Rewilding the World

While not as endangered as some of its fellow sea-turtles, the Olive Ridley, Today’s Endangered All-Star, is nonetheless in decline, listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN’s Red List. For eons, females have gathered in huge breeding groups off favored beaches in Mexico, Costa Rica, Sri Lanka, the Bay of Bengal, and along  Read More 

The University of Michigan’s sports teams have been known as the Wolverines since 1861, and Michigan itself is known as the Wolverine State. Sadly, on March 13 the first and only wild wolverine seen in Michigan for 200 years was found dead, apparently of natural causes, near a beaver dam in the Minden City State Game  Read More 

...about Today’s Endangered All-Star, Rajah Brooke’s Pitcher Plant. Described in 1859 by Joseph Dalton Hooker, one of the great botanists of the 19th century and a close friend of Charles Darwin, the species was named after James Brooke, the first White Rajah of Sarawak. Found on the island of Borneo, this enormous pitcher  Read More 

That’s how one of the great bird men of all time—Don Merton of New Zealand’s Wildlife Service—describes “Richard Henry”: “I’d talk to him and scratch him and he’d put his head back and just close his eyes, just like nursing a big Persian cat.” Richard Henry was one  Read More 

In a new interview with Earth Island Journal, Jane Goodall talks about people around the world who are working to pull species back from the brink, from children in her Roots & Shoots program to a man in New Zealand who wouldn’t let the last two Black Robins on earth go to the wall: “ Read More 

When will our primitive reptilian brains begin to register that we’re sitting in very hot water? Any time now: Today’s Endangered All-Star, the Lizard Orchid, is only one of those highlighted in an alarming report out from Natural England, revisiting the ghosts of species past, present, and future. More than two species  Read More 

Talk to a dozen different people in Africa about elephants, and you’ll hear a dozen different views. Robert Mugabe will tell you that “every species must pay its way.” One biologist will complain about elephant overpopulation, and another will tell you poaching is out of control. A Kruger National Park official will tell  Read More 

Mountain gorilla, elephant, rhino? Not necessarily. In the land wars, the biggest loser—the species that has rapidly lost the largest range and the greatest numbers in recent years—is the Grevy’s Zebra, Today’s Endangered All-Star. From 15,000 in the 1970s, the population has fallen to less than 3,000. Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Sudan  Read More 

The Honduran Emerald Hummingbird, Today’s Endangered All-Star, is the most imperiled bird in Central America and one of the most endangered in the world. Its plight highlights the extreme destruction of its habitat, arid thorn forest and dry tropical forest. While not well-known, dry tropical forest—hardly dry during the wet season, with  Read More 

You can’t get more endangered than Today’s All-Star. A modest shrub of the coffee family, Café Marron was reduced to a single wild individual on the island of Rodrigues, part of the Mascarene Islands and a dependency of the nation of Mauritius. In 1980, a student sent out on an assignment to gather  Read More