Fancy a pangolin infected with coronavirus? Apparently, many people do
The logic of money contradicts the logic of species conservation and human health. As illegal trade has driven pangolins to near extinction, their hunting and market value has kept increasing ― even...
View ArticleNeo-colonialist attitudes ignoring poachernomics will ensure more extinctions
No matter most people’s best intentions, poaching of species in Sub-Saharan Africa for horn and ivory continues unabated. Despite decades of policies, restrictions, interventions, protections, and...
View ArticleThe sixth mass extinction is happening now, and it doesn’t look good for us
Mounting evidence is pointing to the world having entered a sixth mass extinction. If the current rate of extinction continues we could lose most species by 2200. The implication for human health and...
View ArticleCan we resurrect the thylacine? Maybe, but it won’t help the global...
(published first on The Conversation) Last week, researchers at the University of Melbourne announced that thylacines or Tasmanian tigers, the Australian marsupial predators extinct since the 1930s,...
View ArticleA cascade of otters
Carnivores are essential components of trophic webs, and ecosystem functions crumble with their loss. Novel data show the connection between calcareous reefs and sea otters under climate change. For...
View ArticleBest and worst countries by different environmental indicators
I’ll preface this post with a caveat — the data herein are a few years old (certainly pre-COVID), so things have likely changed a bit. Still, I think the main message holds. Many years ago, I compiled...
View ArticleBetter codes of practice for control of feral animals
From time to time I turn my research hand to issues of invasive species control, for example, from manipulating pathogens to control rabbits, to island eradication of feral cats and pigs, to effective...
View ArticleAn unexpected journey (of eels)
The way that eels migrate along rivers and seas is mesmerising. There has been scientific agreement since the turn of the 20th Century that the Sargasso Sea is the breeding home to the sole European...
View ArticleOpen Letter: Public policy in South Australia regarding dingoes
08 August 2023 The Honourable Dr Susan Close MP, Deputy Premier and Minister for Climate, Environment and Water, South Australia The Honourable Claire Scriven MLC, Minister for Primary Industries and...
View ArticleHuman impact, extinctions, and the biodiversity crisis
Human overpopulation is often depicted in the media in one of two ways: as either a catastrophic disaster or an overly-exaggerated concern. Yet the data understood by scientists and researchers is...
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Small populations of Stone Age people drove dwarf hippos and elephants to...
Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Flinders University; Christian Reepmeyer, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut – German Archaeological Institute, and Theodora Moutsiou, University of Cyprus Imagine growing up...
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