1183 stories
Anyone who has ever lived with dogs knows that they can count. Try to short your best friend on daily treats, and you’ll quickly find out that he or she is keeping track. We now know that a wide variety of other animals can count, too.
Just exactly how many species are there in our big, diverse world? And where, precisely, do they live?
Each winter, millions of monarch butterflies migrate from southeastern Canada and the northeastern United States to the fir forests of Mexico’s Central Highlands. This migration is considered as one of the most incredible phenomena in the animal kingdom.
The Swiss Alps are a region of untamed beauty, dramatic peaks rising above pastoral villages. This fairytale realm is filled with sapphire lakes, wildflower meadows and sparkling waterfalls. After a scenic railway journey on the historic Glacier Express, arrive in idyllic Zermatt.
As you venture forth into the Canadian Rockies, you’ll be entering a realm of turquoise lakes and wildflower meadows. Grand mountains rise into the clouds, and glacier-fed rivers run through deep valleys as you hike through the alpine wilderness.
As you prepare for your trip to the European Arctic by luxury train, harken back to the days of Imperial Russia on a city tour through the streets of St. Petersburg.
We’re all familiar with this movie scene: a bald eagle soars overhead in a wild, Western-type, wide-open landscape, and we hear the iconic, piercing, strong screech of America’s most majestic bird.
Here, looking out from the Anthropocene, we tend to regard nature as something other than ourselves.
There’s the old maxim that you must know something to love it. And we’ve certainly heard that regarding nature: that if we don’t expose people—particularly the next generation—to the outdoors and the biodiversity that resides there, they won’t be or become good stewards of the environment.
If you asked any wildlife fan or pet owner if animals have beliefs, I’m guessing their answers would almost all fall within the “yes” category, based on observations and anecdotal evidence. Science, however, is always held to a higher standard: proof is required.
When children were recently asked to draw their “happy places,” more than half of them created drawings that included aspects of nature and outdoor spaces, such as gardens, grass, lakes, outdoor playgrounds, parks, rainbows, rivers, sunlight or trees. Trees, in particular, were drawn by a third of the children.
Much like the beneficial but complicated effects that the wolves of Yellowstone National Park exert upon their environment, recent research is beginning to show that there is a complex relationship between elephants, giraffes and other megafauna and their natural habitats, the African savannas.
