Just six months have passed since the killing and mutilation of six lions in the Ishasha sector of Uganda's Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP). 

If you were to visit the park, you would see these so-called Ishasha lions lazing around in the myriad branches of towering fig trees. This group is one of only two populations of lions known to climb trees, making the majestic beasts fascinating subjects for study and a popular tourist attraction. Sadly, however, these lions face numerous threats, including habitat loss, snaring, human-wildlife conflict, illegal wildlife trade and the trafficking of lion body parts.

Because of these threats, the Ishasha lion population includes just 20 to 30 individuals; with increasing threats to this endearing fauna, tourism revenues — which make up close to 8% of Uganda's gross domestic product (at least before the COVID-19 pandemic) — are also threatened. To provide the protections, the global Red List of threatened species maintained by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has labeled this population as "vulnerable" to extinction; Uganda's national list places them in the "critically endangered" category. 

Related: 50 of the most endangered species on the planet

The lshasha lions recently graced the country with several cubs that now require our collective effort to protect so they may grow into adults. Luckily for the cubs, six other males — including Sultan and Sula (the fathers of the cubs), Jacob (a snare survivor), and three adolescent brothers — are ready to protect and groom them, according to Bazil Alidria, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Carnivore Officer who monitors the lion pride regularly.

Unfortunately, knowledge about lion population dynamics and threats in Uganda remains limited. In 2005 and 2008, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) conducted monitoring efforts for lions in the Queen Elizabeth park and Uganda's Murchison Falls National Park (MFNP), respectively, using Global Positioning System (GPS)-enabled collars. 

This work was built upon research previously conducted by Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) Veterinary Doctor Margaret Driciru (2001) and Ludwig Siefert of the Uganda Carnivore Program. While monitoring the lions, WCS also removed snares from the parks that threaten this iconic species and worked to reduce human-lion conflict by building carnivore-proof pens to prevent lions from attacking livestock and inviting retaliatory killings by angry herders.

In 2010, a survey of three national parks engaged in lion conservation — Queen Elizabeth NP, Murchison Falls NP and Kidepo Valley NP — conducted by WCS reported the estimated lion population there to be 408 individuals. 

Although it has been 10 years since the last census, lion sightings during monitoring work by WCS, the Uganda Carnivore Program (UCP) and UWA in the Queen Elizabeth park, suggest that the lion population trend is relatively stable, according to Simon Nampindo, WCS Uganda country director. A 2021 study commissioned by WCS indicated that the greatest threat to lions today is human-induced mortality, including retaliation for the killing of livestock, exacerbated by Ugandan beliefs that parts of these lions have medicinal value and customary beliefs that lion body parts should be kept in homes and shops as a source of power and wealth.

Nampindo notes that the 2021 study on the triggers and motivations for lion killings in QENP revealed an increased demand for lion body parts by community members, traditional healers, business people, religious leaders, poachers and cattle keepers in Uganda, requiring a more comprehensive approach to stop this crime.

The lions also face a multifaceted challenge for survival driven by climate change. The loss of suitable habitat for both prey and predators attributed to climate change and variability favoring the growth and spread of invasive species in most of Uganda's national parks, have triggered lions and elephants to move outside the parks into the communities. This exodus has resulted in livestock predation and crop damage, hence escalating the human-wildlife conflict around these protected areas. 

WCS has called upon private sector companies, local governments, conservation organizations, individuals and development partners to join hands to address these threats before our natural heritage is lost.

Despite the numerous challenges, we take heart in the resilience of the lshasha lions. WCS has long-term commitments to its strongholds and landscapes and uses science to inform conservation and build solid partnerships and collaborations while inspiring people to love nature.

Together with Uganda Wildlife Authority, the private sector and other devoted conservation organizations, we will continue to monitor lion populations and remove wire snares and traps to save the lion populations and ensure that the tourism sector thrives.

Editor's note: This article was updated to correct the number of Ishasha lions in that population and to indicate the image shows lion cubs from the Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Originally published on Live Science.

In 2002, on a cold March night in Wyoming's Teton Range, a young wolverine slipped inside what looked like a miniature log cabin in search of a meaty morsel and heard the dull thud of a log door dropping shut. The young male settled into the cozy leaves lining the bottom of his log cabin to sleep off the evening feast.

A team of Wildlife Conservation Society scientists led by Bob and Kris Inman opened the trap to discover a familiar friend. The wolverine had been captured there the year before and fitted with a GPS collar that allowed the scientists to track its wanderings in search of food and love as far as the Idaho town of Pocatello. Pocatello Pete, as he was dubbed, looked down on the lights below and, apparently unimpressed with what he saw, high-tailed it back to the Tetons.

Pete was not the only wolverine in the study that journeyed far and wide. They fitted another collar on another wolverine in December, 2008, which they called "M56," in northwest Wyoming; M56 then disappeared until he was located in the southern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem at the southern end of the Wind River Range near Lander, Wyoming. After negotiating the Great Divide Basin south of the Wind River Range in Wyoming where he was observed scavenging a cow, the wolverine island-hopped south to cross Interstate 89 on Memorial Day, 2009.

Within a few days, M56 made his way to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, where he became the first documented report of a Colorado wolverine since 1919. A wolverine here was exciting because habitat analysis suggests a potential for recovery in Colorado and New Mexico to secure this amazing critter's future in the lower 48. 

The wolverine (Gulo gulo) is an endurance athlete. With snowshoe feet and crampon-like claws, wolverines prefer high elevations in the mountainous western U.S. As they face growing threats from loss of denning habitat caused by melting snow and a warming climate, and increasing development in valley bottoms that could sever movement between mountain ranges. WCS scientists hope to help them find a new foothold in the rugged terrain of the Colorado Rockies.

Wolverines live in low population densities, occupying huge home ranges scattered among island-like habitats in the high peaks of dispersed mountain ranges. There, they find persistent spring snow cover crucial for cozy dens to rear their cubs, an abundance of marmots and other prey, refrigerated food storage, and potentially less competition with predators like grizzly bears and wolves.

The adventures of Pete and M56 required traversing roads, ranches and scrubby sage as the animals moved between isolated mountain ranges. Such movements are crucial to wolverine survival so they can diversify their genes, and yet are increasingly challenged by a voracious human footprint and climate change.

Rather than focus on a single park or even ecosystem to support the wolverines' survival, biodiversity conservation must look at how ecosystems are interconnected so the animals can exchange genes between isolated groups.

The scattering of wolverines among semi-isolated mountain islands presents challenges for wolverine survival because no single island can support enough breeding individuals to sustain a population over time. Wolverines must be able to carry their genes between island habitats to maintain a population large enough to survive into the future.

Today, we believe the Southern Rockies alone contains 21% of the potential wolverine habitat remaining in the lower 48 states, which could significantly bolster the population that is currently believed to be fewer than 300 individuals. Further, Southern Rockies habitat encompasses higher elevations that might provide more resilience against climate change and loss of persistent snow cover; the area also may pose fewer challenges for maintaining connectivity since the habitat is more connected than the dispersed mountain ranges to the north.

Although M56 proved that wolverine males are capable of moving to the Southern Rockies on their own, there is no evidence suggesting females would accomplish a similar journey. As such, we think that recovery in Colorado would require active rewilding.

If we want human imaginations to light up and jaws to drop at the sight of the small but mighty wolverine, we need action now. Let's work together to bring wolverines back to Colorado after a century-long absence and ensure their long-term survival as an iconic ambassador for the Wild Rockies.

Brent Brock is Northern Rockies Landscape Lead in the Rockies Program at WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society).

Many of us might struggle to see a moose on a moonless night, let alone a mosquito. But some bats have a nifty trick — they use their ears to locate their bug prey. It's not that bats can't see — many have excellent full-color vision — but most don't depend on their eyes to navigate. For many bats, the challenge they must overcome to survive is detecting prey that move in the dark.

Enter echolocation. Many bats can use returning echoes to detect objects as fine as a human hair in total darkness. Bat brains map the echoes in a way that lets them home in on insects or avoid obstacles. Bats use of echolocation can help us protect them. 

These cryptic creatures flit around at night and hide by day, making it difficult to monitor them by sight. 

Related: Photos: The eerily beautiful bats of Arizona

How many bats are there and what species are where? This is increasingly important information to know, because North American bats are being devastated by a deadly fungal disease called white nose syndrome (WNS).

In eastern North America, WNS has reduced bat populations by an estimated 90% or more. By studying bats in British Columbia and Alberta, where the fungus has not yet arrived, we hope to help bats survive when the fungus inevitably shows up there. Understanding how bats echolocate, and then recording them appropriately, is fundamental to that effort.

Some bats are loud, some less so; some species prefer to feed amongst trees, others over water. Some bats, particularly ones that can snatch prey off of the ground or leaves, have huge ears to capture both echoes and the soft sounds generated by their prey — like the flutter of moth wings. Most others rely on smaller ears that are adept at listening for echoes but not necessarily to the sounds that their prey generate.

The one problem with this system is that sound waves need to bounce off an object to generate an echo. That means the length of the sound wave has to match the size of the object so that the sound is blocked and bounces back to the bat. Insects are small, so the sound's wavelengths must be small. These short wavelengths result in high-frequency sounds. Most bats produce such high-frequency sounds that human ears can't hear them — hence, it is called ultrasound. 

Ultrasound doesn't actually travel very far in air, though, so most bats have to really belt their echolocation calls out in order to have enough sound range to avoid flying into an object before they detect it or to find a tiny insect in front of them. It's sort of like headlights on a car — bright lights are needed to drive fast. Faster bats must be loud and have their sound travel far. 

This results in another problem. The sounds bats make can be absolutely deafening to bats themselves — the equivalent of holding a shrieking smoke detector up to your ear if the sound were within human hearing range. Bats generate these really loud sounds right next to their own ears so how do they not deafen themselves? 

Bats use their middle ear muscles to essentially "close their ears" while they are sending out sound waves. Of course, to hear the reflected sound waves, they must quickly re-open their ears. Bats can do this 10 times per second. Interestingly, some bat prey have also developed the ability to hear bats' sounds and take evasive action, setting up a relentless battle of who hears who first.

Bats also tailor their sound to what they are finding. They may use only a small range of relatively lower frequencies while se arching for insects, then switch to higher frequencies to discover size, distance and speed of movement to narrow in on a target.

The way that different species use different sound frequencies can help us identify species flying around unseen in the night sky. Using acoustic detectors, we can listen in on ultrasonic bat calls and then analyze the acoustic patterns to figure out what species of bats are in the neighborhood. But the variation in the calls that one individual can make is tremendous, making the study of bat sounds challenging.

Listening for bats is an excellent way for us to fill in the many gaps in our understanding of which bats are present in different habitats. This monitoring is critical at a time when bats are facing many challenges like the steady spread of WNS. We're keeping our ears open to better understand how we can help these fascinating creatures. What we don't want to be listening to is silence.

Cori Lausen is Associate Conservation Scientist with Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Canada, where she leads the Western Bat Program.

[If you want to hear some bat sounds for yourself, listen to this audio interview with Dr. Lausen. For more information on WCS Canada bat conservation science, visit WCSbats.ca.]

For ecologists studying wolverines — mid-sized carnivores found across the boreal forest and Arctic tundra of North America, across Europe's Nordic mainland, and throughout the Russian north — technology that you'd find in a smartphone is offering an unparalleled glimpse of how these animals behave. 

Twenty-five years ago, the only technology available to study wild wolverine behavior were collars that sent out a radio signal revealing an animal's location. Biologists would be lucky to locate a collared animal 50 times in a year, and they'd actually see the animal only a handful of times. 

Today, we can attach a collar of similar weight to the animal and know what that creature is doing for every second of every day for months on end. For that, we can thank the tri-axial accelerometer.

Related: 50 of the most endangered species on the planet

While the name is a mouthful and sounds like something that you'd see on a futuristic spaceship, the tri-axial accelerometer can be found in plenty of consumer devices. Smart phones, exercise watches, and health monitors all use accelerometers to quantify daily activities by assessing movement in three directions and storing the data over time.

Simple accelerometers differentiate when we are resting from when we are exercising (and perhaps prod us to move a bit more). More complex accelerometers can distinguish between specific activities. Ever wonder how the Nintendo Wii knows that you're hitting the virtual tennis ball? That's an accelerometer. Or how your smartphone knows how many steps you take, or when you're driving a car? Accelerometer, again.

This technology also provides an exciting new tool for wildlife professionals. Normally, we get only brief glimpses into the lives of wild animals, particularly elusive ones like wolverines. Now, we can attach an instrument to them — a kind of miniaturized smartphone, if you will — capable of tracking their behavior constantly for months on end.

Adapting accelerometer usage from people to wildlife wasn't easy. How do you get a device to understand when a wolverine is tearing apart a caribou, versus simply strolling across the Arctic tundra? In applications for humans, the tri-axial accelerometer "learns" how to recognize actions like walking, dancing, or exercising, which can then be applied to a smartphone app or Wii remote.

We found that parallel algorithms can be established for wildlife with the help of zoological parks, as we describe in our study detailed in the November issue of the journal Ecological Informatics. The same technology that enabled mobile device engineers to train smartphones using data from people enabled us to train accelerometers to recognize behaviors of wild wolverines based on observations of captive animals.

For two weeks, we monitored three wolverines equipped with tri-axial accelerometers at Nordens Ark, a wildlife park in Bohuslän, Sweden, devoted to conserving threatened and endangered species. Every day, we recorded the times and durations of wolverines' different behaviors. We then extracted the accelerometer data in the lab and created an algorithm linking the data to actions such as running, resting, grooming, and eating, to name a few. 

The exciting part was applying all of this to wolverines in the wild. To do that, we equipped seven wolverines in Arctic Alaska with GPS collars and accelerometers for approximately three months. To ensure that the collars would eventually drop off, we attached them with "rot-away" strips that deteriorate steadily over that time. When we recovered the instruments, we applied the algorithm we'd developed to these wild wolverines, giving us an unprecedented window into their lives.

We're still working through all the data, but we've already learned that wolverines generally like to rest in the late afternoon and evening, beginning their patrols around midnight. We've also begun looking into how vigilant they are (how much time they spend scanning their surroundings) under different conditions, an important survival technique for an animal that is sometimes hunted and killed by wolves. The data could also reveal the impacts of climate change and human infrastructure on wolverine behavior.

Moving forward, our ability to learn from tri-axial accelerometers will likely only grow, fueled by new developments for use in smart devices and home entertainment. So, the next time you download the latest offering from the App store, remember that you just might be previewing the next great technology for conservation.

Robards and Glass contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

The recent eruption of COVID-19 near a "wet market" in Wuhan, China — where vendors brought a variety of live wild animals together for purchase, slaughter and consumption — calls our attention to a phenomenon captured by a word increasingly understood by the general public: zoonosis.

Zoonoses are infectious diseases — caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites — that spread from animals to humans. They can be transmitted through direct physical contact, via air or water, or through an intermediate host like an insect. Often these zoonotic pathogens do not affect the animals in which they reside, but they can represent an enormous risk to humans who have no natural immunity to them.

The COVID-19 pandemic provides a stark reminder that handling or coming into close contact with wildlife — along with their body parts and/or excretions like blood, spit and urine (the potent mix of which lends wet markets their name) — poses a risk of spillover of the pathogens they host and maintain in nature, and that can lead to zoonotic infections.

Related: 13 Coronavirus myths busted by science

Globally, zoonoses are responsible for an estimated 1 billion cases of human illness and millions of human deaths every year. Around 60% of the emerging diseases reported globally are considered to be zoonoses, and 75% of new human pathogens detected in the last 30 years originated in animals.

Zoonotic diseases may be endemic, meaning that they are found in a narrowly defined region or population, or they may be epidemic, when their spread is more far-reaching. A pandemic is a worldwide epidemic. COVID-19 has been designated a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO).

A wide variety of animal species can carry zoonotic agents, from domestic animals to wild ones. Examples of domestic animal zoonoses include the bacterial diseases E.coli and toxoplasmosis. Other zoonotic diseases that spill over from wild animal hosts to human populations include West Nile Virus, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) and, now, COVID-19.

Related: 20 of the worst epidemics and pandemics in history

These "spillover" events are a significant and growing threat to global health, global economies and global security. Analyses of their trends suggest that their frequency and economic impact are on the rise.

Current investigations of potential zoonotic viruses, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) PREDICT program, suggest that there are over 1.6 million unknown viruses in birds and mammals. Based on decades of expertise, an estimated 700,000 of these agents could pose a zoonotic risk, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Emergence of these as-yet-unidentified threats results from the ever-shrinking separation between humans and wild ecosystems and organisms. Changes in human population size and distribution, land use, infrastructure and consumption all impact the wild world, shake out the pathogens lurking in the dark and increase the potential of zoonotic illnesses to emerge.

Faced with the spectrum of zoonotic agents currently at large in the natural world, limiting the chances of contact between humans and wild animals is the most effective way to reduce the risk of emergence of new zoonotic diseases.

This must include closing live animal markets that sell wildlife, strengthening efforts to combat trafficking of wild animals within countries and across borders, and working to change dangerous wildlife consumption behaviors. Saving wildlife and wild places, while respecting animals and their spaces, can reduce the transmission of zoonoses as the public begins to absorb this new word into their vocabulary.

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Christian Walzer is Executive Director, Health, in the Global Conservation Program of the WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society). Walzer contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Originally published on Live Science. 

Natalia Rossi is the manager of the Cuba Program for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). This article is part of Women's History Month, and celebrates women in science. Rossi contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

I, a crocodile scientist, am a woman in conservation. As is my colleague Christelle Nguizi, who tirelessly patrols the flooded forests of the Lac Tele Community Reserve in Congo to protect elephants and combat poachers; and my colleague Lilian Painter, who directs the Wildlife Conservation Society's Bolivia Program and — working with partners — secured the protection of 2.3 million hectares (5.6 million acres), the most biodiverse region for plants and animals in the entire world.

My colleague Emily Darling takes coral reef conservation science to a completely new level by linking social and ecological systems to make reefs and coastal communities more resilient. And there are so many others. We are all women in conservation. From every possible angle, we are working to conserve the world's precious biodiversity. We are re-shaping the field and we are not afraid of tackling new challenges. [Photos: 'Giant Crocodile' Egyptian Mummy Is Packed With Baby Crocs]

But the path here is not always easy. Despite women's rising numbers in this field, the majority of people in senior positions in conservation worldwide continue to be men. Challenges often begin the moment a woman enters the profession. (For instance, people may ask whether you are capable of withstanding the harsh field conditions that "men do." But I would rephrase that question to ask whether people can withstand the harsh field conditions that women do, as we are hardcore.) As women climb the ranks, these challenges can continue, as your voice is sometimes the only woman's voice in the room. Even in the field, perceptions toward the types of roles and jobs of women are expected to hold may not match your outfit. But a new wave of women scientists is entering the field of conservation, and we are working from the field to the policy-level to address these problems and change attitudes.

I am so immensely proud of my female colleagues. But reaching these heights was not easy. At least for me. Adjusting to a new country when I first arrived from Argentina to pursue my dream of studying conservation biology was a tough initial hurdle. Then there were times in the field when being a woman encompassed additional difficulties and even risks.

That comes with being a crocodile specialist, of course. You can only imagine the "toughness" that you have to show when getting involved in crocodile conservation, a still male-dominated field. When you jump into muddy waters full of crocodiles and all male eyes are on you, and you feel the silent wonder: Is she going to make it? I imagine that same scrutiny was imposed on so many of the women conservationists of my generation and before.

But I do this work because I see so clearly that the interconnection between species, habitats and the health of ecosystems is critical to local communities and our planet as a whole. Where I work in Cuba, two native crocodile species are found: the critically endangered Cuban crocodile and the vulnerable coastal American crocodile. These top predators are not only critical for keeping the food chain in check but also true ecosystem engineers that shape and help maintain mangrove forests through excavating massive underwater caves and canals, which create water dynamics and essential micro-habitats that support a rich diversity of species. The threat of development of the country's coastal areas, along with historical poaching and a restricted range for the Cuban crocodile, jeopardize the survival of both crocodiles and mangroves. For almost a decade, we have been working alongside local partners to better understand crocodiles and design strategies to strengthen their populations. From reintroduction of crocodiles in the wild, to the provisioning of additional nesting sites, to community involvement and outreach, we have been growing our efforts to save crocodile species for future generations.

