Nature & Wildlife
The decline of charismatic and large animals like lions and pandas often captures global attention, but a quieter and perhaps more damaging crisis is unfolding among those that are smaller. These bitty beings are disappearing at alarming rates, and their loss can have outsize consequences for biodiversity. But don’t count these small bodies out yet.
Nature & Wildlife
I like to think of biodiversity as a symphony orchestra, where each note, each instrument—every single part—is needed to make the whole. In the concert called “biodiversity,” then, every species, from microscopic life to towering trees and vast oceans, plays a vital role.
Conservation
Around the world, the variety of living things—defined as biodiversity—is declining, as increasing numbers of species face the risk of extinction.
Conservation
In addition to being beautiful, African leopards are adaptable, elusive and versatile animals. Now, we can add genetically diverse to that list.
News & More
The Earth’s tallest living land animals are in trouble. Giraffes, who reach heights of up to 18 feet, are declining at an alarming rate, and trade in wildlife body parts and anthropomorphic climate change are largely to blame. Surprisingly, though, it’s not the world’s rising temperatures that are putting giraffes in jeopardy.
Conservation
Here, in the United States, 80% of us live in cities. If you’re in that majority, how do you feel about your wild neighbors, the animals who also live in our urban areas? It’s an important question to ask because your answer has major implications for biodiversity protections, nature conservation and urban planning.
Conservation
The grace of a running gazelle, the majesty of a migrating herd of wildebeests, the elegance of an outstretched wing in flight or the grand glissades of massive glaciers. These are nature’s lissome movements. There’s nothing else like them.
News & More
In the popular and now iconic 1975 movie Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg, a great white shark attacks swimmers during one summer in the fictional beach town of Amity Island, New York. Because of the film, many people came to fear great whites—with good reason.
Conservation
Ever since the HMS Beagle arrived in the Galapagos Islands with a young Charles Darwin aboard—who was soon to meet a fateful family of finches—ecologists have struggled to understand a particularly perplexing question: Why is there such a ridiculous abundance of species in some places on Earth and a scarcity in others?
Videos
There are some who just love flight. The ones that I’m thinking about have the longest wingspans in the animal kingdom, and they are masters at using them efficiently. They can fly 50 miles per hour. They go years without touching land; in fact, most of their time is spent up in the clouds.
African Safaris
Staggering natural wonders—such as Victoria Falls, considered to be the world’s biggest curtain of falling water (not because of a singular dimension, such as height or width, but because of all dimensions taken into account, including flow rate)—and a massive network of remote national parks where you can encounter most of Africa’s iconic wildlife…
News & More
Whale sharks are the biggest fish and shark in the world. Adults can weigh 41,000 pounds and average about 40 feet long, but they may grow as large as 65 feet. According to World Wildlife Fund (WWF), these gentle giants roam all the planet’s tropical oceans, generally alone.
