Animal Behavior, GIS, and Birds
“Birds make any place a chance for discovery, they make a garden seem wild, they are a little bit of wilderness coming into a city park, and for a bird watcher, every walk is filled with anticipation. What feathered jewel might drop out of the sky next?” - David Sibley,…
Protecting Gorillas Against Humans
“When you realize the value of all life you dwell less on past and concentrate more on the conservation of the future.” -Dian Fossey Human conflict provoked by war zone areas endanger not only the lives of humans but of the animals that inhabit the area. More than 70% of…
The Perils of Palm Oil
Palm Oil is a type of edible vegetable oil that is derived from the palm fruit that originated from West Africa and the use of it in the international market expanded significantly as a result of the British Industrial Revolution. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand are the top three countries that…
What’s All the Buzz About?
"To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few." (Emily Dickinson) The gentle buzz of a bee gliding on a lazy breeze in summer is a common spectacle observed from youth. …
Saving The Rainforests of the Sea
Our underwater landscape is rapidly disappearing. The Coral Reef, a once beautiful array of color and beauty is becoming scarce as pollution and other factors create an inhospitable habitat. Coral Bleaching is shocking divers as the once vibrant coral turns shades of white and fades into a dead brown. This…
Turn Out the Lights
Light, it’s all around us. Residents in intensely populated areas are accustomed to the constant illumination from artificial street lights and blazing bright highways. While a constant supply of light can be useful, it also can be harmful. A typical city-lit sky is a hundred times brighter than a sky…
Conserving the High Seas
The United Nations (UN) has proposed a new treaty, the Agreement on Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, thought to work to protect the conservation and sustainable use of the high seas. Countries met and voted on Sunday, December 24th, 2017 at the…
Are Fish Ladders the Solution?
Today, the United States can accredit some of their position as a global powerhouse to the invention of the hydrodam. The creation of the hydrodam allowed boats to traverse rivers in the Northwest, bring goods inland, bring drinking water to cities, and even generated electric power in the meantime. All…
Wilderness or Biospheres?
As human populations continue to grow, conservationists have become more concerned about the state of our natural environment and how it will survive in the face of human activity. Everyday, all over the world, natural lands and wildlife are compromised for the purpose of human activity or resource extraction. Still,…
What’s with all the Hurricanes?
On August 25th, Hurricane Harvey barreled through Texas, wreaking havoc and destruction. Now, Hurricane Irma, one of the strongest hurricanes on record, devastated the Caribbean and is threatening south Florida. Tropical Storm Jose trails behind Irma in the mid-atlantic and Hurricane Katia is now threatening eastern Mexico. Hurricane experts say…