Mentorship matters

For so many women across the world, it is still a dream to enter this field, in part because of the pre-conceptions on what women can and can't do on the job. For instance, some may wonder whether women can take on the physical tasks of handling wild animals. Nevertheless, to these women I say things are changing! It is possible! Conservation needs your vision, ideas and strength more than ever. Communication channels between women conservationists are wide open, and there is nothing more powerful than mentorship and sharing.

In my case, I have also been blessed with wonderful mentors who were men, including the late John Thorbjarnarson (1957-2010), a world-renowned herpetologist who helped to rescue numerous species from the brink of extinction. John T, as we called him, saw something in me that I could not see at the time. His encouragement, passion and sense of humor made my firsts steps working in Cuba to protect crocodiles and coastal wetlands feel effortless. [Photos: Ancient Crocodile Relatives Roamed the Amazon]

I am happy to continue in the footsteps of Thorbjarnarson and my amazing colleagues in Cuba. Using our passion every day to help species, ecosystems and communities thrive gives us a sense of purpose and brings us together. But I truly believe that the strides made by women in the field of conservation will be meaningful only if these achievements by conservation role-models and leaders open up a path for the next generation of young women scientists. Such a path would include more opportunities for matching young female conservationists with mentors, and more concrete avenues that provide that precious "first opportunity" in conservation for aspiring women.

I have no doubt this a new wave of women will bring creative solutions to conservation challenges in ways we cannot even imagine today.

I had a taste of that at the "The Girls Advancing in STEM Conference" last year. There, 100 high school girls from around the United States gathered to learn about science, technology, engineering and math, the STEM fields. Through mentorship and establishing connections, we can not only let others know about our work but, most importantly, unleash so much potential as a community of women conservationists in the world. Together, we can advance to all levels of leadership and responsibility.

One thing is clearer than ever to me today. These are exciting times to be a woman (and a man) in conservation!

• In Photos: Response Teams Try To Save Starving Killer Whale
• In Photos: Mexico's New Ocean Reserve Protects Stunning Biodiversity
• In Photos: Giant Owls and Painted Snails: Incredible Creatures from Cuba

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Editor's Note: This article was updated to indicate that the Girls Advancing in STEM Conference took place in the United States, not in Cuba.

We were not expecting a familiar face as we cracked open the wooden box trap we'd carefully set on the remote north slope of Alaska. But there he was: a wolverine staring back at us, his face covered with the shredded remains of frozen caribou.

As conservationists in Beringia — an (at least historically) icy patch of land and sea that straddles the United States, Canada and Russia, hugging the Bering and Chukchi seas — we have spent a fair share of time considering this elusive carnivore, the wolverine (Gulo gulo).

The stout, canny predator, sometimes scavenger, can grow to be about 45 lbs. (20 kilograms) and is built to withstand the challenging, subzero-degree environment of the Arctic. With feet large enough to act like snowshoes, strong musculature and a honed set of teeth and claws, wolverines can take down an animal as large as a caribou in the middle of winter, but they'll also hunt small rodents, such as ground squirrels, when they're looking for a tasty morsel. Their thick, frost-shedding fur helps them survive at temperatures that, in the twilight of winter, can drop below minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 45 degrees Celsius). [Camera Trapped: Elusive Wildlife Caught in Photos]

Freezing temperatures are no match for the wolverine. These furry beasts will travel wide swaths of territory to find a mate or secure a meal. If they want to save a meal for later, wolverines have been known to cache it in the snow like a hidden trove of TV dinners. 

This particular wolverine staring back at us, however, recently threw us a curve ball: He had traveled great distances in order to enjoy a free meal from our box trap and, as a result, found himself caught in the name of science until we found and released him back into the wild.

To be clear, wolverines are generally thought of as reclusive animals, whose meals often consist of a carcass left behind by another predator. For our research, we use the scent of meat to lure and then trap them in a wooden box. Despite being safe, the trapped wolverines usually appear resigned at best and seem to avoid our traps once they're released. But this wolverine was different, having clearly thrown convention to the wind.  

Because he was first caught on St. Patrick's Day this year, we named him Seamus. His strategy was simple: get trapped, enjoy a meal and get released — room and board, if you like.

Seamus was first captured around 10:30 p.m. local time on a narrow swath of land between the Arctic Refuge and the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, under the swirling green of the aurora. There's something ineffable about holding an anesthetized wolverine in your arms under one of nature's most exquisite celestial spectacles.

After we collected data on Seamus and fitted him with a GPS tracking collar and a small ear tag, we released him back into the wintery landscape. Our team did not expect to see him again anytime soon; he'd just be a series of new dots on a computer screen each day. However, he circled around to another trap some 15 miles (24 kilometers) away and was caught again four days later, on March 21.

Verifying that his GPS collar looked good, we again released him. Seamus proceeded directly to yet another trap, over 20 miles (32 km) from either of the other two where he'd already gotten a free meal. How he zeroed in on these other traps so capably is a mystery. After being released again, Seamus returned to the same trap and, on March 23, was caught for a fourth time. 

Deciding Seamus had received enough free meals, we decided the feast of St. Patrick was over for him! We moved the trap again, about 20 miles north that morning after releasing him. Our new location apparently did the trick, as he's not been seen since … at least in person. His satellite signal continues to show him moving through the foothills of the Brooks Range, out of reach of our traps but occasionally visiting with a female wolverine we also collared, named Jazz. [Photos: Honey Badgers and Other Tiny Predators Caught on Camera]

The data the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is collecting on wolverines is helping us decipher these enigmatic creatures. WCS is working to better understand the habitat needs of wolverines in the Arctic tundra, especially as they relate to snow cover and the earlier spring melt. Wolverines use snow to make their natal dens — as well as to cache food and hide from predators — but few specifics are known about how wolverines choose such sites, or how the changing spring snowpack could affect them or their newborn kits.

In an era of rapid climate change and increased interest in the development of the Arctic, it is imperative that we understand the areas that species like wolverines need to prosper into the future. With that knowledge, land managers can help avoid unnecessary impacts to Seamus and the rest of the wolverines that call this region home.

As we continue to study this canny and poorly understood animal, we have become increasingly impressed with the wolverines' tenacity and ability to survive in this harsh tundra environment. We can't wait to see what more they might teach us. Perhaps Seamus will return to us in our next season, helping us again in exchange for a meal.

Martin Robards is regional director and Tom Glass is lead wolverine researcher for the Arctic Beringia program at the Wildlife Conservation Society. Robards and Glass contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published Live Science.

Juan Martín Cuevas is a marine conservationist with the Argentina program at WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society). Since late 2015, he has been working to develop and implement a conservation plan for sharks and rays in the Patagonian Sea. Cuevas contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

In the waters found off the southern part of the Buenos Aires province in Northern Patagonia may be one of the most popular shark-fishing spots in Argentina and possibly in all of South America.

Called Bahía San Blas, this spot is a baby-delivery room of sorts, serving as a major nursery for several shark species, including the tope shark (Galeorhinus galeus), or cazón.

And while this 888-square-mile (2,300 square kilometers) stretch of sea is considered a marine-protected area, its remoteness leads to weak law enforcement and a significant loss of sharks to recreational fishing. This lack of true protection is particularly harmful to the topes — the focus of my conservation work.

Topes are medium in size and easy to handle, with a long, pointed and transparent snout. During the spring and summer, fishers gather these sharks by the thousands. Even so, few know that the species is endangered.

Due to their low reproduction rate — females give birth to about 20 pups every three years — it is illegal to kill tope sharks in Buenos Aires province waters. They have also been classified as Critically Endangered in the Southwest Atlantic since 2006 as Brazil and Uruguay saw an extreme population decline and the Argentine trawler fleet reduced its catch per unit effort (CPUE) by 80 percent after a peak of 610,000 individuals landed in 1984 for all commercial fleets. [On the Brink: A Gallery of Wild Sharks]

Tope conservation

My goal has been to engage fishing guides in a tagging program called Conservar Tiburones en Argentina(Conserving Sharks in Argentina) that involves most of the coast of  thePatagonian Sea — a body of water teeming with threatened and endangered sharks, rays, skates and chimaeras (also called ghost sharks, even though they aren't actual "sharks").

For this project, 12 coastal shark fishing sites distributed between Faro Querandí and Puerto San Julián in southern Patagonia (representing fewer than 1,243 miles, or 2,000 km, of coastline), have been designed to encourage fishermen and the local community to protect coastal sharks. This includes the tope sharks; the critically endangered gray nurse shark (Carcharias taurus), or escalandrún; the copper shark (Carcharhinus brachyurus), or bacota; the broadnose sevengill shark (Notorynchus cepedianus), or gatopardo; spiny dogfishes (Squalus acanthias); and hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna zygaena).

During the project, I helped to recruit 83 anglers, 25 fishing guides and participants in three shark tournaments to shift from catch-and-retain practices to catch, tag, and release (I am happy to report that many of of these folks remain involved in this work).

The program began as an initiative of the Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP), created by a partnership between Birdlife International, Fauna & Flora International, and WCS to obtain data on threatened species. Since 2013, the project has tagged more than 450 sharks in the targeted coastal shark fishing sites.

Patagonia conservation

Shark conservation in the Patagonian Sea includes everything from preparing management plans to estimating population sizes of target species.

In 2016, I initiated just such a population study. We captured tope sharks in the San Blas protected areausing longline gear with barbless circular hooks baited with Brazilian menhaden, a forage fish. We measured each shark's length, determined their sex and attached dart tags to their dorsal fins. Three monitoring stations were established to repeat the tagging procedure during the springtime of the next three years to complete a tope count inside the marine-protected area. [In Photos: Patagonia's New Marine Parks]

I am also engaged in projects to identify priority habitats, increase shark awareness in local communities, and to engage key stakeholders as stewards in the design and implementation of a Tope Conservation Program.

Commercial fisheries

While we have been working with recreational fishermen, commercial fisheries are also essential to this conservation. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Argentina's catches of cartilaginous, or chondrichthyan, fishes (as opposed to bony fishes) are among the highest in the world. While the sharks, rays and skates that make up the majority of this fish class are not traditional targets, many species are hauled in incidentally in nets as bycatch or harmed unnecessarily during industrial and small-scale fishing activities.

There are 30 species of sharks and skates in the Patagonian Sea that are rated as "Threatened" on the Red List kept by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). For instance, the regional school shark (Galeorhinus galeus) is Critically Endangered and the Argentine fishery for this commercially targeted species has collapsed.

Other seriously threatened cartilaginous fish off Patagonia include vulnerable angel sharks (Squatina occulta,S. guggenheim, andS. argentina) and endangered narrownose smoothhounds (Mustelus schmitti).

Despite strong evidence of shark species declines, management actions have been slow to implement. In 2013, the Federal Fisheries Council passed a resolution to reduce the mortality of chondrichthyans, making the practice of finning (the removal of shark fins for use in a popular Asian soup delicacy) illegal, requiring fishers to report incidental catches, and placing observers onboard boats to report any significant levels of incidental catches.

While such measures were necessary and overdue, they have not eliminated overfishing, nor have they ensured the future of these species. In Argentina and the Patagonian Sea, comprehensive research and sustained engagement and advocacy remain essential to improve the conservation of sharks, rays and their chondrichthyan cousins before we lose them for good.

Originally published on Live Science.

Cambodia's national reptile is on the brink of extinction, but there may be new hope for the reptiles after nine Cambodian Royal Turtle babies were successfully hatched, conservationists recently announced.

The Royal Turtle, also known as the southern river terrapin (Batagur affinis), is one of the world's most endangered freshwater turtles, conservationists said. The turtle is listed as critically endangered by theInternational Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and was thought to be extinct in Cambodia. After a small population was discovered in the Sre Ambel River in 2000, a protection program was launched and community members were encouraged to find and protect turtle nests.

A villager found a nest containing 14 eggs in February, and with assistance from the Royal Turtle Conservation Team from the Fisheries Administration (FiA) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the nest was fenced in and protected for three months until the turtles hatched. [Photos: Thousands of Baby Turtles Hatch in Brazil]

"I am delighted to see those eggs have successfully hatched, and that the hatchlings have been taken to the conservation center in Koh Kong Province," Long Sman, who guarded the Royal Turtle nest for three months, said in a statement. "I am proud of the result, and especially to be part of conserving Cambodia's Royal Turtles from extinction."

The nine turtles that successfully hatched were relocated to the Koh Kong Reptile Conservation Center. The hatchlings will be raised at the center and may be part of a breeding program in the future, according to the WCS.

Very few Royal Turtles are left in the wild, and only one nest was found this year, according to Som Sitha, WCS's technical advisor for the conservation project. Two nests were found in 2016, and three nests were found in 2015, the WCS said.

"This is a big concern for Royal Turtle conservation," Sitha added. "If sand dredging, illegal clearance of flooded forests and illegal fishing continues, then our national reptile species faces a high risk of extinction."

Original article on Live Science.

Their domesticated relatives may clash, but India's big cats and wilds dogs get along surprisingly well.

Leopards, tigers and dholes (Asian wild dogs) all compete for the same resources in India's Western Ghat region, yet a new study using camera traps shows that the three carnivores coexist with little conflict. Their solution? The predators have seemingly adapted to life in the relatively small reserves of the Western Ghats region by hunting at different times or in different areas, the researchers said.

While the success of these tactics is reliant on the density of prey and overall health of the habitat, lead author Ullas Karanth, the director for Science in Asia at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), said conservationists can learn from the predators' adaptive strategies. [20 Weird Dog and Cat Behaviors Explained by Science]

"Tigers, leopards and dholes are doing a delicate dance in these protected areas, and all are manging to survive," Karanth said in a statement. "We were surprised to see how each species has remarkably different adaptations to prey on different prey sizes, use different habitat types and be active at different times."

Both tigers and dholes are classified as "endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) — meaning the animals are at a high risk of extinction in the wild. The IUCN lists leopards as "vulnerable," or at a high risk of endangerment in the wild.

The researchers tracked the three predators using dozens of noninvasive camera traps, which recorded about 2,500 images of the animals in action. Through analyzing these images, the study authors found that reserves teeming with more prey saw very little overlap in hunting times. The dholes, which hunt during the day, had hardly any contact with nocturnal-hunting tigers and leopards.

However, when prey was scarcer the three species' hunting activity did overlap. Even then, the images showed that the dholes avoided the big cats. Similarly, in an area abundant with both predator and prey, the leopards actively avoided tigers.

The study offers new insights on the behavioral adaptability of the three species, according to the researchers, and can help researchers understand how competing predators can coexist as their habitats continue to shrink.

"Such findings not only advance general scientific understanding of animal community ecology in general, but also provide basic knowledge that must necessarily underpin any effective endangered species recovery program," the study authors wrote online on Feb. 8 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences.

Original article on Live Science.

A critically endangered species of antelope is dying by the thousands from a deadly infectious disease outbreak in Mongolia, and scientists fear there could be "catastrophic consequences" for the threatened animals and their ecosystem.

Since December 2016, about 2,500 Mongolian saiga (Saiga tatarica mongolica) — a unique subspecies of saiga antelope — have died from a livestock virus. Scientists estimate the Mongolian saiga population to be about 10,000, meaning the deadly outbreak has killed about 25 percent of the endangered steppe-dwelling antelope. The virus, known as PPR or peste des petits ruminants, was introduced to the Mongolian saiga population in September, from infected goats and sheep, scientists said.

Though the die-off rate has slowed, it could have repercussions throughout the local environment, said Amanda Fine, a veterinarian and associate director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) Wildlife Health Program in Asia. [Photos: A 2015 Mass Die-Off of the Endangered Saiga Antelope]

"The situation is tragic and widespread," Fine said in a statement. "Along with the impact to the saiga population, this event has the potential to produce cascading catastrophic consequences on the ecosystem. For example, ibex and argali may be affected, and rare snow leopards may suffer the effects of a diminished prey base."

PPR, which is also known as sheep and goat plague, is highly contagious and can infect up to 90 percent of an animal herd once introduced, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The disease is spread via body fluids, feces and close proximity, and symptoms include fever, anorexia, diffuclty breathing and more. After just a few days affected animals become depressed, very weak, and severely dehydrated, according to the FAO. The FAO and the World Organization for Animal Health are working to eradicate PPR by 2030, but the disease is known to have infected animal populations in more than 70 countries.

In Mongolia, a rapid-response team has begun collecting samples from the dead and diseased saiga in an effort to stop the spread of infection and determine how to support the species' recovery.

"The best way to prevent PPR is through further immunization of livestock in not only saiga range areas, but [also] other affected-species range areas," Fine said. "Stress-free conditions for recovering saiga and access to food and water resources should be provided in order to save the last population of Mongolian saiga from extinction."

The saiga face other threats aside from illness. People use the antelope's horns in traditional medicine, making the animals vulnerable to poaching. More than 90 percent of the saiga population has been lost in recent decades, according to WCS officials.

Original article on Live Science.

Machu Picchu, the site of historic Incan ruins and a popular destination for tourists, is also a favorite destination for South America's only native bear species — the Andean bear.

In a recent survey of the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu, park officials and conservationists found signs of Andean bears (Tremarctos ornatus) in most of the Peruvian site, revealing that the bears are more widespread and more established in the famous Incan ruins than was previously suspected, representatives from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced Jan. 26 in a statement.

Machu Picchu is registered as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and is one of only 35 sites recognized for both cultural and natural significance. The survey's findings will help officials better preserve the bears' habitat as researchers continue to investigate the Andean bears' lifestyle and habits, about which little is known. [Andean Bears Are Right at Home in Machu Picchu | Video]

Sometimes referred to as spectacled bears due to pale yellow or white markings around their eyes, Andean bears are omnivores that measure up to 6.6 feet (2 meters) in length and can weigh as much as 400 pounds (181 kilograms). They live in the forests and grasslands of the Andes Mountains, ranging from Venezuela to Bolivia.

For the Machu Picchu survey, the WCS partnered with the Peruvian federal agency Servicio Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas por el Estado (SERNANP). From August 2014 to September 2015, 30 park officials and researchers investigated rainforest and grassland habitats, searching for evidence of Andean bears — scat, footprints and feeding signs.  

They found evidence in abundance — traces of Andean bears appeared in more than 95 percent of an area of Machu Picchu measuring 142 square miles (368 square kilometers), according to the WCS.

Machu Picchu draws over 2,500 human visitors daily, the Peruvian Times reported in 2014, but interactions between bears and people remain rare. Though Andean bears are active during the daytime, they are shy and avoid contact with humans, according to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature.

Video footage captured in 2016 shows a young Andean bear climbing over the ruins at the site in close proximity to tourists, but this was under highly unusual circumstances, officials told Peruvian news station Canal N. The bear had been startled by a Peruvian helicopter circling overhead, which violated the area's no-fly zone, Fertur Peruvian Travel Blog reported.  

The survey also determined that the Machu Picchu bears are part of a larger group of Andean bears that intermingle via grassland "corridors" — natural connections between separated habitats — that occur at elevations of more than 11,000 feet (3,400 meters) above sea level.

"It is amazing that this world famous location is also [an] important habitat for Andean bears," Isaac Goldstein, coordinator of WCS's Andean Bear Program, said in a statement. "The results of the survey will help us to understand the needs of this species and how to manage Andean bears in this location."

Original article on Live Science.

The Bronx Zoo has been taken over by a horde of adorable animals of an entirely new species — call it Elephas origami.

The zoo, run by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), has officially amassed the largest display collection of origami elephants in the world, earning it a spot in the Guinness World Records. The official tally of 78,564 more than doubles the last record holder, the Zoological Society of London/Whipsnade Zoo in Great Britain, which displayed a paltry 33,764 origami elephants in 2014.

Expert folders from 40 countries around the world — including Iran, Kazakhstan and Egypt — sent in 204,481 specimens. One set of elephants was even sent by a 109-year-old woman. [See Images of the Adorable Folded Elephants]

"WCS's Bronx Zoo received these gems of folded paper from all over the world and assembled them into this gorgeous display as a simple gesture that sends a powerful message to the world that we are standing together to save these majestic animals," John Calvelli, WCS' executive vice president for public affairs, said in a statement.

