Author: Frances Monroe

After the animals have left a forest, a certain kind of silence descends. The subtle but noticeable absence of birds that should be calling but aren’t could be recognized by anyone who has spent time in the hills of Negros or the remaining patches of old growth in Panay. For many years, the wildlife of the Visayas, a group of central Philippine islands renowned for their exceptional and unique biodiversity, has been gradually disappearing. The obvious culprit has always been habitat loss. However, the drain has been accelerated by something else, which works silently, effectively, and virtually undetectable. In the…

The image of a bald eagle locking onto a hovering quadcopter like a rabbit in an open field while banking hard through an indoor training facility with its talons outstretched is almost ridiculous. However, the Dutch National Police took that image very seriously in the early months of 2016. The initiative started out as a collaboration between the national police force of the Netherlands and Guard From Above, a Hague-based company founded by Sjoerd Hoogendoorn and Ben de Keijzer, one of whom had experience in private security and the other in bird handling. Their pitch was surprisingly straightforward: teach raptors…

Observing a wall rise through a forest has a subtly ridiculous quality. The trees remain stationary. The bison are unable to comprehend it. However, the repercussions are very real, both for the animals and ultimately for us. One of the more striking recent examples of what happens when political and ecological crises collide is Poland’s border wall through the Błowieża Forest. The 186-kilometer steel barrier, which was constructed to prevent human migrants from crossing the Polish-Belarusian border, passes directly through one of Europe’s last remaining ancient forests, where wolves, lynx, and European bison have been free to roam for centuries.…

These days, you’ll notice something missing if you stroll down practically any residential street in Britain. Like most environmental issues, it doesn’t appear suddenly or dramatically; rather, it develops gradually. Squares of spotless green plastic that never grow, never draw insects, and never truly live are taking the place of the front gardens that were once teeming with dandelions, ground beetles, and the occasional worm-hunting blackbird. According to research by Aviva, about 21% of UK households have either already replaced their natural lawn with artificial grass or intend to do so. It’s easy to see why. Real grass gets muddy,…

The thought of raptors circling over Exmoor once more has a subtle significance. Depending on who you ask, the idea of big birds of prey returning to those thermals is either a dream or a problem for those who are familiar with the moor, its wide grey skies, its heather ridges, and the silence broken only by wind and the occasional grouse. The debate over Environment Secretary Steve Barclay’s proposed plan to reintroduce species that have been lost to England for centuries is complicated. The more comprehensive framework is not new. A Species Reintroduction Taskforce was created by the government…

In Bristol, England, a small forest is developing on the perimeter of a parking lot. It hardly covers the area of several shipping containers. Nevertheless, the branches within it were teeming with goldfinches on a chilly October morning. It’s the kind of detail that sticks with you because it subtly reframes what conservation is meant to look like rather than because it’s dramatic. Scale has been the prevailing concept in wildlife protection for decades. Preserve the Amazon. Keep the Serengeti safe. Construct transcontinental corridors. These objectives are important. However, a more subdued body of evidence has been gathering somewhere in…

The figures initially appeared to be encouraging. For years now, bald eagles have been making their way back to Minnesota in increasing numbers. They are nesting along the Mississippi, visiting suburban lakes, and attracting attention at wildlife refuges where they were previously unseen for years. Minnesotans have witnessed one of the most amazing conservation tales in recent American history—the recovery of Haliaeetus leucocephalus—in their own backyards. However, the employees at the University of Minnesota Raptor Center in St. Paul weren’t having a good time. They were becoming increasingly busy, which alarmed them. Operating out of a small building on Fitch…

Between a marsh harrier banking low across a reedbed and a lapwing calling over open water, there is a moment when it is truly hard to imagine what a place used to be. A heap of colliery spoil. The Fens are being consumed by a sand quarry. Southwest London has four concrete reservoirs. These weren’t soft scenery. In the way that industrial Britain once required them to be, they were scarred, noisy, and purposeful work sites. However, they have transformed into something completely different across the nation—places where birds that were all but extinct are gradually making a comeback. Perhaps…

There is something quietly urgent about the way Maddie Bender approaches her work. She is not attached to a major institution or a well-funded conservation body. She is, in the fullest sense of the phrase, an independent voice — someone who has made it her business to document Hawaii’s native birds at a moment when that documentation feels more necessary than ever. Her subjects are the honeycreepers of Oahu and the wider Hawaiian Islands. These birds have one of the more extraordinary origin stories in the natural world. Around six to seven million years ago, a single rosefinch-like species arrived…

The situation is almost ridiculous. Even after two nations lost over two million people to the same virus, which spread precisely as a result of a communication breakdown, they are still unable to agree to exchange disease surveillance data. Both China and the United States came out of COVID-19 damaged politically, economically, and emotionally. However, it appears that the most important lessons have not been learned. There was a brief, sincere period of cooperation following SARS in 2003. In order to develop shared disease response infrastructure, the U.S. and China’s Ministry of Health entered into a multi-year partnership. More or…