A Challenge: Fashion Must Go Beyond ‘Natural’ to Be Sustainable

The fashion industry can learn a lesson or two from sustainable food.

Conservation, renewables, organic, sustainable. These have become colloquialisms in the energy, ecology and agricultural sectors. But in the fashion industry? Not so much.

What little progress there has been toward more “sustainable” fashion comes on the coattails of the food movement. The same way we’ve become sticklers for sustainably sourced seafood, local broccoli and, among the most diehard true believers, cashew cheese, we’re increasingly asking “Who made my clothes?” One of these days, we may be as curious about our hangtags as our ingredient labels.

Fashion stands to gain much by following the food movement’s lead. But it should avoid one pitfall that bottlenecked our progress in sustainable food: the fallacy whereby consumers wrongly equate “natural” with “good.”

Philosophers have grappled with this idea in moral ethics and environmentalism since at least the turn of the 20th century. Today it’s become a new, more pernicious form of greenwashing. We see the words all natural emblazoned on an array of foodstuff wrappers from meats, breads, dairy products and drinks to , until recently, chips in the Frito-Lay family, all touting spurious health claims.

Sadly, the “natural” fallacy is now spilling into fashion. The same way the food industry has misled well-intended “conscious consumers” to believe an “all-natural” label is somehow more regulated or more sustainable, fashion companies are now coopting consumers’ established notions around food sourcing and using them to their advantage. In the United States, brands tout “natural production methods” and suggest that materials like cotton and bamboo (viscose rayon or bamboo linen) are better for the environment without substantiating their claims (hint: they’re not). Unfortunately, in a regulatory environment that defers to industry to set the agenda, consumers are unable to get a clear view.

King Cotton

Let’s look closer at the fabric of our lives to illustrate this point. Most consumers who subscribe to “sustainable dressing” believe that cotton, in its plant-based glory, reigns supreme over its devilish and cheap alternative, synthetic polyester. “Earth good, chemicals bad.”

But, as with most things in sustainability, it’s not zero-sum.

Cotton, even in its organic form, uses a vast amount of water, land and energy. Estimates put the water requirements for organic cotton somewhere in the ballpark of 1,400–3,400 gallons per pound of fiber. When it comes to land use, cotton is cultivated as a genetically modified monocrop in the United States, meaning it depletes, rather than replenishes, the soil.

Ironically, this over-engineering does not actually increase output. Only a third of the yield gets used in textile production. Adding to this, organic cotton also requires fossil fuels to provide energy for irrigation and produce the chemicals and fertilizers needed to sustain its growth. Accounting for this added energy expenditure, the arithmetic of that shockingly puts organic cotton on a par with virgin polyester.

Polyester, on the other hand, requires slightly more energy expenditure up front, but can be recycled infinitely in a near closed-loop system without any quality degradation. Also, it requires little to no water, even in virgin production.

Assessing polyester and cotton on the basis of their transport footprint, they weigh relatively equally, since the United States largely imports both textiles from across the Atlantic.

Playing the Long Game of Durability

When it comes to longevity, cotton doesn’t hold up like polyester. When recycled, cotton fibers gradually degrade, producing a lower-quality thread. Today there’s not much use for recycled cotton other than industrial rags or paper. Eventually most of it ends up in landfills.

While there are valid and important concerns about microplastics and toxins entering the water supply during the production and garment care of polyester, it slightly edges out cotton in this category because it’s more stain-resistant, holds its shape and washes better in cold water.

All data considered, it’s hard to make an outright call on eco-impact, unless organic cotton is compared against recycled polyester, in which case, the latter “unnatural” fiber wins. This isn’t as clear-cut for virgin polyester. Still, in this gray area, one thing is undeniable: The ecological halo around “natural” cotton is mostly hype.

Dyes from Past Decades

The same thing goes for dyes. Increasingly we praise indie brands for “going back to nature” and “honoring slow processes” when they use avocado pits and indigo instead of acids and AZOs. But there’s more to the story than the hangtag tells.

Sure the dyes are plant-based, but were they sustainably or organically grown? How much land and water did they use?

Natural dyes put strains on resources, just like natural cotton, and they can be as toxic as their chemical counterparts if dumped into waterways.

Then we get to issues having to do with application. Usually more “natural” dye is needed to achieve the desired outcome than with synthetics, and, even when that’s executed right, consumers often complain the colors aren’t saturated enough and quickly fade. What happens next? Buyers trash their naturally dyed garments, which end up in landfills, and resort to “conventionally” dyed ones. And the vicious waste cycle continues.

flower dyes — Consumers are dubious natural dyes will achieve the same vibrancy as conventional ones. Photo: Laura Ockel via Unsplash

This isn’t to say synthetic dyes are a positive alternative. Quite the contrary. But with limited resources and a growing population, natural dyes alone won’t sustain us. Reverting to old methods of dyeing only holds the industry back from more intelligent solutions.

Forces Against Nature

A better way forward will come from innovation — namely, technologies that fuse nature and science to minimize or eliminate toxic chemicals, petroleum, water and emissions from garment production.

Right now there’s a nascent group of companies creating solutions, and they’re backed by big names like H&M, through its Global Change Awards, and accelerators like Fashion Tech Lab.

Dropel is probably the best example of this “fusion” approach. By adding a protective layer of hydrophobic polymers to natural fibers, they’re creating more functional textiles. In essence they’re “life-proofing” garments for the long haul. Other innovators, like Evrnu, have developed technologies that make recycled cotton more viable. So viable, in fact, that Levi’s used it to make a pioneering pair of jeans from recycled cotton T-shirts.

Yet, despite this progress, fashion tech startups like these still need more funding. And to get it, they need to garner the attention of mainstream consumers. Regrettably, this could take longer if we stay wedded to the idea that “natural is better.”

While this thinking has been helpful in slowing rampant consumerism temporarily, if fashion is to go from small, homespun solutions to sustainability at scale, the industry’s future hinges on moving beyond it.

This doesn’t mean abandoning natural processes outright, but instead examining them to see if they are, indeed, the best options. With deeper analysis and a more logical approach to design that plans for things like circularity and longevity, we won’t have to revert “back to nature” to clothe ourselves.

Journalists Need to Do More to Cover Wildlife and Environmental Crime

A challenge from the reporter who blew the lid off of Thailand’s Tiger Temple and exposed illegal wildlife trafficking from a Buddhist monastery.

For the past few years, much of my work as a journalist has focused on wildlife and environmental crime. I’ve covered poaching busts and seizures of everything from pangolin scales and big-cat skins to rhino horn, live turtles and songbirds. I’ve reported on the Asian, African and South American markets that sell animals live, dead and in parts, and about the consumers that drive this black-market trade. I’ve written about China, the largest consumer, where many endangered species products are luxury items bought by the wealthiest and most influential as a way to flaunt power and gain prestige. I’ve also explored the trade here in the United States — the world’s second largest consumer. I covered the ubiquitous bird trade in Latin America, where ownership of pet parrots and other birds is so rampant that few realize these animals are endangered, or that it’s against the law to buy or keep them.