Because the display is so enormous, not all of it is open to the public. However, many of the paper pachyderms will be part of a holiday exhibit open to the public through December.

The project was part of the 96 Elephants campaign, an initiative run by WCS and directed by Calvelli to combat poaching and the illegal ivory trade. The campaign takes its name from the number of elephants killed every day by poachers.

The record-breaking number of paper elephants is roughly double the number of elephants killed by poachers each year, Calvelli said.

Original article on Live Science.

Origami elephants

The Bronx Zoo has officially amassed the largest collection of origami elephants in the world -- 78,564 to be precise. The origami elephants were sent in by people from around the world to raise awareness about the issue of elephant poaching.

A sea of elephants

A red origami elephant stands out from a pack of grey ones. The origami elephants were folded as part of the 96 elephants campaign to raise awareness about poaching.

World Record

On Nov. 17, 2016, officials from the Guinness World Records organization came to tally up all the origami elephants in the display. The Bronx Zoo officially earned the title for the world's largest display of origami elephants.

Tiny but huge

The display actually only included about a third of the total number of elephants sent in. Here, one of the tiny paper elephants sent to the zoo.

All different sizes

The display of origami elephants was folded using an array of techniques and colors. The campaign that launched the effort, called 96 elephants, was meant to raise awareness about poaching. Every day, 96 elephants are killed around the world for their ivory tusks.

Counting the total

Here, workers from the Guinness World Records organization use a clicker to count the number of paperelephants.

Official attempt

Workers mingle at the official attempt to garner the title for the World's Largest Origami Elephant Display.

Rows and rows

The number of elephants on displays is so huge that all those paper elephants would not fit into a public display. However, people can see some of these tiny folded pachyderms through December at the Bronx Zoo holiday exhibit.

More elephants

Workers from Guinness World Records had a long day ahead of them to count all of the paper elephants on display at the Bronx Zoo.

Raising awareness

A person speaks at the official attempt to earn the title of Largest Display of Origami Elephants at the Bronx Zoo.

Official world record holders

It's official! The Bronx Zoo has the largest display of origami elephants in the world. The number of elephants on display -- more than 78,000 -- is roughly the same as the number of elephants killed by poachers as part of th ivory trade every two years.

Massive numbers

People from 40 different countries, including Kazakhstan, Egypt and Iran sent in origami elephants. One of the folders was a 109-year-old woman.

Gill Braulik conducts scientific research and conservation on cetaceans in the western Indian Ocean for the Tanzania Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society. She contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The coast of Tanzania spans nearly 500 miles (800 kilometers), and all of it is potential habitat for dolphins and whales. Locating these threatened animals is a daunting undertaking, as each dolphin is just a tiny speck in an immense ocean. In fact, for the 40 days of our expedition, it takes incredible concentration and the sharpest, most practiced eyes to find them. 

But find them we will. 

The largest marine animals — such as dolphins, whales, sharks and marine turtles — are some of the most iconic creatures in the ocean. But even after decades of dedicated conservation efforts, these animals are still disappearing. Intense fishing has resulted in massive declines, mostly due to accidental entanglement in nets, hunting or targeted fishing. They also face threats from ship strikes, accumulated toxins and the increasing noise from ships, construction, oil exploration and naval sonar. 

Whales and dolphins are not as well understood as land-dwelling mammals. But the threats these marine mammals face are often more severe, and many populations are threatened with extinction. How do we even begin to prioritize or conserve important species or areas, when the scale of the unknown is so enormous, the threats are so great and the resources are so meager? The current survey is an attempt to address this problem. 

To solve the problem, first understand it

For 15 years, I've been working to understand, and conserve, endangered dolphins in Asia and Africa. The work I'm leading in Tanzania — conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), with funding from the Pew Charitable Trust — is a new approach to rapidly generate information on marine mammals and the threats they face across the entire coast of a single country. In this case, the country is Tanzania, which is a little known but potentially important marine area because of its large variety of habitats, depths and strong coastal currents. 

What we learn will enable us to target conservation to the most critical places. If our effort is successful on the coast of mainland Tanzania, it will be replicated in other parts of Africa. 

All of our team members are Tanzanian nationals who work on marine conservation issues but who, prior to this expedition, had never seen a wild dolphin. After rigorous training, they are now running the survey capably and reveling in the experience. Leading the effort is Magreth Kasuga, a smart, resourceful and tough young Tanzanian woman from Dar es Salaam. 

Every time we see a new species, the team pulls out the identification books and scours them for information about what we just saw. "Did you know pilot whales normally eat squid?" Kasuga asked me. "They live to be more than 60 years old, and males weigh more than 3 tons!" This work will contribute to Kasuga's master's thesis, one of the first in the country focused on dolphins, and designed to provide a more detailed understanding of population size and movements of coastal dolphins in northern Tanzania.

Spotting the spinners

On day 30, our team of seven entered the Pemba Channel in northern Tanzania, and the anticipation was palpable. With its ripping ocean current and depths of up to 2,625 feet (800 meters), the channel offers spectacular sightings of unusual animals, including big groups of pilot whales, dramatic false killer whales and beautiful but rarely seen Fraser's dolphins. 

Today, the weather is calm, but the sun is hot. Another observer, Haji Mohammad, calls out a sighting. "Surfacing, 25 degrees to port!" As the boat turns toward the splash, all hands are on deck, eyes on the water. A group of spinner dolphins erupts out of the sea. While spinner dolphins seem to be the most common dolphin species in Tanzania, they are also one of the most spectacular, named for the way they leap clear out of the water and spin on their axis in what appears to be an act of sheer joy. 

In every direction, dolphins are leaping and spinning and many animals come and ride the bow wave of our boat. We estimate 800 individuals in this group — a record high so far. It's impossible not to feel exhilarated by this interaction with these wild, intelligent creatures. 

In addition to our visual observers watching from a high platform, we also used underwater hydrophones to record the clicks and whistles the animals produce. From those observations, we have made an unexpected discovery: The hydrophones also record the sounds of explosions from dynamite fishing. 

An explosive threat

This destructive and illegal activity involves the use of explosives to blast the sea, stunning or killing all nearby marine life. Blast fishing is an environmental catastrophe. According to research published in Marine Ecology Progress Series, a typical charge will kill most marine organisms within a radius of 5 to 20 meters ( 17 to 67 feet), depending on the situation. Widespread blasting can ultimately reduce coral reefs to rubble and degrade fisheries, and it accelerates the collapse of fish populations, according to WWF's Helen Fox. [In Photos: The World's Most Endangered Marine Mammal ]

We have already recorded more than 300 blasts, with the highest density close to Dar es Salaam, the nation's biggest city. 

Although it's well known to those involved in fisheries, tourism and conservation that blast fishing is rampant, we are shocked at the sheer scale of the problem. For whales and dolphins that rely on underwater sound for navigation and communication, the impact of underwater blasting is likely to be severe. Knowledge from studies of cetaceans impacted by noise, including from underwater explosions in other parts of the world, shows that, at best, animals might be disturbed and move away from their preferred habitat or, at worst, will be injured or killed.

Plotting a course for protection

As day 30 ended, and the observers packed away the equipment for the night, we downloaded the data and updated our sighting tally. We had seen 10 species and 69 groups by day 30 — and by day 40, those numbers grew to 11 species and 75 groups. It's an impressive list. Despite many threats to the marine environment in East Africa, our national survey has found large numbers, implying sizable populations of many dolphin species. 

Tanzania — home of the Serengeti and Mount Kilimanjaro, and the land of elephants, lions and migrating wildebeest — has another jewel in its already impressive crown: a large diversity of dolphins it its oceans. Now that we have made this discovery, the next step is to set about protecting these amazing creatures.

This article is the first in the series Women's History Month: Blogs from WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society). Read more on the WCS Expert Voices landing page.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science .

Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and the first woman to hold the position since the society's founding in 1895. In addition to documenting conservation work in some of the society's 500 field programs in 60 countries around the world, Maher photographs animals and events at five New York-based WCS wildlife parks: the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. The author contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

In Nature, seeing the contrasts of black, white and shades of gray is a visceral experience. Together in a photo, they convey drama and beauty, and work as camouflage for the wildlife that wear it well.

The WCS photo blog, Wild View, offers a glimpse into the world of wildlife and a lens on the conservation challenges of our day. From remote forests to urban waterways, we feature wildlife in — and sometimes out — of their element, at a time when our natural environments are undergoing rapid change. 

Whether a black and white photo, or a color one focusing on black and white subjects, send Wild View your finest shots of wildlife and wild places this month for our Wild View special assignment. From now until March 25, our editorial team will choose the best submissions based on appeal, composition, originality and technical quality. 

A group of chosen shots will be posted on Wild View’s Assignment page, with one selected for a Wild View post. 

From baby turtles to tigers frolicking in the snow, view more photo galleries on the WCS Expert Voices landing page, and for some stunning shots of nature in black and white, look below. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher/Copyright WCS)

Elephants in Tanzania

A lone African elephant at sunset in Ruaha National Park, Tanzania. African elephant numbers have dropped by more than half in the past 30 years. Tanzania has been hit particularly hard, losing 60 percent of its elephants in the past five years. 

Trees in Kenya

Baobabs are iconic trees in Africa and look as if they've grown upside down, as their branches have no leaves most of the year. Some of the bigger trees in Kenya and Tanzania might be as old as 1,000 years. [Gallery: Oldest Living Things in the World ]

Zebras in Zambia

This young Burchell's zebra in Zambia's Luangwa Valley is also known as a plains or common zebra. Each zebra's stripes are unique, which helps biologist identify and study individuals. 

Ring-tailed lemurs in Madagascar

A ring-tailed lemur and its baby are endangered primates that can only be found in the wild in southern Madagascar. 

Chimps in Africa

An endangered chimpanzee in Budongo Forest, Uganda. Chimpanzees are threatened by habitat loss and poaching. 

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science .

Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for WCS, the first woman to hold the position since the society's founding in 1895. In addition to documenting her field visits, Maher photographs the animals at WCS's five New York-based wildlife parks: the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. Dan Rosen is managing editor of digital programming for the Wildlife Conservation Society. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Winter wildlife watching is at its best and most beautiful when temperatures fall, bringing snow. 

Big cats like Amur tigers and snow leopards are well-adapted to the cold. They are specially winterized, with coats that become more soft and dense with the change in weather. Large paws covered in extra fur help them cross ground that's carpeted in snow. Snowy owls and Reeves's pheasants tolerate both hot and cold weather. Thick feathers insulate them from harsh conditions. Fowl — like ducks, geese and swans — wear their brightest plumage during the winter months. Other birds boast white feathers that are the color of the season, which serve as camouflage in snowy environments. Coyotes and bears revel in freshly fallen snow. Their tracks, trails and tunnels are all signs of the winter ways of wildlife.

The Wildlife Conservation Society's goal is to conserve the world's largest wild places, focusing in 15 priority regions that are home to more than 50 percent of the world's biodiversity. Many animals from around the globe live at WCS's five wildlife parks in New York, in all the seasons, including winter. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher/Copyright WCS)

Snow Leopard

There's something magical about snow leopards. WCS's legendary conservationist George Schaller hints at it in his book, "Stones of Silence," when he describes a memorable encounter in the hills of Pakistan in the 1970s. While hiking, he spotted the big cat roughly 150 feet away. "Though snow soon capped her head and shoulders," he wrote, "she remained, silent and still, seemingly impervious to the elements. Wisps of clouds swirled around, transforming her into a ghost creature, part myth and part reality."

Snowy Owl

Not surprisingly, given its name, the snowy owl is well-adapted to wintry conditions . It's known to summer far north of the Arctic Circle. And unlike most owls, which hunt at night, the snowy owl is active during the day — a necessary adaption in a place where the sun sometimes doesn't go down at all. Come winter, the bird moves south, occasionally as far as the southern United States.

Brown Bears

In the wild, these bears hibernate in winter. They'll often set up a den — perhaps along a sheltered slope, under a large rock or between the roots of a large tree — and return to it each year. Female grizzlies typically give birth to two cubs in January or February. The newborns are blind, hairless and tiny, weighing less than a lb. They stay in the safe surroundings of the den until springtime, by which time they've grown to about 20 lbs. 

White-naped Crane

Tall and regal, white-naped cranes are migratory birds found in Russia, China, Mongolia, and North and South Korea. They are considered a conservation priority for WCS's program in Mongolia, where the birds face serious threats that include agricultural development and habitat loss through the drying of wetlands due to climate change.

Amur Tiger

Earlier this year, word spread online about Zolushka, an orphaned Amur tiger that was nursed back to health by conservationists in Russia before being returned to the wild. Thanks to photographs from camera traps in the field, we now know she has two cubs of her own. This is particularly welcome news, because there are only some 350 to 400 Amur tigers left in the wild, almost exclusively in the Russian Far East, where they endure cold winters. Researchers have identified the distribution of prey species as the most important factor in determining the tigers' geographic distribution.

Snow Monkey

Next to humans, no primate lives as far north as these animals do in Japan. They endure the cold, snowy winters by soaking in natural hot springs, and they take refuge from the summer heat by plunging into cold pools. Also a bit like humans, they're social. They live in big troops, averaging 40 to 200 individuals, can make up to 30 vocalizations, and use body and facial expressions.

African Lion

Normally associated with the warm weather of the African savanna, our Bronx Zoo lions also enjoy an occasional romp during a snowfall. Male lions grow a thick frame of hair around their heads called a mane that begins in "Mohawk" style, like those of these two juveniles.

Coyote

Coyotes can live year-round in places with changing seasons. Their tracks can be seen in the snow near their woodland homes. These canids mate for life and females give birth as winter ends. Litters ranging from four to six pups are born in dens, where they stay until they are about seven weeks old.

Red Panda

Primarily a bamboo eater, this charismatic mammal is covered in fur the color of cinnamon, which keeps it warm in cooler climates. Found in parts of Asia, red pandas are losing ground due to their specific habitat needs for their food staple, bamboo, that grows in areas becoming more and more disturbed by human activity.

Reeves's Pheasant

Males of this large pheasant species are stunning in the snow. At nearly 8 feet, they have the longest tail feathers of any bird. Their elegant feathers were once coveted for costume decoration, but now these birds' main threat is the continued deforestation that is fragmenting their habitat.

See more of Julie's conservation photos and stories on Wild View, and learn more about the animal kingdom at Wildcards.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Jon Beckmann is a conservation scientist for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) North America Program. He contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

In the 2015 film "The Revenant," one of the most dramatic scenes pits frontiersman Hugh Glass in a harrowing effort to ward off an attacking grizzly bear — a battle that helped Leonardo DiCaprio win the Oscar for Best Actor. The film, set in the Northern Rockies of the American West two centuries ago, harkens back to a time when grizzlies numbered close to 100,000 in the mountains and plains of the western United States — and when the hunting of grizzlies began to accelerate. 

It was precisely such removals, driven by fear of attacks on livestock and people, coupled with the destruction of grizzly habitat, that led to the decimation of this iconic animal over the next century. By the early 1970s, the bears' numbers had plummeted to roughly 1,000 animals in the continental U.S., where they occupied just 2 percent of their former range. 

Predators as prey?

Of the five or six small grizzly populations in the United States in 1975, the one in and around Yellowstone National Park was the smallest, with approximately 136 bears.

In response, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) set out to protect the grizzly by listing it under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In the subsequent four decades, grizzly bears have made population comebacks in the Yellowstone area, so the agency recently announced its intention to de-list the animals in that region. The proposal has sparked a debate over whether it may be time for grizzles to be hunted again. [Photo Confirms First Grizzly Bear Spotting in 15 Years ]

For me, that debate is a familiar one. In my career as an ecologist, I have sought to ensure that carnivore species like bears, jaguars and mountain lions can maintain viable populations in the American West — a region that continues to be heavily influenced by human activity. Striking a balance between the needs of people and those of these large, wide-ranging — and, at times, dangerous — animals can be challenging.

Addressing the hunting question requires knowing whether grizzlies are sufficiently numerous to fulfill their ecological role in the region. Their impact on prey species — and their roles in foraging, scavenging and seed dispersing — are part of a complex set of interactions. Removing bears too quickly would alter the local ecosystem. At the same time, we must consider these carnivores' potential threat to ranchers' livestock and livelihoods.

There must be a willingness to consider differing viewpoints during these decision-making processes. All sides of the debate must be willing to compromise, and all dogmatic views — e.g., all carnivore populations should be hunted; no carnivore population should ever be hunted — must be checked at the door. 

The bear hunts — lessons learned

The debate about the status of grizzly bears in the Northern Rockies closely resembles another disagreement over black bears in Nevada. The state approved its first-ever bear hunt in 2011 in response to two decades of data I had collected with colleagues from the Nevada Department of Wildlife documenting how bear numbers had increased due to conservation efforts.

Key factors in that success were restoration of bear habitat and the increased use of "bear-proof" garbage cans and dumpsters, which help to reduce the number of interactions between people and bears looking for food. Fewer conflicts with people lowered bears' mortality rates. 

Today, thanks to a science-based decision-making process, Nevada stakeholders — from hunters and ranchers to the larger agricultural community and environmentalists — determine together how to manage and live with this species. The recovery success of bears in Nevada could inform efforts with grizzlies and wolves in places like Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.

Hunting bans are not the answer

A complete hunting ban on previously protected grizzly bears (or any large carnivore, for that matter) disenfranchises hunters, who have contributed much to conservation over the past century. A more useful approach is to find a consensus on how many of these bears we ought to sustain — and where — based on rigorous, peer-reviewed science.

Upon de-listing grizzlies, decision makers must be sure the bears have recovered both in absolute numbers and in terms of the connectedness of regional populations before the animals are hunted. Bears in Yellowstone must be linked to bears in southwest Montana and central Idaho as one "metapopulation" in order to maintain genetic diversity and other important dynamics. Doing so requires establishing bear populations in central Idaho and southwest Montana. [Photos of Grizzlies & Black Bears Crossing the Highway ]

However, this cannot happen successfully if conservationists do not acknowledge that the USFWS-prescribed recovery criteria for de-listing this species under the Endangered Species Act have now been met. 

For grizzly bears, management in the near future will revert to state authority. As the bears continue to meet the de-listing criteria, hunting can, and should, be part of the equation once connectivity among populations is established.

Communities will need to explore how to live with big predators to reduce conflicts through co-existence efforts rather than debating simply whether to hunt them. State governments working with local communities will also need to decide which areas in a given landscape should not contain grizzlies — a determination that has been poorly made in the past, if at all.

A sustained recovery of grizzlies requires adequate funding for state and federal agencies. If managed properly, these magnificent animals can avoid sliding back onto the endangered species list. And as grizzly bears continue to thrive, their story, and our story, can be less of a device for Hollywood storytelling and more of a model for how to recover large carnivores across the globe. 

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Stephen Sautner is WCS executive director of communications; Max Pulsinelli is director of communications for WCS's zoos and aquarium; Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for the WCS and the first woman to hold the position since the society's founding in 1895. In addition to documenting conservation work in some of WCS' 500 field programs in 60 countries around the world, Maher photographs animals and events at WCS' five New York-based wildlife parks: the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Each year, the Wildlife Conservation Society — which protects wildlife and habitats in nearly 60 nations and the world's oceans — compiles a list of its favorite wildlife images out of the literally thousands our scientists capture from camera traps and field work. Then, we add the best images from our flagship Bronx Zoo, where we're headquartered, with images coming from staff photographer Julie Larsen Maher (whose Live Science photo essays have featured animals from spiders to hippos).

Our favorite wildlife photos for 2015 come from far-flung corners of the planet, such as the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan, home of the elusive snow leopard, and Bolivia's Madidi National Park, where a new species of frog was discovered earlier this year. The zoo images are our picks for the best shots representing new animals, notable animal births and exhibit openings.

A serious "cute" factor is well-represented, from a baby gorilla riding mom's back to an adorable baby porcupine from the Bronx Zoo's newly renovated Children's Zoo. Together, all of the images represent the incredible, often beautiful, and diverse wildlife found throughout the planet — and underscore the need to protect them.

You can see the 2015 WCS favorite images below, and some of our top galleries for Live Science in Elusive Siberian Tigers Captured in Brilliant Images, Bad-Rap Bats in Danger of Extinction Around the World and 8 Baby Turtles and Tortoises: Cute, and Critically Endangered.

