Is the Jaguarundi Extinct in the United States?

These weasel-like small cats haven’t been documented in the country since 1986. A new study suggests it’s time to reintroduce them.

A few times a year, wildlife officials in Texas receive excited phone calls.

“I just saw something that looks like a really big cat, or maybe a giant weasel,” a caller might say. “Was it a jaguarundi?”

No, they’re not reporting a sighting of a mythical beast like the chupacabra. But they might as well be.

The elusive, secretive jaguarundi (Herpailurus yagouaroundi) is a small, bizarre-looking feline species, not much bigger than a house cat, with weasel-like features, short legs, and an extremely long tail. Native to South and Central America, its range once extended to the southern tip of Texas, but it hasn’t been officially observed in the Lone Star State since 1986. The last one we know of was killed that year by the world’s most fearsome predator: a car.

Texas wildlife officials still dutifully investigate every sighting, and to date they’ve debunked every one of them. The “jaguarundis” people think they saw, biologists explain, were simply house cats or other wild felids — or sometimes just squirrels — out stalking in the dark.

That hasn’t stopped people stopped looking for the jaguarundi in Texas or hoping to spot one. In fact, one group of scientists just finished an exhaustive, decades-long study seeking evidence of the species’ persistence at the northernmost edges of its range, which also extends south all the way to Argentina.

jaguarini on a leafy forest floor — A jaguarini photographed in Belize in June 2022. Photo: © giana521 via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC)

The researchers, mostly from the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at Texas A&M University, spent 18 years setting up motion-activated cameras at 685 sites in the cats’ most likely locations in their historic range in northern Mexico and southern Texas. Over that time, they captured 126 photos of the cats in Tamaulipas, the Mexican state bordering southernmost Texas, indicating that remains a healthy part of the animals’ range.

In Texas the camera traps caught images of a wide range of other carnivores, including ocelots, bobcats, coyotes and hog-nosed skunks — but not a single jaguarundi in 18 years.

Based on their thousands of photos and the lack of verifiable sightings, the researchers concluded that “the jaguarundi is likely extirpated from the United States.” They published their findings earlier this year in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

“This is unfortunate news for jaguarundis in the U.S.,” says Wai-Ming Wong, director of the small-cats program at Panthera, the global wild cat conservation organization, who was not involved in the study.

“Although disappointed, I’m not overly surprised by the findings,” Wong adds. “Southern Texas represented the northernmost part of the jaguarundi distribution, and for many cases, it’s at these extreme marginal areas of species’ distributions where they are most sensitive to threats.” Aside from highways, agricultural expansion and intensification likely drove the jaguarundi extinct in this country.

Time to Bring Them Back?

Could this sad news also serve as an opportunity?

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service formally protected the Gulf Coast jaguarundi under the Endangered Species Act in 1976, just three years after the legislation took effect. It’s been listed as an endangered species in this country ever since, although not much has happened during the ensuing years. By the time the Service finally published its first draft jaguarundi recovery plan in 2012 — a not-atypical delay — no one had officially seen the species in the United States in more than a quarter-century.

That recovery plan, finalized in December 2013, made it clear how little we knew about jaguarundi at the time — something that’s still true today. “Information on life history aspects of jaguarundi in the wild, including age of sexual maturity, minimum and maximum breeding age, and mating behavior, is limited,” the recovery plan stated.

A jaguarini cub in a tree — A jaguarini cub photographed in Ecuador in May 2022. Photo © Cristopher Barreto via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC)

That’s not unusual, since big cats like lions and tigers attract the most conservation attention and research funding. “Jaguarundis, like many other small cat species, are understudied and poorly known,” says Wong. Without the right data on a species’ ecology, it’s much harder to conserve them.

The 2013 plan called for closing those information gaps, as well as investigating whether jaguarundis could resettle Texas from Mexico or if the species would benefit from proactive reintroduction efforts.

The new study says it’s time to put that last option into action.

“We suggest,” the authors wrote, “that federal and state agencies follow recovery strategies as outlined in the Gulf Coast jaguarundi recovery plan. These recovery efforts include restoring, protecting and reconnecting habitat, public outreach and education, reducing risk of road mortality, and evaluating the feasibility of jaguarundi reintroduction into South Texas.”

That probably requires rethinking of the border wall between the United States and Mexico. The 2013 recovery plan acknowledged that “increased border monitoring associated with illegal immigration, and homeland security, may impact future jaguarundi recovery efforts” — and that was long before the Trump administration waived dozens of environmental laws to accelerate border-wall construction.

Wong agrees that reintroduction needs further discussion, “particularly in the context of the jaguarundi action plans as well as the U.S. Recovering America’s Wildlife Act,” he says. “The authors make strong recommendations for the next steps. It’s crucial to implement spatial and population surveys to better understand their fundamental ecology and conservation needs, which would inform reintroduction plans and make them more effective.”

Federal officials disagree, though.

“Given our limited resources, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service works to focus recovery efforts where we can have the greatest impact for listed species,” Fish and Wildlife public affairs specialist Aubry Buzek says by email. “At this time, we do not have plans to implement a reintroduction of jaguarundi into the United States.”

More Effort Needed

Nonetheless, the species remains officially endangered in the United States — an important classification should the wild cats wander back into their traditional northern territory.

It’s not an unlikely scenario. Their larger, similarly named cousin, the jaguar, has extended its range back into the United States in recent years, a trend that’s expected to continue.

Meanwhile, the threats that likely drove the jaguarundi out of the country still exist, and they’re probably worse than they were 30 years ago. Those risks need mitigation, not just for jaguarundi but all Texas wildlife.

Road mortality, habitat loss, roads and hunting remain threats to jaguarundis south of the border, too. Although the IUCN Red List assesses the species’ extinction risk as “least concern,” they’re not always doing well, and their legal protection varies throughout their range. “In many parts of their distribution, their populations are declining,” says Wong.

A bloody jaguarini body on a road — Many of the jaguarini observations uploaded to iNaturalist, like this May 2022 photo from Costa Rica, depict animals dead on roads. Photo © Jairo Moya Vargas via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC)

But knowing how much they’re declining, and what they need to thrive, remains under-researched. Fewer than 20 scientific studies of the jaguarundi have been published since 2018. During that same period, researchers have published hundreds of studies about lions and other charismatic mega-felines.

Ultimately, that’s what makes this study of the jaguarundi’s potential extirpation from Texas so important. It’s a reminder that we’re leaving many interesting species unstudied and under-protected.

Wong says he hopes this makes a difference for the mysterious, neglected jaguarundi.

“Any information that increases the conservation awareness of the species will be beneficial,” he says.

Meanwhile people in Texas keep reporting potential jaguarundi sightings. Maybe one day soon they’ll spy the real thing.

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Previously in The Revelator:

The Final Frontiers? A Call to Protect the Biodiversity on the Borders

Protect This Place: Italy’s World Heritage Beech Forests

Even protected places face threats from climate change and encroaching development.

The place:

Nestled at the very edge of the toe of mainland Italy you’ll find Aspromonte National Park, one of the wildest places in Italy. It sits at the end of the Apennines, which start just below the western Alps and run through central Italy to the toe of the country’s “boot.”

The name Aspromonte means “white mountain.” The area is known for its rugged granite mountains that reach 6,500 feet and the forests that cover 60% of the park’s lowlands and some peaks.

Aspromonte was designated a national park in 1989, but the history of this natural area runs deep. Archaeological evidence from Greek and Roman civilizations has been found in the park and local villages, including early prehistoric agricultural and pastoral tools and musical instruments.

Today the villages that border the park also preserve its unique heritage. The local dialect of Italian has been influenced by Greek settlements, as have local crafts such as byzantine fabrics and crochet work.