One thread links all of these stories: illicit wildlife trade has become big business. It’s a $19 to $23 billion dollar a year industry, run by international organized crime syndicates — often the same people responsible for trafficking guns, drugs and people.

Yet from where I sit, there’s never been enough mainstream coverage on this massive loss of life on Earth. And despite the scope of the crisis, lately it’s become even harder for journalists to sell these stories.

Here’s the harsh reality of media today: When it comes to possible nuclear war with North Korea, millions of U.S. citizens potentially losing health coverage, massive climate-change-charged hurricanes or mass shootings in a nightclub, rock concert or Sunday church service, wildlife stories become a hard sell. A story on coral bleaching, pangolin poaching or tiger trafficking is just not going to grab an editor’s attention.

Another challenge is the time scale of the demise. Although scientists say this is becoming a full-blown crisis that will ultimately affect all life on Earth, it’s a slow-motion train wreck in terms of the news cycle. This doesn’t necessarily work well for media outlets focused on maximum page views, Tweets and shares.

And it’s always difficult to sell these stories unless there are dramatic or bloody headlines.

But wildlife trade is a dramatic and bloody business, although it’s rarely seen as such. And we’re witnessing an unprecedented surge in poaching and illegal trade of wild plants and animals, which is now occurring at an industrial scale.

Growing demand is driving what has become a large-scale massacre of African elephants for ivory, rhinos for their horn (which is now worth more than gold or cocaine on the black market), tigers for their skins. A census published in 2016 found that 144,000 elephants disappeared from 15 African countries in less than a decade. The Species Survival Commission’s African Rhino Specialist Group reported in 2016 that the number of African rhinos poached in Africa had increased for the sixth year in a row.

Perhaps 3,800 tigers still roam the wild, split among the five remaining wild subspecies, meaning that only a few hundred wild Siberian, Sumatran, Indochinese and Malayan tigers survive.

These are the iconic creatures that make headlines, but this massive illegal industry in wildlife has put innumerable animals on the fast track to extinction. We’re losing species at more than 100 times the normal rate. From a scientific perspective, this loss is so rapid and extreme that it’s often called “the Sixth Extinction.” In July, Paul Ehrlich and colleagues categorized the situation in even more catastrophic terms, calling it “biological annihilation.” If this level of widespread slaughter were killing human beings, we’d label it genocide. Many of the world’s most iconic, beloved species — as well as animals we’ve never heard of — could vanish from the wild or disappear from the planet within our lifetimes.

Numbers like the ones I’ve cited have become the standard journalistic narrative, and I’ve written plenty of these stories, too. While they matter, numbers don’t tell the whole story — and now, a decade-plus into the current poaching crisis, many readers are aware that elephants and tigers are in the crosshairs.

We need to go beyond quoting statistics on the carnage and reporting from the surface. I’m challenging myself — and challenging other journalists — to dig deeper. And not just on wildlife crime, but on broader environmental crime that’s killing wildlife, poisoning land and felling the remaining tracts of forests that pump out the oxygen we need to breathe, store carbon and filter the water we need to drink.: illegal logging, illegal mining, illegal land grabs that demolish forest for industrial plantations — and more.

We need to start asking tough questions. Who’s behind large wildlife trafficking operations? Who’s laundering the profits from illegal wildlife, logging and fishing operations?

Which U.S. companies buy palm oil from newly or illegally deforested land — and who are the local officials turning a blind eye and/or financially benefitting from rainforest slash-and-burned for crops or cattle ranches?

Who are the customs agents, local police, military or government officials who facilitate illegal activity? (Al Jazeera’s deep-dive investigation in the Poacher’s Pipeline documentary did just that — linking illegal rhino trade in South Africa to the country’s head of state security and Asian embassies.) Who gets the money from trophy-hunting operations in Africa that purportedly benefit wildlife conservation?

More of my fellow reporters need to dig into corruption and wrongdoing. Follow the money.

But we also need to write the success stories. We need to cover innovative initiatives and technologies that are effective — and examine why they’re working. Some examples: WildAid makes Hollywood-quality PSAs starring Chinese business leaders and celebrities like Jackie Chan and Yao Ming to discourage Asian consumers from buying endangered species. The U.S. Wildlife Trafficking Alliance is working with the U.S. government urging travelers to avoid buying souvenirs that come from imperiled species — items like conch shells and tortoise shell jewelry.

I’d like to share the impact of one of my stories, produced last year: an investigation into the Tiger Temple in Thailand.

For a decade global news stories alleged that Thailand’s Tiger Temple — a Buddhist monastery that doubled as a tourist attraction where visitors petted, fed and took selfies with tigers — abused its cats and might be involved in illegal wildlife trade. That was the narrative that had been published in innumerable stories by media outlets across the globe. But no one ever dug in to find out for sure.

Then, in 2015, I was approached by Sybelle Foxcroft, a former source whom I’d interviewed as part of a book project. Foxcroft told me she had proof that the temple was trading tigers into the black-market trade in wildlife, and soon began feeding me documents. It launched an 11-month investigation.

Through Foxcroft and other sources, I obtained a trove of information. It included leaked audio of the temple’s abbot talking about trading tigers; numerous eyewitness accounts of disappearing tigers; a tiger trade contract with a Laotian tiger “farm” signed by the abbot; emails and piles of documents, spreadsheets and data. I was given a videotaped interview with the monk who unlocked the gates on evenings when three tigers vanished in December 2014, tigers that were microchipped and therefore traceable, as well as the temple’s CCTV footage from those two nights.

In January 2016, National Geographic published the results of this investigation in a feature story that included a 7 ½–minute video I co-produced with photographer Steve Winter. It included strong allegations of illegal international tiger trafficking by the Tiger Temple that began in 2004 and continued for a decade.

It was a challenging story for many reasons. First off, I’m not trained as an investigative reporter. I don’t speak Thai. Much of the material I gathered had to be translated, and since Thai-to-English translations are not exact, key sections of video, audio and documents had to be translated three times to ensure I had it right. Deep government corruption and a cultural proclivity for “saving face” — aka not revealing wrongdoing — made it necessary to confirm all facts with many sources. I ultimately interviewed 70-plus people from across the globe. Trying to probe possible criminal activity within a religious institution in any country is extremely difficult, and that was certainly a hurdle as I tried to investigate an abbot and a monastery in Thailand, a devout Buddhist country.