From the zoo

Prickly pup

This North American porcupine pup was born at the Bronx Zoo's Children's Zoo shortly after it reopened after undergoing extensive renovations. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS)

Stand-ins save a life

A pair of lesser adjutant storks served as surrogate parents to a chick hatched from an abandoned egg. This pair raised the chick along with one of their own. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS)

A teaching moment

An Asian small-clawed otter alongside a pup born at the Bronx Zoo's JungleWorld in the summer of 2015. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS)

Colorful spectacle

A scarlet macaw flies over Astor Court in front of the Bronx Zoo's historic Zoo Center during a free-flight bird show. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS)

Baby-time

An adult female gelada baboon carries her baby on her back in the Bronx Zoo's Baboon Reserve. This was the first gelada born at the Bronx Zoo in 13 years. The Bronx Zoo is the only zoo in the U.S. to exhibit the species. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS)

Home in the cold

The Bronx Zoo's Aquatic Bird House is home to a colony of little blue penguins. This was a new species for the zoo in 2015. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS)

Piggy-backing it

The Bronx Zoo welcomed two baby western lowland gorillas in 2015. This youngster is content to hitch a ride on his mom's back. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS)

A mother's love

An adult female western lowland gorilla holds her baby in Congo Gorilla Forest. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS)

Cuteness overload

Squirrel monkeys at the newly renovated Bronx Zoo's Children's Zoo. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS)

Welcome to the family

This giant anteater is one of the new species added to the Children's Zoo in 2015. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS)

In the wild

Cute and tiny

A Fito leaf chameleon, one of many species found exclusively on the island of Madagascar. (Credit: Felx Ratelolahy/WCS)

Timid and adorable

A shy-looking Asian elephant caught by a camera trap in Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary in Thailand. (Credit: Dept. of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation and WCS Thailand Program)

Unexpected company

In Shimla District, Himachal Pradesh, India, this leopard is a regular backyard visitor. (Credit: WCS-India/Himachal Pradesh Forest Department)

Scratching an itch

A snow leopard rubs up for a great camera-trap pic in the Hindu Kush Mountains in the Wakhan Corridor of Badakhshan Province. (Credit: WCS Afghanistan)

Saying hello

A lowland tapir camera-trapped by WCS Ecuador, from Arajuno and Villano, in the Amazon. (Credit: WCS Ecuador Program)

Chillin' out

A puma relaxing on the ground in the Ecuadorian Amazon. (Credit: WCS Ecuador Program)

Taking a walk

A giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus) captured by a camera trap in the Ecuadorian Amazon. (Credit: WCS Ecuador Program)

Catnapping

A jaguar rests in a treetop in the flooded forest of Brazil's Mamiraua Sustainable Reserve. (Credit: Carlos Durican/WCS Brazil)

Taking care of their own

A WCS scientist surveys coral reefs in Madagascar's first community-led Marine Protected Areas near Nosy Be. (Credit: Emily Darling/WCS)

Joining the family

Not just any old frog, this is a new species discovered this year during WCS's Identidad Madidi expedition. (Credit: Mileniusz Spanowicz WCS)

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and the first woman to hold the position since the society's founding in 1895. In addition to documenting conservation work in some of WCS' 500 field programs in 60 countries around the world, Maher photographs animals and events at WCS' five New York-based wildlife parks: the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. The author contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

With a name derived from the Greek words for "river horse," hippopotamuses are semiaquatic herbivores that live their lives in water, except for evening rituals when they follow well-worn paths up riverbanks to feeding grounds. 

Low-slung with big bellies, hippos appear awkward on land , but they are fast runners for their size (more than 9,000 pounds for some adult males) and can cover great distances when defending their territory or searching for food. Male hippos regularly take over a length of riverbank to establish mating territory. Sometimes, these squatting rights result in fierce battles, during which the males bellow loudly and bare their huge canine teeth.

Despite their reputation for bad tempers, hippos are not their own worst enemies. Because of illegal and unregulated hunting for hippo meat and teeth (a source of ivory for export), hippos now have a "vulnerable" status on the Red List of threatened species maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Eastern African countries — including Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia — are among the few remaining strongholds for the world's third-largest land mammal.

Hippos rely on freshwater habitats, which puts the animals at odds with humans, who have growing needs for the same. More and more land is being cleared for people to plant crops like cotton and tobacco, creating runoff downriver that silts up rivers and shrinks waterholes for Africa's remaining hippo population. In southern Tanzania, hippos have problems finding freshwater. The Great Ruaha, which drains into the Indian Ocean and was once a vast and permanent river, has been slowly drying up inside Ruaha National Park due to large-scale rice-irrigation schemes upstream. The situation has grown so bad that the river now stops completely for several months a year, during which time the hippos are seriously threatened.

"We are working with national parks and local communities to try and minimize impacts from illegal water withdrawal," said Wildlife Conservation Society Tanzania Country Director Tim Davenport. "Meanwhile, we are monitoring the hundreds of hippos that live there to try to ensure that they survive until the Great Ruaha flows all year round once more." (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS)

Unexpectedly agile

Hippos are mobile in water and spend most of the day in rivers and muddy pools to keep their skin moist and cool.

Best of both worlds

Hippos are amphibious mammals that spend their days in the water and nights on land, where they graze on grass.

Home sweet home

Hippos are territorial creatures and can be aggressive when defending their space.

Showing out

Hippos live in social groups in rivers, where occasional conflicts are often settled with a threat display that looks like a yawn.

Useful design

A hippo's eyes are located near the top of its head, allowing the animal to see just above the water when it is submerged.

Social ties and protection

Young hippos are called calves and join schools, or groups, of hippos soon after they are born. The schools provide protection from predators.

Night owls...

Hippos are active after sunset. Some leave the rivers to feed, while others stay behind in the water, exchanging places throughout the night.

Leisure and comfort

Hippos can be found basking on the banks of rivers but stay close to the water to take a swim and cool off from the hot sun.

Family bonds

Hippo babies, called calves, weigh around 100 lbs. (45 kilograms) at birth. They stay close to their mothers in and out of the river for protection against crocodiles and other predators. 

Disputes and threats

Freshwater habitat is essential to hippos' daily activities. Growing conflicts with humans who use water for agriculture are putting pressure on hippo populations.

Fighting for love

Male hippos fight for breeding rights in aggressive battles that can leave scars from the animals' long canine teeth.

Little helpers

Oxpeckers can be found sitting on the heads and bodies of hippos, where the birds spend time cleaning parasites from the hippos' skin.

Creatures of few words

Hippos make loud grunts and bellows in the water and on the banks both day and night. These are the only known calls by amphibious mammals.

Threatened home

Habitat loss due to agriculture and human development threaten hippo homes in places like the Great Ruaha River in Tanzania.

See More of Julie's work on the WCS Wild View photo blog. 

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Claire Runge is a postdoctoral scholar at the National Centre for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis (NCEAS) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, previously at the University of Queensland; James Watson is director of science and research with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and an associate professor at the University of Queensland; Richard Fuller is an associate professor at the University of Queensland. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

In one of the most amazing wildlife spectacles on the planet, millions of birds migrate each year between their breeding and wintering grounds, undertaking journeys that are remarkable feats of navigation, yet incredibly dangerous. 

Migrations can span vast distances, such as the bar-tailed godwit's single flight of nearly 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers), or the Arctic terns, which over the course of their lifetimes travel the same distance as going to the moon and back — three times. Some of them return year after year to the same location, navigating across a planet now vastly changed by humans.

Lost landmarks, lost migrations

Protecting these magical journeys is increasingly challenging in the face of rampant habitat loss around the world. Each year, more and more birds return to former breeding sites only to find concrete, houses, roads and farms. Key stopover sites, where birds rest and refuel on their journey, are increasingly being lost. 

It has long been argued that one of the best ways to protect migratory birds is to put aside land in protected areas. Yet in a study published recently in Science, we revealed that more than 90 percent of migratory species are missing adequate protection in one or more of their seasonal ranges. 

Bit by bit, the planet is losing the places that migrating birds need to make their annual journeys . 

More than half of all migratory birds across the world have declined during the last 30 years. For example, the cerulean warbler is a tiny sky-blue bird that migrates annually from the eastern United States to Colombia and Venezuela. The mature forest this bird relies on at either end of its journey has been largely converted to agriculture and urbanization, and the species has declined by more than 80 percent in the past four decades, according to BirdLife International.

Without protection across their breeding grounds, wintering grounds and the migration corridors in between, birds are highly vulnerable to threats such as vegetation clearing, hunting and pollution. As ecological damage continues to expand across the globe, migratory birds are losing crucial links in the chain of sites on which they rely. 

For example, loss of coastal habitats in a small area of the Yellow Sea has driven large declines in millions of migratory shorebirds that migrate between the Arctic and Australia each year.

No single country can solve this

The efforts of any single country to protect migratory birds can be futile if the birds remain unprotected elsewhere along their migratory route. Germany's protected areas adequately protect 98 percent of the migratory bird species within its borders, but fewer than 13 percent of those species have sufficient cover along their entire migration. 

This is not a case of wealthy nations losing natural heritage to poor nations. Case in point: In the Western hemisphere, many Central American countries with low gross domestic product (GDP) have sufficient protected areas for more than 75 percent of their migratory species, but these species are less protected in Canada and the United States.

Global cooperation is critical for conserving migratory species. A number of international agreements are in place to protect biodiversity, including specific arrangements for migratory species, but our analyses show there is a long way to go. We found that rather than being located in the best places to connect the gaps for migratory species, the placement of protected areas across the globe is no better than random. International agreements, like the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species, have yet to show signs of progress in guiding the placement of protected areas for migratory species. 

Safeguarding the world's migratory birds will require much more imaginative use of international mechanisms to create new protected areas and improve the management of those that already exist. Countries will need to develop and strengthen agreements and mechanisms to allow transfer of resources (both in terms of funding and transfer of scientific knowledge and skills) between nations, across flyways.

There is still time

Despite our findings, there is hope. Right now, countries around the world are working to increase the extent of their protected areas to fulfill commitments they made in 2010, when leaders from around the world met in Aichi, Japan, at the 10th Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Conference of the Parties, to set conservation-protected-area targets for the next decade. This global push to expand protected areas is our best chance to fill in the gaps for migratory birds and there have been some signs of progress. 

The Bahamas recently announced new protected areas spanning more than 7 million acres. This is vital habitat for many migratory birds including the largest congregation of the endangered piping plover outside the United States. Portugal recently announced protection of key seabird habitat, a vital step in conserving the critically endangered Balearic shearwater, Europe's rarest seabird. Nations need to make sure future protected areas are established in the right places to fill in the gaps we have discovered for migratory birds. 

However, much more remains to be done. Nations must (i) create new protected areas and locate them at the most important sites for migratory birds, (ii) improve the management of those protected areas that already exist, and (iii) coordinate conservation actions across international borders to maximize efforts. 

Governments have already made substantial commitments to increase the extent of protected areas by 2020 through the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi Targets. They must fulfill these promises and ensure that they do so in the most effective ways for conserving species. Increased international cooperation is essential, as is strategic science that can provide information on what places are "bottlenecks" for individual migrant species.

Without urgent action to strengthen coordination between countries, many migratory species will continue to dramatically decline and the incredible migratory journeys that have sustained fantastically evolved bird populations and amazed people for generations could be lost forever.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on ;Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Avi Shuter is a wild-animal keeper at the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) Bronx Zoo Herpetology Department. Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for WCS. In addition to documenting WCS field work, Maher photographs the animals at WCS's five New York-based wildlife parks: the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. 

Turtles have been around for nearly 200 million years. They watched the dinosaurs go extinct and saw human beings take their place. But today, many turtle species are threatened with their own demise: More than half of the world's approximately 341 species of freshwater turtles and tortoises are on the brink of extinction. Some species have even become "functionally extinct," which means that though there may be some individuals left in the wild, the population is too small to be self-sustaining. 

The factors contributing to these declines are numerous and span the globe: pollution, hunting, habitat destruction and overcollection for the pet trade. In addition, wildlife trafficking is causing the eradication of more and more species worldwide. Much of the world's turtle trade is driven by demand from China, specifically for human consumption and for use in traditional medicines.

As part of WCS's commitment to help threatened turtles and tortoises , the Bronx Zoo's Department of Herpetology houses 12 of the 40 most endangered turtles and tortoises in the world. All of them are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. Some species are part of coordinated breeding efforts resulting in successful hatchings of turtles and tortoises, some no larger than a quarter. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Chinese Yellow-headed Box Turtle Hatchling

Chinese yellow-headed box turtles were once plentiful in the highlands of the Anhui province of eastern China. Their population collapsed due to human consumption, use in traditional medicine, pollution, habitat loss and the pet trade. When these turtles hatch they are tiny, weighing about 10 grams.

Egyptian Tortoise

Egyptian tortoises have disappeared from their namesake nation due to loss of habitat and collection for the pet trade. This is the second-smallest species of tortoise in the world, and they do not reach sexual maturity until they are 10 to 20 years old.

Golden Coin Turtle Hatchling

The golden coin turtle eats a more varied diet than its cousin, the Chinese yellow-headed box turtle. It eats vegetation, small insects, arthropods and fish. 

McCord's Box Turtle

The natural range of the McCord's box turtle is mostly undiscovered. The species is predominantly known from its availability in Chinese markets. 

Mary River Turtle

Mary River turtles are endangered, short-necked turtles with a remarkable adaptation: They perform "cloacal breathing." In most species, the cloaca (or the turtle's "back side") is the posterior opening that serves as the only orifice for waste and reproduction. However, the Mary River turtle can also use its cloaca to absorb oxygen directly from water.

Roti Island Snake-necked Turtle Hatchling

Roti Island snake-necked turtles live in the swamps and lakes found on the tiny island of Roti in Indonesia. Their necks fold sideways rather than straight back when they pull into their shells. These turtles have been over-collected for the pet trade and are critically endangered.

Radiated Tortoise Hatchling

Madagascar's radiated tortoises have all but disappeared from their island home due to habitat loss, hunting for their meat, and collection for the pet trade. The females lay from three to 12 eggs, which resemble Ping-Pong balls. The hatchlings have beautiful, roundish shells and, at 1.5 inches, are miniature versions of their 35-pound parents. [Shell Shock: 25 Turtle Species in Terrible Trouble]

Sulawesi Forest Turtle

Sulawesi forest turtles are critically endangered.

Sulawesi Forest Turtle

Trade in East Asia markets has decimated their population, which is found only on the remote Indonesian island that gives this turtle its name.

Read more stories on turtles, tortoises and other wildlife in Wild View by Avishai Shuter and Julie Larsen Maher.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Ricardo Antunes is a conservation biologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). He has extensive field experience studying marine mammals across the globe. Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for WCS, the first woman to hold the position since the society's founding in 1895. In addition to documenting her field visits, Maher photographs the animals at WCS’s five New York-based wildlife parks: the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Bats are misunderstood mammals.

Vampire folklore tells of winged creatures with fangs that prey on the living for their blood under the veil of darkness. While it is true that some bats live in caves, come out at dusk and drink blood, they are vital to our ecosystems. As their numbers continue to dwindle due to persecution, habitat loss and disease, they need our help — not our superstition.

Bats are classified in the order Chiroptera, derived from the Greek words "cheir" for hand and "pteron," meaning wing. They are further split into two suborders: Megachiroptera, or megabats, and microchiroptera, or microbats. 

Megabats are larger bats (as their name implies) and their diet consists of fruit and pollen. These fruit-eating bats travel long distances in search of food, feeding in one place and then spreading seeds in another through their droppings — contributing in this way to the regrowth of rainforests. Megabats also play an important role in pollinating many types of fruit plants. They work the pollinator shift at dawn and dusk — a role that insects and birds hold during the day.

Microbats eat a wide variety of things, including fish, insects and blood. Each species usually specializes in one dining option from that menu. These smaller bats play an important role in eliminating harmful pests that would otherwise need to be controlled by pesticides. They are adapted to living at night and use echolocation to "see" in the dark, producing ultrasonic calls and listening to their echoes. This sixth sense is used for orientation and finding prey. 

The world's only flying mammals, bats are the longest-lived for their size, with life spans of up to 40 years. Many of these creatures bear only one young per year. Thus, their populations are slow to recover from losses.

A number of threats have caused the number of bats to plummet. They have become victims of pesticides that are used to control the insects upon which they feed, as over their lifetimes these pollutants build up to harmful levels. Industrial activities like wind farms can cause bat mortality from collisions, especially during migrations, as can the large flame of oil refineries. And bats are susceptible to disease. White-Nose Syndrome (WNS), a fungal disease of hibernating bats that was first discovered in 2006, has had a major impact. The fungus that grows on their noses and other exposed flesh on their bodies is fatal, and can wipe out up to 99 percent of bats in single colony.

Biologists are looking for ways to conserve bats by conducting research to understand their ecological needs. "Bats are facing a major crisis," said Wildlife Conservation Society scientist Heidi Kretser. "Millions are gone, but state public health and wildlife agencies have an opportunity now to work together to communicate a conservation message."

Below is a gallery of bats, showing that they are more adorable than terrifying. (Photos by Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Home sweet home

Rodrigues flying foxes, Pteropus rodricensis, are critically endangered megabats that come from a single place, the island of Rodrigues, in the western Indian Ocean. 

A collective

Ecuadorian sac-winged bats, Balantiopteryx infusca, are microbats ranging from west Ecuador and Colombia. They are endangered due to habitat loss and population fragmentation. They are social bats that live in colonies and feed on insects in the rainforest.

Unjustly charged

Common vampire bats, Desmodus rotundus, are warm-weather microbats from South America that live and hunt in groups. They are cave dwellers, and are persecuted due to an unfounded fear of rabies: They are not major carriers of the disease.

Vulnerable to elements

Rodrigues flying foxes roost in patches of forest and are threatened by weather conditions. Cyclones blow through their landscape, devastating the habitat of these fruit bats.

Skilled hunters

Pale spear-nosed bats, Phyllostomus discolor, are microbats that roost in hollow trees and caves. They are omnivorous and use echolocation to size up objects as potential meals.

Sticking together

Madagascan rousette bats, Rousettus madagascariensis, are megabats that roost in caves in large numbers. 

Checking out the view

Overhunting is causing a decline in the forest homes of Madagascan rousette bats, and in Madagascar they are now in near-threatened conservation status.

Read more in Wild View in the posts including "A Rare Bat Gets a Second Chance" and "Flying Fox of the Forest,” and others by Ricardo Antunes and Julie Larsen Maher.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Jonathan Slaght is projects manager for Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)'s Russia program. Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for WCS, the first woman to hold the position since the society's founding in 1895. In addition to documenting her field visits, Maher photographs the animals at WCS' five New York-based wildlife parks: the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

No one is neutral about owls.

Historically, some cultures have vilified these feathered predators, and some have revered them, making these birds a physical manifestation of what people fear or admire. Silent and hidden by shadow, owls are seen as bad omens or harbingers of death across parts of Africa, the Middle East and among some Native American tribes. But they are also figures of wisdom among most European cultures. The birds are a holy symbol for Hindus, gods for the Ainu peoples of Japan and sacred creatures for the Hopi tribe of the American Southwest. 

Habitat loss and superstition-driven maltreatment have caused some owl numbers around the world to dwindle, but the birds have undergone a renaissance in popular culture — a resurgence largely attributable to a wizard named Harry. And awareness can lead to a softening of stigmas. Owls are sought-after prizes for bird-watchers and wildlife photographers alike. And an innovative association is helping some owls — particularly barn owls — to prosper. 

Growing ranks of farmers view their agricultural fields as a nexus of symbiotic coexistence, a place where owls and humans can live and work together. Globally, from Malaysia to Cyprus to the United States, farmers are incorporating barn owls into comprehensive, nontoxic rodent-control programs. In these programs, called "integrated pest management," farmers install owl nest boxes near or among their crops and let the owls do the rest. A family of barn owls can remove anywhere from 3,000 to 9,000 rodents in a year, an attractive solution for farmers worried about rodent-induced crop damage and disease.

Here, we celebrate some of the adaptations that make owls what they are, the features that cause people to love or fear these evocative birds. 