Why it matters:

While Aspromonte is known for its rugged beauty, it is its placement within the UNESCO World Heritage Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests that makes it unique.

These forests are the southernmost component of the UNESCO world heritage serial site that helps protect ancient beech forests across 18 countries.

beech forest in fall with yellow leaves — European beech forest. Photo: Tobias Mandt (CC BY 2.0)

The European beech (Fagus sylvatica), found throughout the continent from Germany to Ukraine to Italy, has survived tumultuous temperature fluctuations over a million years. The remaining old-growth trees — including in Aspromonte— are a testament to its resilience. But that’s being put to the test with climate change.

At the heart of the park’s forests is Valle Infernale — the infernal valley — where Aspromonte’s old-growth European beech trees are found. The forest transitioned from evergreens to the old-growth mixed stands that are seen today. The ages of the beech trees reach more than 200 years.

Since they’re high on a steep, ragged ridge, their inaccessibility has allowed these trees to escape extensive logging. Today what remains is an exemplary beech forest habitat, showing what an undisturbed forest can be: resistant, resilient and full of life. Italian wolves, peregrine falcons and goshawks make their homes here. The old-growth forests also help provide clean water and air, store vast amounts of carbon, and support the rich biodiversity. The benefits of old growth extend beyond the park and are necessary to help mitigate global climate change in the future.

Protecting old-growth forests ensures that carbon dioxide remains stored, instead of further emitted into the atmosphere. Furthermore, because the forests are rich, unique habitats, the protection of these ecosystems ensures that they remain stable habitats for the species that rely on them.

The threat:

Valle Infernale’s forest may have escaped previous logging activity, but there are other current threats. Our work showed that a human-caused wildfire in 2021 didn’t touch the core area of the old-growth beech (thankfully), but it came as close as it could and burned other parts of the surrounding forest. Wildfires, which could be made worse by climate change, pose a future risk.

The health of neighboring trees — a mix of pine and other broadleaf species — is important to the health of the beech forest. Damage to these neighboring habitats, whether from fire, climate change or development, could result in irreversible fragmentation of the broader interior habitat. Italy is approximately one-third forested, and these pockets of old-growth are of the utmost importance, particularly in a changing climate. The species that make their homes here rely on the unique environmental conditions provided by the integrity of the old-growth structure.

While the beech tree is considered adaptable and robust, the future with climate change remains unknown.

Agriculture and logging have forced the conversion of forests worldwide, notably in Italy, a country known for its abundant food culture. Over time, that trend changed, and Italy gained forest cover from 1990 to 2010. But the threat is not over. According to Global Forest Watch, Italy lost forest cover in 2021. Development continues to threaten forests surrounding the park. Fragmentation even outside of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites leads to disrupted habitats for animals, erosion and other adverse effects.

My place in this place:

Vermont writer John Elder’s book, Pilgrimage to Vallombrosa, follows George Perkins Marsh’s journey from Vermont to Italy, comparing the environmental conditions of the U.S. East Coast to those of Italy. As a New Englander, I see the strong connections between these two landscapes that may look vastly different. Both regions have been exposed to repeated human influence in the form of agriculture, logging, and human displacement and migration. Now both face the pressures of a changing climate. These forest areas are irreplaceable carbon sinks, biodiversity hotspots and unique habitats.

Beech trees stretching upwards toward forest canopy — Ancient beech trees in Italy. Photo: Gianluca Piovesan

Working in these ecosystems changed how I think about cultural and natural resource management. As a Fulbright student researcher, I’ve spent only a brief time here — just nine months. Compared to the lifespan of these trees, that’s especially short. But joining the landscape and ecological planning lab in Viterbo, Italy, has allowed me to gain an even wider perspective on these forests and why they matter. In Italy, the cultural history is valued everywhere from museums and architecture to the forest. Forest management must involve diverse stakeholders — the foresters, townspeople, local farmers and artisans. The future of forest health relies on dialogue among these diverse groups.

Climate change will cause harsher temperatures and species’ livelihoods to be compromised. But storytelling and communicating the value of these places can, and must, continue.

What this place needs:

Communicating the value of old-growth forests is one of the most important things that scientists and citizens alike can do. Academic research and reports warn of the severity of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss, but there is an essential need to better communicate these issues to the public.

Stories about these forests and villages can help connect people to these old-growth systems and their irreplaceable worth and inspire people to continue to work to protect them. The stories that need telling should come from all angles — from those who make their lives working in the park, those who visit, and those who protect them.

Learn more:

To learn more, stay up to date with papers and research from the landscape and ecological planning lab at the University of Tuscia and the UNESCO World Heritage Old Growth Forests Project. Other helpful sources can be found in the European Wilderness Society. Or better yet, visit an old-growth forest yourself and be surrounded by the ecosystem services that these forests provide.

Do you live in or near a threatened habitat or community, or have you worked to study or protect endangered wildlife? Share your stories in our ongoing features, Protect This Place and Species Spotlight.

Previously in The Revelator:

Protect This Place: Tallahassee’s Towering English Forest Faces Imminent Destruction

Collision Course: Will the Plastics Treaty Slow the Plastics Rush?

A massive new plastics plant will soon start operating in Pennsylvania, even as support grows for international limits on plastic production.

The interlacing pipelines of a massive new plastics facility gleam in the sunshine beside the rolling waters of the Ohio River. I’m sitting on a hilltop above it, among poplars and birdsongs in rural Beaver County, Pennsylvania, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh. The area has experienced tremendous change over the past few years — with more soon to come.

The ethane “cracker plant” belongs to Royal Dutch Shell, and after 10 years and $6 billion it’s about to go online. Soon it will transform a steady flow of fracked Marcellus gas into billions of plastic pellets — a projected 1.6 million tons of them per year, each the size of a pea. From this northern Appalachia birthplace, they’ll travel the globe to make the plastic goods of modern life, from single-use bags to longer-lasting sports equipment.

A massive plastic factory sits next to a river on the right and a wooded hill on the left. — The factory. Photo: Tim Lydon

The plant’s construction has lifted a hardscrabble local economy, but it also embodies an epic global struggle.

Earlier this year and half a world away, United Nations negotiators meeting in Kenya pledged to draft a legally binding international plastics treaty by 2024. Many hope it will cap global plastics production while also addressing plastic’s impacts on environments and people. When treaty talks begin later this year, they’ll have everything to do with plants like this one and hundreds like it popping up around the world.

But the plants, and their powerful backers in the plastics and fossil fuel industries, will also shape the talks.

“They will work very hard to make sure that the treaty is not effective,” says Judith Enck, former EPA regional administrator in the Northeast and president of Beyond Plastics, a nonprofit that seeks to stem plastics pollution.

Enck describes plastics as a “Plan B” for fossil fuels, at a time when renewables and efficiency erode industry profits. To Shell and its peers, plastics production can secure assets like Pennsylvania’s seemingly bottomless Marcellus gas field, which might otherwise go untapped as the world retreats from fossils in the face of climate change.

plastic waste — Plastic waste collects in a drainage ditch in 2021. Photo: Ivan Radic (CC BY 2.0)

But Enck notes that plastics also drive climate change. A 2021 Beyond Plastics report estimated that U.S. plastics production now puts out heat-trapping emissions equivalent to 116 coal-fired power plants. With more facilities like the one in Pennsylvania coming, the report says, U.S. plastics could exceed the climate impact of domestic coal-fired energy by 2030.

The International Panel on Climate Change and others echo the concern, saying that global plastics production could reach 20% of oil consumption in the coming decades, surpassing concrete, food waste, and other heavy heaters. Today the United States, China, Saudi Arabia and Japan lead the trend as the world’s top producers of plastic.