With leads from many colleagues and sources, it all came together, and the world took notice. The day after publication, the story was picked up by the Bangkok Post, by Thailand’s top TV news station and by international media. The coverage prompted outrage from the public and wildlife groups, and sparked a campaign by the nonprofit Sanctuary Asia, which buried the environment minister’s office in letters and emails.

Four months later, under intense pressure, the government shut down the Tiger Temple. In the first of two follow up stories, I reported what happened: Thai officials confiscated all of the venue’s 137 tigers. They discovered 40 tiger cubs frozen in the kitchen’s industrial freezers, 20 more preserved in large glass bottles and other endangered species products. Police arrested two monks trying to drive away in a car filled with tiger contraband.

I’ve continue to follow the story. No one has gone to court, and the Tiger Temple has formed an offshoot company that’s trying to open a zoo — which will include tigers.

This story had global implications. The growing demand for tiger products is being fed, in part, by captive-breeding facilities in Asia — and this growing market places the last 3,800 wild tigers in the crosshairs.

So how do we produce these deep-dive stories — especially as freelancers — in today’s media market? It’s a serious challenge. I worked on the Tiger Temple story for 11 months; the last seven weeks were 12-hour days, seven days a week. I was given bare-bones travel expenses for one trip to Thailand and a small budget for experts to translate Thai audio, video and documents. I was paid a fee for the story and the video — but frankly, if I break down my payment by the hour, I was making less than I would have behind the counter at a fast-food restaurant.

That story fell into my lap, and I found myself amidst a whirlwind. Now, whenever I can, I’m trying to work smarter: applying for grants and angling multiple stories from my reporting to broaden the income stream.

There’s another important consideration in doing this work. When young journalists speak to me about wanting to cover the illegal wildlife trade, I remind them that this is, first and foremost, crime coverage. That means serious safety considerations for ourselves and, sometimes, for our sources, whose lives could be at stake if their identities are revealed.

Let me share a painful example. I obscured the identity of my main source on the Tiger Temple story, a trusted Temple insider. But the Bangkok Post then dug in, discovered who he was — and outed him. Since then, the man has received periodic death threats and hasn’t slept in the same place for more than three nights in a row — for the past 18 months. It’s not surprising; there was a lot of money involved. This man helped shut down a $3 million a year tiger tourism operation — plus whatever the temple may have brought in from wildlife trafficking.

Another ethical issue is what we report. For example, what are the ethics of revealing an undercover method used by wildlife investigators if it means that this tool is outed — and can no longer be used to investigate wildlife crime? It’s something to consider.

These are important stories, and they’re not just about the demise of individual species. Each of these animals is part of interwoven ecosystems that have evolved in synchrony over millions of years. Pulling threads from this fabric of life has cascading effects that reverberate throughout and across systems. Take elephants: They’re the landscapers of the savannah, eating shrubs and tree sprouts that would transform the land to forest. In the process, they keep the land open for antelope, zebras and other grazers. They dig for water with their tusks, creating watering holes that other animals use to survive. African forest elephants spread seeds farther and more effectively than any other forest animal on the continent — and some plants rely entirely on these pachyderms for dispersal and survival.

But at the current rate of slaughter for their tusks, wild African elephants could disappear in a decade. And much of the African continent could suffer forever in their absence.

It’s just one example of why wildlife stories matter and why it’s important for journalists to keep them in the public eye.

Some sources for wildlife crime stories:

The National Whistleblower Center

Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge

WildAid

Trump’s Dismemberment of Bears Ears National Monument: Perspective From Indigenous Scholars

How racism, grave robbery, disrespect of tribal sovereignty and Mormon belief in divine rights is driving Utah’s attack on public lands.

President Trump’s visit to Salt Lake City Monday to sign two orders slashing the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments also included a meeting with Mormon religious leaders who shared “Church doctrine” with the president before he signed the controversial proclamations.

Trump’s unprecedented, two-million-acre cut in public land protection was spurred by Mormon political leaders, including Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, and supported by the entire Utah congressional delegation, Utah governor and Utah legislature.

It remains unknown what was discussed when Trump met with the top leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during the closed meeting.

But if Trump had also chosen to sit down with experts such as Thomas Murphy and Angelo Baca, two scholars of American Indian descent who were raised Mormon, he surely would have heard a different perspective on Mormon doctrine from the one offered by church leaders.

Trump would have heard how latent racism, a history of grave robbery beginning with LDS founder Joseph Smith, disrespect of tribal sovereignty and a belief in divine right to the land are at the heart Utah’s relentless drive to seize control of federal public lands, particularly Bears Ears.

Murphy and Baca co-authored a 2016 academic paper, “Rejecting Racism in Any Form: Latter-day Saint Rhetoric, Religion and Repatriation,” on the history of Mormon theology and its impact on indigenous people.

The paper provides an indigenous interpretation of Mormon history and details how religious scripture has been used to marginalize American Indians, justify the looting of artifacts, and reject tribal sovereignty and rights to petition the federal government to create national monuments such as Bears Ears.

The paper acknowledges that the LDS Church has issued statements condemning all forms of racism. But the scholars argue that until the church takes tangible steps to compensate for the racist tenets it held to in the past — steps like returning indigenous artifacts and body parts taken from grave sites — its rejection of racism will continue to ring hollow.

“A fundamental problem for the Latter-day Saint aspiration to move beyond all forms of racism is that the foundation events of this new world faith began with looting indigenous artifacts and graves made possible through the theft of indigenous lands,” they wrote in the paper.

“Racism, as experienced by indigenous peoples under colonialism, has often included differential standards in the treatment of the dead and the artifacts they left behind as well as religious justifications for the usurpation of lands,” the paper continues. “Mormon scriptures produced in part through the desecration of graves continue to denigrate American Indians and Africans cursed by God with dark skin, while paradoxically claiming that God is ‘no respecter of persons.’

“For nearly two centuries these sacred texts have been central to the acquisition of wealth and power in the LDS Church, much of it gained at the expense of indigenous peoples. If racism is truly to be rejected in all of its forms then the LDS Church needs to consider repatriation of indigenous body parts, burial goods, sacred artifacts and stolen lands as an active way to change the current structures of domination and realize its egalitarian aspirations.”

The paper chronicles the early history of Mormon founder Joseph Smith in the “money-digging business” in and near Palmyra, N.Y., in the early 19th century. The business included looking for artifacts in indigenous burials. In 1823 an angel purportedly guided Smith to gold plates, which have never been presented, buried in a hillside near Palmyra.

The gold plates, according to Mormon doctrine, were inscribed with the history of the former inhabitants of North America written in an unknown language described as “reformed Egyptian.” The purported translation, said by Smith to have been conducted with a “seer stone” — rocks considered sacred gifts from God — placed in the bottom of a hat, became the Book of Mormon.

