The efforts to preserve and restore biodiversity take on a variety of shapes and scales – but each effort is first informed by an understanding of the animals and plants in need of protection. Whether those species are apex predators, feathered foragers, or ecosystem engineers, biologists always begin with a deep understanding of wildlife and their needs in an environment.
Big Cat Conservation
From the forests of India to the streets of Hollywood, the effort to conserve big cats is one that straddles continents and biomes — but no matter where you look, these ferocious felines have found allies fighting for their comeback.
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Cougar Comeback
When cougar P-22 gained fame for making his home in LA’s Griffith Park, he inspired an effort to build the world’s largest wildlife crossing across one of America’s busiest roads.
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A.I. of the Tiger
In India’s “tiger state” of Madhya Pradesh, a team installs AI-integrated camera traps to reduce conflict and safeguard lives in a vital wildlife corridor home to 2 million people — and 300 wild tigers.
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Jaguar Passage
Jaguar populations are falling worldwide, but the big cats are thriving in Belize, where conservationists are racing to protect a critical stretch of land called the Maya Forest Corridor.
Protecting Marine Creatures
To protect marine species, conservationists must take on a whole suite of challenges: unchecked plastic pollution, overfishing, and the difficulty of measuring and protecting biodiversity in a part of the world that is hidden beneath the waves. But plenty of enterprising change-makers are meeting the challenge.
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Coral Comeback
Coral reefs around the world are threatened by rising ocean temperatures, but hope is growing off the coast of Hawaii.
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The Great Ocean Clean-up
Inventor Boyan Slat is known for his quest to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Now he’s on a mission to stop ocean plastic at its source.
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Protecting Paradise
On Panama’s remote Pearl Islands, research on endangered sea turtles is helping the country enshrine the rights of nature into law.
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Bird Conservation
From woodpeckers in the fiery forests in North Carolina to scavenging storks in India’s garbage dumps, bird species around the globe are finding help from unlikely sources. Chances are that your city or backyard play host to to species to more bird species than you think — and they could use a helping hand.
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Building For Birds
Millions of birds pass through our yards during their bi-annual migrations, and we can help them avoid an invisible killer along the way: glass windows.
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Woodpecker Wars
At a live-fire training ground at an Army base in North Carolina, an improbable alliance is giving the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker a new lease on life.
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Stork Sisters
When biologist Purnima Devi Barman witnessed villagers chop down a tree crowned with storks’ nests, she launched a grassroots effort to save the species.
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Seabird Sanctuary
All around the world, seabirds provide a critical link between land and sea. On Hawai’i, ecologists are working to protect two vital shearwater species that helped life first take hold across these islands.
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Unleaded
Golden eagles are one of the largest raptors in North America, but they are threatened by an unlikely poison: lead.
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Birds on the Brink
Hawai’i is home to a broad, beautiful array of bird species called Hawaiian honeycreepers found nowhere else on Earth. And biologists are hoping a bold new plan will save them from extinction.
Reptiles & Amphibians
Small, scaly, and sometimes slimy, reptiles and amphibians can get a bad rap — but they play a vital role in their ecosystems and serve as an important barometer of planetary health. From a “frog ark” in Panama to a nunnery in Mexico, people are fighting for the future of these ancient animals.
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The Frog Ark
At the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, scientists hope to solve the world’s worst wildlife pandemic: an amphibian-killing fungus known as chytrid.
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Salamander of the Gods
The axolotl has been called a “conservation paradox” — a creature that is ubiquitous in pet stores, science labs and pop culture… yet almost extinct in the wild.
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The Serpent’s Lair
In the face of extreme habitat loss, wildlife biologists put an ambitious plan in motion to save two uniquely American reptiles: the eastern indigo snake and the gopher tortoise.
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Urban and Backyard Wildlife
Conservation isn’t isolated to rainforests and coral reefs — it’s local to all of us, no matter where we live. Many animals we cross paths with everyday in some of our busiest cities are still combating habitat loss, pollution, and invasive threats.
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Vertical Meadows
As urban expansion quickly replaces natural habitats, façade engineer Alistair Law has discovered a new way to restore native ecosystems for pollinators.
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Gardener to Guardian
Former gardener Mary Reynolds is building a movement to inspire people to return their land back to nature, showing that individual action can create lasting change.
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Building for Birds
Simple solutions like window paint, decals, or even a bar of soap with patterns spaced 2 inches apart can save the lives of millions of migratory birds that visit our backyards.