Designed for stealth

The primary flight feathers of many owl species, like this northern white-faced owl, have "serrated" edges that dissipate the air when an owl flaps its wings. This adaptation reduces turbulence and makes a flying owl very difficult to hear. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS.)

Built for hunting

The facial discs of many owl species, like these spotted owls, channel sound directly to the owl's earholes, working like a built-in microphone parabola. This hyperacute hearing means some owls can hunt in complete darkness, based on sound alone. (Credit: © Jonathan C. Slaght, WCS Russia.)

Disguised by nature

As birds of the treeless tundra and other open spaces, snowy owls cannot rely on vegetative cover to remain hidden when they want to get some rest. Their ivory-white plumage thus serves them well and allows them to rest easy knowing they are nearly invisible. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS.)

Odd defense mechanisms

Burrowing owls, found in the southern United States and much of Central and South America, often occupy holes excavated by prairie dogs or ground squirrels. When threatened by predators, the owls hide in their burrows and emit rattlesnakelike noises, an effective strategy to deter further pursuit. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS.)

In high demand

Barn owls readily breed in nest boxes and can live at high densities. Consequently, farmers increasingly seek out these owls to control rodent populations in agricultural fields. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS.)

Nature's camouflage

Brown and grey plumage coupled with lateral streaking make a roosting barred owl hard to spot. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS.)

Dogged hunters

Eurasian eagle owls, among the world's largest owls and remarkably tenacious predators, hunt a wide range of prey. Records include smaller animals such as rodents and rabbits, but also birds as large as cormorants and eagles. These owls may even hunt young deer. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS.)

Unique among its cousins

Blakiston's fish owls, found in northeast Asia, have adapted to hunt aquatic prey such as salmon. As their primary prey lives underwater, these owls do not need (and do not have) the defined facial discs or silent flight that are common to most other owl species. (Credit: © Jonathan C. Slaght, WCS Russia.)

Elfin and engimatic

The diminutive boreal (or Tengmalm's) owl is scattered at low densities across the coniferous forest belt from Alaska to Ontario, Canada, and Norway to Kamchatka, Russia. Given its secretive nature and the difficult-to-access habitat in which it lives, this is one of the least-studied owls of the Northern Hemisphere. (Credit: © Jonathan C. Slaght, WCS Russia.)

Mini and mysterious

Northern saw-whet owls are small and secretive. These owls are common, but rarely seen, since they hunt for mice and other small mammals at night. During the day, saw-whet owls roost in the dense branches of coniferous trees. The birds' brown-and-white-dotted feathers help to camouflage them in their resting places. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher © WCS.)

Read more in Jonathan Slaght's blog and the WCS Wild View blog posts A Reluctant Participant, Night Owl, Fishing for a Living, and Looking for the Last of the Wild.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Jonathan Slaght is projects manager for Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)'s Russia program. Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for WCS, the first woman to hold the position since the society's founding in 1895. In addition to documenting her field visits, Maher photographs the animals at WCS's five New York-based wildlife parks: the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

This isn't the Siberia you think you know. 

In fact, it's not Siberia at all: In Russia, most territory east of Lake Baikal — that chasm of fresh water in the middle of the country — is the Russian Far East, not Siberia. It's a vast region about twice the size of India, an unfathomable expanse of forest intersected by clean rivers and inhabited by very few people. Indeed, the entire Russian Far East has a human population of just more than six million people — about two million fewer than New York City. 

The southern fringe of this poorly-known and little-visited corner of the globe is one of the most biologically-rich temperate forest zones in the world, an enclave for some of the rarest animals and plants on Earth. 

Here, northern temperate and boreal mammals such as brown bears, Eurasian lynx, and red deer overlap with subtropical species such as Amur tigers, Amur leopards, and Asiatic black bears. Of the nearly seven hundred bird species found in the former Soviet Union, about half occur in the southern Russian Far East. As many as one hundred terrestrial endangered species call this place home, meaning that 30 percent of all endangered species in Russia are concentrated in only one percent of the country's vast territory. Up to 48 of these species (15 percent of all endangered species in Russia) are endemic — they occur nowhere else.

The region's unique assemblage of natural communities, along with the long list of threatened and endangered species  (including many of global significance), make this region of crucial importance to global biodiversity conservation.

Here, we highlight some of the southern Russian Far East's rare, endangered, and unique animals.

Home sweet home

Nearly all of the 500 or so Amur tigers in the wild live in the southern Russian Far East, with a small proportion in neighboring northeast China. (Credit: Photograph Julie Larsen Maher, © WCS.)

Large fowl

Blakiston's fish owls feed mostly on salmon, which are common in the rivers of the southern Russian Far East. These massive, endangered owls live here year-round, enduring sweltering summer heat waves and winter temperatures that dip to -30 degrees Celsius or more. (Credit: Photograph © Jonathan C. Slaght, WCS Russia.)

Highly endangered

With an estimated 60 to 80 animals roaming the forests of the southern Russian Far East and adjacent China, Amur leopards are the most endangered big cat in the world. (Credit: Photograph Julie Larsen Maher © WCS.)

Natural architects

Oriental white storks, an endangered species, build enormous stick nests on trees among the marshy lowlands of the Ussuri and Amur River basins in the southern Russian Far East. (Credit: Photograph © Jonathan C. Slaght, WCS Russia.)

Cliff-dwellers

The largest population of long-tailed goral in the world are found in the southern Russian Far East, where 700 to 900 of these animals use sheer cliffs along the Sea of Japan coast as refuges from predators. Although goat-like in appearance, gorals are more closely related to antelope. (Credit: Photograph courtesy Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve.)

A unique creature

Raccoon dogs are a common species in the Russian Far East with an uncommon trait: they are the only members of the dog family that hibernate in winter. (Credit: Photograph © Jonathan C. Slaght, WCS Russia.)

Big birds

With 10-foot (3-meter) wingspans and weights of up to 25 pounds (11.5 kilograms), cinereous vultures are simply enormous. This largest of the Old-World raptors breeds throughout Central Asia, Mongolia and China — with a small number (usually juveniles) spending their winters along the Sea of Japan coast in the southern Russian Far East. (Credit: Photograph Julie Larsen Maher © WCS.)

Majestic flyer

The Steller's sea eagle is the largest eagle species in the world. It breeds in the northern Russian Far East, but many winter along the Sea of Japan in the southern Russian Far East, where they feed on carcasses of autumn-run salmon. (Credit: Photograph © Jonathan C. Slaght, WCS Russia.)

Cousins

Mandarin ducks, which are closely related to the wood ducks of North America, nest in tree cavities and eat acorns from Mongolian oak trees. (Credit: Photograph © Jonathan C. Slaght, WCS Russia.)

Moon bears

Asiatic black bears, also known as moon bears, live throughout southeast Asia and only barely extend their range into Russia, where they are occasionally hunted by Amur tigers. (Credit: Photograph by Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

A local

Many villagers in the southern Russian Far East rely on the land to supplement their incomes or to survive the long winters. Here, a fisherman hangs sides of salted salmon under his cabin eaves to dry in the winter sun. (Credit: Photograph © Jonathan C. Slaght, WCS Russia.)

Beauty abounds

Lush forests, sandy beaches and emerald waters are not what many people expect to see when they think of Russia. In fact, the southern Russian Far East has greater biodiversity than any other temperate region in the world. (Credit: Photograph © Jonathan C. Slaght, WCS Russia.)

Read more about these animals and Jonathan Slaght's work in a recent interview by Julie Larsen Maher, his Russian Far East blog and WCS's Wild View series.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Emily Darling is an associate conservation scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), where she coordinates a global coral reef monitoring initiative across Kenya, Madagascar, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Indonesia and the Caribbean. For University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she is also leading a global database of reef-building coral communities to evaluate climate refuges on coral reefs. Follow Emily on Twitter at: @EmilySDarling. She contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Coral reefs are some of the most fascinating places on our planet. The colorful and biodiverse tropical ecosystems are home to more than 25 percent of marine species, yet corals face grave threats today from climate change, overfishing, pollution and disease that jeopardize the underwater architecture of reefs — and the fisheries they support. 

Those fisheries are critical to the livelihoods and nutrition of millions of coastal peoples around the world: More than 450 million people live within 37 miles (60 kilometers) of a coral reef and depend on coral need fisheries for food and income that 80 percent of the world's coral reefs are overfished, challenging the sustainability of the fisheries they support, according to the International Coral Reef Alliance Network (ICRAN). 

Diving deeper

For me, pursuing a career as a marine biologist began in a fish market. When I was eight years old, my family lived in Indonesia for a year. Visiting the chaotic, noisy and smelly fish markets, I was fascinated by the silver, blue and green shimmering fishes and the translucent piles of squid and octopus tentacles — they revealed an underwater world hidden from me as a child.

That fascination stayed through my undergraduate research in biology at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, where I took an three-week field course to study coral reef fish on a remote atoll in Belize — and learned how to scuba dive. I learned that overfishing, climate change, pollution, disease and invasive species threaten these ecosystems I could now see during dives in the ocean. Still completely enamored with fish upon graduation in 2005, I was awarded a Jean Royce Fellowship for women in science to learn about managing one threat to coral reefs: overfishing. 

Soon after, I found myself in Kenya on the doorstep of the WCS Coral Reef Conservation Project, where I learned about coral reef fisheries management from conservationist Tim McClanahan. 

Over the next four months, I bumped along coastal roads filled with potholes to interview fishermen and measure the catch they were landing. In the evenings, my colleagues and I would pore over spreadsheets with 10 years of fisheries data collected along the Kenyan coast. When the power went out, which was most nights, we had to resort to working by headlamp. By day, we would sit on the beach for hours as we waited for the fishermen to sail in with the tides. As we waited, my friend and collaborator Christina Hicks taught me Swahili, and about the families that depended on these fish for their livelihoods — and the best way to fry up the catch. 

Later that year, McClanahan, Hicks and I published our first paper together, in which we showed that removing destructive fishing gear (like illegal beach seine nets that damaged corals and caught small, juvenile fish) could rebuild local fisheries. [One Fish, Two Fish, But is It True Fish? (Video )]

Communities of people saving communities of reefs

I have now returned to WCS, contributing to research programs on coral reef fisheries and climate change. Our goal is to strengthen community management of coral reef fisheries in a warming climate, giving local communities the tools to manage their own fisheries sustainably and improve climate resilience. In collaboration with our global partners, we are striving conserve coral reef biodiversity and support sustainable small-scale fisheries and livelihoods. 

It is gratifying to work towards aligning science and resource management with critical human needs. I hope to inspire a new generation of fisheries scientists in the countries where we work, so that young girls might take inspiration from the remarkable biodiversity in their fish markets as I did, and take a dive into the undersea world of marine conservation.

Read more about women in conservation from WCS in the following Live Science articles:

• How Two Women Brought a Sea Change to Conservation (Op-Ed)
• Developing World Boasts Leading Women Conservationists (Op-Ed)
• A Crocodile Hunt, Redefined, in Southeastern Cuba (Op-Ed)
• Stepping Up Conservation in Fiji — in Stilettos (Op-Ed)

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Jane Carter Ingram is director of the Ecosystems Services Program for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Ingram contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The recent encyclical "On Care for Our Common Home" by Pope Francis focused attention on the critical importance of our natural environment. As a response to the environmental crisis, he calls for an economy that favors business creativity and integrated solutions based on the notion that protection of the natural environment is a critical part of economic development and society. 

Similarly, a broad range of leaders in conservation, development, government and business also appreciate the urgent need to find cost-effective ways to protect nature while meeting the needs of a human population that has surpassed seven billion people . 

Nature as a cost-effective water filter

Water filtration is a perfect example. New York City pays landowners in the Catskills watershed to implement land-use practices that benefit water quality for the city downstream and is billions of dollars cheaper. In addition to naturally filtering the Catskills water, similar payment arrangements have helped preserve carbon stocks stored in Madagascar's rainforests, maintained wildlife populations important for tourism in Tanzania, and protected watersheds in France.

Such wide-ranging benefits that nature provides to humanity are called "ecosystem services" and include tangible goods like food, medicine and fuel; "invisible" benefits, such as the regulation of climate, water filtration, flood control, storm protection, pollination and disease control; and cultural benefits like tourism, recreation and spiritual nourishment. 

Payments for ecosystem services (PES), as in the Catskills, can be made by individuals, businesses, nonprofits, or governments and are conditional on the continued delivery of a specific ecosystem service. Collectively, ecosystem services are estimated to be worth over $100 trillion per year. As important benefits like clean air and water have grown scarcer   their value has increased. Paying for nature's services makes a lot of sense, particularly, when nature delivers benefits to society just as effectively — and less expensively — than other alternatives. 

But as investments in nature increase in number and form, it's important that buyers get what they pay for and that nature is protected in the process. To do this, buyers, sellers, and intermediaries must understand the way the natural world functions and delivers benefits to communities, businesses and governments.

And yet, that understanding has been lacking. A group of leading researchers, practitioners, policy makers and investors coordinated by Columbia University and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) recently identified six scientific principles that can guide payments for nature's services. 

The six principles, published in the journal Science, are scientifically robust and practical for a wide range of situations:

1. Understand the dynamics characterizing the ecosystem. For example, if farming practices have a greater impact on water quality, or quantity, than the climate, then payments to improve those practices may be warranted. If climate plays a larger role, then probably not.
2. Document existing conditions before a given investment is made. If there is no such record, it will be impossible to assess if a payment has generated benefits from nature.
3. Monitor changes in an ecosystem throughout an investment period. Many factors may affect an ecosystem and the services it generates throughout time — tracking how those factors change will clarify an investment's impact. 
4. Use metrics that support future decisions. Metrics (standards of measurements) used to assess changes in an ecosystem service should be appropriate for size of the area of interest and the service’s duration, informative with respect to capturing changes in an ecosystem, and compatible with metrics used by existing standards or regulatory agencies. 
5. Identify connections among components within a natural system. For example, planting trees may increase carbon stocks, but could also decrease water availability or biodiversity. Thus, investments may have unintended consequences if ecological linkages are not considered in advance of a project. 
6. Assess the sustainability of an investment relative to how an ecosystem may change through time. Climate or demographic changes could affect land use or water supplies, making the long-term success of a given investment uncertain.

These principles balance scientific rigor with practicality to guide a wide variety of transactions involving ecosystem services. If followed, investments in nature will be less risky and yield better results while protecting critical resources . 

Consensus on these principles from a diverse group of experts — from disciplines including economics, ecology, finance and sociology who have researched and worked extensively on PES — represents an important milestone in the use of these and similar financial mechanisms for achieving social and ecological goals. 

Will they need fine-tuning based on users' feedback? Undoubtedly. Trial and error are a part of all scientific endeavors, but a necessary one when developing principles to guide payments for nature. 

PES mechanisms are being implemented and promoted around the world as a cost-effective way to balance increasing human needs with conservation of ecosystems that provide critical goods and services. 

We have too much to lose — ecologically, socially and financially — to get these mechanisms wrong. Thanks to Pope Francis, we have the moral guidance on how to get these kinds of approaches right, while the six principles will provide the scientific guidance to ensure PES and similar approaches are successful.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

David Oehler is curator of ornithology at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)'s Bronx Zoo. Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for WCS, the first woman to hold the position since the society's founding in 1895. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. 

Penguins are found in the Southern Hemisphere in all shapes and sizes. But today, they are in trouble. They depend on the oceans for food and need coastal areas to nest, rear their young and molt. Sadly, close to two-thirds of the world's 17 penguin species face population pressures from threats like overfishing, oil spills, and man-made changes to the birds' environment. 

Fortunately, there are several things people can do to help protect penguins:

• Review seafood "watch lists" to make sure the seafood you eat is caught or raised in a sustainable manner. Industrial fishing can result in the significant reduction or collapse of fisheries. Through better management of fisheries, creation of marine reserves, and community participation, fish populations and ecosystems can rebound (and are doing so!). Being a responsible consumer is a critical part of this equation; purchasing fish in a manner that prevents further damage to marine environments will have a positive impact on the heath of penguin colonies dependent on these habitats. 
• Large oil spills are lethal to the environment, including penguins, so make sure your activities do not contribute to the problem. Check fuel and oil lines on your boats, on your car and in your home to make sure they are in good condition. And always recycle the old oil from your car's oil changes. Remember, accidental spills of any pollutants remain in the environment and have been shown to accumulate and concentrate in polar regions. 
• Reduce your carbon footprint to slow climate change, a good thing for penguins. Simple acts like properly filling your car tires can reduce carbon emissions and improve your gas mileage by up to 3 percent. Dynamic climate changes produce rapid alterations in the marine environments and within the food chains that are involved. When we take actions to slow these changes (particularly their impact on polar environments), we help penguins to survive.

For more on penguins, see the gallery below.

Diminunitive delights

Consistent with their moniker, "little penguins" are the smallest of the 17 penguin species, at 13 inches (33 centimeters) in height. They are also known as blue penguins due to the indigo sheen of their feathers. They are currently threatened by predators like foxes and dogs, which have been introduced to these penguins' home ranges in Australia and New Zealand. (Credit: © Julie Larsen Maher, WCS.)

Hip hoppers

Rockhoppers sport spiky black and yellow crests of feathers that adorn the tops of their heads. These are among the smallest penguins, at about 22 inches (56 cm) tall. Their numbers have plummeted in the last century as their food supply in South America has become scarce. (Credit: © David Oehler, WCS.)

Consistent cuties

Magellanic penguins return to the same burrows year after year in Argentina, Chile and the Falkland Islands, leaving in the winter. The female lays two eggs, on a nest in the burrow, and both parents take turns incubating them. (Credit: © Julie Larsen Maher, WCS.)

Fluffy fowl

Downy feathers cover newly hatched Magellanic penguin chicks. As a penguin grows and its feathers come in, a juvenile chick will have a combination plumage of both down and adult feathers that resembles a mohawk haircut. (Credit: © Julie Larsen Maher, WCS.)

From down south

Chinstrap penguins are found in Antarctica and the world's other southernmost islands. These birds are distinguished by the feather markings on their heads that look like helmets held in place with a chinstrap, thus the penguins' name. Changing ocean conditions affect their main food source, krill. (Credit: © Julie Larsen Maher, WCS.)

Protected by mom

Recently hatched chinstrap chicks are covered in light-colored down that is not waterproof. Their first month is spent tucked under their parents in nests made of stones. (Credit: © Julie Larsen Maher, WCS.)

Living and loving

Penguins are social animals that live in colonies, like this one of chinstrap penguins. They have complex courtships that include noisy vocalizations. (Credit: © Julie Larsen Maher, WCS.)

Unique specimens

Macaroni penguins are one of six penguin species that have colorful crests of feathers. They are among the penguin species that live farthest south in the sub-Antarctic islands that include South Georgia. (Credit: © David Oehler, WCS.)

Royalty and success

King penguins are the second largest of the penguin species, standing nearly 3 feet (0.9 meters) tall. These king penguins from Chile look to be dressed for success in their formal black and white feathers and distinctive, bright-orange throat feathers. (Credit: © David Oehler, WCS.)

An odd association

The African penguin is also known as the black-footed or jackass penguin. That last alternative name comes from the donkeylike braying sound these birds make. This species is found on the southwestern coast of Africa, from Namibia to South Africa. African penguins grow to 27 inches (69 cm) in height. (Credit: © Julie Larsen Maher, WCS.)

Young and different

African penguin chicks appear darker than the adults and parents in their colonies. It takes several years for the chicks to molt into their adult plumage. (Credit: © Julie Larsen Maher, WCS.)

In addition to documenting field visits, Maher photographs the animals at WCS's five New York-based wildlife parks: the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. Oehler works with all birds and has a special interest in penguins. He conducts conservation work in South America with rockhopper penguins, macaroni and king penguins. The Wildlife Conservation Society protects wildlife and wild places, and continues to explore how to conserve the areas where penguins are found. Penguins live in three of WCS's wildlife parks in New York: the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo and New York Aquarium. Learn about wildlife on the WCS photo blog, Wild View, including more on penguins in several Wild View penguin posts.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

David Oehler is curator of ornithology at the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) Bronx Zoo. Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for WCS, the first woman to hold the position since the society's founding in 1895. In addition to documenting field activities, Maher photographs the animals at WCS' five New York-based wildlife parks: the Bronx Zoo, the Central Park Zoo, the New York Aquarium, the Prospect Park Zoo and the Queens Zoo. Oehler works with all birds and is a member of AZA's Andean Condor SSP Steering Committee, which is participating in the current program to conserve Andean condors. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The image of vultures gliding above, their outstretched wings with fingerlike tips reaching up to capture the rays of the sun, is nothing short of majestic. The 22 species of vultures are large and impressive birds that live on all continents except Antarctica. These birds of prey use their sizable wings, which span from 6 to 10 feet (1.8 to 3 meters), to ride air currents in search of their next meal of carrion. There is no waste when vultures come to feed.

