Nature & Wildlife
I’m not a fan of escaping winter; in fact, I think it’s an endangered “species” that we need to cherish while we still have it. But millions of birds appear to disagree with me. Every year, they migrate in huge flocks to escape the season.
Nature & Wildlife
Recently, several scientists from the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute have had close encounters with nonhuman, intelligent beings. These creatures blew bubble rings toward them, in what could be a sophisticated form of nonverbal communication. The nonhuman beings, however, were not from another planet.
Nature & Wildlife
Songs have power. That was never made clearer to me than when I recently read about some new discoveries involving the songs of animals. Songs can lead us to find rare wonders.
Nature & Wildlife
If you’re a whale in a playful mood, things might be a little difficult for you. It’s hard to locate handy toys when you’re in deep ocean waters.
Nature & Wildlife
A pod of orcas grabbed the headlines in late March 2019. Researchers performing their annual dolphin and whale surveys off the southwestern coast of Australia stumbled across an orca attack on a healthy, adult blue whale. They recorded the event, which had never been documented before.
Conservation
In prepandemic times, those of us who cherish wildlife and wild places tried to quantify them in economic terms, hoping to convince those who didn’t care about protecting nature that not doing so would impact their bottom lines. Now, 10 months after the coronavirus outbreak, that strategy seems naive to me.
Alaska
It has been a little less than a year since WWF’s Mac Mirabile journeyed to Alaska’s Katmai National Park to witness the world’s greatest brown bear habitat. Since then he compiled some amazing footage to share his experience. First, we saw bear cubs wrestling.
Travel Tips
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. It’s the most stressful time of the year. No matter where you tend to fall on that spectrum during the week preceding the end-of-the-year holidays, almost all of us hope for a quiet and peaceful season. But how do you go about achieving that silence?
Nature & Wildlife
Much like us, other animals have “languages” that they use in order to communicate with members of their own species. For example, prairie dogs have developed different “words” to describe various predators—barks, squeals and squeaks that contain different numbers of rhythmic chirps and frequency modulations to distinguish which one is currently after them.
Nature & Wildlife
Whales are complex creatures with very large brains. We are only just beginning to understand small portions of their highly developed cultures. Among the many things we don’t know about them is why they beach.
Travel Tales
Southeast Alaska has the greatest tidal differences I’ve ever paddled in, and the combination of traveling by ship and kayaking in Glacier Bay National Park is one of the best ways to experience this natural gem.
Videos
In some of the last quiet, pristine waters on the British Columbia Coast, humpback whales are making a comeback. In the mid 1960s, when Canada stopped whaling on its West Coast, there were only about 1,500 of them left in the North Pacific.