Waste is another concern. With little plastic ever recycled, it’s now found from the deepest oceans to the highest mountains. One estimate has its volume in marine waters surpassing that of fish by mid-century. And while images of plastics in the bellies of birds, fish and whales have become old news, new research shows microplastics ingested by trees, deposited on Arctic sea ice, and entering the developing brains of human babies.

Plastic waste also emits greenhouse gases as it breaks down or when it’s incinerated.

Enck also calls it an environmental justice issue, with plastics production and disposal disproportionately impacting poorer communities.

But Enck sees rising awareness, too.

“I have met climate change skeptics, but I have never met a plastic pollution skeptic,” she says. People see the problem firsthand and want governments to act.

To her, one solution to the crisis is a binding international treaty that addresses plastics production, use and disposal.

The Promise of Plastic

My hilltop perch sits near new townhomes, and residents of the community come and go. They include two older men who grew up nearby and have come to release happy birthday balloons, which they then watch fade into blue sky through binoculars.

Around the same time Jeff Coleman, candidate for lieutenant governor, arrives with local officials to film a campaign spot. They discuss “downstream” manufacturers that could spring up near the plant, which itself will soon employ 600 people.

Below us the plant dominates the landscape. Neatly squeezed onto 400 acres, it hosts its own gas power plant, a string of cylindrical polyethylene reactors, and miles of convoluted pipeline, along with warehouses, offices and room for more than 3,000 railcars to shuttle the tiny pellets away.

To build it, Shell remediated an old zinc smelter, redirected a local highway, built a railroad spur and laid the 97-mile Falcon Ethane Pipeline to access nearby Marcellus gas. During construction, more than 8,000 workers clocked in every day.

Land clearing at the Shell site in 2016. Photo (uncredited) via Gov. Tom Wolf/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

“It put our county on the map,” says Beaver County commissioner Jack Manning.

He says construction sustained pandemic-strapped businesses and attracted investment in hotels, malls and even housing, like the new townhomes overlooking the plant. Manning also expects years of both direct and indirect job creation.

For many community leaders of this one-time manufacturing epicenter, which has struggled since steel moved away in the 1980s, these are welcome developments.

But others counter Manning’s rosy assessments, pointing to continued economic stagnation in the region since construction began. Still, state and local governments have bet big on Shell by awarding it the largest corporate tax break in Pennsylvania history.

The government support matters. In the United States and other countries that will soon negotiate the global plastics treaty, local investment translates into political power for plastics. That was clear when then-President Trump gave a 2019 campaign-style speech at the Shell plant, touting his commitment to U.S. manufacturing.

Manning says that behind such support are real benefits for the community, including the young families he sees buying townhomes and reinvigorating local communities.

As for environmental effects, Manning, who spent 35 years in the petrochemical industry, believes Shell’s state-of-the-art technology will protect local air and waters. He shares activists’ broader concerns about climate change and ocean pollution, but says the pellets made here will create products that improve lives, such as replacement knee joints, lightweight parts for electric cars and packaging that prevents food spoilage.

And he’s confident a global plastics treaty won’t hurt locally. If anything, global initiatives to reduce plastic production could secure demand from existing plants by limiting the construction of new ones, he says.

Stiffening Headwinds

Jace Tunnell of the University of Texas Marine Science Institute offers another take.

In 2018 Tunnell discovered plastic pellets — called nurdles in the plastic-waste world — washed up on local beaches. When he learned they came from nearby plastics facilities, he created the nonprofit Nurdle Patrol to enlist citizens in monitoring pellet pollution along the Gulf of Mexico. The work is raising awareness and contributing to stricter permitting rules.

plastic waste on a beach — Nurdles and other plastic waste at a beach cleanup event. Photo: Hillary Daniels (CC BY 2.0)

Groups in Beaver County have since taken similar action to gather baseline environmental data before the Shell plant goes online.

“I haven’t seen a facility yet where there aren’t pellets in the environment,” says Tunnell. Their small size enables dispersal by wind, rain, storm drains and the pneumatic equipment that blows them onto railcars at production facilities. They can also wind up along railroad routes, at shipyards and in the ocean, depending on shipping practices.

Tunnell offers the example of former Gulf of Mexico shrimper Diane Wilson, who in 2019 won a $50 million settlement from a Formosa plastics facility in Texas that discharged billions of pellets and other pollutants.

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And he points to a 2021 Sri Lankan cargo ship disaster that left beaches knee-deep in nurdles.

“They’re still cleaning them up,” he says.

Events like that have contributed to a tide of negative press that — along with inflation, the pandemic and other factors — have slowed the plastics boom. That’s evident in Pennsylvania. Only a few years ago, plastics makers had sketched out five new plants for the region to tie into Marcellus gas, plus two ethane-storage facilities. But three plants are now canceled, and neither storage facility has been built.

Governmental pushback, including momentum toward a global treaty, is also mounting, as seen by China’s 2017 decision to stop importing plastic waste for recycling. That policy change stranded plastic waste in U.S. communities and has contributed to federal and state efforts to hold retailers of single-use plastics accountable for the waste, something the European Union achieved in 2021.

For its part, the plastics industry claims a positive economic impact and commitments to environmental safety, which include its voluntary Operation Clean Sweep, designed to minimize pellet pollution. Shell representatives in Pennsylvania did not respond to interview requests but cited their participation in Clean Sweep and directed questions to their website, which describes mitigations for noise, air pollution and other plastics production issues.

But for Enck, industry-led initiatives fall short. She believes they distract from climate, equity, and other broader problems that she hopes are addressed in upcoming treaty talks.

As the treaty framework came together last February, industry allies pushed for an emphasis on waste management, including mitigating marine debris and improving recycling, which remains technologically difficult.

But delegates from Rwanda and Peru successfully advanced a more ambitious resolution that will consider the full life cycle of plastics, including production, disposal and its pollution impact on all environments, not just oceans. The resolution’s inclusion of a possible cap on virgin plastics production was supported by letters from international scientists and corporations such as Walmart and Coca-Cola.

In March delegates from 175 counties approved the Rwanda-Peru framework. Procedures and timelines were established at June meetings in Senegal, and negotiations are slated to begin in Uruguay in November. Although a treaty is expected in 2024, its true effect will depend on ratification from the United States and other top plastics producers and whether member nations will adhere to it.

In the meantime, political and market forces will continue determining how many more facilities like Pennsylvania’s Shell plant are built.

As I leave my Beaver County hillside, I ask the two men what will become of the balloons they’re releasing. They look at me for a moment, then one tells me with a shrug that they’ll eventually explode and fall to the ground.

That reminds me of something Enck said: “We’re leaving a mess for future generations.”

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Previously in The Revelator:

How to Turn Off the Tap on Plastic Waste

We Need More Protected Areas, But That’s Not All

New research supports efforts to designate more land and water to save biodiversity and fight climate change — but we need to protect better, as well as more.

As the world faces cascading extinctions and runaway climate change, a growing body of scientific research has found that we should set aside more areas as protected spaces.

That message got hammered home by a study published in June in the National Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences that says current protected areas won’t stop the extinction crisis — because we haven’t set aside nearly enough land to date.

“Our analysis shows that a large proportion of the world’s mammals are unlikely to be adequately protected from extinction by the current global protected areas network,” the study’s authors warned.

Globally we’ve protected nearly 17% of our lands and 7% of the ocean, but support is growing for protecting 30% of the land and ocean by 2030 — the amount many scientists estimate we need to set aside to protect biodiversity and the climate. The Biden administration has announced its general support for the policy, known in shorthand as 30×30, and so have around 100 other countries. In December it could officially become part of the Global Biodiversity Framework that will be negotiated in Montreal as part of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

Can mammals’ plight help build the necessary support for 30×30? The researchers looked at nearly 4,000 land-based and non-flying mammal species living in protected areas and found many of these areas were too small or poorly connected for the animals to thrive.

