I’ve spent the last week or so looking into ways that we can all contribute to giraffe conservation- it’s true that many of us don’t live near wild giraffe populations, but there are still a number of ways that we can support them, most of which don’t involve travel. One organization was mentioned time and […]
Archive for the ‘Mammals’ Category
Raising the status of giraffes
Giraffes at home on the range
In my last post I mentioned that giraffe populations have been falling since at least the start of the 20th century, in part due to habitat loss, poaching, and changing climatic conditions. Has the past decade given us clearer insight into the problems facing them and ways to counteract those losses? In some ways things […]
Are giraffes a big conservation story?
Based on what I’ve been reading over the last two weeks, I am not the only person to ask this question, nor is it a recent development. At least as early as 1926, published literature was asking whether African big game populations were declining (Friedmann 1926), and in 1931 an article quoting Major RWG Hingston […]
Getting the long view of giraffes
Perhaps I’ve been overly influenced by recent media events, but I’ve decided to look into giraffe conservation in my next series of posts. Whether or not a baby giraffe is being born at a zoo, there are a number of reasons that focusing on giraffes makes sense right now. There have been concerns about big […]
Waiting for the PAH to change
In my last post I mentioned that some researchers have been looking into how we can get rid of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that contaminate water or soil or air. Based on a review by Gan et al. (2009), we have four main avenues for this: solvent extraction; bioremediation; chemical, photo-, and electro- degradation; and […]
Putting otters in the clear
I spent some time this week looking into ways to get involved in otter conservation, and I’ve found a number of activities which run the gamut from pressing a few buttons on your computer to spending some time hanging out in a stream. I’ve divided them up into several categories- hopefully you find something that […]
A shallow, unaltered stream runs through it
In my last post, I mentioned that habitat degradation and human-caused mortality were some of the biggest issues facing river otters. Recent research has tended to support those views, while providing more detail about where, how, and when those issues loom largest. We’ve also seen that otter populations can recover with protection, but there are […]
On a downhill slope
As I started looking into the condition of river otters around the world, it became obvious that a lot of the information out there deals with otters in Europe and North America– I would say easily 90% of what I’ve read so far. In some ways that’s helpful, because it means that researchers have been […]
We otter pay attention?
Nuts for Squirrels
When I started looking into opportunities to get involved with squirrel conservation, I expected to see many efforts that focus on the European Red Squirrel in the UK and Ireland- and my expectations were more than met. In fact, I had to do a little digging to find groups that even mentioned other squirrel species, […]