World’s largest (harmless) bat inspires Halloween-worthy tales in the Philippines
Oct31

World’s largest (harmless) bat inspires Halloween-worthy tales in the Philippines

By Simon Bradley and Tammy Mildenstein It’s Halloween time again, and around much of the world people are decorating with images of ghosts, vampires, witches, black cats, and, of course, bats. For the superstitious, there may be nothing scarier than the flying foxes of the Philippines, whose 2-meter wingspans make them the largest bats in the world! In keeping with a popular fear and mistrust of nocturnal animals, Philippine flying...

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A jungle day-trip: studying brazil nuts in the Peruvian Amazon
Oct30

A jungle day-trip: studying brazil nuts in the Peruvian Amazon

By Eleanor Warren-Thomas The day begins at around 5 a.m., when the sounds of motorbikes revving, dogs barking, wood being chopped and shouting men start to permeate the room. I haven’t needed to set my alarm for weeks. I am here to help run a project on Brazil nut harvesting from lowland rainforests in Madre de Dios, in the Peruvian Amazon. Brazil nut collection from these forests forms a huge part of many people’s livelihood in this...

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Indonesians working together to save Sumatran tigers
Oct29

Indonesians working together to save Sumatran tigers

Reader contribution by Matthew S. Luskin Indonesians are committed to ensuring the persistence of Sumatran tigers. The gamut of island-wide conservation efforts was discussed this week in Padang, West Sumatra, during the annual meeting of HarimauKita (harimau means “tiger” in Indonesian), which brought together a consortium of stakeholders for Sumatran tiger conservation. Members worked late into each night to coordinate and evaluate...

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Sunset on the Nile
Oct18

Sunset on the Nile

By Jemma Smith This stunning photograph is of the sun setting over the River Nile, which is said to be the longest river in the world with a staggering 6,670 km (4,160 miles) in length and discharges an average of 3.1 million litres of water per second into the Mediterranean Sea. It is long been disputed where the exact source of the river is, however, many believed it to be Lake Victoria in Tanzania. The River Nile travels through...

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Climate Change in the Cloud Forest
Oct10

Climate Change in the Cloud Forest

By Larry Kraft This August, my family and I spent a week and a half in Monteverde, Costa Rica.  This is the tropics, but at an elevation of 4,500 feet or so.  This well-preserved swathe of forest straddles the Continental Divide, which results in clouds and weather coming up from both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  The elevation means it’s never very hot, and the tropical latitude means it’s never very cold.  The mean temperature...

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Sparing a thought for maleo birds on World Egg Day
Oct10

Sparing a thought for maleo birds on World Egg Day

By Simon Bradley / Save Our Species IUCN Friday, October 11th is World Egg Day, when agribusiness promotes the consumption of eggs as a healthy source of protein. When it comes to one of Indonesia’s national icons however, the Endangered maleo bird (Macrocephalon maleo), conservationists such as the Alliance for Tompotika Conservation (AlTo) an SOS – Save Our Species grantee, are trying to discourage the practice of eating its...

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