Protected areas are critically important for conservation if managed well and can help protect against habitat loss and other human disturbances. In many areas they may be the only places that can support the survival of some species, the researchers found.

“It is plausible that the long-term survival of much of Earth’s biodiversity will ultimately hinge on the network of protected areas that are established and properly functioning in the near future,” they wrote.

Coming Up Short

The PNAS study found that current protected areas on their own aren’t sufficient to ensure the long-term survival of about half of all mammals studied — between 1,700 and 2,500 species. This includes a staggering 91% of those already listed as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. These at-risk species range in size from the largest land-based animals, such as elephants, to the tiny Sri Lankan shrew.

The researchers also estimated that more than 1,000 additional mammal species that aren’t currently listed as threatened may also be at risk. This includes white rhinoceroses, American bison, jungle cats, several howler monkey species, and hundreds of small-bodied species of rodents and insect-eaters.

bison laying down in the dirt — American bison. Photo: Gregory “Slobirdr” Smith (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The largest proportion of underprotected species was highest in areas with the most biodiversity, including South, Southeast, and East Asia; Latin America and the Caribbean; Africa; and Oceania.

A Better Strategy

So if current protected areas don’t do enough, how do we do it better?

The research suggests that first we need to increase the size and number of protected areas and improve the connectivity between them.

But that’s not all: They also need to be in the right places and managed with a clear understanding of the animals’ habitat needs.

“This finding supports previous calls for the strategic expansion of protected areas into specific ecosystems that require additional protection, rather than relying on arbitrary area-based targets,” they wrote.

The researchers warn that simply aiming for a percentage of land and water protected isn’t the best way to ensure species’ survival. In other words, achieving 30×30 won’t be a success if it’s not in the right places or managed appropriately with adequate staff and budgets.

Another recent study, published in Nature, echoes that conclusion. Researchers looked at how 1,500 protected areas have affected 27,000 waterbird populations in 68 countries and found that just the designation of a protected area won’t necessarily bring benefits to populations.

As in the mammal paper, researchers found that areas that were actively managed for waterbirds — such as by removing invasive species, restoring wetlands or preventing hunting —were more successful, and often those that were larger had better results, too.

“Halting biodiversity loss requires improvements to the performance of existing protected areas, and action to address ubiquitous threats beyond area borders,” the researchers concluded. “Ever-increasing area-based targets must be accompanied by equally ambitious targets that ensure protected area effectiveness.”

Oceans, Too

When it comes to protection for animals that make their home in the ocean, we have a much longer way to go. While only 7% of the ocean is protected, less than 3% of that has strong safeguards.

But a study published this month in Nature developed a framework for how to establish marine protected areas in places that can help ensure protection for biodiversity, increase fish populations that support food security, and help secure marine carbon stocks that are at risk from bottom trawling and other industrial activities.

The researchers found that most of the top 10% priority locations for establishing marine protected areas are within the 200-mile exclusive economic zones that coastal nations manage. These areas are “home to irreplaceable biodiversity and are often heavily affected by human activities that can be abated by marine protected areas.”

Floating pink sea cucumber in blue-green sea — A swimming sea cucumber in the Inés María Mendoza Nature Reserve, a marine protected area off the coast of of Puerto Rico. Photo: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Their findings also show that marine protected areas can help restore populations that have been overfished, and in the long run can support food security even if fishing doesn’t occur in protected areas.

It’s also better if nations don’t go it alone. “We find that a globally coordinated effort could achieve 90% of the maximum possible biodiversity benefit with less than half the ocean area of a protection strategy that is based solely on national priorities,” the study found.

Multiple Goals

The good news is that if we do it right, we can not only protect biodiversity but also achieve other important benefits. Those conclusions come from another recent study, published in the journal Science Advances.

One of those benefits is climate change mitigation. Protecting 30% of lands, the study found, could provide one-third of the reductions needed to limit global warming emissions to under 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Water quality and aquatic biodiversity would also be boosted, the study found, as more protected areas would decrease nutrient pollution that runs off from fertilizer waste and threatens watershed health.

“If species conservation is prioritized, greater biodiversity conservation, climate-change mitigation, and nutrient-regulation benefits can be realized,” the Science authors wrote. “This supports previous findings on the multiple co-benefits of conservation and reflects the importance of biological diversity for delivering multiple ecosystem services.”

Getting Support

Of course, this work won’t be easy.

“Expanding or relocating the world’s protected areas comes fraught with very real risks to human wellbeing,” wrote the PNAS study’s lead author, David Williams, a lecturer in sustainability and the environment, University of Leeds. “These areas are based on stopping people from doing things: from chopping down trees, from hunting certain species, from mining, or from farming.”

But understanding and communicating the multiple benefits of increasing protected areas, he said, can help drive more support from government and local communities.

Williams and others have urged that establishing more protected areas not come at the expense of Indigenous communities, many of whom have already been disenfranchised or displaced by previous conservation efforts.

The nonprofit Project Expedite Justice calls for including Indigenous people at the center of conservation efforts with equal decision-making authority. As a report from the organization finds, “It has been demonstrated that protected areas with strong Indigenous peoples involvement in management and decision-making deliver better results in conservation and human rights protection.”

We’ll also need to take steps to get at the root causes that are driving extinction and climate change in the first place — or we won’t have additional lands to conserve.

“Without rapid shifts towards healthier, plant-rich diets, reductions in food waste and sustainable yield increases, there simply won’t be enough spare land to protect,” Williams wrote.

Previously in The Revelator:

Biodiversity Solutions Also Fight Climate Change

Latinos Face Challenges Accessing the Outdoors — and Climate Change Is Adding to Those Barriers

But there are steps we can take to bring nature to our communities and empower them to protect it.

Since the start of the pandemic, more members of the public than ever have visited and recreated on our public lands, coasts and waterways. But for Latinos and many other communities of color, barriers to enjoying the outdoors remain.

For one, our neighborhood green spaces and natural areas are rapidly disappearing. U.S. communities of color are three times as likely to live somewhere that is “nature deprived” than white communities. This means there are far fewer parks, forests, streams, beaches and other natural places near Black, Latino and Asian communities.

What’s more, parks in neighborhoods of color are half as large and serve nearly five times more people than parks in majority white neighborhoods. And parks serving majority low-income households are, on average, four times smaller and serve nearly four times more people than parks that serve majority high-income households.

This “Nature Gap” has left a legacy of poorer health and COVID-19 severity, higher stress levels, worse educational outcomes, lack of recreation and business opportunities, and greater vulnerability to extreme heat and flooding in these nature-deprived neighborhoods.

But even in ideally located and park-rich communities, Latinos face socioeconomic and other barriers of access to nature. These include a lack of time for low-income residents struggling with multiple jobs and caring for households; lack of money for appropriate clothing and gear for recreational activities; and a lack of transportation. Latinos are disproportionately likely to lack access to a car and rely on public transit for getting around, and it’s not easy to get to nature trails without a car.

Other characteristics of certain parks can make visitation and recreation an unwelcoming experience for Latinos and others. The signage and personnel may not speak the languages of the communities they serve; entry points may not be convenient to the community; lack of walking paths and facilities like bathrooms and disability accommodations may make the green space unusable; or the space may be polluted, poorly maintained, or perceived as unsafe.

Nationwide, the representation and visibility of Latinos in the outdoors still lags. To an extent, this reflects the history of conservation as a white-dominated profession and field of study, which until recently was outright exclusionary to people of color. As a result, it’s difficult for many Latinos to envision themselves in the outdoors and working or studying conservation fields.

