283 stories
Originally published by Nina Foster, September 2022, at worldwildlife.org He knew they were getting close when he caught a whiff of a familiar scent. You can often smell gorillas before you see them, says WWF’s Allard Blom, managing director of WWF’s Congo Basin program.
There’s no question: Seeing mountain gorillas in the forests of Uganda and Rwanda is, for many wildlife enthusiasts, the apex of their globetrotting adventures. But that’s not the whole story for the two African nations; they’re also home to numerous other species that are spectacular in their own right.
A frog spotting can evoke different extremes of emotion. Some people can’t wait to hear the return of their spring ribbits and look with reverence at these tiny amphibians that play such an important role in maintaining ecological integrity. Others are put off by their bulging eyes, sudden jumps and throaty croaks.
By Nat Hab Traveler Connie Owen, originally published in Jackson Hole News & Guide It wasn’t on my bucket list. I didn’t want to go. I was kicking and screaming all the way to the airport.
Often, the numbers seem to look bad for African rhinos. Right now, the statistics show that these animals are rapidly declining in core, state-run reserves, such as South Africa’s Kruger National Park. Currently—much like with tigers—more than half of the continent’s remaining rhinoceroses are now on private lands.
Why zebras have stripes has been a matter for scientific debate for decades. A lot of theories have been put forth, such as they’ve evolved for camouflage, to confuse the vision of biting flies, to bewilder predators with “motion dazzle” or that they’re a means of identification among zebras themselves.
Despite the challenges today’s world faces, Planet Earth is the gift that keeps on giving. That’s good news for scientists who relish the rush of discovery, as some think there are approximately 8.7 million species left to be found.
If eating better is one of your goals for the New Year, you’re probably considering adopting guidelines from the popular Mediterranean diet, becoming a vegetarian or, perhaps, following Paleo diet recommendations. But, here’s something you’ve likely never thought about: modeling your eating on a traditional, rural Tanzanian diet.
South Africa’s Cape Town is a place unlike any other. Perched along the waters of the continent’s southwest coast, this port city is a multicultural metropolis with a wealth of biodiversity that extends eastward, from its flat-topped Table Mountain to natural areas like the Cape of Good Hope — where the mountains meet the sea.
A decade ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a call to action to raise awareness about endangered and near-extinct animals and help put an end to the illegal wildlife trade that puts precious species at risk around the globe.
Cheetahs are the world’s fasted land mammals, able to accelerate from zero to 64 miles an hour in only three seconds. They are also one of the most ancient of the big cat species, with ancestors tracing back about 8.5 million years. Despite being swift-footed, ferocious hunters, cheetahs can’t outrun the growing threat of extinction.
When Owen Coffey and his wife, Margo, decided they were ready to take a bucket-list trip to Botswana’s Okavango Delta in 2019, Owen started researching tour options. But nothing he found quite fit the idea they couple had in their heads. “There were certain things we wanted to see, and some we didn’t,” Owen says.