Ancient cultures revered vultures, using their likeness on pottery, textiles and rock paintings, and incorporating them into Egyptian and Hindu religions. While modern societies may view vultures differently, we accept their role in helping to keep the environment clean. 

But these magnificent birds are also persecuted. There are cases of direct slaughter of vultures and mass destruction of their populations. The use of poisons, like the pesticide Carbofuran, continues to cause mortality in wild vulture populations in Africa and Asia. 

At the same time, consumption of veterinary drugs administered to livestock that vultures then scavenge upon can kill them. One such drug, Diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory medicine that benefits livestock but causes kidney failure and death in vultures, is thought to have devastated South Asian vulture populations that once numbered in the millions in the skies over India and Pakistan. 

Richard Cuthbert, Wildlife Conservation Society's Papua New Guinea program country director, has worked on issues surrounding the conservation of vultures for more than a decade and is the lead author of a recently published paper in the journal Oryx. Cuthbert says work by the Bombay Natural History Society and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has demonstrated that the use of Diclofenac to treat cattle in India persists, despite the veterinary ban on its use in India, Nepal and Pakistan in 2006. Moreover, the study shows that another emerging veterinary drug, Nimesulide, is also toxic to vultures in the region, presenting further concerns for this globally threatened group of species.

Society must work toward more stringent control of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and other toxins if the world's vultures are to be saved. Learn about wildlife on the WCS photo blog, Wild View, including the articles "Imperiled Raptor" and "Celebrate Vulture Awareness Day."

See a gallery of vibrant vulture photos below.

Big birds

Known for their 10-foot (3 m) wingspan, Andean condors are among the largest birds in the world. They fly among the high peaks and grassy plains throughout the Andes, Patagonia, and coastal regions of western South America — up to 150 miles (241 kilometers) a day in search of carrion, which they locate primarily by sight. As a result of habitat loss, mortality resulting from preying on poisoned carcasses, collision with power lines and hunting by people who believe the birds attack livestock, Andean condors' numbers are declining, especially in the northern part of their range. WCS is bringing conservationists together from across South America to evaluate the Andean condor distribution and threats, and to prioritize their conservation sites as a first step toward developing a conservation strategy for this flagship species of the Andes. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Better to eat you with...

Vultures have large, strong beaks that help them tear away the hide, flesh and bones of carrion. Veterinary drugs used to treat domestic cattle are killing these birds of prey when they ingest the remains of dead livestock. The use of one such drug, Diclofenac, is a key driver of vultures' decline in Asia. African white-backed vultures, pictured here, are also in decline. Breeding pairs nest high in the tops of large trees across the savannas of Africa. Large numbers of white-backed vultures feed together on a dead animal, often fighting for the best position. Habitat loss and poison have caused their numbers to drop. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Making it home

Nubian, or lappet-faced, vultures are among the largest vulture species and prefer to fly and nest in the dry, thorny bush areas of Africa. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Soaring high above it all

Nubian vultures like to fly solo and perch in scattered trees across the savanna. The decline in their numbers is due to human actions, including habitat disturbance and poisoning of the dead animals they feed upon. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Endangered Species

Across Asia, cinereous vultures are losing ground due to human activities. Some have died from poisoned bait and carcasses harboring Diclofenac, while others have been shot and killed for their feathers, placing the future of this bird of prey in jeopardy. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Extrasensory strengths

With a nearly 6-foot wingspan, turkey vultures are easy to spot as they fly high across North and South America. Turkey vultures use their acute sense of smell to find their next meal. Yet these birds are vulnerable to poisoning from the lead shot left by hunters in the animals they scavenge. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Colors abound

King vultures, with their colorful plumage and bright wattles, live in the tropical lowlands of South America. Their sight is good, but their sense of smell is less refined than that of other vulture species. When it's feeding time, they keep a close watch on their fellow vultures in hopes of being led to a carcass meal. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

People watch out!

A juvenile king vulture is dark in color. The chick's feathers remain brown for about one and a half years until their adult plumage comes in. Their habitat is disappearing across their range in South America due to human activity. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Using the winds

Black vultures find carrion while gliding on the thermals in the skies of southernmost North America and throughout Central and South America. They are social birds and are often found flying and feeding in groups. They are susceptible to toxins and other poisons, like lead, often found in the remains they feed upon. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Origami vulture

A vulture with a 15-inch wingspan, composed in 2009 from one uncut square of Korean Hanji paper by origami artist and mathematician Robert Lang. It's based on "Richard," one of the oldest turkey vultures known to be in captivity, who can be seen (for real) at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum. (Credit: Robert Lang, www.langorigami.com.)

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

David Oehler is curator of ornithology for the WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) at its Bronx Zoo. He contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

During the peak spring migration in May, millions of birds make their way up the U.S. East Coast on the Atlantic Flyway from places as far away as Tierra del Fuego in Chile. As they touch down in the parks of New York City for a rest, the warblers, vireos, thrushes, woodpeckers, ducks and many other birds making the trip ignite the imagination with their beauty and ability to conquer the air.

Grabbing attention for their fantastic variety of sizes, plumage, color, and calls, birds are also critical for scientists: They are ecological indicators of a healthy habitat and can be among the first species to suffer when climate change, habitat loss, chemical or oil pollution, or infectious diseases take root in an ecosystem. Many species of migratory shorebirds are sadly in decline. The wintering wetland habitats of several species have been compromised around the world, shrinking the populations of a range of species, from bar-tailed godwits in Australia to semi-palmated sandpipers in South America. As a result, shorebirds, which travel thousands of miles back and forth every year, are declining more than other species. In fact, there has been a 50 percent drop in long-term migration for 19 U.S. shorebird species since 1974, according to the 2014 State of the Birds Watch List compiled by the North American Bird Conservation Initiative. [Amazing Migration: Photos of Sandhill Cranes ]

Saving species that share the sky

Conservation is becoming more critical. For example, migratory birds that breed in Arctic Alaska are nesting earlier due to snowmelt occurring earlier in the season, according to a 2014 study by WCS and partners from the Audubon Society of Portland; University of Alaska at Fairbanks; and the U.S. Geological Survey, Alaska Science Center. 

Over the course of the nine-year study across four sites in western Arctic Alaska, scientists looked in nearly 2,500 nests of four shorebird species (the semi-palmated sandpiper, pectoral sandpiper, red phalarope and red-necked phalarope) and one songbird, the Lapland longspur. The researchers found the birds' nesting advanced earlier in the year by an average of four to seven days, which could impact breeding and population viability. That's because these birds may be arriving at the incorrect time, missing the peak of their food supply. The nutrient rich arthropods that they need may well be emerging on a separate schedule, leaving the birds less likely to produce viable eggs or properly rear their young.

A future for conservation

While it may seem that distant bird populations are disconnected from our everyday lives, conserving them and learning more about their habitats actually begins in our backyard and in our local parks. 

For example, the Baltimore oriole and ruby-throated hummingbirds can be found nesting in NYC, but travel to Central and South America to survive during the harsh winters.

Environmental awareness starts when we are young, as we hike through parks, explore local streams, take up fishing, or have other experiences with nature to inspire awe (experiences that, alas, are becoming more uncommon with each passing year).

To celebrate the migration and boost awareness about conserving these wanderers , hundreds of bird enthusiasts, from novice to expert, participated in the second annual Bronx Zoo Birdathon on May 9. More than twenty guides from all over New York City helped birders locate and identify nearly 70 native species of birds — ones that either migrate through or live in the area year round — and celebrate the more than 220 living resident bird species at our zoos that serve as ambassadors to the wild habitats that WCS is working hard to conserve. 

Sitting on 265 acres of hardwood forest transected by the Bronx River, New York City's only freshwater river, the Bronx Zoo offers migrating birds diverse habitats and access to water. Those features make it a perfect place for guests to catch a glimpse of the dozens of migratory bird species that stop here on their annual migration north, such as the yellow warbler, Blackburnian warbler, northern waterthrush and the white-rumped sandpiper.

Families participating in the Bronx Zoo Birdathon had the opportunity to build feeders and nest boxes for use in their own backyards. Proceeds from this year’s event will go in part towards conserving the Andean condor, one of the largest birds in the world and the official symbol of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

That said, you don't have to be a New Yorker or wait for our Birdathon to participate in this annual migration ritual.

Attracting birds to your yard

You can transform your backyard into a safe haven for birds and catch more than a glimpse of these long-distance migrating birds. One way is to build a birdhouse. Many birds like the security of nest cavities and will use nest boxes that you install in your yard.  

While many people buy bird feeders to attract birds, you can also plant trumpet vine, raspberries and other fruiting trees to provide for these animals' nutritional needs. Remember that your backyard is valuable natural real-estate.  

Other plantings, such as evergreens, provide shelter from predators to build nests and cover in the wintertime.

And, don't forget that all of us, including birds, need water. Shallow birdbaths provide birds with a clean supply of water that they need every day to drink and keep their feathers in good condition. 

Making your backyard a bird-friendly environment will not only help protect these birds, but also give you and your family hours of enjoyment. 

If you are lucky to live along one of the great flyways of North America, take another glimpse at the birds outside your window. They may have been in South America last month. They may be in Canada two weeks from now. One thing is for certain: wherever you live, the marvels of the springtime birding beckon!

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Scott Silver is director and curator of Animals at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Queens Zoo. Silver is the species survival plan coordinator for Andean bears for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for WCS, the first woman to hold the position since the society's founding in 1895. In addition to field visits, Maher photographs the animals at WCS's five New York-based wildlife parks: the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. She contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

On the forested slopes of the Andes mountain range lives the only bear species in South America: the Andean bear (Tremarctos ornatus). Sometimes called a spectacled bear due to some of the bears having cream-colored facial markings resembling eyeglasses, Andean bears look similar to the black bears of North America, but are not closely related to them at all. In fact, the closest relatives of the Andean bears were probably an extinct North American bear species called the "short-faced" bears. Those bears grew to enormous sizes (as big as 12 feet tall standing on their hind legs), and may have been among the largest land carnivores of their time before they went extinct several thousand years ago.

The Andean bears reach only about 400 pounds or so, and females are even smaller. They are also much less carnivorous than their extinct cousins likely were, subsisting on fruits, flowers, and other vegetation more than the rare meat meal. In the tropical forests where they are found, Andean bears spend a good deal of time in the trees, often building nests in them to sleep overnight. 

Today, Andean bears are found in parts southern Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and northern Argentina. They face major threats from loss of their forest habitats to agriculture, and they are thought to be pests when they raid cornfields, or sometimes take cattle or other farm animals. Mostly shy and intelligent, Andean bears find refuge in the high altitude habitats from which they get their name, often at 5,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level, and occasionally as high as 15,000 feet above sea level. (Images credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

In trouble

While no one is sure how many Andean bears still survive in the wilds of South America, there are only about 50 of these bears in Association of Zoos and Aquariums zoos. 

Unique individuals

Andean bear facial markings are distinctive, and allow researchers to easily identify individual animals. 

Tree-dwellers 

Andean bears climb trees and build nests in them. While most Andean bears have at least some yellowish markings around their face, not all of them result in a "spectacle" pattern. 

Petite ladies

Andean bear females are sometimes only one third the size of the males. 

Varied homes

While most often found in tropical forest habitats, there are some populations of Andean bears that are found in thick desert scrublands as well. 

Easy to identify

About the size and shape of the North American black bear, Andean bears can easily be distinguished from them by their light colored facial markings. 

An endangered species

Andean bear populations in the wild are declining due to habitat loss for agriculture and hunting.

Home above

In zoos, Andean bears spend as much time in the water as the trees. 

Misty environment

In the high altitude Andean homes of these bears, forests often receive moisture through cloudy mists, rather than precipitation. 

Maintaining diversity

To keep captive populations healthy, U.S. and European zoos have exchanged bears to maintain genetic diversity in their populations. 

Bouba

Bouba is a young Andean bear born in France who currently resides at the Queens Zoo in Flushing, New York. 

Nature's store

The dense tropical cloud forests offer both an abundance of food for Andean bears, as well as a refuge from encroaching humans. 

The Queens Zoo has more than 75 species of animals from the Americas including Andean bears, pumas, parrots and bison. Learn about wildlife on the WCS photo blog, Wild View, including more on Andean bears in the post Real Life Teddy Bears.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Aili Kang is director of the China Program for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), where she has worked for 16 years. In 2008, Kang received the Global Young Conservationist Award from the Society of Conservation Biology. Kang contributed this article, as part of a series from WCS on women in conservation, to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The work of conservationists is not limited to field investigations and peer-reviewed papers. Though I'm a trained scientist, social media is my platform, and that platform can have a significant impact on conservation. Web posts in China, paired with government and local community support, are convincing Chinese consumers to avoid the ivory trade, the most devastating threat African elephants face. Despite the thousands of miles separating the continents of Asia and Africa, Chinese chat sites can make a difference for elephants.

China is one of the largest markets for body parts from endangered wildlife, and that market has rapidly increased due to the nation's booming economy. Elephant ivory, often intricately carved, is among the most coveted of those animal products — in large part due to the high social status it has traditionally conferred to its owner. [Crushing the Ivory Trade in China (Photos)]

Because the slaughter of Africa's elephants is taking place far from most Chinese citizens, too many ignore this growing crisis. According to "The Ivory Road Study" published by National Geographic in December 2012, only 44 percent of respondents knew ivory comes from dead elephants, although consumers are more aware of this relative to non-purchasers (but they still buy). More than one-third of all respondents (36 percent) do not know that ivory trading is illegal. 

This factor of geography is compounded by the sanitized and superficial presentation of retail ivory, which is associated with prestige, wealth and beauty. Associating these elements and images with the brutal reality of ivory poaching is challenging.

Ivory only comes from dead elephants

My team from the WCS China Program, along with our Chinese and international partners, have been working collaboratively to dispel such myths — and there are welcome signs that we are making progress. More and more Chinese people are at least talking about elephant poaching. Two years ago, they weren't.

After Chinese officials destroyed six tons of ivory in January 2014, we browsed both Chinese and Western social media sites to gauge the different responses. On U.S. Twitter, people celebrated the government's action. On Chinese social media sites — mainly Sina Weibo, China's hybrid version of Facebook and Twitter, and WeChat, a hybrid of Facebook and WhatsApp — people instead were asking why officials were paying attention to this issue when there are other pressing troubles in the country, like air pollution, water pollution and food security.

Based on feedback from social media channels, we can filter and identify what topics people are concerned about, what people think about elephants and the ivory trade, who can be allies in fighting that trade, and who will need more information for the campaign to make an impact.

Combing the data for leads

Through data analysis, our team can design key messages for different audiences, from people regularly traveling between Africa and China, to people who are interested in art collection, to people who want to contribute to elephant conservation. When I discuss ivory crushes — where governments destroy illegal animal products, literally by crushing them — it's more about marketing and public relations than about scientific discourse.

Strategic partnerships with mainstream and digital media outlets have also assisted us in our efforts to educate citizens in the primary markets for ivory and other endangered animal products: China and the United States. 

WCS's 96 Elephants campaign began in 2013, aiming to bolster the protection of elephants and educate the public about the link between ivory consumption and elephant extinction. Through this campaign, we have had more than 8,000 Chinese sign the "Bring No Ivory Home" pledge. The 96 Elephants campaign has generated close to 235 million exposures through social and traditional media in China.

Finally, we're working with the Chinese Wildlife Conservation Association — a government organization whose mission is "to promote the development of Chinese wildlife conservation," — to develop a mobile-based app called Wildlife Guardian to help Chinese law enforcement officials identify wild animals and products being smuggled into China. The app has strong support from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Management Authority of China, and currently we have introduced it in four out of 23 provinces. 

The app will assist Chinese customs officers in identifying 500 of the most commonly traded species and products in China, from elephant ivory to big-cat claws. 

Evaluations from frontline enforcement users are strongly positive. For example, officers from Guangxi Forestry Police use the app regularly whenever identification of unknown products or species is required, and they have made a number of seizures as a result. Customs authorities in Guangdong have requested that WCS provide regular training for frontline officers on how to use the app, as it is invaluable for rapid and accurate identification of illegal wildlife. And, WCS has established a good relationship with the primary training facility for forest police in China and we are looking at how the Guardian app could become an established element in the national curriculum for Chinese police. [Google Goes Wild: How Off-Road Tech Aids Conservation ]

When it comes to the illegal wildlife trade, we're committed to stopping the killing, stopping the trafficking and stopping the demand. By simultaneously collecting intelligence on the illicit ivory trade and reaching out to Chinese consumers in new ways to educate them on the poaching crisis, we are hopeful we can slow the slaughter of elephants and ensure their survival long into the future. 

Read more about women in conservation in "Will Mobile Labs Finally Halt Killer Frog Fungus? (Op-Ed )" and "Voices of Rare 'Talking' Turtles May Prevent Their Extinction ." Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Josh Chamot, features editor of LiveScience.com, contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

China and the United States are two of the largest markets for ivory and other illegal animal parts, in part because many Chinese consumers don't realize elephants die when ivory is taken. Now, a social media campaign launched by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is spreading word about how ivory kills, and the campaign is gaining strong government support. Read more in Endangered Elephants Could Find Savior in Chinese Chat Sites and see images about the international effort below.

Family first

After a 22-month pregnancy, an African elephant calf is nearly inseparable from its mother. If the calf is a female, it may stay with her for life. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher, Copyright WCS.)

Strong stance

Officials look on during a recent crush of illegal ivory in China. (Credit: Copyright WCS China Program.)

Taking a stand

Through a series of social media mini-campaigns developed in China, more than 8,000 Chinese have taken pictures documenting their pledge to “Bring No Ivory Home” on shouhudaxiang.org. (Credit: ©WCS China.)

Setting a precedent

Ivory crushes also happen in the United States. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken the unprecedented step of pulverizing nearly six tons of elephant ivory stored at the National Wildlife Property Repository in Colorado. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher; Copyright Wildlife Conservation Society.)

Letting the world know

Travelers in Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport take the "Bring No Ivory Home" pledge. (Credit: ©WCS China Program.)

Stand strong

In the first year of WCS's 96 Elephants campaign, one of the accomplishments included the direct protection of elephants in 15 protected areas across Africa, estimated to contain some 45,000 elephants. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Jonathan Slaght is projects manager for WCS's Russia Program. Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the first woman to hold the position since the society's founding in 1895. In addition to field visits, Maher photographs the animals at WCS's five New York-based wildlife parks: the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Siberian tigers buck the trend.

Most people think of tigers as regal beasts creeping through steamy subtropical jungles against the background cacophony of shrieking monkeys and barking deer. But these cats live in the snow-covered lands of the Russian Far East. They are also known as Amur tigers, as there are no tigers in Siberia; Russian tigers live in the Amur River basin, hence Amur tiger, and they hunt deer and boar in oak forests not too different from those in the northeastern United States. And in autumn, these tigers' orange coats blend with the fall colors to render them almost invisible to prying eyes. [Iconic Cats: All 9 Subspecies of Tigers ]

Their camouflage and stealth aren't the only reasons Amur tigers are hard to see: These cats have territories 20 times larger than those of the tigers living in southeast Asia. A single Amur male might have a territory up to 500 square miles (1,295 square kilometers) in size. This is because there are far fewer prey animals in the harsher climate of Russia than in jungles, so tigers have to go much further to find and kill enough prey to survive. So, given their camouflage and their rarity, Amur tigers are almost impossible to see.

The tigers almost went extinct in the wild. Luckily, the concerted efforts of dedicated scientists and far-sighted Soviet officials in the middle of the last century bore fruit, and today Russia is the only tiger-range state to demonstrate a recovery of tiger populations. Hundreds of the cats roam the forests now, where 70 years ago there were only a few dozen.