Latino Outdoors Group at Crystal Mountain, Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest. Photo: U.S. Forest Service (uncredited)

In addition, the histories told in our national parks are frequently from a colonialist viewpoint, and many have offensive and derogatory place names or feature monuments that make visitors feel unwelcome and alienated. Park rangers and other uniformed personnel may be perceived as more of a threat than a safety feature to some populations due to the history of police violence toward Black and Latino people and/or a fear of Border Patrol and deportation among communities of color.

For all these reasons, it’s clear that many of us do not have the time, resources, physical abilities or perceived safety it takes to visit parks and recreate outdoors as it is traditionally envisioned. In fact, the most accessible form of outdoor recreation may be simply taking a walk in your neighborhood.

So if we’re asking how to bring Latinos to the outdoors, we may in fact be asking the wrong question. What if we asked instead, how can we bring nature and “the outdoors” to our communities?

The implications of this line of thought are widespread. It means we need to think about the way our neighborhoods are constructed. They’re often designed for cars, not people, and are unsafe for pedestrians — and polluted to boot (especially in communities of color, which are disproportionately located near oil and gas wells, highways and industrial facilities). They are redlined, with opportunities and services concentrated in white neighborhoods. They are concrete, with neighborhoods of color lacking street trees and other forms of urban nature. They are not ready for climate change — they are vulnerable to heat, flooding and wildfire.

Climate change in and of itself also poses a threat to outdoor recreation and diversity in the outdoors. It will create more challenges and barriers of access to communities who are already struggling to unlock nature’s benefits. For example, Latinos are more likely to suffer health consequences from extreme heat — which becomes more likely when you live in a heat island and far away from parks and greenery (something Latinos are disproportionately likely to experience). Flooding, caused by more intense storms and precipitation, is washing away trails and facilities and making hiking more dangerous in some areas. We are also losing coastland, beaches and cultural heritage sites to sea-level rise. In addition, the ever-increasing danger of wildfires is not only due to the damage to ecosystems but in the smoke and air pollution they generate. This is unhealthy for everyone, but especially to populations with existing respiratory conditions — which Latinos are more likely to have.

So how do we overcome existing barriers, while also addressing new threats to communities trying to access the outdoors? It’s a big ask. To make the outdoors more accessible to disinvested communities, we must invest in those communities, address climate change with a deep energy transition, clean up sources of pollution, and control public health threats like COVID. We can bring nature to our urban, degraded, fenceline, frontline and redlined neighborhoods. And when it’s not possible to bring nature, we can bring public transit to it instead.

Three students hold small animals — Students from Liberty High School Interact Club help link Latino families to nature by using their bilingual skills to reach out to families about wildlife and hiking at Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge. Photo: USFWS (uncredited)

We can go further — and give communities a stake in the process through the opportunity to protect the areas they care about and have a hand in managing them. To address the career gap, create career pipelines starting from educational and academic institutions. Hire people of color to conservation agencies, support them, and put them in leadership roles.

The Biden administration’s America the Beautiful initiative and Justice40 initiative have the potential to be the kind of bold, collective action we need to ensure a healthy and equitable future. Earlier this summer, prospects for a potential new congressional bill with hundreds of billions of dollars in investments in clean energy stalled in Congress, but climate progress must continue regardless. If Congress is not up to the task, then the Biden administration must be.

Half-measures and incremental changes are not enough for the challenges our communities face. This year we demand impact.

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.

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Previously in The Revelator:

Closing the Tree Equity Divide

Species Spotlight: The Barrens Topminnow — Doomed by Humans?

A misguided attempt to control mosquito populations has nearly driven this tiny fish to extinction.

When humans try to exert control over nature, it often comes with unintended consequences. In this case, it nearly wiped out a once-populous fish species.

Species name:

Barrens topminnow (Fundulus julisia)

Description:

The Barrens topminnow, one of the most endangered fish of its kind, grows to just under 4 inches long. It has an upturned mouth and flattened dorsum, like all killifish. Females and juveniles are pale brown, but adult males have red-orange spots on an iridescent blue-green body with bluish fins with yellow and black margins. All have a mid-dorsal gold streak highly visible from above the water, which appears as an exclamation point (!) on young fish before fusing to a single streak on adults. This makes sightings and surveys easy with the naked eye or binoculars.

Where it’s found:

This species is only known from the Barrens Plateau in middle Tennessee, near Manchester and Bonnaroo.

Status:

Listed as federally endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2019.

Major threat:

Western mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis), introduced to the area to eat pesky mosquitoes, now appear to be out-reproducing and replacing Barrens topminnow populations everywhere they come into contact. The aggressive, live-bearing mosquitofish eat topminnow eggs and young, so few of the minnows reach adulthood. They are a native fish but were not known on the Barrens Plateau until introduced above waterfall barriers. And it’s not just a Tennessee problem: Mosquitofish have caused the same problem globally with other aquatic wildlife.

Other factors putting this species at risk include climate change, drought, and stream degradation due to nearby livestock pastures.

Legal protections:

Federal Endangered Species Act listing provides no legal protection on private lands or waters. Public purchase of property and permanent maintenance of aquatic barriers to mosquitofish following elimination can be effective. Today only two or three Barrens topminnow populations remain on private lands with barriers. The tiny Barrens Topminnow National Wildlife Refuge is currently the only existing publicly owned refuge. Ironically, the refuge currently holds none of the fish for which it’s named; a flood allowed mosquitofish to circumvent a river barrier, and they quickly eliminated the resident topminnows.

My favorite experience:

I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to study the life history and ecology of this fish for my master’s thesis. One of my study sites, the massive Pond Spring near Hillsboro, Tennessee, was once of the few places where Barrens topminnow and mosquitofish had coexisted. Here I spent many happy hours observing and studying the topminnow and co-occurring species.

I am not thankful that this population has now been extirpated due to poor land use that’s benefited mosquitofish over the topminnow. Fortunately, although this population was lost in the wild, we still have “ark” populations at Conservation Fisheries and elsewhere, and the possibility remains for public land acquisition, restoration and reintroduction.

What else do we need to understand or do to protect this species?

This species serves as a spotlight for what we should not ever do. We need to eliminate or minimize the effects of agriculture (and development, and silviculture) on all aquatic life. Captive fish (indeed, all wildlife) should never be released where they don’t belong and may never have occurred. Havoc, extirpation and extinction can result.

Although I’ve never been an advocate for genetic engineering, it may be the only hope for future thriving wild populations of Barrens topminnows. If we can introduce genetically modified, nonbreeding mosquitofish to the region, like what’s now being attempted in other areas where mosquitos carry diseases harmful to humans (like Zika), we could eliminate the fish with sterile individuals. Only by doing removing the invaders, through one method or another, can we help save this endangered species.

Key research:

Life History and Ecology of the Barrens Topminnow, Fundulus julisia (Patrick L. Rakes, Master’s thesis)

Barrens Topminnow (Fundulus julisia) Species Status Assessment (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Description of A New Species, Fundulus Julisia… (1982)

Previously in The Revelator:

Species Spotlight: The Straw-Headed Bulbul Sings About Extinction

Another Dam(n) Extinction

A rare “orchid of the falls” plant has been declared extinct after a hydroelectric dam destroyed its only habitat. Could others soon follow?

What do we lose when we lose a waterfall?

When the waters stop flowing, a waterfall’s natural beauty quickly disappears. With it goes unique geological and hydrological systems built up over centuries or millennia, as well as the species that have evolved to thrive in and around the rough-and-tumble waters and rocky formations.

Some of those species have nowhere else to go. When a waterfall vanishes, the plants and wildlife that depend on it can go extinct in the blink of an eye.

