just before Pope Francis released Laudato Si’, an encyclical, or formal letter from the pope, on the environment, on May 24, 2015, global concern for the environment seemed to be…
Life on this planet, in all its wide diversity, is disappearing more quickly now than it has at any time in human history, and some 1 million species of plants…
In 1995, there were only 51 kākāpō left on Earth, and it seemed that the giant flightless parrots were headed for extinction. Once abundant in New Zealand, the ground-dwelling kākāpō…
Remember that 3-meter (17-foot) pregnant Burmese python recently captured by wildlife authorities in southern Florida? These snakes, invasive to North America and destructive to native wildlife, are cryptic in both…
The waters off the Galápagos Islands have nearly 10 times more alien marine invertebrates than previously recorded, a recent study has found. Located 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) off Ecuador, the…
Island-dwelling animals around the globe often face a common threat: alien species that compete with them for food, kill them and their young, and otherwise hamper their ability to survive.…
On a gloomy afternoon in May 2018, conservation biologist Bibhab Talukdar was visiting Pobitora National Park in India's Assam state. As he rode an elephant into the grasslands at the…
Animals around the globe are losing ground to farming and ranching, and their numbers are dwindling at the hands of human hunters. But the question of where to direct precious…
ARUSHA, Tanzania — At the Randilen Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in northern Tanzania, the searing heat and parched terrain make it an attractive hour for a cold swim. A herd of…
“Why on earth would anyone give up working on tigers to focus on freshwater fish?” is the question I am asked most frequently since becoming the Executive Director of Shoal,…
