Wildlife Conservation Insights | Paso Pacifico Blog

The Underwater Enviropreneur

For the winter/spring edition of PERC Reports, Reed Watson talked to scuba diver and reef restoration entrepreneur, Brett Howell. As the Walker Conservation Fellow at the Georgia Aquarium, Howell hopes to illustrate that Florida's coral reefs, a hotbed of biodiversity, present opportunity for cooperation and restoration, rather than a source of conflict. Howell works with the Coral Restoration Foundation (CRF), which grows endangered species of coral in nurseries, to identify...

One Turtle Saved

Fifteen years ago the hawksbill sea turtle in my hands would have been hog-tied, whisked hundreds of miles, slaughtered and carved into trinkets. Now, it swims free. On Baja’s Pacific coast, an adult male hawksbill sea turtle found its way into a fisherman’s net. In the past, for the fisherman anyway, such a thing would have been considered a stroke of good luck. The endless demand for turtle meat, eggs,...

Burt Talks to the Bees

Via the Sustainable Brands newsletter: Burt’s Bees is collaborating with artists and experts at the Pollinator Partnership to generate greater public awareness about the importance of honeybees to agriculture and the threats they face. For such small, short-lived creatures, bees do a lot of heavy lifting to keep life on Earth in balance. In fact, an estimated one-third of the food on Earth depends on pollination by bees. Because they...

Help Fight Fire with Fire

We echo the Nature Conservancy in saying that our hearts go out to those affected by the wildfires burning up the American West. Just as we asked for your help raising money to plant trees in the wake of the fire at the La Flor Wildlife Refuge, the Nature Conservancy is asking for your help restoring forests to reduce the risk of megafires. As the Nature Conservancy's newsletter points out,...

Jaguar & Her Cub Spotted on Colombian Plantation

From NatGeo DailyNews: Jaguars currently live in isolated populations scattered across North and South America, which is part of the reason the species is listed as "near threatened" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. ... Usually, just one jaguar cub survives in a litter, so seeing two cubs alive and well is "heartwarming," he said. (Take a big cats quiz.) It's "important to note" that the camera traps...

Rio +20

Our friends at the International Institute of Tropical Forestry present a peek inside the Rio +20 Earth Summit, from a unique perspective, that of one of their students: "In 1992 I was one year old, I was learning to be a person, walk, talk, eat etc. I had no idea that there was an Earth summit or even a UN." You can follow the adventure on her blog.

Panthera’s Camera Traps Capture Jaguars On Colombian Oil Plantations

From Red Orbit: The first ever photographs of jaguars within an oil plantation in Colombia have just been released... Panthera, the world’s leading wild cat conservation organization, focuses solely on the study and conservation of wild cats. The camera traps placed by Panthera in the Magdalena River valley were meant to gather information about the dangers of Colombia’s growing oil plantations on the jaguar populations. Panthera’s objective is to understand...

Birds, Bats, and Bugs

Today's 60-Second Science podcast from Scientific American: Birds and Bats Downsized Bugs Insect size tracked with atmospheric oxygen levels, until hungry birds and bats hit the scene. In the day of the dinosaur, insects had wingspans of nearly two-and-a-half feet. So why are today’s bugs so puny? Photo courtesy of Bruce Taubert Wildlife Photography http://www.brucetaubert.com/ Birds and bats! Researchers at U.C. Santa Cruz have published their findings on the evolution of insect size...

Swedish Fish?

As we honor the life and work of Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom, let's celebrate the fact that she was right: we can peacefully co-exist with each other and with nature. A great way to understand how is to look at community-managed sustainable fisheries. As reported on NPR's Morning Edition, when New England's fish stocks became severely depleted, a lack of fish put a lot of fishermen out of business. One...

World Oceans Day

Paso Pacífico works from ridge to reef to protect biodiversity and empower communities. What are we doing along coastlines and at sea? Understanding Marine Ecology Our Coastal Marine Research Project contributes to the scientific understanding of sea turtle populations and marine ecology. Our science-based monitoring gauges the effectiveness of management at marine protected areas and the protection of key indicator species – like sea turtles – which are also flagship tourism...

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