That fate appears to have befallen a rare plant in the Republic of Guinea in West Africa. And scientists warn it could be the first of many.

Watery Life, Watery Grave

Denise Molmou, a botanist with the UGAN-National Herbarium of Guinea, discovered this plant — which has since been named Saxicolella deniseae after her — in 2018. At the time, it grew in a single known waterfall along the Konkouré River.

That’s not unusual for Saxicolella plants, aquatic herbs that grow on rocks (“Saxicolella” translates to “stone inhabitant”) in the fast-flowing, heavily aerated waters of falls and rapids. Most of the species in this genus have evolved in unique waterfall microclimates and grow in just a handful of locations. Without the right conditions, the plants can’t thrive or reproduce.

Their fragility earned the genus the nickname “orchids of the falls” from naturalist Sir David Attenborough, who showcased them and other rare plants earlier this year in the Green Planet documentary series. (They’re not actually orchids, though; they belong to Podostemaceae, the same taxonomic family as St. John’s wort.)

Attenborough didn’t witness S. deniseae itself for his program, and now it appears no one else will. According to a paper published this May, that waterfall along the Konkouré no longer exists. The entire region was permanently flooded to create a new hydroelectric dam soon after Molmou discovered the plant species. Satellite images from Google Earth reveal a massive reservoir where a river and forest once sat.

Floods — Before-and-after satellite photos reveal the plant’s watery grave. Photos via Google Earth courtesy of Royal Gardens Kew.

As happens all too often lately, the scientific paper contains both the first published description of S. deniseae as well as the news of its probable extinction.

“While it is a great honor to have a species I discovered in the wild named after me, it is really sad that it is almost certainly extinct,” Molmou said in a prepared release. “I will look to see if we can find it in other waterfalls, even though the chance of finding it alive is not very high.”

Renewable Threats

The paper describes several other Saxicolella species for the first time and warns that this may not be the last time that dam construction floods these plants into extinction, along with other never-described species. Many additional hydro projects are in various stages of development throughout the region to provide West Africa with much-needed electricity.

That power comes with a cost. As dams block rivers and reservoirs fill behind them, habitats and wildlife disappear. Sadly, S. deniseae isn’t the first this has happened to. Hydroelectric dams are believed to have contributed to the extinction of the baiji (Lipotes vexillifer), a Yangtze River dolphin. In the United States, habitat destruction by dams has also led to the loss of freshwater mussels like the flat pigtoe. Numerous fish and other aquatic species have also been pushed to the brink with the loss of free-flowing rivers.

Now we have a plant, if not many plant species, to add to the list.

“I am in mourning for the other, now eternally unknown species of the Konkouré River, with its falls and rapids now nearly completely under reservoirs after we had only just begun to find out what Podostemaceae species were present there,” says Martin Cheek, the paper’s lead author, who leads efforts to identify and name new African plants for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. “Too late now, so sadly.”

Costly Delays and Funding Gaps

Cheek says the pandemic and Guinea’s 2021 military coup prevented them from returning to the site to collect and store any S. deniseae seeds, which could have been used to preserve its unique genetics or even to propagate the species.

Ironically, the pandemic may have given a few other species a temporary reprieve — although temporary is the operative word.

“The good news about the pandemic was that lots of ‘development’ was suspended,” Cheek says. “However, now projects are moving ahead. And thanks to the energy crisis due to Russia, it looks like ‘renewable energy’ projects like hydropower are going to get a boost. That means in the tropics more rapid extinctions of waterfall species, especially Podostemaceae, even before we know they exist.”

The dams also have a human cost: Residents of more than 100 villages and hamlets were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands to make way for Guinea’s 450 megawatt Souapiti dam, which went online in 2020.

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But even as the destruction continues, so do other conservation efforts. And some have made exciting progress.

“We have succeeded in sowing seed to produce new populations of one threatened Podostemaceae species — a global first for this family — in nearby Sierra Leone,” Cheek reports. “This gives hope that if seed is collected correctly, so it remains viable in storage, it might save the species.”

That’s a big “if,” given the world’s current lack of conservation commitment and the short shrift given to endangered plants, which receive far less attention or funding than charismatic megafauna like tigers and elephants.

“Unless my team gets funding, and can then direct and organize seed collection, it just does not happen,” Cheek says. “Capacity and confidence are so low among our partners in so many countries in tropical Africa, sadly.”

They’re not alone. The experience of identifying, naming and then potentially losing so many plant species weighs heavily on Cheek.

“With the almost certain loss of this species,” he says, “my mentality is shifting to the view that while uncovering and publishing new species to science gives us a better chance of getting them protected, in practice it is more realistic to accept that we cannot always save species.” He acknowledges this sounds defeatist, but adds, “At least with our work, we are recording for posterity more of what is going extinct, which otherwise we would never know existed.”

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Previously in The Revelator:

You Can’t Save a Species If It Doesn’t Have a Name

A New Way to Count African Forest Elephants: DNA From Dung

An important new survey — the first nationwide test of new technology — also reveals critical conservation priorities.

In 2013 our colleagues Fiona Maisels and Samantha Strindberg, working with several other conservation partners, documented a devastating decline in forest elephants in Central Africa. Their work revealed that approximately 65% of all remaining African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) had perished between 2002 and 2013 — in large part to feed the burgeoning global trade in elephant ivory.

Their work resulted in new calls to protect forest elephants, but it also proved an important broader point: Protecting elephants, like protecting all wildlife, depends on having good before and after pictures. That is, we have to develop an accurate population baseline to measure against any changes so that we can assess the impact of conservation efforts and, when needed, adapt our strategies.

But gathering this information for forest elephants — who, despite their size, remain elusive — presents more than a few challenges. Traditionally researchers would survey the species by crisscrossing an area by foot, counting any elephant dung they encounter, and then converting these dung counts to elephant counts. Finally, they’d interpolate that data to estimate the total population.

These line-transect distance sampling surveys take time and rely on interpreting things like dung decay rates. This means they can result in an over- or underestimation of elephant density unless site and time-specific estimates of each are carried out for each survey. That adds to the cost and effort of each monitoring cycle.

Two researchers kneel over a sample in the grass. — WCS Gabon researchers collecting dung samples. Photo: Harrison Thane

A recent comparison of survey methods recognizes these problems, tests a different approach, and has now enabled us to complete the most accurate count yet. The results are promising for this critically endangered species.

What’s different about the new survey method? We used a non-invasive technique in which we collected DNA from elephant dung and used that highly individualized genetic material to accurately identify elements of the population.

We chose Gabon to test this technology due to the relatively high percentage of remaining forest elephants suspected to live there and the high-quality habitat available. The fieldwork was carried out by teams recruited and trained by WCS, with the support of the ecoguards of Gabon’s Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux.

To gather the necessary data, the teams walked more than 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) over the course of two years and collected close to 5,000 dung samples from 18 sites across Gabon. Genotypic matching revealed the samples came from a total of 1,757 individual elephants. It also revealed information on their sex. A spatially explicit capture-recapture model then allowed us to estimate forest elephant density for each site, which was transformed into an overall forest elephant abundance estimate by multiplying the average density by the total area occupied by the species.

Key to our success was ANPN’s wildlife genetics laboratory in Libreville, which was crucial in optimizing the workflow necessary to determine individual identity — a basic requirement for spatial capture-recapture analysis. The in-country lab also allowed genetic analyses to be carried out locally, reducing sample storage time and ensuring better DNA quality.

The result — the first nationwide DNA-based assessment of a free-ranging large mammal in Africa — revealed that an estimated 95,000 forest elephants live in Gabon, spread across 90% of the country — confirming the nation as the principal stronghold for this critically endangered species.