These images celebrate Amur tigers and their habitat: May these temperate forests of the Russian Far East forever echo with the haunting roars of these incredible animals.

In New York, Amur tigers call the Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo home. They live in Tiger Mountain, where they play a vital role as representatives for their wild relatives.

Fall for Tigers 

With fur the color of a warm fall afternoon, Amur tigers are known for their power and beauty. The black stripes on their coats are unique to each cat. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Tigers of the Temperate Forest

Oak, maple and pine trees peer over a cliff to the Sea of Japan at the Lazovskii Nature Reserve in the southern Russian Far East. The Amur tigers here hunt sika deer, wild boar and even basking harbor seals. (Credit: © Jonathan C. Slaght, WCS Russia.)

A Coat for All Seasons

The colors and patterns of Amur tiger coats allow the animals to blend seamlessly with the surrounding landscape. The fur of these coats is also longer and denser than the coats of other tiger subspecies, which allows the Amurs to endure harsh Russian winters. (Credit: © Jonathan C. Slaght, WCS Russia.)

A Cat That Likes to Swim

Amur tigers enjoy the water, not a common predilection among cats. These tigers swim and splash in bodies of water, sometimes even crossing the wide Amur River that forms the border between the Russian Far East and northeast China. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Raspberry Pass

A fresh snow blankets Malinovii ("Raspberry") Pass on the edge of the Sikhote-Alin Reserve in Primorye, Russia. This reserve is the largest single protected area of Amur tigers in the world. (Credit: © Jonathan C. Slaght, WCS Russia.)

Small Cubs, Big Cats

Amur tiger cubs learn to hunt at about 18 months, and stay with their mothers until reaching age 2 or 3. Amur tigers are among the largest cats in the world. Although cubs are tiny at birth and weigh only a few pounds, adults in the wild weigh between 250 and 500 lbs. (113 to 227 kilograms). (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Chain of Command

Rippling hills of oak dotted with pine in the Sikhote-Alin Reserve mean one thing: excellent wild-boar habitat. These animals survive the winter owing to the abundance of acorns and pine nuts in these forests, and this in turn ensures Amur tiger survival. (Credit: © Jonathan C. Slaght, WCS Russia.)

Let It Snow

Amur tigers paws are large. A male's measures about 5 inches (13 centimeters) across, with extra fur to navigate the snowy slopes of the animal's home. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Follow the Footprints

The tracks of a large male Amur tiger appeared overnight along this logging road in the southern Russian Far East. Given the region's deep snows in winter, tigers often use roads as travel corridors, which exposes them to the risk of vehicle strikes or poaching. (Credit: © Jonathan C. Slaght, WCS Russia.)

Learn more about Amur tigers and other wildlife on the WCS photo blog, Wild View, in the post Looking for the Last of the Wild, and on Jonathan Slaght's tiger blog. 

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) contributed these images to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Spring brings the return of songbirds across the United States, many having migrated from great distances. However, with the changing climate, weather patterns are shifting and causing birds to change their behaviors. Read more in the essay "Songbirds Emerge for Spring, But Is the Timing Off?" by the University of Maryland's Naomi Eide, and see a gallery of American songbirds below courtesy of Julie Maher at the WCS photo blog, Wild View. The blog is celebrating birds with a bird photo contest, and for those local to New York, you can snap those shots with WCS on May 9 at its annual Birdathon at the Bronx Zoo. (Images credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

In a winter wonderland

Cedar waxwings can be seen year round in the northeastern United States. They are social birds that can pluck and eat berries whole. Pigment from the fruit helps produce the birds' red wingtips. Cedar waxwings' black masks and high whistles distinguish them in their woodland home. 

A talkative group

Common grackles are long-legged blackbirds. They congregate in large flocks, regrettably referred to as a "plague," to forage and chatter year round in more than half the United States, ranging from the Midwest to the Northeast. 

Peak-a-boo

American robin chicks poke their heads up from their nest, deftly camouflaged within their surroundings.

Happy day

American robins with their reddish breasts rear chicks that hatch from blue eggs in nests tucked among tree branches, gutters and corners of homes. They are common across the North American continent, and sing a cheery, repeating whistle. Robins typically produce three broods a year.

At attention

Blue jays are easily heard in backyards from the mid-United States and west with their whistles that sometimes sound like a hawk. They love a good acorn and are found near the oak trees that bear them at the forest edge. Their blue crests stand at attention, unless they are feeding.

Talented noise makers

Gray catbirds sing a long song of whistles and tones with some sounding like a cat — and sometimes a frog. They love the east coast of the United States, year round, where they build nests deep inside bushes and shrubs.

Taking a rest

White-breasted nuthatches are small birds that sometimes forage in mixed species flocks, particularly in the winter. The male sings loud songs in late winter and spring and stays with the same female as a pair. Nuthatches will reuse their nest sites from year-to-year throughout their range in North America.

Misunderstood

Eastern bluebirds frequent meadows, nesting in cavities of fence posts and surrounding trees. These familiar blue and rust colored birds chase insects for food on open fields. Male bluebirds are vivid blue above with rusty orange breast and flanks. Females are grayer above and slightly duller orange beneath. While male bluebirds collect nesting material and bring it to the nest site, it is the female that actually performs the construction.

These captions were written with the assistance of David Oehler, curator of ornithology at the Bronx Zoo. 

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

The WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) contributed these images to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

While Earth Day usually comes and goes with calls to recycle and save energy, it's also a reminder that there is much you can do to protect the countless animals that share the planet with us. The WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) — a conservation organization that also runs the Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium and other facilities — contributed these 10 wildlife images along with tips on how you can help these animals every day of the year.

1. Evidence of lives lost

Support ivory bans. How can you save a mighty African elephant? By supporting national and state ivory bans, whether in the United States or across the globe. The legal ivory market provides a front for illegal trade, enabling poaching and ivory trafficking, so banning all domestic ivory sales is the best way to protect elephants from poacher's guns. For More info, visit 96Elephants.org. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS.)

2. Amur Tiger Stamp 

Send a letter using a tiger stamp. On September 20, 2011, the U.S. Postal Service unveiled the Saving Wildlife Stamp, featuring an image of an Amur tiger cub. The extra 10 cents goes directly to wildlife programs including tiger conservation. The program has already raised more than $2.6 million. For more info, visit Tigerstamp.com. (Credit: USPS)

3. Vacations with heart

Be a responsible tourist. As you book your summer vacation, plan to visit a national park in the United States or abroad, such as pictured here in Lao PDR. If traveling internationally, look into how hard the country you will visit is working to protect its wildlife and wild places. For more info, visit the United Nation's World Tourism Association. (Credit: WCS Lao Program.)

4. Smart souvenir shopping

Don't buy illegal wildlife. While you are on that vacation, don't be tempted by cheap (or expensive) souvenirs that may, in fact, be protected wildlife. You'll not only be harming a species, you may get slapped with a fine. Visit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Travel and Trade Page or The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) for more information. (Credit: WCS Indonesia Program.)

5. Animal safety

Prevent bird strikes. Wherever there is a glass window, there is the threat of a bird flying into it and dying. According to the American Bird Conservancy, some 300 million to 1 billion birds die each year from collisions. There are simple you can do to windows to make them more bird-friendly. To learn more, see the American Bird Conservancy flyer on bird collisions. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS.)

6. Pet security

Keep kitty inside. Did you know that Fluffy and his counterparts kill as many as 3.7 billion birds a year in the United States alone? The answer is simple: let's keep kitty inside. For more info, check out this blog by ornithologist Steve Zack. (Credit: Chip Weiskotten/WCS.)

7. Chemical safety

No more microbeads. Used in soaps and cosmetics, plastic microbeads do more than exfoliate: they wind up passing through sewage treatment plants, and then get discharged into waterways where they can kill fish and other marine life. Legislation is underway to ban them in various states and federal waters. To learn more, visit NOAA's page on microbeads. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS.)

8. Reduce, reuse, recycle

Reduce plastic use, save a whale. A recent report published by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) says plastic waste causes $13 billion in damage every year to marine life.  This includes everything from whales getting entangled in discarded fishing nets to endangered sea turtles choking on plastic bags. By reducing the amount of disposable plastics we all consume, we reduce the waste stream — and the risk that these items can wind up in the marine environment. For more info, visit NOAA's marine debris page. (Credit: Salvatore Cerchio/WCS.)

9. Sustainable food sources

Eat sustainable seafood. Before you order that sushi deluxe, consider where it came from. Many species are overfished; some are nearing ecological extinction. Becoming an informed seafood consumer can have a direct impact on reducing demand for overfished species. For more info, visit Seafood Watch.  (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS.)

10. Local stay-cations

Visit an Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) zoo or aquarium. AZA Accredited zoos and aquariums, with more than 3,000 conservation projects worldwide, are one of the largest single sources of conservation funding in the United States, contributing $160 million annually to conservation programs around the world. At WCS's Bronx Zoo (yes, we are biased), the Congo Gorilla Forest has raised more than $12 million for conservation in Central Africa. For more info, check out this speech by WCS CEO Cristián Samper on the role of zoos and conservation. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS.)

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Camila Ferrara is an aquatic turtle specialist with the Brazil Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). This article is the second in a series celebrating the contributions of women to the practice of conservation. Ferrara contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. 

Years ago, in the Brazilian Amazon, I was exposed to a prevalent philosophy for how animals relate to humans, one I did not expect. To the indigenous people I encountered, an animal's primary purpose was to be eaten for food, and many of those people had never considered that such animals could become extinct. That perspective both scared and motivated me. 

I made the decision to move to Manaus in the Amazon, and have since devoted myself to working with science colleagues and local communities to conserve wildlife, especially endangered turtles. Since the time of the Portuguese Empire, Amazonian turtles have been an important source of protein in the Amazon, but due to the uncontrolled consumption of their eggs and meat, turtles are now among the most endangered animals  in the region. 

Turtles that "talk"

Beginning with an investigation of reproductive behavior and sexual selection in red-headed Amazon River turtles (Podocnemis erythrocephala), one of the five most endangered species in the Amazon, I soon followed with research on acoustic communication in giant South American river turtles (Podocnemis expansa). 

In that study, my colleagues and I found that these aquatic turtles use several different kinds of vocal communication. After two years collecting 2,122 vocalizations, I classified 11 categories — all sounds lasting less than one second. [Amazon Turtles 'Talk' to Their Tots ]

We realized the turtles were using the sounds to coordinate social behaviors, such as vocalizations by female turtles calling to newly hatched offspring. Such communication begins as early as the turtles' embryonic stages, about 36 hours before the babies leave their eggs. The study was more than about the sound: This was the first time scientists have identified post-hatchling parental care in turtles.

We also found that hatchlings call to synchronize their births and call their mothers, and adults signal to synchronize their reproductive behavior (to migrate to common nesting and feeding areas). We are developing a growing body of evidence that, for these turtles, sound is essential for exchanging information. 

Can river turtles be saved?

These new findings are now supporting and strengthening conservation models for the river turtles, now considered critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) — these animals face a very high risk of extinction in the wild.

Since 2013, I have worked for WCS Brazil as an aquatic wildlife ecologist, with an emphasis on saving the Podocnemididae family of turtles that I have been studying since my arrival. That family is only native to northern South America, and interestingly, Madagascar, and includes not only the giant South American river turtle and red-headed Amazon river turtle, but also the yellow-spotted Amazon River turtle, the six-tubercled Amazon turtle, and the big-headed sideneck turtle, the most commercialized species in the Amazon. 

The Amazon turtles are a major source of protein for the riverine people and indigenous population, but turtle dishes are also very popular in all the cities of the northern part of Brazil. Because of this rampant consumption, especially in big cities, laws prohibit people from eating turtles. But the demand has not ceased. For example, in the small Amazonian city of Tapauá, the population is around 18,000 people, but in one year the turtle consumption was around 26,000 animals.

Preserving populations

Early in my work in the Amazon, I had the opportunity to develop a turtle conservation project in the Unini River, a tributary of the Rio Negro in Brazil. The project was funded by the Conservation Leadership Programme, a 30-year-old program targeting conservationists at the early stage of their career who are working to protect species globally. In addition to studying the Rio Negro turtles, I worked with youngsters in the region to teach them about environmental education and the importance of conservation. Five years after completing the project, people still remember and understand the unique role of turtles in their environment.

Through turtle population monitoring, beach management and environmental education work in the Abufari Biological Reserve — located in the Purus River, another tributary of the Amazon — my colleagues and I at WCS are now helping protect the largest turtle reproduction area in the Amazonas state. Incorporating an important waterway connecting the western Amazon to Manaus, the reserve hosts nearly 2,000 nesting females annually, a number that has remained steady in the last few years. [Turtle Aid: Species to Save ]

In several protected areas along the nearby Negro River, monitoring involves local residents — their involvement is essential to conservation. We also work on environmental education and training of young people in these protected areas, building upon local traditions.

Through those efforts, we are trying to better understand turtle populations and how they are changing in response to harvest and management, such as protection of beaches and hatchlings. And through outreach, we are trying to shrink the turtle trade — we work with all ages, teaching the importance of biodiversity. 

I'm just beginning my career as a conservationist and scientist, and while it may take years,

one day I hope to see the status of turtle populations in the Amazon tilt from decline to stability, and if we are lucky, expansion. To get there requires more than my work — the next generation of conservationists in the Amazon region will need inspiration, to become more aware of this environment and to have respect for the myriad species here. Without this, conservation cannot continue. 

For more from this series on women conservationists, read Will Mobile Labs Finally Halt Killer Frog Fungus? (Op-Ed ). Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Tracie Seimon is a molecular scientist for the Zoological Health Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). She is based at the Bronx Zoo in New York City. This article is the first in a series celebrating the contributions of women to the practice of conservation. Seimon contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The chytrid fungus is a modern-day scourge of toads, salamanders and frogs around the globe, one of the greatest conservation threats amphibians face. As a waterborne pathogen, the fungus's highly infectious life stage called a zoospore infects amphibian skin, then multiplies. As the disease infects more and more skin cells, the infected animals lose the ability to remain well hydrated and to regulate temperature. Eventually, they lose the ability to breathe. 

Some species are resistant to infection; in others, the death toll in a local population can reach 100 percent. While the total number of affected species is unknown, global studies show the fungus is a major factor in the global decline and extinction of amphibian species, with roughly a third of these species threatened throughout the world. [Freaky Frog Photos: A Kaleidoscope of Colors (Gallery)]

As a molecular scientist, my role is to develop or adopt tests that can discover or detect diseases of conservation concern, like the fungus chytridiomycosis. Based at the Bronx Zoo, I usually diagnose diseases in zoo animals, but I also travel to some of the world's most remote protected areas, with some of the world's greatest biodiversity, to sample and test animals for disease-causing microorganisms. 

Frog swabbing

In my travels abroad with my team — to Rwanda, Peru, Myanmar and Uganda, to name a few — one of the first things I pack is my portable freezer. It may be an unusual item to include in one's luggage, but the thermal extremes in the environments where we work range from hot and buggy lowlands to high mountain ice fields to frigid forests. It is critically important that we protect the samples we collect from those challenging environments so we can ensure reliable test results. So the freezer is a must. 

We also pack three or four 30-gallon (113 liters), hard plastic cases crammed full of plastic tubes, pipettes, hundreds of pairs of rubber gloves, a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machine that replicates and measures DNA, a centrifuge that spins samples at 12,000 revolutions per minute, and — my personal favorite — a rubber frog. I use this frog to train people in proper techniques for swabbing and safely collecting samples from amphibian skin for chytrid testing. 

It's important to keep a full inventory of all of our equipment, about 300 individual items. If one component is missing, the whole trip is in jeopardy. There are no chemical supply stores I can just pop into while in a rainforest or at 17,000 feet (5,200 meters) in the high Andes.

On site, we conduct catch-and-release sampling without harming the frogs. To get a good representative sample from each animal, we run a swab along each arm, leg, both sides of the belly, and the webbing between the toes to collect skin cells that might be infected with the chytrid fungus. Using equipment packed in the mobile laboratory, I can purify the DNA from any microorganism that we collect onto the swabs. 

With our testing, we've documented the fungus (and potentially disease outbreaks and species decline) in Peru's Cordillera Vilcanota, the highest elevation where frogs are known to exist. We've also mapped chytrid distribution, in the absence of noted die-offs, across the Albertine Rift in Africa. 

These results create a better overall view of the range of effects and impact of chytrid fungus within landscapes and across species. In time, our work may guide treatment plans by directing resources to locations where infection most commonly leads to disease or threatens endangered species. 

The inspiration of lost lives

My love for wildlife and biology, and amphibians in particular, started in early childhood. Growing up in Colorado, I was simply fascinated by frogs and salamanders, and would go hunting for them with friends in a small canyon near my neighborhood. Though I didn't know it at the time, this interest would eventually lead me to a career as a wildlife conservation scientist. During my time as a graduate student, I met fellow doctoral student Anton Seimon, who was leading research investigations in the tropical Andes near Cusco, Peru, as part of a broader effort to learn how ecosystems respond to climate change. [The Brutal Art of Extinction (Gallery)]

Anton's team encountered several dead and sick frogs in an alpine watershed during one of those expeditions. Knowing about my deep interest in amphibians and because I was working in a pathology lab at the University of Colorado, Anton asked if I'd be interested in looking at the few specimens they collected. I obliged.

I looked at the microscopic anatomy of the frogs' cells and tissues and discovered that they'd been infected with chytrid. At the time, I was learning of the pathogen's deadly global impact. This inspired me to apply my experience and training as a molecular biologist to the field of wildlife conservation. (Frogs also brought Anton and me together in another way: We're now married and have continued to collaborate on conservation and climate-related research over the past decade.) 

A modern, mobile lab

To further my interests in science and wildlife conservation, I began working in the pathology department of WCS's Zoological Health Program in 2010. Over the past five years, our department developed molecular diagnostic tools for use in zoo animals that aren't typically available in standard, commercial, veterinary diagnostic labs. We also built the mobile lab that we take to the field. 

Why do we need a traveling lab? First, it often takes weeks to months, or even years, to obtain permits to export wildlife samples. Second, diagnostic expertise in wildlife infectious disease is limited in many of the remote places where we work. In the case of chytridiomycosis, at-risk populations of amphibians cannot wait. Being able to bring a laboratory to the field site eliminates that obstacle, speeding up research and analysis. The results we produce are used to document the fungus, and the mortality it causes. 

The lab also provides information our team can use to educate local people and scientists about the infection, its significance, and the need for strict biosecurity measures to prevent movement of the pathogen to new areas or susceptible populations. Our hope is that, in time, our ability to provide rapid testing can be partnered with treatments for the disease as they are developed.

In addition, working on amphibian chytrid fungus in the high Andes in Peru in 2010, I took the mobile lab to Rwanda's Nyungwe Forest, a haven of biodiversity in the heart of Africa. During that trip, my colleagues and I documented the presence of chytrid fungus in the country for the first time. Luckily, infection in that case was not associated with any evidence of disease or death. 

Since then, we have taken the mobile lab to Uganda, Vietnam, the Russian Far East, and twice each to Myanmar and Peru to help build in-country capacity for disease testing and to screen captive animals prior to reintroduction back into the wild. 

Meanwhile, molecular technology continues to benefit from innovations and has become smaller and more portable. In fieldwork alongside glaciers in Peru last month, we field-tested a pocket-size DNA replicator that uses an iPhone as its computer and interface. Just 20 years ago, a similarly capable DNA replicator would have covered an entire tabletop. Perhaps next time you see me at the airport security checkpoint, I'll be carrying much smaller suitcases.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the first woman to hold the position since the society's founding in 1895. In addition to field visits, Maher photographs the animals at WCS's five New York-based wildlife parks: the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. She contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

With eight eyes, eight legs, and a pair of fangs, spiders are among the coolest of the creepy crawlers.

Spider bites can be painful, and sting or itch, and spiders with hair can irritate the skin, if touched, but most spiders are not harmful to humans. Instead, spiders are experts at pest control, as they devour the insects that would otherwise destroy crops and gardens. And they often enjoy a good mosquito before it enjoys us.

