3402 stories
Nature & Wildlife
By Ben Bressler NHA Founder & Director I hate to focus on bad news when there are so many great strides being made in conservation worldwide, but I thought you would be interested in these two breaking news stories: sadly, they are both very unfortunate for polar bears, an iconic species that you and…
Videos
Big yet graceful, elk (Cervus elaphus) are one of my favorite animals to spot in the wild. They are, in fact, the most abundant large mammal found in Yellowstone National Park, and paleontological evidence suggests they have had a continuous presence there for at least a thousand years.
Conservation
We humans have a long history of looking to trees for sustenance. For thousands of years, our forests have supplied our food, fuel and shelter. While we still count on them today to provide those necessities to some extent, we additionally charge them with the task of mitigating the effects of our carbon-spewing, combustion-engine civilization.
Conservation
Tomorrow, February 27, is International Polar Bear Day. Many environmental organizations are asking that you take some kind of action to show your concern for our rapidly warming planet and the fate of climate change’s poster child: the polar bear. Requests range from taking part in a thermostat challenge to symbolically “adopting” a polar bear.
Videos
Giant pandas are among the world’s most uncommon and elusive animals. China’s State Forestry Administration estimates that there are only about 1,600 of them remaining in the wild, down from 2,500 in the 1970s. They inhabit the mountainous regions of China’s Sichuan (1,200 pandas), Shaanxi (300 pandas) and Gansu (100 pandas) Provinces.
Conservation
When images of a wild giant panda gnawing on a takin carcass in China’s Sichuan Province were recently captured on motion-sensor cameras, researchers were caught by surprise. Although pandas are technically carnivores, their diets today consist almost entirely (99 percent) of bamboo leaves, stems and shoots.
Travel Tales
It’s not unusual, when I’m off on an adventure in some far-flung corner of the world, to be eating some unfamiliar fare… But this gritty feeling inside my mouth was something else entirely. How did I get these minute lava particles between my teeth? Oh yes, it must be that huge volcano erupting some 9,000 feet above my head! I spit out the grit, and grin — I’ve just had a taste – literally – of the enormous eruption of Mt. Karymsky on the Kamchatka Peninsula in far-eastern Russia…
Nature & Wildlife
The emerald ash borer is a serial killer, responsible for more than 100 million tree deaths. A beetle native to Asia, the emerald ash borer was first discovered in the United States in Michigan in the summer of 2002. Since then, it has spread to 17 more states and Canada.
Videos
Talk about the delicate balance of nature! Sculptor Michael Grab creates his works of art by finding that perfect point of equilibrium between two rocks.
Nature & Wildlife
Recently, when a group of sperm whales about a thousand miles off the coast of Lisbon, Portugal, took in an adult bottlenose dolphin, behavioral ecologists were puzzled. While cross-species interactions are not uncommon among terrestrial animals, sperm whales are not known for forging nurturing bonds with other species.
Conservation
The Uganda Minister for Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities, with the support of The Wildlife Conservation Society, recently checked in with the mountain gorilla population in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and found the primates doing well.
Alaska
After more than 100 years of absence from the United States, a wild population of North America’s largest land mammal may soon be reintroduced to Alaska: wood bison. Larger than plains bison (Bison bison bison)—which may weigh up to 1,900 pounds—wood bison (Bison bison athabascae) bulls tip the scale at up to 2,250 pounds.
