By Jason G. Goldman When Lila Higgins first had the idea to pit Los Angeles against San Francisco in a race to see which city could generate the most biodiversity data in just eight days, she had no idea it would spawn a global movement. The year was 2016, and the Obama White House had declared April 16 of that year as "Citizen Science Day." Higgins, the Senior Director of...
In Central America, some farmers use machetes to plant "living fences" and assist forest regrowth. There is significant potential for mass forest regrowth efforts using their techniques, but this information is hard to find. Today, you can fund the pilot project that will gather this information, design easy instructions and pilot this program to 1000 farmers so they can grow 20,000 trees. Until 11:59 pm EDT on Friday, April 23,...
By Jason G. Goldman Biologist Miguel Ordeñana crouches down in the shade of a forest and reaches into his pack for a small bottle. He sprays the substance on a tree just a few feet above the ground. A few meters away behind him is a camera trap he's deployed. The liquid he's spraying is a cologne called Calvin Klein Obsession for Men and if he's lucky, the scent will...
By Jason G. Goldman The writing was on the wall more than a decade ago, or at least it seemed to be. Though the species was classified as one of "least concern" by the IUCN, yellow-naped amazon parrots were struggling in the Paso del Istmo region of Nicaragua. The green-feathered birds sport patches of red on their wingtips and are named for the yellow on top of their necks. A...
By Jason G. Goldman The world lurched to a standstill in the spring of 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic infiltrated nearly every corner of the planet. But while our daily lives slowed and changed, the rest of the natural world kept plodding on, almost oblivious to the fear and angst gripping human communities. Spending all that time at home, many people began looking out their windows or going on long...
By Jason G. Goldman As the sun sets on the beaches of Costa Rica's Pacific coastline, a man walks along looking for comma-shaped scoop marks in the sand, the telltale sign of a nesting sea turtle. He follows a set of tracks from the water's edge until they stop. That's where he starts digging. Eventually, he uncovers a hundred or more leathery eggs, each the size of a ping-pong ball....
Every winter, the willow flycatcher travels from the U.S. to Central America for the season. Five years ago, we began studying the bird's habitat use in Nicaragua. What we learned was surprising! The birds return each year to nearly the same location. These small flycatchers prefer scrubby vegetation near water. Sadly, these are areas most frequently burned or cleared by farmers. Will you help save one willow flycatcher? Your donation...
By Jason G. Goldman This is the third article in a three-part series on connectivity. Click here to read part one: “Coexistence, Not Corrals” and click here to read part two: “Building Bridges – Literally.” Once upon a time, an animal that was sufficiently motivated could safely travel the 2500 miles from the forests of southern Mexico through Central America to wind up safely in Colombia. The so-called Mesoamerican land corridor is still...
By Jason G. Goldman This is the second article in a three-part series on connectivity. Click here to read part one: "Coexistence, Not Corrals" and click here to read part three: "Making Way for Monkeys." The natural world is being carved and sliced into smaller and smaller parcels. Forests and grasslands and deserts are becoming like individually wrapped fun-size candy bars of nature, each with its own fragmented community of wild plants and...
By Jason G. Goldman This is the first article in a three-part series on connectivity. It was the first of March, 1872, when President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act into law. With his signature, the nation's first national park was officially born. It's hard to say exactly where the idea for a national park came from, but the origins of Yellowstone seem to lie in...
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