Smith would later similarly translate Egyptian papyri that LDS members in Kirkland, Ohio, purchased in 1835 from a businessman who was touring the country displaying mummies and other artifacts. The translation, completed in 1842, became the canonical Mormon text, the Book of Abraham, according to the LDS church.

“The Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham both owe their origins to the practice of grave-robbery, an offense not just today but also at the time of their production,” stated Murphy’s and Baca’s paper.

Murphy is chairman of the anthropology department at Edmonds (Wash.) Community College and gained national prominence in 2002 when he published a research paper on DNA analysis that debunked a fundamental Mormon belief that American Indians descended from Israelites. The church ordered him to renounce his paper or face excommunication. He refused, and the church backed down and suspended its excommunication proceedings.

Baca is a filmmaker and doctoral student at New York University who produced a documentary on Bears Ears.

Murphy is of Mohawk descent and Baca is Navajo and Hopi.

“The presumption of the right of the settler colonists (to the land) is not unique to Mormons,” Murphy tells The Revelator. But, he says, what’s unique to Mormon settler colonists is that they use scripture to justify their actions.

“When you add a divine sanction to it you get an element of righteous zeal that I think is playing out” in the intense opposition to Bears Ears National Monument from Utah’s elected leaders, nearly all of whom are Mormons, he says. “There’s not just a righteous zeal, but there’s a righteous fury.”

The anger is rooted in the fact that the tribes bypassed state and local government and requested President Obama make Bears Ears a national monument. This action came only after years of being closed out on discussions in Utah Rep. Rob Bishop’s Public Land Initiative that failed to get out of the House Natural Resources Committee in 2016.

“When the tribes tried to protect these cultural and natural resources by bypassing the local governments and going to the federal government, the Mormons were able to see this as federal overreach instead of seeing it as a tribal sovereignty issue,” Murphy says.

Trump and his Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke seized on the Utah political leaders’ rhetoric of the monument designations as a “federal land grab” meant to “lock up” economic resources. Both monuments include lands that were already controlled by U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, undercutting the federal overreach claim.

When viewed from the American Indian perspective, Trump’s decision to gut Bears Ears is another ugly chapter beginning with the white settler colonists who stole their land and killed and displaced millions of their people. The indigenous people that were left after the genocide were confined to reservations where their languages were banned, children sent away to boarding schools, and their indigenous societies were isolated and cut off from commerce and communication with other tribes.

And now, after five tribes (Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute and Unitah Ouray Ute) with a history of conflict came together to successfully petition the federal government to create Bears Ears to protect significant cultural resources, Trump has reneged on a previous president’s pledge to preserve the land.

“I’m approving the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase recommendation for you, Orrin,” Trump told Hatch in an October phone call, according to CNN. According to Hatch the majority of Utah residents, including American Indians, supported reducing the size of Bears Ears.

Murphy said Hatch is “lying” about tribal support, which is supported by the fact that at least five tribes are preparing to file a joint lawsuit seeking to block Trump’s downsizing of Bears Ears.

“(Hatch) seems to be taking on sort of Trumpesque political move of claiming native support for his actions” while ignoring opposition from non-Mormon Indian leaders, Murphy says. “They are being entirely dismissed in favor of one or two Navajo that happened to be Mormon that are supporting this.”

Murphy is referring to San Juan County, Utah Commissioner Rebecca Benally who is also a Navajo and is a vehement opponent of Bears Ears. Six of the seven Utah Navajo chapter houses support Bears Ears, as does the Navajo Utah Commission and the Navajo Nation.

Murphy says some Mormons tend to dismiss the legitimacy of non-Mormon American Indians positions because they are often associated as descendants of the Lamanites, who were “cursed” by God with dark skin because they had become wicked, according to LDS teachings. The Lamanites, according to LDS teachings, are the Israelites who are said to have colonized North America around 600 B.C.

“The book of Mormon story gives Mormons license to dismiss native voices and their legitimacy because they see that indigenous people of once having a right to the land, they lost through their own wickedness,” Murphy says. Not only were the Lamanites considered wicked, they also annihilated a subset of the original Israelite colonists called Nephites, who were white. LDS teachings assert that “there was an ancient white civilization that was destroyed by the ancestors of the American Indians.”

Murphy says Mormon founder Joseph Smith attributed the great cultural artifacts found in North America, including the earthen mounds built by the Mound Builders, to the white Nephites rather than to the ancestors of American Indians. Combine this with Smith’s history of grave robbing and Murphy says it’s not surprising that some Mormons don’t see anything wrong with collecting ancient artifacts off public land, even if it violates federal law.

“They don’t see themselves as stealing from Native Americans because they see Native Americans as usurpers of what once belonged to white people,” Murphy says. “And that’s the story that comes out of the Book of Mormon.”

Bears Ears is estimated to have more than 100,000 significant cultural sites. Many sites have already been looted as part of a lucrative trafficking business that has proliferated in southern Utah for more than a century. Some of the most notable artifacts are on display at the Edge of Cedars State Park and Museum in Blanding, Utah.

In a written statement to The Revelator, Baca said: “American Indians are not cursed with a dark skin. We are not morally and ethically cursed by God because we are brown and indigenous.” He called on Mormons to “educate themselves on American Indian history, culture and language.”

Baca asked Mormons to truly move past the “racism and discrimination coded as law and order in a deeply unjust-settler-historical system.”

He sharply criticized Mormon leaders for hosting Trump. “I believe they have sacrificed their own Mormon values and beliefs in supporting a morally and ethically questionable man.”

Trump vs. Bears Ears: Outraged Native Groups Respond

The proclamation to remove more than a million acres from protection has been called everything from illegal to racist.

“Offensive.” “Illegal.” “Racist.” Those are just a few of the words used by Native American leaders and groups this week in response to President Trump’s plan to remove protections from 85 percent of the 1.35 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument. Tribes have spent decades trying to protect the culturally and historically significant Utah landmark.

The long-rumored details of President Trump’s action — fulfilling vague promises he made back in May — were officially announced today at a heavily protested public event in Salt Lake City, Utah. “We got it done,” said the president during the event.

At the close of his speech, Trump signed two presidential proclamations to shrink both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by a total of more than 2 million acres and in the process carve up what remains into several smaller monuments.

trump bears ears — President Trump holds up one of his signed proclamations. Via The White House YouTube channel.

Native leaders wasted no time condemning Trump’s plan in the days leading up to its formal announcement.

During one of many public protests held in Salt Lake City this past weekend, Navajo Nation Attorney General Ethel Branch said Trump does not have the authority to remove or shrink national monuments, a position on which Constitutional scholars agree.

