After the ban on logging in Thailand, thousands of elephants became "unemployed." Some roamed the big cities like Bangkok, where mahouts sold fruit to citizens and tourists to feed their elephants. A city is not a good place for an elephant, but the elephants could...
(Extract from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, G. Byron 1818, verse 178)Lord Byron's narrative poem, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, contains the line in the above title. The line captures the essence of the Rewilding concept. Rewilding is not about privileging Nature over humans but restoring Nature to vigorous...
My grandfather, Bernard Sax, emigrated from Russia to the United States in 1914. With his wife, Bluma, he purchased some abandoned farmland so inexpensively that it was almost free. The land was for a little community of Russian Jews, largely Communist, as a buffer between...
In the 19th century, two American conservation giants held conflicting views on how best to conserve nature. Gifford Pinchot campaigned to save natural areas FOR human use and enjoyment, while John Muir campaigned to preserve nature FROM human exploitation. Pinchot’s legacy includes Yellowstone National Park, whereas...
Fifty years ago (Feb 10, 1973), Science News published a short article, “Setting sail into a plastic sea.” The story noted that scientists on an oceanographic voyage in the North Pacific “recorded 53 manmade objects in 8.2 hours of viewing” even though “they were 600...
Wild birds are important for their contributions to ecosystem health and human well-being. Critical ecological roles provided by birds include insect and rodent control, plant pollination, and seed dispersal. Wild birds have also captivated humans for millennia, and today, the avid birder or “twitcher” is...
The Center for Large Landscape Conservation (CLLC), called Climate Conservation initially, was established by veterinarian and conservation biologist Dr. Gary Tabor in Bozeman, Montana, in 2011. WBI was delighted when CLLC agreed to be a WBI partner. Both organizations are building connections and partnerships to...
In June 2020, WellBeing News included an article on sustainable fisheries that mentioned the 1990 collapse of the North Atlantic cod fishery off the coasts of the USA and Canada. A moratorium on catching cod was established in 1992 with the hope that the cod...
As the director of Animal People, I had the opportunity to attend the second part of the U.N. Biodiversity Conference – also known as the 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP 15. COP 15 was convened in Montreal in...
The report on the recent international meeting on biodiversity in Montreal describes some political considerations and challenges as the world attempts to protect and sustain biodiversity. But what is biodiversity, and how is it changing around the globe?Biodiversity refers to the variety and variability of...