Revealing Conservation Priorities

The results of this study provide a useful national benchmark and update on the status of forest elephants in Gabon that will inform adaptive management and stewardship of one of Africa’s last remaining forest elephant strongholds.

Our new estimates will play an essential role in efforts by local, national and international decision-makers concerned with a range of issues that include the conservation of this species and its habitat, the important ecological role of forest elephants on climate regulation potential of forests, and the role of forest elephants as a useful indicator for healthy, intact and well-governed forests.

A man in camoflage looks over a family of elephants emerging from the forest. — WCS researcher observing forest elephants in Gabon. CREDIT: WCS GabonWCS researcher observing forest elephants in Gabon. Photo: WCS Gabon

Our study suggests several recommendations moving forward. Specifically, the design of future surveys should include more sites to improve accuracy nationwide. Sex ratios, via DNA or direct observation, should be monitored along with density to detect any population decline early. Law-enforcement efforts should be intensified and broadened to cover areas outside national parks and protect forest elephants against poachers and ivory trafficking, which threaten their survival. Finally, prevention and mitigation measures should be applied to reduce conflict and promote coexistence between rural communities and the elephants.

There’s a broader conservation lesson, as well: The implementation and success of a nationwide study was made possible by the combination of strong political will, the existence of robust scientific expertise and laboratory capacity in the country, and a collaborative decision-making process guided by science. The result was a synchronized, nationwide approach, as opposed to the site-based estimates that preceded them.

Moving Forward

Gabon’s political leaders have welcomed our results. President Ali Bongo Ondimba has attributed these population numbers to the hard work of incorruptible staff responsible for the protection of the forests. Lee White — Gabon’s minister of water, forests, the sea and environment, who’s also responsible for its climate-change and land-use plans — highlights that in Africa this is a sign of good natural resource governance, linked to peace and security.

A forest elephant with its trunk in the air. — Forest elephant in Gabon. Photo: WCS Gabon

We recommend repeating a national survey every five years through the same partnership model (government representatives, WCS and funders) using the same method to be able to compare the estimates and evaluate trends in the population.

But for now, it’s very exciting to have what we believe to be the most accurate baseline estimate for this magnificent species that remains so endangered in the wild. The application of the new DNA technology and the collaborate process that enabled it are a reminder of the importance of science to the practice of conservation.

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

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Previously in The Revelator:

Another Reason to Protect Elephants: Frogs Love Their Feet

How Outdoor Enthusiasts Can Help Scientific Research About Climate and Wildlife

The nonprofit Adventure Scientists unites skilled outdoors people with scientists to help drive critical conservation work.

When Gregg Treinish set out to hike the length of the Andes Mountains at age 24, there was a lot he didn’t know. For starters, he didn’t realize he and his hiking partner, Deia Schlosberg, would be the first to do it. Or that their 22-month, 7,800-mile trek would gain them international recognition.

He also had no idea what he would do next — but he sure had a lot of time to think about it.

Treinish eventually decided to combine his love of outdoor adventuring with his desire to make a positive impact on the world. The result is the nonprofit Adventure Scientists, which he founded in 2011.

The organization enlists the skills of adventurers, who often travel to remote or hard-to-reach places, to gather data for scientific studies focused on solving environmental challenges. In the past decade Adventure Scientists has helped collect information on pikas, pine martens, plastics and more.

The Revelator spoke to Treinish about combining passion and impact, why this work can be a catalyst for big life changes, and what exciting projects are coming up for him next.

How did you start adventuring?

I grew up in Cleveland in the suburbs and didn’t spend a lot of time hiking or backpacking. My parents aren’t outdoors people. But when I was 16, I went on a backpacking trip in British Columbia and just fell in love with the mountains and with traveling in that way. Then I went to college in Colorado and started being in the outdoors a lot more.

I decided to hike the Appalachian Trail in 2004. I really was passionate about being outdoors, but I felt selfish on that trip for not doing anything beneficial. After that I went and worked in wilderness therapy for a while, taking kids out who were struggling. That furthered my experience and skills in the backcountry.

Then [Deia Schlosberg] and I set out on this journey to trek the Andes, not knowing we would be the first to do it. I thought hundreds of people would’ve done it or would be doing it. We just kind of settled on South America after looking around the world at different long trails.

There wasn’t actually a long trail in South America, but it was clear that we could link stuff together. So we did. We were blogging and posting about it as we went. We had a few sponsors, and somewhere along the way people started following along. We got some magazine articles and wrote some articles. Then National Geographic saw us present in a parking lot after we were done and named us Adventurers of the Year. That opened up every opportunity in the world for us.

When did you combine that passion with the idea of having scientific impact?

One of the things that I love most about long-distance trekking adventures is that it’s just endless hours to think. It’s really a mind game to do expeditions like that. For me it was “What’s next?” and “What am I going to do with my life?” The same questions that we all ask ourselves, but while trekking the Andes, I actually had a lot of time to figure that out and think about it.

When I was finished, I really wanted to study animal behavior and learn how to help species survive and thrive. Lions was where I was focused. There’s a guy here in Bozeman named Scott Creel who studies predator-prey interactions in Africa and applies the carnivore-prey relationships that he learns about there to this ecosystem, because there are a lot of corollaries.

man wearing baseball hat, green short sleeve shirt and backpack kneels and examine insect he's holding in fingers — Gregg Treinish. Photo: Alexandria Bombach

I called him up and said, “Hey, I’m in Patagonia, I just finished walking here from Ecuador. Can I come study with you?” And he was like, “Of course.”

[Deia] was also interested in a film program here. So we moved to Bozeman. I got an undergraduate degree in wildlife ecology and then before I ever made it to Africa with him, I got a job tracking lynx, wolverines and grizzly bears here.

This incredible guy named Steve Gammon taught me how to track, taught me what I was looking for. It’s not rocket science to do it, so we started engaging the public. We would hold these weekend retreats and have people come out and learn how to track with us.

Once we had a reported sighting, I would go and find the tracks and collect DNA. I also had other tech jobs where I worked in California with spotted owls. I worked on the Fort Peck Reservoir on the Missouri River studying pallid sturgeon.

It was awesome. I loved being out there, using my outdoor skills and actually helping — feeling like I was making a difference. I believed that there were more people like me who wanted to make a difference if given an easy opportunity to do that. And then there were also a lot of scientists who needed data. So I combined the two.

Every project we do is designed in partnership with a scientist or multiple. It’s them saying, “We need these data to solve this problem or to address this issue.” We couldn’t do this work without incredible scientists who are trying to solve really big issues.

What kind of projects has Adventure Scientists done?

Early on we did white-tailed ptarmigan studies. We did a pika study, which led to a big publication in Nature. Somewhere around 2014 or 2015 we transitioned to doing much less but much deeper work.

Since then we’ve worked on restoring pine martens to the Olympic National Forest with Betsy Howell of the Forest Service. We’ve partnered with Harvard Medical School to collect scat samples from more than 100 countries that were then used to help narrow the search for the genes that are responsible for antibiotic resistance in enterococci bacteria, which have applications for other bacteria. We have collected the largest data set in the world for microplastics with Abby Barrows.

Currently we’re working with the Forest Service to collect chemical and genetic reference libraries across species of trees. Those are being used by the Department of Justice to prosecute timber theft.

Man wearing dark blue jacket stand between two trees — Josef Quitslund investigates a yellow-cedar tree near Petersburg, Alaska for the timber tracking project. Photo: Stéphanie Hayes

It’s been a very wide swath of projects. I’d say the commonality between them is three things: Is there a big environmental issue that is data-limited? Is there a pathway from collecting data to doing something about the issue? And is there a clear need for involvement from the outdoor community?

What motivates the adventures that volunteer?