Today Navajo Nation Attorney General Ethel Branch also reiterated: the President does not have the authority to rescind or diminish national monuments. #StandWithBearsEars! @WhiteHouse @POTUS #MonumentsForAll pic.twitter.com/a3FyOgVe44

— Protect Bears Ears (@savebearsears) December 2, 2017

Natalie Landreth, senior staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, also took that position in a prepared statement last week, calling Trump’s action “completely illegal.” She added: “This is an issue of tribal sovereignty, tribal self-determination. The five tribes that advocated tirelessly to create this monument did so to protect their ancient and modern cultural and spiritual importance. The fact that it is being revoked without any consultation, or even concern, for the tribes is offensive.”

Landreth also spoke to the cultural threats that led to the establishment of Bears Ears. “The monument was created in large part to help stem the tide of widespread looting and grave robbing, which was the original purpose of the Antiquities Act, and removal of that protection leaves more than 60,000 known sites in danger. It’s disgraceful.”

And it’s not just about history; it’s also about the cultural and political reality of today. “Bears Ears isn’t just about a few artifacts in isolated locations,” Shaun Chapoose, a member of the Ute Indian Tribal Business Committee, said in an earlier statement issued by the Rights Fund. “Our cultures are still here and still thriving. The Bears Ears region is a cultural landscape — a place to nurture our families in our traditions. The monument came about through government-to-government negotiations with the previous administration, state and local officials. The president’s proposed unilateral action pleases a few powerful Utah politicians. It’s a sad state of affairs, but we are prepared to fight for our rights, and to protect Bears Ears.”

Many critics spoke to how Trump’s plan attempts to erase the years of effort put into seeking protection for Bears Ears. “The establishment of the Bears Ears National Monument was a historic advancement for all five Native Nations (Navajo, Hopi, Ute, Ute Mountain, Zuni) who advocated for the monument,” Russell Begaye, president of the Navajo Nation, said in the Rights Fund prepared statement. “At the very least, President Trump should have consulted with the original local governments of the Bears Ears region: our five Indian nations. Instead, our many requests for consultation were ignored. An action to diminish the Bears Ears National Monument in any way will be an action against the Navajo Nation and the Navajo people who have worked so tirelessly to protect these lands.”

American Indian groups have been gearing up for a fight ever since the president first promised to remove protections for the monument, which was established by President Obama. “What the politicians are doing is violating what’s sacred to us,” Alfred Lomahquahu Jr., vice chairman of the Hopi Tribal Council, told The Nation last week, comparing it to removing protections for Arlington National Cemetery. “Our holy, sacred ground happens to be the big landscape out here. But people don’t understand that. Not honoring Bears Ears is against our religion. And it’s racist.”

Ironically, Trump said during his speech that removing protections from Bears Ears protects religion. “We will ensure the right of the people to live according to the faith in their hearts, which is why we will always protect your religious liberty,” he said.

Immediately following the end of Trump’s speech, the Navajo Nation announced plans to sue to protect Bears Ears National Monument. “This is a sad day for indigenous people and for America,” Navajo Nation Vice President Jonathan Nez said in a press release. “However, we are resilient and refuse to allow President Trump’s unlawful decision to discourage us. We will continue to fight in honor of our ancestral warriors who fought for our way of life, for our culture and for our land too.”

Updated: The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Council held a press conference this afternoon. You can watch the video below:

Trophy Hunting Could Cause Extinction in Stressed Populations

The trouble is, almost all animal populations today are facing increasing stress from changing environments.

By Rob Knell, Queen Mary University of London

People are now the most important predators for many animal populations on the planet, but people are rather different from “ordinary” predators. While a lion or an eagle is just trying to get dinner, human predators can be motivated by other aspects of an animal than simply how much meat it can provide.

Trophy hunters obsessively target animals with the largest horns, antlers or manes. Poachers focus on elephants with the largest tusks – and there is a subset of insect collectors who will pay premium prices for stag or rhinoceros beetle specimens with really huge horns or mandibles.

All of these focus their predation on what biologists call “sexually selected” traits. These evolve because they give the (usually male) animal that carries the trait an advantage in competition for mates, either by allowing him to dominate and exclude rival males – think of red deer stags – or because females of his species actively prefer to mate with males with large, loud or bright sexually selected traits, as in the case of birds of paradise.

How these sexually selected traits evolve is a question that has been a difficult issue for biologists for some years: why should females prefer males with a long tail or with especially bright colors – and what is it about stags with large antlers that allows them to win contests and dominate groups of females?

An increasing body of evidence now supports the idea that the expression of these traits is linked in some way to the genetic “quality” of a male. Males who have lost the genetic lottery and who are carrying more than their share of genes that are detrimental to health do not have the resources to grow a big tail or a large set of antlers. Conversely, those lucky males who happen to have a particularly good set of genes can afford the handicap of carrying around a super-sized rack of antlers or set of horns, or will be able to grow extra long and brightly colored feathery plumes.

Selective harvest

This is useful for our understanding of animal behavior, but it also has wider implications for the evolution of these species. Researchers have recently found that strongly sexually selected species can evolve faster in response to environmental challenges than species where mating is more random.

Because males with higher genetic quality gain the majority of matings in these species, their “good genes” can spread through a population much faster than they would if mating were random. This means that strong sexual selection can allow a population to adapt faster to a changing environment, and in some scenarios these species can avoid extinction when the environment changes because of this fast evolutionary response.

In our newly-published research, we asked the question of how this might change when those highest-quality males are removed by “selective harvest”. It’s prohibitively difficult to test these ideas with real hunted populations, so we developed a computer simulation which allowed us to examine what happens when you take these animals out of a population.

Our results are clear – and worrying. If the environment is relatively stable, then even quite severe harvesting of high-quality males is sustainable. But if the population is already stressed by a changing environment, then removing even a small percentage of the best males can lead to extinction. The trouble is, almost all animal populations today are facing increasing stress from changing environments.

This goes against the conventional wisdom. Since there is usually little paternal care of offspring in these animals – and because it seems reasonable to assume that females will not have problems getting fertilized if we remove, say, 15% of the males – it is usually assumed that trophy hunting and similar selective harvests are unlikely to drive animals to extinction when only a small proportion of males are hunted. Our results suggest otherwise.

Better management would make a difference

Should we, therefore, ban trophy hunting and insect collecting? The argument about trophy hunting in particular goes on – but we do not think that our research adds great weight to either position. So far, it is only based on a computer model – clearly we need some tests of our results based on real data.

What we might consider, however, is changing management practices. We examined how different management altered the outcome of our model, and again we found a clear result. If a minimum age limit is applied to hunted animals, so that only old animals who have already had a chance to mate and spread their genes are removed, then the increased extinction risk that we found goes away.

If a population must be hunted, then restricting hunting to older males only and managing the population sensibly by adjusting quotas when there are signs of stress should ensure that any risk of extinction is minimized.

