Nature Conservation

Yellowstone is America's premier national park. Today Yellowstone is often a byword for conservation, natural beauty, and a way for everyone to enjoy the great outdoors. But it was not always this way. Wonderlandscape presents a new perspective on Yellowstone, the emotions that various natural wonders and attractions evoke, and how this explains the park's relationship to America as a whole.

Naturalist Joe Hutto’s latest adventures in wildlife observation take him to Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains. Hutto is living in a tent at 12,000 feet, where blizzards occur in July and where human wants become irrelevant—and human needs can become a matter of life and death—to study the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep.

John Seibert Farnsworth's delightful notes are not only about nature but from nature as well. In Nature Beyond Solitude, he lets us peer over his shoulder as he takes his notes. We follow him to a series of field stations where he teams up with scientists, citizen scientists, rangers, stewards, and grad students engaged in long-term ecological study, all the while scribbling down what he sees, hears, and feels in the moment.

Meet rufa red knot B95. Scientists call him the Moonbird because, in the course of his astoundingly long lifetime, this robin-sized shorebird has flown the distance to the moon - and halfway back! Each February he joins a flock that lifts off from Tierra del Fuego, headed for breeding grounds in the Canadian Arctic, 9,000 miles away. Late in the summer, he begins the return journey. B95 can fly for days, but eventually he must descend to refuel and rest. However, recent changes at stopover sites along his migratory circuit - changes caused mostly by human activity - have reduced the food available and made it harder for the birds to reach.

Françoise Malby-Anthony is the owner of a game reserve in South Africa with a remarkable family of elephants whose adventures have touched hearts around the world. The herd’s feisty matriarch Frankie knows who’s in charge at Thula Thula, and it’s not Francoise. But when Frankie becomes ill, and the authorities threaten to remove or cull some of the herd if the reserve doesn’t expand, Françoise is in a race against time to save her beloved elephants. The joys and challenges of a life dedicated to conservation are vividly described in The Elephants of Thula Thula.

Why throw away used snack packages when you can reuse them? These fun and informative science experiments and projects will keep listeners entertained as they learn about scientific principles.

You may know that humpback whales use whale song to communicate with each other, but there’s so much more to discover about these giants of the sea! In this book, acclaimed marine biologist Dr. Asha de Vos explains how humpbacks use special bubble nets to catch fish, and why their poo is so important! Filled with simple science and plenty of animal facts, this book also explains how hunting made humpback whales an endangered species—and how conservation efforts have seen their numbers increase again.

Moral Ground brings together the testimony of over eighty visionaries, theologians and religious leaders, scientists, elected officials, business leaders, naturalists, activists, and writers to present a diverse and compelling call to honor our individual and collective moral responsibility to our planet. In the face of environmental degradation and global climate change, scientific knowledge alone does not tell us what we ought to do.

Step into an intriguing exploration of the intersection between nature and artificial intelligence with "Conversing with Nature". This ground-breaking eBook navigates through the vast fields of animal communication, plant language, and the infinite potential that artificial intelligence holds in understanding them. Each chapter guides you towards a deeper understanding of the diverse languages of nature and the role AI plays in decoding them. Immerse yourself in the captivating complexities of animal communication, from cognitive biology to distinct gestures and unique vocalizations. ...

With vivid, observant reporting, veteran environmental journalist Fred Pearce transports listeners to the remote cloud forests of Ecuador, the remains of a forest civilization in Nigeria, a mystifying mountain peak in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and the boreal forests of western Canada and the United States, where devastating wildfires are linked to suppressing the natural fire cycles of forests and the maintenance practices of Indigenous peoples. Throughout the book, Pearce interviews the people who traditionally live in forests.

Journey into forests around the world to follow the lives of these furry creatures as they play, hunt, and fight their way through their day. Biologist and black bear expert Don Hardeman Jr. tells the story of the world’s most amazing bears in the style of a nature documentary, including gentle science explanations of topics such as hibernation that are perfect for future biologists.

Each year, more than 1,000 rhinoceroses are killed - in South Africa alone. There are fewer than 18,000 white rhinos and only 5,000 black rhinos left alive in the wild. The situation with regard to this corrupt, illegal war on wildlife is clearly critical. And what are rhinos killed for? Their horns - sold in shavings as a snake-oil 'cure' for colds or impotence. The going price is $16,000 a kilogram, but a rhino's horn is simply keratin, the same material as our fingernails, with no magical, medicinal properties.

Here's how a few pioneers forged their own unique paths in the conservation movement.

In the 1930s, the last wolves disappeared from Yellowstone National Park. Without them, elk herds overran the plains. Bears starved, rabbit families shrunk and birds flew away to new homes. Then plants and trees started to die off, too—even the flow of rivers was affected. Could the park be saved...by the wolves it had lost? After years of planning, in 1995 a team of experts was ready to find out. They carefully relocated 14 wolves from the Canadian Rockies to Yellowstone. This is the story of their homecoming.

Most people only consider the Mississippi River when they cross it or when it inconveniently abandons its banks. But every year, millions of tons of cargo are transported by towboats on the river. In Peep Light, Captain Lee Hendrix provides unique insight on people who work and live on and near the Mississippi River. Hendrix, formerly a pilot for the Delta Queen Steamboat Co., has worked on the Mississippi for fifty years. In 2014, Hendrix became captain of the towboat Mississippi with the US Army Corps of Engineers, then he later retired to return to passenger vessels.

In this groundbreaking book, Thomas M. Kostigen reveals the vital missing link in today's environmental crisis: how we as individuals are connected to the most tenuous geography on the planet. Despite the recent prominence of "green" issues in the news, we continue to ignore the raw relationship between the earth and our actions. But the seemingly insignificant things we do every day have the power to literally alter the landscape in the ongoing battle to resuscitate the planet.

In Wild Winter, John D. Burns, best-selling author of The Last Hillwalker and Bothy Tales, sets out to rediscover Scotland’s mountains, remote places and wildlife in the darkest and stormiest months. He traverses the country from the mouth of the River Ness to the Isle of Mull, from remote Sutherland to the Cairngorms, in search of rutting red deer, pupping seals, minke whales, beavers, pine martens, mountain hares, and otters.

In this awesome and inspiring guide, McFly bassist and environmental activist Dougie Poynter shows you how to get involved in the mission to cut out single-use plastic. Plastic is everywhere and it sucks. It fills up our oceans, endangers our wildlife and never goes away. So it's time to take action. As a lifelong supporter of environmental causes, Dougie is always on the hunt for ways to reduce and replace plastic. This audiobook draws on his own experiences in the fight against plastic waste - the problems he's encountered and the solutions he's found.

The European eel, Anguilla anguilla, is one of the strangest creatures nature ever created. Remarkably little is known about the eel, even today. What we do know is that it’s born as a tiny willow-leaf-shaped larva in the Sargasso Sea, travels on the ocean currents toward the coasts of Europe - a journey of about 4,000 miles that takes at least two years. Upon arrival, it transforms itself into a glass eel and then into a yellow eel before it wanders up into fresh water.

From severe flooding in Louisiana to wildfires in the Pacific Northwest to melting permafrost in Alaska, catastrophic climate events are occurring more frequently—and severely—than ever. And these events are having a direct impact on the lives (and futures) of young people and their families.