American Oystercatchers and young. Photo: Jesse Gordon/Audubon Photography Awards WASHINGTON (February 6, 2020) – Audubon Chief Conservation Officer, David O’Neill appeared before a U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee today where he called for strong federal investment in coastal resilience, natural infrastructure, wetland restoration, water conservation, and responding to the threat of climate change. “With the Administration

A couple of months ago I traveled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to document a friendly bird-off among the Audubon Center at Debs Park, the Discovery Center, Atlanta Audubon Society, each represented by a birder: Tania Romero, Jose Santiago, and Jason Ward, respectively. The three birders and I were fellow apprentices in Audubon’s Fund II Foundation Apprenticeship Program—a yearlong, full-time

A fortuitous glimpse of a Peregrine Falcon eating a pigeon sparked Jason Ward’s fascination of birds at the age of fourteen. These days, you can (more often than not) find him leading a bird walk with a pair of binoculars and a shirt that reps his home of the South Bronx. Students in the Bronx Junior

Among North American birds, the Double-crested Cormorant serves as a sort of Rorschach test. To some, the long-necked diving birds are an overabundant scourge. They eat about a pound of fish a day, which some commercial fish producers and recreational anglers see as a threat to their livelihood or pastime. And their acidic guano can

Japan has passed a law to financially support commercial whaling and promote the consumption of whale meat, a controversial practice that the country resumed in July after a 32-year moratorium. The revised law won the support of the Diet (Japanese parliament) on Thursday, although there has not been an official announcement by the government, public

Conures come in a surprising range of sizes – from the diminutive painted conure (Pyrrhura picta) at 8 ½ to 9 inches to the much larger Patagonian conure (Cyanoliseus patagonus) at nearly 20 inches in length. They can also be a fiery orange, bright yellow, iridescent green, red-headed, blacked hooded and many shades in-between. Check

At the end of 2019, One Earth Conservation finished seven days of surveying the endangered sun parakeet (Aratinga solstitialis), also referred to as the sun conure, in the Karasabai Village. I had joined up with the parakeet rangers of this region to determine how many sun parakeets there actually were. A full survey had never

Photo: Camilla Cerea/Audubon I was the king of the fantasy birding world on January 1, 2019. The first day of the inaugural Fantasy Birding Big Year competition had ended and I, your humble internet bird correspondent, was perched alone atop the leaderboard.  Unfortunately, my lead would not last long. Eventually, hundreds of other players joined

KRIBI, Cameroon — Alarm flashed through Cameroon’s conservation community in mid-September, when images of untidy rows of black polythene bags in a freshly bulldozed gash in the rainforest made the rounds of social media. It was soon confirmed that the pictures came from a forest concession adjacent to Campo Ma’an National Park, in the south

Chinese customs officials have seized over 23 metric tons (23,000 kilograms or 50,000 pounds) of pangolin scales after a year-long investigation, local Chinese media reported last week. The massive amount of scales, the officials say, would have been extracted from around 50,000 pangolins, and represent the largest seizure of wildlife products in the country this

Innu encampment at a traditional caribou crossing site known in the Innu language as Mushuanipi along the George River in northern Quebec. Indigenous people bring a knowledge of the land, culture, and history that makes them uniquely suited to be Guardians—managers and stewards of their traditional territories. Photo: Jeff Wells Land Needs Guardians. It’s a

On December 24, 1991, a male orca named Kyuquot was born at the rundown Sealand of the Pacific aquarium in British Columbia, Canada. Decades later, he remains captive—his prison now is SeaWorld San Antonio. Killer whale …|Loadmaster|CC BY-SA 3.0 The Early Years Kyuquot was born to mother Haida II and father Tilikum, whose own tragic

Every autumn the largest congregation of Bald Eagles on the planet flocks to the northern Alaskan panhandle to feast on spawning salmon in the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve. As many as 4,000 of the imposing raptors hunch in frosty trees, dropping grandly onto gravel bars where they screech and squabble over fish carcasses alongside gorging

Reindeer and caribou populations have been declining dramatically over the past few decades. But one subspecies of reindeer seems to be doing better, anew study has found. The wild Svalbard reindeer (Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus), which lives in the harsh archipelago of Svalbard off Norway in the Arctic Ocean, was nearly hunted to extinction in the

After being adopted and returned four different times, it seemed as though Bandit would be at the Gwinnett Jail Dogs Program in Georgia for the rest of his life. The wheelchair-bound dog is so sweet and friendly, but his special needs require a lot of care and have scared off many potential adopters over the

There is currently a lot of political tension in the United Kingdom, with Brexit hanging over the heads of everyone. The conservative party winning the general election means that party leader and Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to move ahead with his plan for the UK to withdraw from the European Union by January 31st,

When a passerby spotted a damp little owl lying in a ditch near Saxmundham, England, they assumed she must be injured. When she didn’t fly away, they were certain of it. But there was something else keeping her on the ground. The Good Samaritan called the Suffolk Owl Sanctuary for help. During an examination, staffers were

When Hayes first arrived at Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary in Tasmania, her rescuers couldn’t believe their eyes. The echidna had been brought in after she was clipped by a car so she could be checked over for any injuries, but it wasn’t her story that was captivating everyone.  It was her size.  A typical echidna of

WASHINGTON — As the state of Virginia prepared for a major bridge and tunnel expansion in the tidewaters of the Chesapeake Bay last year, engineers understood that the nesting grounds of 25,000 gulls, black skimmers, royal terns and other seabirds were about to be plowed under. To compensate, they considered developing an artificial island as

Swamp Sparrow. Photo: Peter Wilton/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) In most species, old age brings an unwelcome litany of physical changes. For humans, that might mean more wrinkles, more trips to the bathroom, and more frequently asking, “Why does that hurt?” For birds, feathers may lose their luster and even start breaking down from years of wear

Brushing aside decades of legal precedent and growing alarm over dwindling bird populations, the Trump administration today moved to make official a policy dramatically limiting the federal government’s authority to hold industry accountable for killing birds under one of the nation’s oldest conservation laws. The century-old Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) makes it illegal to

As delegates from 197 member states convened in Madrid, Spain, last month for the twenty-fifth annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 25) the world’s polar scientists sounded the alarm in a new report over the rapidly changing Arctic and Antarctic regions. In the last decade alone, the Arctic warmed 0.75 degrees Celsius (1.35 degrees

Snowy Egret. Photo: Peter Brannon/Audubon Photography Awards WASHINGTON (January 30, 2020) – “The Trump Administration’s Bird Killer Department, formerly known as the Department of the Interior, just gets crueler and more craven every day,” said David Yarnold, president and CEO of Audubon (@david_yarnold).  “And today they are doubling down despite the fact that America did

Lying on the side of the road in Muscoy, California, a German shepherd named Marley waited for help. By her side, a fluffy red dog sat patiently — guarding his injured friend. Hours passed, and cars continued to fly by but not a single one stopped to check on the two animals. Until, finally, one