Rob Knell, Reader in Evolutionary Ecology, Queen Mary University of London

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Chimpanzees, Ecotourism, Climate Change and Wildlife Law: New Eco-Books for December

This month brings us several great new books for the dedicated environmentalists on your holiday shopping list.

The holiday season is upon us — a time for family, celebration, reflection and mass overconsumption.

If you’re going to participate in holiday consumerism this year, why not do the right thing and give (or ask for) the greenest gifts of all: new environmentally themed books.

Here are our picks for the best new eco-books coming out during the month of December, including some pretty challenging titles on climate change, chimpanzees and conservation law, among other topics. As usual, we’ve tried to pick titles for environmentally conscious adults, kids and professionals. Check ‘em out:

Following Fifi: My Adventures Among Wild Chimpanzees, Lessons From Our Closest Relatives by John Crocker

This is a pretty amazing story: Crocker started his student life studying chimpanzees with Jane Goodall in the famous Gombe forest before eventually becoming a doctor. The chimpanzees — including a mother named Fifi — stayed in his mind, and he applied the lessons he learned in the forest to helping people with anxiety, depression and attention deficit disorder. Goodall herself calls this “a truly extraordinary book.” (Pegasus Books, Dec. 5, $27.95)

Tales of an Ecotourist: What Travel to Wild Places Can Teach Us About Climate Change by Mike Gunter Jr.

Ecotourism destinations are supposed to benefit the environment, but can places like the Great Barrier Reef and the Galápagos Islands also teach us more about the reality of climate change? Gunter crisscrossed the globe to find out in this insightful, scientific and often funny travelogue. (SUNY Press, Dec. 1, $29.95)

The Global Warming Express by Marina Weber and Joanna Whysner

Here’s one for the kids on your list. Join Fluff the penguin and other animals affected by the warming world as they hop on board a magical train (powered by positive thinking, not coal!) to learn about pollution, oil spills and global warming. Sounds like fun. (Terra Nova Books, Dec. 1, $14.95)

When the Caribou Do Not Come: Indigenous Knowledge and Adaptive Management in the Western Arctic, edited by Brenda L. Parlee and Ken Caine

You may have heard that caribou populations are on the decline in the Arctic. What’s happening there? This book presents stories, essays and the latest community-based research from the Inuvialuit, Gwich’in and Sahtu peoples, showcasing the importance of indigenous knowledge in understanding how climate change and other factors are affecting Arctic ecosystems. (University of Washington Press, Dec. 11, $75.00)

Rough Cut: Lessons From Endangered Species by Rick Wood

Wood, a marine wildlife filmmaker, takes his lessons from behind the lens and presents them on the page, addressing what he’s learned about the threats facing sea turtles, killer whales, otters and other oceanic critters. (Homeostasis Press, Dec. 9, $20.95)

The Laws Protecting Animals and Ecosystems by Paul A. Rees

Here’s one for the budding conservationist. The publisher calls this the first basic textbook about wildlife law for anyone studying or working in wildlife conservation or animal welfare. This in-depth volume covers the major wildlife laws around the world and the types of protective measures that exist for various ecosystems, as well as tough topics such as who owns wildlife, the identification of captive-bred animals, and problems with human-animal conflict. (Wiley, Dec. 4, $120)

That’s it for this month’s list. For more ideas, check out our past book columns — see the links below — and share what you’re reading in the comments.

Revelator Reads: 6 Thrilling New Environmental Books for November

Revelator Reads: Great New Environmental Books for Fall

Revelator Reads: 8 New Environmental Books for September

Revelator Reads: 7 New Environmental Books for August

Revelator Reads: 7 New Environmental Books for July

An Unlikely Partnership Yields Political Climate Progress

How an elementary-school science teacher helped a Utah Republican congresswoman start to take leadership on climate change.

I first met Tom Moyer in the spring of 2015. We were in Salt Lake City, Utah, at a conference hosted by Citizens’ Climate Lobby, an advocacy organization working to generate the political will for action on global warming. Moyer pulled me aside in the hallway during a break, telling me, “I’m a fifth-grade science teacher at a progressive elementary school, and I’m the Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s contact for our brand-new black, Mormon, Republican congresswoman, Mia Love.” He stood there with a big beaming smile, confident I’d want to hear his story.

Salt Lake was my last stop before returning home to Los Angeles. I’d been traveling the country interviewing activists for a book I’m writing about unlikely climate heroes, ordinary people who step forward and stick out their necks to try to slow climate change — people like the man standing in front of me.

As a scientist, Moyer told me, he was no stranger to the how and why of climate change, but as a citizen he knew very little about the political process. Citizens’ Climate Lobby helped change that. In the months before we met, Moyer trained to speak about the issues, step forward as a leader and — despite the prevailing winds of the country — how to talk graciously to people who didn’t share his politics.

So how does a progressive, white, non-Mormon male develop a good working relationship with his black, Republican, Mormon female member of Congress whose previous record of support for environmental issues has been less than stellar?

He told me: By building trust, by being respectful, and by letting go of assumptions.

Citizens’ Climate Lobby developed this model in part by using the work of the Yale Program on Climate Communication to train volunteers. Their research found that effective climate communication begins by knowing who you are talking to, what their world-view is and what they value. People want to be appreciated, listened to and acknowledged. People want to be understood. It’s all easy to say, but harder to live by.

Despite the fact that Moyer and Rep. Love appeared to have little in common, the teacher felt optimistic and ready to jump in. He took his first steps, just before I met him, by introducing himself to the congresswoman’s chief of staff, Mike Squires.

“We began an email correspondence,” he says. “Right from the get-go, he was open, friendly and receptive.”

Not all relationships with congressional staff get off to such a good start. Balancing many twirling plates, staff members are often distracted and overwhelmed. And if the issue’s a hot-button one, they may not even respond to requests for a meeting.

Fortunately that was not the case with Squires. That summer Moyer and his wife Laura were in D.C. for a family vacation and scheduled an in-person meeting with the chief of staff.

Two years later Moyer’s still practically giddy when he recalls the hour-long meeting. “It was really fantastic,” he says, animated. “We felt comfortable with each other. We learned that Squires had been Rep. Love’s campaign manager, that he was a graduate of BYU and considers himself to be an environmental Republican.” Moyer was particularly excited to hear Squires say of his boss that there was a chance she would make climate change one of her priorities.

Moyer and Squires’ connection wasn’t just good luck.

“Meetings between Republican members of Congress and environmental activists can sometimes be fraught with skepticism,” Rich Piatt, the congresswoman’s communications director, told me during a recent email exchange. “Both sides [Moyer and Squires] were able to have an open, honest dialogue about relevant issues. They talked about their shared love of Utah’s beautiful landscape, the outdoors, air quality and environmental degradation.”