Every volunteer probably has a little bit different motivation, but I think in general it’s that we are so lucky to get to play in the outdoors. We’re so fortunate to even have the ability, let alone the resources and the time to do it. So how can I give back? There are so many different types of volunteerism, but I think what’s really cool about this is that you’re uniting passion with giving back. I think that really resonates with people.

We’ve had volunteers who have said that this has been the catalyst to get them to wake up to these issues, to dedicate their lives to them, to pursue careers in conservation. People have gone on to get graduate degrees. Others have started their own nonprofits focused on the issue that they’ve worked on.

I think the other big thing is that many of our projects really require a focus on the environment, like looking for a particular species of bird. Once you learn how to look at the environment in that way, that never goes away. The people who I used to take out tracking would say this, and the people who are keying in on specific species of trees say that every time you walk through a forest, from that point on, you have a different set of eyes.

I’m sure somebody has come up with a name for this, but it’s like, you’re walking along and you see this one purple flower you hadn’t noticed before. It’s so beautiful and you look at it, try to ID it, but then you pick your head and realize they’re growing all around you. That’s the kind of thing that happens. [Our volunteers] start to see the forest by actually tuning in with a different lens. That’s a catalyzing experience for them.

What’s next?

As far as specific issues, we’re working on a really exciting survey of Wild and Scenic Rivers with three federal agencies and over 40 state agencies that will benefit from the data. That project I hope will continue long into the future. We also have work coming up with forests, climate change and biodiversity.

We are also going to be expanding internationally. We were very international initially, but as we focused on more in-depth work a lot of our projects became North America-focused. But we have a lot of experience and knowledge to gain working internationally, and that’s going to be a big focus for us in our next round of growth as an organization.

I’m really excited about that for two reasons.

One is that the promise of this organization has always been international, and I’ve built it believing that we will always be global. And I’d like to make that true.

The second is that the issues we’re working on are international. Illegal forestry, for example. I think 1% of illegal forestry happens in the United States and the rest happens all around the world. And that’s true with climate change issues. In the Global South, people are disproportionately affected by these issues.

We want to be where we’re needed most. We want to be where we can have the most impact.

Previously in The Revelator:

A Nose for Science: Conservation Dogs May Help in Search for Endangered Franklin’s Bumblebee

Helping Wildlife Survive Climate Change

The new book Nowhere Left to Go shows how climate change threatens myriad species. But there are ways we can help.

This is an adapted excerpt from Nowhere Left to Go: How Climate Change Is Driving Species to the Ends of the Earth © 2021 by Heyne Verlag a division of Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe GmbH, München, Germany. English-language translation copyright © 2022 by The Experiment, LLC. Reprinted with permission of The Experiment. Available wherever books are sold.

The EU Commission’s vision for making more room for nature includes those areas outside the reserves, known in technical jargon as “the matrix.” Agricultural land and cities cannot easily be dismantled to clear the way for species on the move. Often, however, all they need are stepping-stones.

Cities should therefore, in Brussels’s view, be furnished with woods, parks, and gardens; city farms; green living roofs and walls; promenades, hedges, and meadows, where “excessive mowing is to be avoided.” At the same time, a minimum of 10 percent of agricultural land is to be reserved for buffer strips, for fallow land and hedges, trees, and ponds. Ideally, this would enable species to hop from one refuge to the next.

Conservationists in the western US have developed a flexible solution. They want to turn the Californian longitudinal valley back into a preferred stopover for migrating birds making the journey from South America to the Arctic. Over a period of many years, one wetland after another was replaced with fields, and numbers of these feathery long-distance fliers dropped drastically. Conservationists used birdwatching maps to determine where and when the birds would gather in the remaining wetlands. They rented fields from rice farmers for the duration of the period when the birds would be stopping. The farmers flooded their fields, turning them into wetlands for several weeks. This approach could be applied to other species embarking on one-way journeys.

At the heart of this concept is the notion of reconciling with nature. To stop species extinction, human beings must transform the landscapes they have long dominated, so that they can be used by as many species at once as possible — be this temporary or permanent.

Proponents of this approach argue that the return of nature to our landscape and settlements might soothe a deep-rooted yearning for proximity to the natural world. Studies show that people who spend more time in nature are healthier and happier. The science community refers to this as “Vitamin G,” where “G” stands for “green space.”

We have grown increasingly estranged from nature in the past fifty years. Children, in particular, are having less and less contact with nature in their everyday lives, instead spending more and more time in front of screens. This has consequences: Children exhibit poorer cognitive and motor skills, experience a higher incidence of mental health problems, and place less value on social cohesion. What’s worse is that the growing generation no longer recognizes how dependent we are on the natural world, and why we need to protect it. In the science community, this is known as “shifting baseline syndrome.” People are steadily lowering their expectations of a healthy environment because they measure the state of nature according to the best experiences they had as children. In other words, they are becoming accustomed to the decline of the natural world.

Conservationists are working to combat this in Great Britain, where they are planning a whole network of pathways of flowering plants to protect pollinators across the country. Those running the initiative hope to cover 370,650 acres with wildflowers. These corridors, each just under two miles wide, are intended to allow wild bees to move back and forth between their isolated habitats as they respond to climate change. “It’s important for animals to be able to move from south to north,” says Catherine Jones, Pollinator Office at the conservation organization Buglife.

Time and again, wild bee conservationists gathered around a table in their office in Peterborough in the east of England to stare at an enormous map of the country. They could see forests, meadows, and heaths, rivers, ponds, and lakes. The activists discussed how best to connect these wild bee habitats to each other and what the most suitable routes for these “insect pathways” might be. They shared suggestions and drew lines. Next, they consulted environmental authorities, the government, city councils, other conservationists, and farmers. “We asked them whether they could transform 10 percent of their land into pollinator-friendly habitats,” says Jones.

In the meantime, they have mapped large areas of Great Britain and provided the first 1,200 acres with potential wild bee pathways. Some of these also run through cities — along stepping-stones like parks and gardens. English lawns are to give way for colorful wildflower meadows, where possible fallen branches will not be cleared away, holes in the ground will no longer be filled in, and metal fences will be replaced with hedges. The measures should encourage bumblebees and other pollinators to use these areas to nest and search for food.

Anyone who allows their garden to grow into a meadow or plants an apple tree or a currant bush can add this to the map on the Buglife website. “Some people find long grass untidy, or worry that it will attract garbage,” says Jones, describing her work in Leeds. “But most people want to get involved.”

There are limits, of course. Not all landscapes shaped by human beings can be redesigned to suit other species. And the debate surrounding the reintroduction of wolves, for example, demonstrates that there is a limit to the pleasure many people take in the advance of the natural world. Looking at it from a different angle, many species avoid humans and would never move into a park, for instance, no matter how attractive its redesign might be.

These species require vast, unmolested swathes of land where they are free to roam. And nature reserves are still best suited to this — ideally as large and as connected as the UN agreement on biodiversity will allow. It does not necessarily mean keeping people out of as many of these areas as possible. Responsible engagement is an option, and it is possible.

Indigenous peoples in the tropics are proof of this. The decline of biodiversity in the areas where they live is less pronounced than elsewhere. Perhaps modern man has forgotten how to engage with nature and needs to be reminded. “We have to see ourselves as part of nature,” says Australian biologist Lesley Hughes. “We cannot exist without nature, even if the West likes to imagine that we can.”

Even if we protect a substantial portion of the Earth, we would not be able to save all the animals and plants. Even intact landscapes have many species that are unable to migrate because they are simply too slow, and climate change is too fast. “We also have to think about the consequences if species are unable to move their ranges fast enough,” says Hughes. “Those that cannot escape or adapt will go extinct.”

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Previously in The Revelator:

Move or Change: How Plants and Animals Are Trying to Survive a Warming World