Lions face many challenges in the modern world. We have written about lion breeding and conservation and lion trophy hunting in previous WellBeing News posts. But lions also suffer the consequences of human-wildlife conflict, and many are poisoned or killed by exasperated livestock owners when...
It was to be the trip of a lifetime. For decades, I’d imagined how thrilling it would be to walk among the Mountain Gorillas in their natural habitat. I’d been on several safaris elsewhere in Africa. Those were amazing, transformational experiences, yet there were still...
One of my special projects is catching uncatchable dogs! These are dogs that have been lost after a car accident, on a mountain hike, or as a new adoptee that did not know the adopter intended to provide them a forever home. After such dogs...
[caption id="attachment_11965" align="alignright" width="300"] Endangered Hawksbill Sea Turtle caught in a discarded net[/caption] The Challenge The plastics revolution launched in the 1950s has led to the cumulative production of 8,300 million tonnes (MT) of plastic products and vast quantities of plastic pollution (6,300 MT). According to a...
In the January 2022 WellBeing News, we wrote about the proposed wolf hunt in Norway. We mentioned that there had been a court injunction barring the Norwegian Government from issuing permits to shoot 51 of the estimated 80 wolves in the country – an estimated...
In 2000, international animal protection organizations were spending around $110 million annually on global animal protection, with perhaps 10-20% of that total going to dog projects. By 2020, these groups were spending around $400 million globally on animal protection, with approximately $50 million spent on...
The first two parts in WellBeing International’s series on saving tigers recounted just how America arrived at a situation where it had twice as many captive tigers as wild tigers in the world (Part 1) and who owned or housed those captive tigers (Part 2)....
In the June 2020 Tales of WellBeing, Professor Alan Kazdin of Yale contributed an article promoting contact with nature to improve mental health. There is a growing academic literature on the importance of nature in promoting human subjective well-being. For example, in 2019, a paper...
A finely dressed young woman on a swing ascending toward the forest canopy kicks one leg, tossing her shoe far away. This is a deliberate act, not an accident. Her expression is one of careful concentration. Her eyes are fixed on the shoe, which she...
The Tristan da Cunha archipelago, a small group of volcanic islands in the middle of the South Atlantic, is characterized by the surrounding, largely undisturbed, temperate marine ecosystem. The largest island, Tristan, at 98 km2, has a population of approximately 260 permanent inhabitants and is...