Squires continued to be an ally, making useful suggestions to Moyer about how to engage the congresswoman on the issue of climate change. He started by providing a list of names of few Utah State Assembly members and members of Congress. “Contact these folks and ask them to talk with Congresswoman Love about why she should pay attention to climate change,” he said. “These are all people she respects and holds in high regard.”

As Squires predicted, the congresswoman was receptive. Moyer told me that after listening to her allies, being briefed by a climate scientist, and later after hosting a town hall, Congresswoman Love started to re-evaluate her stance on climate change.

The big turning point came in December 2016 when she joined the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus. The caucus, founded in February 2015 by Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) and Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), is an anomaly in today’s Congress. Against the backdrop of so much congressional ill will, this group of 30 Republicans and 30 Democrats addresses and takes action on climate solutions.

The congresswoman, coming from a heavily Republican district, reportedly took a risk in joining the caucus. A few months later she took another, writing an op-ed that appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune that contradicted a prevailing Republican notion that climate solutions are incompatible with a thriving economy. These risks paid off: According to Moyer, Love continues to enjoy good support in her district.

In recognition of her actions, Love received a Climate Leadership Award at the Citizens’ Climate Lobby annual conference this past June. I watched her walk up to the podium and speak to a packed and attentive hall. “We can be a lot more productive when we get two parties in a room together to talk about the things that they’re for, rather than just what they’re against,” she said. “We all share a responsibility to be good environmental stewards, and working together we can find solutions that both protect our climate and promote a thriving economy.”

More recently, as I watched a live streaming of the Climate Solutions Caucus, the Congresswoman spoke out with conviction, “I’m going to try to get as many people on this caucus as possible.”

Moyer and Love both publicly stated that when they first met three years ago, they never would have predicted the congresswoman would emerge as a climate change leader. Their working relationship is a testament to the power of listening, a willingness to look beyond labels and to find solutions — a model worth replicating.

The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity, or their employees.

For more on Rep. Love and climate change, see this clip from the documentary series Years of Living Dangerously:

Extinct Icons: Art to Memorialize Vanished Species

A powerful new art exhibit is just one event for this year’s Remembrance Day for Lost Species.

How do we mark out grief for the loss of the world’s now-extinct species? For British artist Katie Tume, who works under the name Mother Eagle, the answer comes in the form of thread, beads, precious metals and gemstones. Her embroidered artworks commemorating the Tasmanian tiger, Barbary lion, dodo and other vanished wildlife are now on display at the ONCA art gallery in Brighton, England, as part of a worldwide series of events called Remembrance Day for Lost Species, held on November 30 each year.

Tume says the idea for the “Extinct Icons” in this exhibit came from seeing photos of reliquaries honoring Catholic martyrs and saints. “The idea of martyrs, persecuted in their lifetime for their beliefs or actions but now revered and regaled in death, made me think how we treat animals, specifically extinct ones,” she says.

She calls the animals she chose to depict “the poster children of the extinct hall of fame,” noting they frequently turn up in “top-ten”-style lists of extinct species. “In reading the stories of these endings, and ‘endlings,’ it became apparent to me how so many of these species’ demise were wrapped up in colonization, European exploitation, and extractive capitalism,” she says. “So much of this felt so familiar because the behaviors are still very real, present and very destructive. So, like those martyrs, persecuted in their lifetimes, I am interested in completing that cycle and illuminating them as saints.”

Persephone Pearl, founder of Remembrance Day for Lost Species and ONCA co-director, told me last year that the annual event helps people to understand that “learning to grieve is part of the process of healing our broken culture.”

This year’s Remembrance Day for Lost Species events include a dance competition in Madrid, Spain; a benefit concert with songs about endangered species in Chicago; a ceremony to recognize lost pollinators in Sacramento, California; and a workshop for children at the Redpath Natural History Museum in Montreal, Canada. A complete list of events, many of which run into early December, can be found here.

Extinct Icons by Katie Tume

From Tropical Islands to Polar Bears: Half a Degree in Warming Makes a Difference

For small island nations threatened by rising seas, swelling waters are a daily reminder of the need to act on climate.

The recent climate conference in Bonn, Germany, shined a light on one of the most certain and serious impacts we expect from unabated climate change: sea-level rise. Melting ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica are releasing water into the sea — water that has been held on land for millennia. At the same time, warmer water is taking up more room because of “thermal expansion.” This means that sea levels will continue to rise as long as temperatures increase.

For small island nations threatened by rising seas, the swelling waters lapping at their shores are a daily reminder of the need to act on climate.

At the Paris climate conference in 2015, these nations were in no small part responsible for setting the goal to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times. The latest scientific studies on sea-level rise confirm that for these nations there is truly a world of difference between a 1.5 degree and 2 degree average temperature increase. Nations like Fiji or Kiribati lie so close to present sea level that they are projected to be underwater if the global mean temperature increases by 2 degrees. If we keep temperature rise below 1.5 degrees, however, projections keep these nations and their people above water — saving the worlds they know, at least for the next several hundred years.

Such threshold behavior is a special problem of climate change, one not well understood in public and policy circles. To most people a half-degree difference in mean temperature rise may seem trivial. But even as average temperatures rise smoothly, they can cause leaps in biological and geophysical responses.

And tropical island nations are not alone in their vulnerability. Two recent studies have shown that Arctic summer sea-ice extent, the habitat and hunting ground for polar bears, is also highly sensitive to small changes in the global temperature. Dr. Alexandra Jahn of the University of Colorado at Boulder demonstrated that by the end of this century the probability of an ice-free summer in the Arctic Ocean is about 33 percent if we stabilize global temperature at around 2 degrees Celsius (see figure below). This means that roughly every third year there could be essentially no summer sea ice in the Arctic. Imagine that your local grocery store closed for half a year every third year and you had no way to store food purchased during the other two years — clearly polar bears and other animals that depend on sea ice would struggle to survive in such a scenario.

probability of ice-free September — Probability that September Arctic sea ice extent drops below 1 million km2 (referred to as “ice-free”) as projected by the Community Earth System Model, a state-of-the-art climate model, under two scenarios reaching 1.5 and 2 degrees Celcius global mean warming, respectively, in the second half of the 21st century. See Sanderson et al. (2017) for more details.

In contrast, the analysis also showed that, if global temperature increase can be halted at 1.5 degrees instead of 2 degrees Celsius, the probability of an ice-free Arctic summer drops to less than 3 percent (again, see the figure above). That sounds more manageable. The analysis by Dr. Jahn was published in a comprehensive paper, led by Dr. Benjamin Sanderson, documenting various climate-change impacts and how they differ between a 1.5 degree and 2 degree warmer world. An independent study lead by Dr. James Screen from the University of Exeter in the UK arrived at almost identical numbers.

