A research team testing the capacity of both citizen scientists and machine learning algorithms to help survey the annual wildebeest migration in Serengeti National Park in Tanzania found that both…
Koalas are Australian icons, known globally for their fuzzy ears, broad wet nose, and love of eucalyptus leaves. They are also cryptic, slow-moving creatures that live high in the leafy…
The waters of the eastern Baltic Sea around Finland are home to the flounder, a flatfish with both its eyes on one side of the head that uses its camouflage…
In April 2015, researchers headed out to the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean to service acoustic receivers they had dotted around the archipelago, and to download tag data from…
In India, few animals carry the kind of cultural symbolism that elephants do. Human-elephant interaction boasts a rich history dating back centuries. Nevertheless, such a long association has also included…
This year, World Wildlife Day will celebrate life in the world’s oceans. It’s a fitting tribute. Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the world’s surface, harbor hundreds of thousands…
Climate research has demonstrated that the overall warming of the planet is leading to a jump in extreme weather. High temperatures have risen even higher than they’ve typically been, of…
Human-dominated mangroves are far from what is considered an ideal environment for otters. And yet an estuarine island on India’s western coast is home to a thriving population of the…
In a classic poem, an ancient mariner finds himself haunted by the albatross he killed. Two hundred years after Samuel Coleridge penned that poem, albatrosses still follow fishing ships. But…
On today’s episode, we speak with Oliver Metcalf, lead author of a recent study that used bioacoustic recordings and machine learning to track birds in New Zealand after they’d been…
Camera trapping has become an important conservation and research tool worldwide. Photos from remote cameras have afforded us insights into the lives of rare, shy, cryptic, nocturnal, or otherwise seldom-seen…
Sometimes, a black cat can bring good luck. A professional photographer, together with leopard researchers from San Diego Zoo and Kenya’s Loisaba Conservancy, used camera traps to document the presence…
Wind turbines are a valuable source of renewable energy, but they’re eco-unfriendly in one particular way: the giant spinning blades frequently kill birds and bats. A new system that jams…
When you’re new to an area, it takes time to settle in. We all want a comfortable place to live, in a safe neighborhood, with convenient access to shops and…
A new competition seeks ideas for tech solutions to a broad range of challenges facing conservation. The second round of the Con X Tech Prize encourages anyone to submit an…
In 1998, Douglas Clark witnessed Manitoba’s second recorded grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) sighting of the century. Then a warden in Canada’s Wapusk National Park, he remembers swooping down near…
Noisy aliens flying above us might stress us out or cause alarm. As drones fly UFO-like over forests, wetlands, deserts, and oceans, serving as tools to monitor wildlife, detect habitat…
Devices worn by wild animals that record their location, and in some cases their behavior and environmental conditions, are known as biologgers. They have vastly increased our knowledge of animal…
Research on soft-bodied marine invertebrates such as squid and jellyfish has been slow in coming. Squid are keystone taxa and important food sources for myriad larger species, said T. Aran…
Researchers and forest managers working to record and reduce the rapid loss of forests are now armed with a new tool to monitor vegetation across the globe. In December 2018,…
Spatial data from satellites are now fine-scale enough to provide land use and vegetation cover information at the level of individual farms. An international team of researchers examined the potential…
Forestry and construction companies in the U.K. are required to ensure their work doesn’t endanger protected species, including the nesting sites of protected bird species. In the case of the…
Pulsating lights placed around llama and alpaca herds warded off puma attacks during a recent experiment in Chile, suggesting the method might help avert conflict between herders and dwindling populations…
There’s a lot to listen for in a tropical forest. There’s the sound of life: the howls, the hoots, the croaks. There’s the sound of loss: the buzz of chainsaws,…
If you know the animals in your neighborhood but not the plants, you’re not alone. Scientists have documented nearly 400,000 plant species and expect to identify many more. But unlike…
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…
You can now speak into your mobile phone and have it produce written text. Then have Google translate your words into Japanese, or Hindi. In two seconds. These examples of…
After months of fasting as she traveled hundreds of kilometers across the ocean, a female loggerhead sea turtle hauls herself up onto the sand: the shoreline she has returned to…
Reports of illegal trafficking in elephant ivory or rhino horn abound, but plants are actually more frequent victims of the illicit trade than wildlife. In fact, roughly 30,000 of the…
A multi-national research team has developed a rapid DNA identification method to help customs inspectors detect illegally traded wildlife products, beginning with sharks. The DNA testing protocol, published last month,…
