EXPLORE WILD HOPE

With its growing population and wealth of wildlife, India is at the forefront of creative, community-based solutions to human-wildlife conflict.

About 21.5 million acres of the Western United States are nationally protected, and thousands are being managed or co-managed by Native American tribes reclaiming ancestral relationships with native plants and animals. It’s no surprise, then, that Wild Hope hit a rich vein of conservation stories grounded in the West. 

In the northeastern part of India, the population of greater adjutant stork had declined to just 115 birds — until biologist Purnima Devi Barman launched a grassroots effort to do bring the species back from the brink.

To help protect an endangered stork, biologist Purnima Devi Barman provided looms and training to local women to create textiles and clothes that feature the bird.

The greater adjutant stork is one of the largest — and rarest — storks on earth. But locals in one of their last strongholds in Assam, India considered them to be a bad omen until Purnima Devi Barman revitalized their public image.

Black-footed ferrets nearly went extinct several times in the 20th century. Today, the current largest threat to their survival is a non-native disease called sylvatic plague.

When plowing, poisoning, and non-native plague wiped out nearly 95% of prairie dogs, the ecosystem collapsed around them. Today, conservationists control the disease by providing vaccine-laden treats called “Fip Bits” to help the prairie dogs — and those that depend on them — finally rebound!

Sea otters are a marine mammal beloved by many, but it wasn't long ago that they teetered on the brink of extinction. The international fur trade decimated sea otter populations starting in the 1700s, and by the early 1900s, their wild population fell to less than 1% of their original numbers.

Apex predators are the kings and queens of the jungle: animals that sit at the top of the food chain with no natural predators. Apex predators like jaguars, wolves, eagles, and sharks keep herbivore populations in check.

Plants can’t move on their own, so they usually need a little help to spread their seeds far and wide. Animals that scatter these seeds — often by eating the fruit and pooping out the remains — are known as seed dispersers.