Call him inspired. If Biblical Ishmael were banished to the desert, naturalist Hugo Santa Cruz is quarantined to wander in paradise, a paradise in the Costa Rican jungle, that is.…
Early on the morning of Sept. 16, 2018, an olive ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) hauled herself out of the ocean along a beach on Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula. Moving…
Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This week we’re meeting the Mexican hairy dwarf porcupine. The Mexican…
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is one of the largest and most influential environmental funders in the world. Since its inception in 1992, the GEF has provided more than $20…
While COVID-19 caught most of the world off guard, Indigenous environmental leader Levi Sucre Romero says he foresaw the potential for a pandemic all along. “There is an understanding with…
“Twenty years ago, I collected between 600 to 800 a day – now I’m lucky if I can harvest 150.” Adrian Torres holds a black, shining, wrinkled mollusk (Anadara tuberculosa)…
Let’s be honest: many conservationists may start their careers with big ambitions. But as they, and their careers, age, those ambitions — especially in light of the Anthropocene — understandably…
Scientists have uncovered alarming declines in caterpillar diversity and their parasites across 22 years of monitoring in a protected forest in Costa Rica. In their study, published in Scientific Reports,…
Howler monkeys change their calls when they’re close to deforested areas, a new study has found. A team of researchers, led by anthropologist Laura Bolt of the University of Waterloo…
According to reports, COP25, the UN climate negotiations that concluded in Madrid, Spain last week, did not yield any progress in terms of more ambitious emissions reduction pledges. But there…
In the fourth and final story of this exclusive Mongabay series, entomologists around the world offer far ranging solutions to curb and reverse the great insect die-off.
Among the fisheries of Latin America and the Caribbean, shrimp has the highest export value after tuna. Trawling, the most popular and efficient way to harvest shrimp, has been a…
On today’s episode, we talk with zoologist Rebecca Cliffe about why the popular perception of sloths as lazy creatures is completely unwarranted — and why debunking myths like this about…
On the night of March 18, Sergio Rojas Ortiz, leader of the Bribri indigenous people, was murdered at his home in the indigenous territory of Salitre in Costa Rica. Rojas,…
Everyone loves camera trap photos. Remotely installed cameras triggered by motion or heat of a passing person or animal, have helped research projects document the occurrence of species or describe…
Pesticide use on agricultural plantations may be shifting the color palette of howler monkey fur in Costa Rica, a team of scientists has found. Mantled howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata) are…
Secondary forests — those that regrow naturally after being cleared or degraded — constitute more than half of existing tropical forests. When they are old enough, they support a wide…
Peruvian palm oil, orca attacks on humpback whales, and mining in an Amazon national park are among the recent top stories from Mongabay Latam, our Spanish-language service. Orcas attack young…
When Osa Conservation project coordinator Juan Carlos Cruz met a local landowner angered by the presence of a pair of camera traps on his land in this southwestern section of…
Photographer Suzi Eszterhas was working on a story in Costa Rica when she met sloth researcher Dr. Rebecca Cliffe for the first time. The pair spent weeks in the field…
Hundreds of students from science and technology programs around the city of Los Angeles, California have begun participating in a hands-on effort to apply ingenuity and technology to protect the…
Sitting in a cloud forest on top of the Cordillera de Tilarán, the mountaintop town of Monteverde, Costa Rica seems isolated. But, its view stretches far beyond its boundaries. In…
Researchers have come upon a new low-tech tropical forest restoration strategy, beginning with agricultural waste. They studied the effects on soil and forest health of the purposeful deposition of tons…
While leatherback sea turtles typically do their nesting at night, a prospective mother turtle is sometimes up so late laying her eggs that she is still on the beach at…
Dr. Christoph von Beeren of Germany’s Technical University Darmstadt was collecting “ant guests” during the nightly emigration of an army ant colony at La Selva Biological Station, a lowland Atlantic…
Last August, Animal Planet’s documentary, Toucan Nation, highlighted the case of Grecia, the Costa Rican toucan who lost half of its beak after being cruelly attacked by a group of…
n May 30 2013, Jairo Mora Sandoval, a sea turtle conservationist, and four women volunteers were kidnapped by a group of men at gunpoint on Moin beach near Limón, Costa…
ach year millions of travelers stream through the gates of Costa Rica’s Juan Santamaría airport in route to one of the country’s many natural wonders. But often when tourists leave,…
Using sophisticated software to analyze images from drone-mounted cameras could provide cheap, timely and detailed information on tree growth, seasonal forest dynamics and other key metrics.
Sea turtle nesting grounds on Pacuare Beach, Costa Rica, where poachers attacked conservationists late last month. Photo credit: Sea Shepherd/Eva Hidalgo. Activists working to protect sea turtles have once again…
