Sea turtles have the dubious honor of being one of the few animals that rank high globally on both the charisma scale and the dinner menu. If it is true that in western countries sea turtles have amassed legions of fans, it is also true that for millennia, in coastal villages worldwide, they have been...
“Blue carbon” is a term for the carbon that is sequestered and stored naturally by marine and coastal wetland ecosystems — mangroves, seagrasses and tidal marshes. These coastal wetlands are gaining more and more recognition as important and efficient carbon sinks, based on their ability to sequester large amounts of carbon not just in the...
Just back from an adventure at Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Dr. Nikhil Advani wanted to share his thoughts on climate change adaptation. Like many scientists, Dr. Advani is on the lookout for new ways to communicate and deliver his science to a broad audience. Dr. Advani found podcasts as one innovative avenue to share...
The vaquita, Spanish for little cow, is the world’s smallest porpoise and one of its most endangered sea mammals. Found only in the Gulf of California, the species is being driven to extinction by illegal gillnet fishing — caught in nets dropped for toatoba, an endangered fish whose swim bladders are thought to hold medicinal value in...
You might have heard that Disney’s newest blockbuster, Zootopia (titled Zootropolis in some European countries), is driving a “huge demand for fennec foxes as pets” in China. What you probably have not read is the evidence to support such headlines. And the reason for that is simple: there isn’t any. It is time to stop...
The open ocean may be vast but it’s not limitless. Under that glassy expanse, the pelagic environment is more than empty blue water. It’s streaked and spotted with migratory thoroughfares and breeding grounds for marine mammals, turtles, fish, and seabirds. Thousands of miles from shore, the sea still thrums with life. Yet there is no...
New research published in the journal Ecology finds that a wide-variety of fish and wildlife are professional surfers. But don’t expect to see these animals in the next remake of Point Break, they don’t surf waves of water; they surf waves of food, and it may be their only way to make a good living....
It has been all over the news recently – every headline painting a grim future for wild lions, a future where they could potentially disappear completely. According to a recent study, lion populations in West, Central and East Africa are likely to drop by 50% in the next twenty years. But the continuing cub boom...
The Society for Conservation Biology’s North America Policy Program The world’s oceans are facing an unprecedented plastic crisis, and your morning routine may be inadvertently adding to it. Plastic in the ocean is hard to track and quantities are growing every day, but scientists have estimated that concentrations can be as high as 580,000 pieces...
By Jennifer McGowan and Hugh Possingham Australia has some of the world’s most amazing marine wonders, and while many of these are to be found on the Great Barrier Reef, most of these wonders are actually in other places in the seas and oceans surrounding our country. Unfortunately, almost all of the attention on our marine natural...
By Tripp Burwell A major focus in the conservation world today is finding (and perhaps creating) economic incentives to perform acts of conservation. This method has its detractors, but proponents assert that if we can find additional motivations for conservation, that can only help the conservation effort. If you follow conservation news, or even the Pope’s encyclical on climate, you...
It was the mid-1990s, and my boyfriend and I were in the midst of a cross-country drive on our way back to college. We stopped for a spell in the picturesque community of Kelly, Wyoming, our jumping-off point for a short backpacking trip in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. I was excited—it was my first time...
Lauren Bailey – Society for Conservation Biology Three years ago I moved with my family to Arlington, Virginia, minutes outside of the nation’s capital. I can see Reagan National Airport from my front yard, the Washington Monument looms in the not-too-far distance, and a major boulevard is only a block from my house. And yet,...
By Kat Diersen, The Society for Conservation Biology’s North America Policy Program Five years ago today, just before dawn, I was kneeling in the pristine white sand of a beach in the Florida panhandle, digging up a loggerhead sea turtle nest. Normally this sort of thing is discouraged. After all, most sea turtles are protected...
In India in a rural area along the border with Bangladesh, Tripp Burwell, member of the Society for Conservation Biology, was helping local villagers learn about forest conservation when they heard the sounds of illegal loggers at work. Pursuit of the poachers resulted in an opportunity to apprehend and talk with the interlopers from a neighboring...