Years ago Dr. Wallace Broecker at Columbia University warned the world there would be surprises in the greenhouse effect. Sea-level rise and Arctic sea-ice sensitivity to temperature differences as small as 0.5 degrees — and the differences that sensitivity can make to people and animals — are prime examples of such surprises. Numerous other surprises, some already known, many unknown, await if we continue to warm the world, emphasizing the importance of achieving the goals agreed to in Paris.

Extinct in the Wild But Still Flying: The Guam Kingfisher

The last 150 birds of this critically endangered species rely on humans for their survival.

I rounded a corner and there it was: one of the world’s last 150 Guam kingfishers (Todiramphus cinnamominus). The bright orange, blue and white bird sat by itself on a branch in an enclosure at Pittsburgh’s National Aviary, watching visitors as they passed by. It didn’t seem to blink an eye as I stood there for several minutes, starting at this tiny, beautiful and vitally important bird.

I knew that I was incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to see this rare species. Once native to the island after which it’s named, the Guam kingfisher all but disappeared during the decades after World War II, when invasive brown tree snakes (Boiga irregularis) arrived and ate their way through the native fauna. By the 1970s most of Guam’s unique bird species had gone extinct.

The island’s kingfishers held on for a few more years, until 1988, the last year they were seen in the wild.

Luckily, just before that fateful day, conservationists managed to capture a total of 29 birds and bring them into captivity for protection. The kingfishers were transported to a number of U.S. zoos, where they became the core of a breeding program that has managed to save the species from extinction.

Today 11 of those birds, including two breeding pairs, live at the National Aviary, one of more than two dozen U.S. zoos and one government facility on Guam that are participating in the kingfisher’s Species Survival Program. The aviary had 13 of the birds until earlier this month, when two young offspring were sent to zoos in Denver and St. Louis to help boost their own breeding programs.

The breeding pairs have done remarkably well in less-than-tropical Pittsburgh since they arrived just two nesting seasons ago. “We produced four offspring our first year and five our second year,” says Kurt Hundgen, the National Aviary’s director of animal collections, speaking to me by phone a few weeks after my visit. “That’s pretty good considering we’ve only had them for roughly three years.”

That success was a bit slow in coming, though. At first, one of the breeding pairs was on display, in the same enclosure where I had seen a female kingfisher during my visit. “They didn’t do much for the first eight months,” Hundgen says. “They do okay when they’re in public view, but they’re very secretive birds.”

After that the aviary moved the breeding pairs off display into specially constructed behind-the-scenes enclosures. There the facility could more closely mimic the temperature, humidity, vegetation, daylight cycles and even sounds of the kingfishers’ native habitat, while also giving them much-need privacy in specially constructed, hollowed-out tree logs and nest cavities.

“That’s when they kicked in,” Hundgen says. The birds took to their new habitats and quickly started mating and laying eggs.

Guam kingfisher — Courtesy National Aviary

The recent breeding success at the aviary is just part of an important turnaround for the kingfisher’s population, which barely grew during their first two decades in captivity. “For the longest time, the kingfisher population just maintained itself at around 50 to 60 birds,” Hundgen says. That lasted until about 2005, when the participants in the kingfisher working group got together to develop new and more consistent husbandry techniques. “It really has made the difference and that’s where we’ve seen the increase in the captive population.”

One element that has dramatically helped was the decision to carefully hand-rear some kingfisher chicks. Females normally lay a two-egg clutch, but only one of them typically survives. “There has never been a pair in captivity in human care yet that has successfully raised two chicks,” Hundgen says. “So the recommendation became, when you do get two fertile eggs, you let the pair rear one egg and you pull the other one and hand-rear it.”

That’s a pretty intense process. “There are great lengths that go into the details of feeding that chick and caring for it,” says Dr. Pilar Fish, the aviary’s director of veterinary medicine. “It needs to have the perfect temperature, humidity which changes over time, the right amount of food, the right type of food, and the right feeding schedule. It requires such intensive care and allowing their natural activity.”

Guam kingfisher chick — Courtesy National Aviary

That’s where another aspect of the special enclosures comes in: the hollow logs in which the birds nest are fitted with hidden cameras. They parent birds feel safe and secure in their private logs, but aviary staff can observe exactly how they behave with their chicks and learn to mimic the same behaviors with the hand-reared chicks.

In addition to all of that, the tiny birds undergo extensive health checks. “We do regular neonatal care on each one of these chicks to make sure that make sure that as they are growing — they grow up so quickly — they’re reaching each developmental milestone and staying as healthy as possible,” says Fish. “There’s a whole team of people caring for them and assuring their health and development.”

Through all of this work, the veterinary team feels the significance of their actions. “Each one of these chicks is so important to its species,” she says.

Sometimes that team actually means rushing to save a chick’s life. “These chicks are so fragile,” Fish says. “They’re just so tiny and they’re naked and every parameter is important.” Because most of the chicks live in the enclosures with their parents, “natural things” happen, like the risk of chicks falling out of their nest.

“In the wild, they would succumb to the elements,” she says. “We have the ability to examine them, treat them, and put them back in the nest.”

“Treat them” might be a bit of an understatement. “One little chick — I remember this vividly — fell out of the nest,” Fish recalls. “I did my veterinary exam and the chick had ruptured its respiratory system. Birds have lungs and air sacs. The chick actually inflated like a balloon and it was having labored breathing. We had to use a tiny needle that is actually used in pediatric medicine human pediatric medicine and prep the area and deflated it and then had to repeat that procedure and give it breathing treatments. We used a human nebulizer, like an asthmatic would need, and we gave it oral medicines, tiny little dilutions of medicine. At this point the check only weighed half an ounce! But within two days it fully recovered from the trauma and within just a week it was completely normal.”

Still, it was a stressful process — both for the bird and its human caretakers. “It’s nerve-wracking to be handling this bird knowing that its species is extinct in the wild and that that little chick is so important,” Fish says. “We’ve been very fortunate that these chicks have recovered, and I tell you what, it’s just a real privilege to be able to be involved in this program. I love working with all birds, but when you know that a bird is gone in the wild and that these birds are the future, then working on them it is really a significant honor.”

Hundgen echoes that sentiment. “I’ve been on Guam on several occasions,” he says. “When you go in the woods, there are no birds anymore. For me, that makes this pretty special to be involved with this species. It’s fulfilling. That’s why we’re here.”

With populations growing at the National Aviary and so many other zoos, will the Guam kingfisher ever again live in the wild? In truth, Guam itself may never host the species — not unless the brown tree snake is completely and permanently eradicated there — but other nearby islands could one day serve as adequate release sites and replacement habitats, especially if the captive population keeps growing. That’s beginning to look more and more likely. “I think you’re going to see the day when the kingfisher will be introduced,” Hundgen says. “Without a doubt.”

Previously in The Revelator:

Whooping Cranes Could Be Wiped Out by Climate Change