Other Animals

Community engagement is vital to conservation success—it allows conservationists to involve local people in the management and protection of the wildlife they live alongside, while also improving their livelihoods and granting them access to exciting new opportunities. Members of local communities also bring their own immense knowledge and talents to conservation, as seen in the
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Hummingbird feeds on Mexican Sunflower.Photo by Dulcey Lima on Unsplash Mid-August through mid-September are the months that many hummingbirds begin to migrate south for their wintering season. It is essential for migrating hummingbirds to get early starts to arrive at their intended warmer locations within a reasonable period of warmth. Most hummingbird migrations are routed
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Webinar: Ask the Vet with Tom Tully, DVM, DABVP (Avian Practice), DECZM (Avian) Date: Friday, September 29, 2023 Time: 12:00 pm PDT (double-check your local time with this time zone converter) Join us for a FREE, live, interactive webinar hosted by Laura Doering, former editor of Bird Talk magazine and Birds USA magazine. Our special
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Griffin preens to distract himself during a trial. Image courtesy of Dr. Irene Pepperberg Simply stated, “executive function” means using the rational bit of your brain rather than the emotional bit to make a decision. Executive function generally involves three main aspects of behavior (Diamond, 2013)—inhibitory control (thinking about the results of one’s actions and
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My March 2023 post was about the significant work being done in Costa Rica to save the critically endangered Great Green Macaw. While the largest population currently exists there, nearby Colombia is doing its part to sustain this species through the work of the Horizon Conservation Foundation. Mónica Franco, Co-founder, and Executive Director, describes their
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August 14, 2023 By Zachary Mutinda, Save the Elephants Researcher On the edge of Kenya’s vast Tsavo West National Park lies Lake Jipe—one of the country’s most important wetlands and home to hippos, crocodiles, and unique birdlife. But beyond its tranquil setting, this freshwater lake also holds a remarkable secret—a harmonious and unique coexistence between
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JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Volunteerism is an important element of advancing conservationist efforts for many creatures, including our beloved parrots. When one donates a portion of life to helping animals live more efficiently and more easily, an immovable sense of contribution is implanted within us that lives long after the
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July 24, 2023 By Dr. Jim Sanderson, Director of Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation In 2018, I visited Buyandelger Suuri and Otgonbayar Baatargal, who lead Steppe Wildlife, Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation’s (SWCCF) partner in Mongolia. They were working over 415 miles southeast of Ulaanbaatar, the capital city, near the remote village of Sukhbaatar, where Otgonbayar
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With the heavy chain slung over her shoulder, Stephanie Barron climbed up the makeshift ladder along the tree trunk. Steel links clattered as she wrapped them around the bear pole, fastened horizontally 20 ft. above ground and 200 ft. from the campsite, to hang her food. Bears and other predators can smell food from miles
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Anxiously waiting for his colleague to return, Getachew Assefa sat in his tent under a blanket of stars above. The Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Program (EWCP) team camped along the steep, grass-covered cliffs of the Simien Mountains, a rugged landscape home to an important and elusive population of Ethiopian wolves. These wolves’ behavior was not fully
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The Save the Elephants (STE) Human-Elephant Coexistence team treaded carefully, avoiding the broken stalks of the farmer’s ruined maize field. He angrily vented while the researchers inspected the plate-sized footprints of the elephant herd that had raided his farm the previous night. Human-elephant conflict is rising across Africa due to such incidents, and in Sagalla,
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A herd of African forest elephants moves majestically through a tropical rainforest. With each step, they trample dense vegetation that, left untouched, would absorb and store the sun’s heat and warm the ground below. As they trample the plants, the sun’s rays instead reflect off the newly exposed ground, cooling the planet’s surface. The herd
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