Rhett Ayers Butler
In the emerald shadows of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a profound loss echoes through the mountains. Danilo Villafañe, an Arhuaco Indigenous leader of unwavering conviction, passed away on Christmas Day, aged 49, in a selfless act of heroism. Villafañe drowned while trying to rescue two young women from the waters where the Palomino [Continue reading]
Tommy Apriando, an esteemed investigative journalist and chairperson of the Yogyakarta branch of Indonesia’s Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), died Sunday at the age of 30 after being hospitalized for complications from diabetes. In a country where environmental reporting is potentially deadly, Apriando wasn’t afraid to speak truth to power. He took on politicians who [Continue reading]
Whether it was radio-collaring elephants across the savannas of South Africa, competing internationally alongside the Israeli national team in tennis, tracking saki monkeys through the rainforest in the sweltering mid-day heat of the Peruvian Amazon, or evaluating the practicalities of implementing technological solutions to conservation challenges, Sue Palminteri fully embraced all she pursued with rare [Continue reading]
In the official record, it ended quietly. A line in a government notice, tucked beneath more hopeful declarations, marking the passing of Melomys rubicola—the Bramble Cay melomys. After ten thousand years or more of survival on a scrap of reef in the Torres Strait, the last of its kind slipped away unnoticed. It was never [Continue reading]
On August 5th, the conservation world mourned the death of Alan Rabinowitz, an American zoologist celebrated as the ‘Indiana Jones of wildlife protection’ by Time magazine. He passed away at 64 after a battle with cancer. Rabinowitz’s legacy testifies to a life spent in unwavering commitment to safeguarding the planet’s most majestic and vulnerable species, [Continue reading]
When the Peoria Manual Training School basketball team clinched the Illinois state championship in 1933, a crowd surged onto the court. In the melee stood an 18-year-old farm boy with long arms and a quiet grin. Walter Butler liked football better, but he could not resist the thrill of winning. It was a rare moment [Continue reading]
In the desert of northern Mexico, near the town of San Fernando in Tamaulipas, there was once a spring so small it barely deserved a name. It lay in the desert like a mirror dropped in the dust — a clear, turquoise eye through which the earth itself seemed to breathe. In that shallow, turquoise [Continue reading]
Over the weekend I received very sad and unexpected news: my friend Navjot Sodhi, a scientist whose mentorship and research made him a leader in the field of conservation biology, died after a short battle with an aggressive blood cancer. He was 49. Navjot leaves behind his wife Charanjit, children Ada and Darwin, and bevy [Continue reading]
Goodbye to a snail. The Aldabra banded snail (Rachistia aldabrae), a rare and poorly known species found only on Aldabra atoll in the Indian Ocean, has apparently gone extinct due to declining rainfall in its niche habitat. While some may question lamenting the loss of a lowly algae-feeding gastropod on some unheard of chain of [Continue reading]
In the quiet flow of the Yangtze, a silent departure occurred. The Baiji, China’s exclusive river dolphin, known scientifically for its distinction and affectionately for its grace, has succumbed to the inevitable, declared “functionally extinct.” This term, clinical yet profound, marks the end of a lineage that navigated the waters of the Yangtze for over [Continue reading]
In the mist-shrouded highlands north of Monteverde, Costa Rica, a small amphibian once glowed like a living gem. The Golden Toad, with its brilliant male orange skin and the more muted, patterned colors of the female, inhabited scarcely more than a few square kilometers of cloud forest at roughly 1,500 meters elevation. From its discovery [Continue reading]