Tag archives for research
Construction Ahead: Prairie Dogs Build Diversity Across the Plains
Posted by American Prairie Reserve on April 1, 2013 
An Interview with Dr. David J. Augustine, USDA - Black-tailed prairie dogs are helpful homebuilders, gardeners and gourmet meals according to recently published research in Conservation Biology. In “Associations of Grassland Bird Communities with Black-tailed Prairie Dogs in the North American Great Plains,” authors David J. Augustine and Bruce W. Baker reveal that the areas…
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The Great Lakes are the largest supply of freshwater in the world, and more than 36 million people depend on them for drinking water. As a result, monitoring and maintaining the health of the Great Lakes ecosystem is an urgent priority. Of the diverse organisms inhabiting freshwater systems, fishes are familiar to scientists and laypeople…
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The humble Maine Lobster has been exposed as a cannibal. University of Maine graduate student Noah Oppenheim and advisor Dr. Rick Wahle presented work at “The American Lobster in a Changing Ecosystem” symposium in Portland, Maine this last week, that showed lobsters prey on themselves in the wild. This phenomena had been seen in…
Montana’s Glaciated Plains: Thinking Big Across Time and Space
Posted by American Prairie Reserve on November 2, 2012 
American Prairie Reserve’s mission to create a reserve of more than three million acres represents one of the largest conservation projects in the United States today. The size of the project is hard to grasp – even a small piece of the 274,000 acres that currently comprise the Reserve seems like an endless “sea…
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The migration of globally endangered Egyptian vultures is under high-tech surveillance Eastern Turkey environmental organization KuzeyDoga celebrated September 1 International Vulture Awareness Day at Turkey’s first vulture restaurant in Igdir with another first for Turkey’s vultures. first vulture restaurantOn August 17, we started satellite-tracking globally endangered Egyptian vultures for the first time in Turkey, in collaboration with Turkey’s Ministry of Forestry…
Posted by Stay tuned for more updates from this year’s BioBlitz as we continue to bring you coverage from Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.
Should Conservation Look Back? Examining Historic Wildlife Populations of America’s Serengeti
Posted by American Prairie Reserve on August 15, 2012 
“Immense” was the word Meriwether Lewis used repeatedly to describe the abundance of wildlife on the prairie during his transcontinental expedition with William Clark from 1804 to 1806; “We saw immence quantities of game in every direction around us as we passed up the river: consisting of herds of Buffaloe, Elk and antelopes with…
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After a few hours of poling on the morning of Day 7 of the 2012 Okavango Wetland Bird Survey we were just about to leave the “People’s Delta” that had become home and turn E to Madinari (“Mother of the Buffalo”) Island on our way across impenetrable reed beds, thick papyrus, and a maze of small…
The journey from Seronga to Jedibe takes us three to four days and poles the wetland bird survey through the unique aquatic habitats of the northern Okavango Delta with crystal clear water, vast reed and papyrus beds, the main rivers, expansive open floodplains, small, palm-covered islands, and beautiful, sparkling channels – you really get the…
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The Cheetah Conservation Fund, headquartered in Otjiworongo, Namibia, is a recognized leader in the field of big cat conservation. CCF is known for many projects, especially their captive cheetah population which number over fifty, some that can be returned to the wild, some that, for a variety of circumstances, cannot. This creates the specialized need…
In Namibia, I visited a foundation with their ear to the ground on the latest technological developments in conservation. From cyber-stalking their GPS collared cheetah via Google Earth and Sirtrack to scanning footprints (spoor) into an analytical database, N/a’an ku sê Foundation is combining new tech with on-the-ground analogue (so to speak) work in the…
I asked Cheetah Conservation Botswana’s researcher, Jane Horgan, why they needed to capture and collar a female cheetah. “We wanted home range and movement data to look at the movements of cheetahs through the Ghanzi farmlands. Information about how far they move in a day, how large their home ranges are, how long they stay…
Dr. Çağan Şekercioğlu is a National Geographic Emerging Explorer. A professor of conservation biology, ecology and ornithology at the University of Utah Department of Biology, he also directs the Turkish environmental organization KuzeyDoğa. A gray wolf (Canis lupus) photographed by one of KuzeyDoğa‘s camera traps in Kars Turkey (Türkiye) is the only country covered almost entirely by three…
Living alone in the wilderness far away from civilization had long been a dream of mine. The great writers, scholars, prophets and leaders all took inspiration from the wild. Our religious totems, coats-of-arms, symbols, artworks, stories, myths, poems, legends and writings all bear testamant to the profound impact nature has on us. We named rivers, lakes and…
The Psychology of What Makes Teens Thankful
Posted by Youth Radio Investigates on November 23, 2011 
The study of gratitude is a burgeoning field within psychology, and across the board, results show that people who are more thankful are less prone to stress and depression and are, well, happier. Researchers say one group that could use a lot more gratitude is teenagers. Youth Radio Investigates reporter Rayana Godfrey set out to determine why.
Posted by William Lenoir, an astronaut who flew aboard the first space shuttle mission to deploy commercial satellites, died August 26 from head injuries sustained during a bicycle accident. —Image courtesy NASA Born March 14, 1939, in Miami, Florida, Lenoir earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ultimately graduating with a Ph.D. in electrical…
This month the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released its list of the 21 sites being added to the World Heritage list. Inclusion on the list is meant to “encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity,” according…
Is it just me, or has it been a slow week so far for space news post-AAS? Admittedly, on the last night of the conference astronomers party like they mean it, as I discovered last year during the winter Austin meeting and had confirmed for me this year in Long Beach. [But that’s just a…