There are more than 35,000 species of spiders spinning their silk in most parts of the world. I have had the privilege of meeting just a few. (Images Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Madagascar Orb Weaving Spider

Female Madagascar orb weaving spiders are much larger than the males. Males try to mate with females while they are busy feeding and aren't paying attention to their surroundings. Occasionally, more than one male at a time can be found in a female's web. These spiders prefer the hot and muggy tropical climate in Madagascar. This spider in the wild is missing a leg, which is fairly common and does not stop the spider from spinning a web or killing prey.

Madagascar Orb Weaving Spider in Web

Spinning the strongest web on the island helps Madagascar orb weaving spiders catch their meals of flies, mosquitoes, moths, and even bats and small birds. These spiders can connect their webs to cover huge spaces in undisturbed areas. They wait near the center of their webs to snare their unsuspecting prey.

Goliath Bird-eating Tarantula

Among the world's largest spiders, Goliath bird-eating tarantulas, live up to their moniker in both size and choice of menu items with a leg span of about 11 inches. They capture and eat birds in the South American rain forests they inhabit. Their burrows are often lined with their silk, which extends out of their burrows for some distance and serves as an extension of their senses as they detect vibrations from prey walking across the mat of silk.

Malagasy Green Lynx Spider

Some species of lynx spiders have been associated with plants that have sticky hairs, which they use to help them catch insects since the spiders do not make webs of their own to capture prey. They have excellent vision and can either chase down or ambush their prey. While lynx spiders don't construct a full web, they do lay down drag lines of webbing to keep them connected to plants, as seen in this photograph.

Hermit Spider

Although there are only four species of hermit spiders worldwide, they are very common in human dwellings and show an amazing variation in size and color. After a female hermit spider anchors her web to a tree trunk, a male or two move in with her. Males are smaller than the females and do not build their own webs, often lacking the organ to produce the sticky silk they would need to build an effective one.

Tarantula

Large and hairy, tarantulas are often the stuff of nightmares. Their bite is not as tough as their reputation — it can hurt, but is harmless to humans. Perhaps more worrisome are the defensive hairs they have on their abdomen, called urticating hairs. These hairs are barbed, and the tarantula can use its hind legs to kick them off and into the air. These small hairs can cause uncomfortable rashes when they land on the skin and can do real harm if they make it into the eyes. Insects are the tarantula's main prey, but they also eat small reptiles, mammals and birds. 

Red kneed Tarantula

Found in burrows in semi-desert areas of the southwest United States and Mexico, red kneed tarantulas are a long-lived species — up to 30 years. They don't spin a web, but instead wait for their prey (small birds, mammals and reptiles) to fall into their lair.  Red kneed tarantulas are one of the few terrestrial invertebrates for which zoos are developing a cooperative breeding program. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Cameroon Red Tarantula

Also known as the Cameroon baboon spider, the reclusive Cameroon red tarantula uses an underground system of tunnels and burrows for shelter. Underneath its "bangs" is a pair of fangs. Social spiders are very rare, and almost nonexistent in the tarantulas. However, it has been reported that spiderlings of this species will remain and co-habitate with their mother in the maternal burrow and share food as juveniles.

Florida Orb Weaving Spider

Like their cousins from Madagascar, Florida orb weaving spiders prefer warmer temperatures. Their shapely legs are jointed and perfect for weaving webs. The bushy segments on the spiders' legs are called gaiters, and are signs of juvenile spiders, with the adults losing them in later stages. With a spider this large living in the tropics, keeping cool is a big issue. Studies have found that the spiders will orient themselves so that the tip of the abdomen is facing the sun, thus reducing the amount of radiant heat that the spider is exposed to. The spider will also "sweat" by expelling water through its fangs to help with evaporative cooling.

The captions were written with entomologist Craig Gibbs, assistant curator of Queens Zoo. For more animal photos and stories, check out the Wildlife Conservation Society's photo blog, Wild View, including the posts Creepy Crawlers and Sealed with a Hiss.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the first woman to hold the position since the society's founding in 1895. In addition to field visits. Maher photographs the animals at WCS's five New York-based wildlife parks: the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. She contributed this article to Live Science's& Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Camera-trap photos can transport you to wild scenes you would likely otherwise miss. In celebration of that tool, the Wildlife Conservation Society’s photo blog, Wild View, has held a competition to highlight the technique, with the winner to be announced in early April. Until March 31, you can vote at Wild View for one of the six finalists — out of 43 submissions — from the gallery below.

A tender moment

A yearly buck and fawn meet in Apopka, Florida. Ronald Derig used a Reconyx HC555 HyperFire game camera for the image. (Credit: Ronald Derrig.)

A neighborly chat

Coyote and badger meet at the badger’s sett, or den, in Santa Ynez Valley, California. Grany Canova-Parker used a Reconyx game camera to capture the scene. (Credit: Grant Canova-Parker.)

A territorial battle

Leopards and a crocodile stand their ground at a small river in Niassa Reserve, Mozambique. Jamie Wilson used a Bushnell camera for the shot. (Credit: Jamie Wilson.)

A show down

An 8-point buck and a coywolf face off in Wilmington, Massachusetts. Mark Holleran used a Moultrie M-1100i game camera for his camera trap. (Credit: Mark Holleran.)

New experiences

Bear with cubs at Gila National Forest in New Mexico. (Credit: Nathan Newcomer.)

Big-eyed surprise

A great gray owl in central Lake County, northern Minnesota. Brian Konito made the camera trap at his home using a Sony DSC S600. (Credit: Brian Kontio.)

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Julie Larsen Maher is staff photographer for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the first woman to hold the position since the society's founding in 1895. In addition to field visits, Maher photographs the animals at WCS's five New York-based wildlife parks: the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, New York Aquarium, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo. She contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Frogs are nature's jewels. Their unique colors and patterns are not only beautiful, but aid in their survival — as camouflage or as a warning to predators. WCS's parks, including the Bronx Zoo and its World of Reptiles, are home to a variety of frogs like these, some smaller than a dime. Frog populations are disappearing in the wild, with more than 40 percent of amphibian species in decline. Part of that collapse is from the global demand for pet frogs, and many are captured to be eaten. Frogs also face threats from habitat loss; the devastating, toxic chytrid fungus; competition from invasive species; pollution; and climate change. However, conservationists continue to play an important role in protecting these amphibians. (Images credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Hangin' around

Red-eyed tree frogs, Agalychnis callidryas, are colorful amphibians found in the tropical lowlands of Central America where the animals hunt after dark for their insect prey. The frogs are arboreal and are commonly be found on plants and trees.

Humble beginnings

Lemur leaf tadpoles, Agalychnis lemur, are purple-gray with a rosy-colored center body. Their transparent fins will morph to legs as they become adult frogs.

I can see you now ...

Lemur leaf frogs, Agalychnis lemur, are tree frogs from Costa Rica, Columbia and Panama that spend their days sleeping on the undersides of leaves. Males defend their territory by grabbing intruder frogs and pushing them off their perches.

Here to help

The common coqui, Eleutherodactylus coqui, are diminutive grayish-brown frogs native to Puerto Rico. Coqui lay their eggs on land, where the babies hatch directly into sub-adult frogs, skipping the tadpole stage that most amphibians experience.

A unique sight

Amazon milk frogs, Trachycephalus resinifictrix, are arboreal and nocturnal. The males are known for their boisterous calls, which they usually make from watery pools in tree hollows. Their tadpoles also develop in such hollows.

Sitting pretty

Native to Australia and New Guinea, White's tree frogs, Litoria caerulea, have unique skin secretions with antibacterial and antiviral properties that help to guard against infections.

Good mom

Panamanian golden frogs, Atelopus zeteki, have a variety of toxins that protect them from predators. Although the adults are yellow, the young are a bright green, which helps them blend into their mossy stream habitat.

Can you see me now?

Sometimes called bumblebee frogs, yellow banded poison frogs, Dendrobates leucomelas, are native to Venezuela, Columbia and Brazil. Each frog has its own unique set of markings, like a human fingerprint. They can secrete a toxin when threatened.

Posing for a photo shoot

Blue poison frogs, Dendrobates tinctorius "azureus," can live as many as seven years in the wilds of Suriname and Brazil. As their name indicates, glands within the frog's skin are filled with poison — a defense against predators.

Sneakin' suspicion

Surinam horned frogs, Ceratophrys cornuta, from South America are large amphibians with big mouths — their mouths are one and a half times wider than the length of their bodies. The size of their mouths is useful in catching favorite foods like mice and lizards.

From far and wide

Solomon Island leaf frogs, Ceratobatrachus guentheri, live on the forest floor in the tropical forests of the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, where they lay their eggs in leaf litter. The eggs undergo direct development with no tadpole stage.

Beware the frog

Pichincha poison frogs, Oophaga sylvatica, found in Columbia and Ecuador, lay a small clutch of only two to five eggs at a time. Once hatched, the female frogs carry individual, mature tadpoles on their backs to nearby small pools of water.

For more animal photos and stories, check out WCS's photo blog, Wild View, including the posts Frog Blog – Bright Warnings and A Place in the Forest. Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Live Science staff compiled this gallery, with information provided by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), for Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. 

Camera-traps have revolutionized the search for the world's rarest species, helping secure their protection. The technology has also become a favorite of hobbyists, allowing anyone to capture the unexpected wildlife in their backyards, and around the globe.

To find the best of those amateur images, the WCS, in partnership with St. Lawrence University's Nature Up North project, have created the "When Animals Snap" competition — and only three days remain to enter images before the contest ends March 23rd.  

To submit an image, visit the competition page on the WCS Wild View photo blog, and to view more captivating camera trap images, see the gallery below.

For the birds

A bald eagle and ravens captured on a camera trap in Potsdam, New York. (Credit: ©John Bates.)

Not so laid back

Almost never seen in the wild, African golden cats are occasionally captured in camera-trap cameos — though even then, they're usually caught in the act of doing little more than grooming themselves. But recently, in a bit of astonishing luck, scientists captured  a golden cat attacking red colobus monkeys in Uganda. See the footage in African Golden Cat Attacks Monkeys in Rare Camera Trap Footage, an article by Live Science editor Megan Gannon. (Credit: Courtesy of Panthera.)

Rolling in the leaves

A giant panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca, is one of several camera-trapped critters featured on Smithsonian Wild and highlighted in the Live Science gallery Camera Trapped: Wonderful and Weird Wildlife Around the World by Andrea Mustain. (Credit: Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.)

Surprise!

African lions, caught in the act, in Mpala research center, Kenya. (Credit: ©Michael Butler Brown.)

Mealtime

Vultures swarm a giraffe carcass near a camera trap in Mpala research center, Kenya. (Credit: ©Michael Butler Brown.)

Sneaking a peak

A camera-trapped jaguar in the Amazon region of Ecuador. (Credit: ©Santiago Espinosa.)

Getting what he wants

A honey badger captured by a camera trap in Gabon, part of a study of 12 small predators. Read about the study in Honey Badger Don't Care About Camera Traps, a gallery by Live Science's Megan Gannon. (Credit: Laila Bahaa-el-din/Panthera.)

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Jeremy Radachowsky is assistant director for the Latin American and Caribbean Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). He contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. 

In 1998, in one of my first real experiences in the tropics, I volunteered as a research assistant to track tapirs in Corcovado National Park. One of Costa Rica's wildest and wettest protected areas, the park had a reputation for getting a lot of rain — up to seven meters of rain each year. 

The year I arrived, it stopped raining. 

After a month passed with no precipitation, park guards at the remote biological station started scratching their heads. After two dry months, they started to become concerned. After the third bone-dry month, they rerouted the water pipes and started rationing water. 

Claimed by fire

As the months wore on, I watched as the forest understory withered and the creek beds dried up. The tapirs and peccaries confined movement patterns to stay near large rivers, gnawing on tree roots for nutrition. El Niño — a cyclical warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific that influences global climate — had arrived. 

But that year, the effects of El Niño were more extreme. Many of Central America's protected areas succumbed to forest fires. For example, 40 percent of Guatemala’s Laguna del Tigre National Park burned in a period of a few weeks. Jaguars, tapirs, and peccaries were forced to abandon their territories for islands of unburnt habitat as slow moving reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates died in the fires. 

Park managers and local communities were unprepared for the unprecedented climatic conditions. They did not have the technical capacity, the organizational structures, or the flexible financing to react quickly. Arboreal mammals, such as monkeys, anteaters and kinkajous succumbed to smoke inhalation, and even highly mobile birds were devastated since the fires hit during the height of their nesting season. 

Eventually, in late May, the first drizzle blanketed the forest, ending the drought. The forest came back to life. The tapirs feasted on fresh greenery. We danced in the rain to celebrate the event, but the climatic extremes of 1998 demonstrated the increasingly devastating impacts of El Niño combined with the effects of global warming, serving as a taste of things to come.  

The hottest year on record 

At that point, 1998 was the hottest year since regular climate records began. Although global warming has not conclusively been proven to induce El Niño events, most of the hottest years on record have occurred during El Niño years, including 1998, 2005 and 2010. What is so remarkable about 2014 is that it broke all previous records without even being an El Niño year. 

Global average temperature is a meaningful indicator of climate change.  However, we should also be concerned about the fact that climate change results in more extreme climatic events.   

For example, recent El Niño years have brought severe droughts to Central America, Australia and Indonesia, while other regions such as the southwestern United States, southern South America, and the Horn of Africa have endured increased flooding events. Global warming exacerbates the intensity of El Niño events, making extreme events like the 1998 "Super El Niño" twice as likely. 

As wildlife withers, rescue is underway

Even more worrisome is the vicious way climate change, El Niño, and local land-use dynamics can reinforce each other to undermine the ecological health of a given area. In Central America, many forests have been fragmented for cattle ranching and African oil palm, resulting in more arid landscapes and more flammable remnant patches of forest. 

Once fires begin in dry, highly flammable forests, aerosols in the smoke bind to water vapor in clouds, creating tiny droplets that cannot join together to form rain drops. Even when conditions are right for precipitation, a smoky, rainless haze hangs over the burning forest as if to tease the burning animals below. [Worst Megadroughts in 1,000 Years Threaten US  ]

All over the world, extreme events and long-term warming caused by human-forced climate change compound the myriad threats to wildlife, including habitat loss and degradation, hunting, poaching and disease. 

The good news is that there are tangible actions that we can take to mitigate the impact of climate change in critical ecosystems. 

In areas where ecosystems and people are most vulnerable, WCS works with local communities to help mitigate the impacts of climate change on livelihoods via a process called ecosystem-based adaptation. For example, WCS has implemented programs for fire monitoring and management in Guatemala, helped to establish locally managed marine areas in Fiji, supported rangeland management in Mongolia, and spearheaded planning for climate adaptation and mitigation in Africa's Albertine Rift and Burma. 

Global fire safety

In the Guatemala effort, we worked in the Maya Biosphere reserve, where fire regularly escaped from agricultural plots and people were purposefully igniting forests to sabotage and convert them. In addition to the impacts on wildlife, escaped fires threatened to destroy the livelihoods of legitimate forest community residents, who depended upon timber and non-timber forest products for income and subsistence.

During the dry season, WCS and partners used over-flights with small aircraft to detect and map threats, including forest fires, illegal clearing, illegal logging and illegal roadways. We implemented an early fire warning system and burn calendar for community fire management, incorporated satellite "hotspot" monitoring of forest fires, developed fire brigades, and created fire breaks to combat fires. The efforts were extremely successful at limiting the number of escaped agricultural fires and rdeucing fire incidence. 

In 2013 — a very bad year for forest fires in the rest of Guatemala — in the area where we intervened, fires were reduced by more 84 percent as compared to the historical average. In 2014 there were almost no wildfires, whatsoever.

Still, huge challenges remain. Riding on top of a baseline of higher average global temperatures, just imagine what the next major El Niño might bring. NOAA is predicting a 50 percent to 60 percent chance of an El Niño event for 2015. Will wildlife be ready?

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) contributed these images to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. 

While most birds can flee a charred forest, their nests can't — and neither can many of the smallest, most vulnerable animals. But conservationists around the globe are mobilizing to fight the rising fire risk. Read more about one such effort in "As Forests Burn, Conservationists Launch Global Wildlife Rescue" and below see a gallery of wildlife from one threatened region of central America.

Flying high

There are only about 300 wild scarlet macaws (Ara macao cyanoptera) left in Guatemala, all of which nest in an area of the Maya Biosphere reserve that is extremely vulnerable to forest fires. (Credit: Chris Packham/WCSGuatemala.)

Field afire

Wildfires burn rampantly in Guatemala's Laguna del Tigre national park in May, 2009. (Credit: Ben Schilling/WCS Guatemala with the support of LightHawk.)

Forced out

During the 1998 El Nino, 40 percent of Guatemala's Laguna del Tigre National Park burned in a period of a few weeks. Jaguars, tapirs, and peccaries were forced to abandon their territories for islands of unburnt habitat.  (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS.)

Ocellated turkeys

Ocellated turkey (Meleagris ocellata) in Guatemala’s Mirador-Rio Azul National Park.  (Credit: Roan McNab/WCS Guatemala.)

Fire damage

Ocellated turkey nest destroyed by forest fires, Laguna del Tigre national park, Maya Biosphere Reserve. (Credit: Jeremy Radachowsky ©WCS.)

Say cheese!

A jaguar (Panthera onca) captured by automatic cameras set up by the Wildlife Conservation Society to evaluate the health and size of the remaining jaguar population in Guatemala's Maya Biosphere reserve. (Credit: Rony Garcia/WCS Guatemala.)

A protected piece of land

Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere reserve is one of Central America’s largest and most spectacular protected areas. (Credit: Roan McNab/WCS Guatemala with the support of LightHawk.)

Surveying the damage

A Guatemalan farmer surveys former forest area after a burning within Laguna del Tigre National Park, Maya Biosphere reserve. (Credit: Ben Schilling ©WCS Guatemala.)

Baird's Tapir

The Baird's tapir (Tapirus bairdii), like this one in Guatemala's Laguna del Tigre national park, is Central America's largest land mammal, and depends intimately upon surface water for survival. (Credit: Roan McNab/WCS Guatemala.)

Extreme risks

Entire bodies of water in Guatemala's Maya Biosphere reserve dry out during extreme climatic events, putting wildlife and forest communities at risk. (Credit: Roan McNab/WCS Guatemala with the support of LightHawk.)

Soaring above it all

Macaws in flight. (Credit: Chris Packham/WCSGuatemala.)

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Steve Zack is Coordinator of Bird Conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), a conservation organization that also runs the Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium and other facilities. Zack contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The Canada goose — North America's most familiar, and among the most hunted, of waterfowl — is not the Christmas table centerpiece it might have been. A cooked goose is considered a wonderful meal, delectable with dark meat in both legs and breast. Yet the turkey (considered by many to be less succulent) is now the more common holiday roast here, and even in England.

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat Please to put a penny in the old man's hat. If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do, If you haven't got a ha'penny then God bless you!      ~Traditional nursery rhyme

For that, blame can be shared in part by Charles Dickens, and much later, North America's large, green parks. At the poor Cratchits' table in 1843's "A Christmas Carol," Charles Dickens has the Ghost of Christmas Present share with Scrooge a vision of family joy: The Cratchits sitting down to a classic stuffed-goose dinner. [11 Health Benefits of Christmas Dinner ]

Scrooge's turkey, not goose

The redeemed Scrooge later exults in sending Tiny Tim to purchase a bird for his family's Christmas table. This time, he encourages the boy to eschew the traditional goose for a turkey — a superior, highbrow, cooking fowl. The turkey's central place at the holiday table was established for Dickens' English audience and soon across the pond for our own country's readership.

While the goose is, for the most part, no longer cooked at Christmas time as a part of either nation's tradition, this may seem puzzling to some in the United States. The Canada goose is an abundant and conspicuous bird here. To those in the know (hunters, mostly), they are considered a great meal, referred to by some as the "roast beef of the skies."

Yet even without the literary influence of our esteemed Mr. Dickens, Americans' unique history with the Canada goose, beginning in Colonial times, has played out in such a way as to insure that it would never become our preferred holiday fowl. The reason is related to how and where we have managed this species, once rare, back to abundance.

On the hunt for Canadian geese

Colonists found the Canada goose to be among the abundant bounty of the New World. Colonial-era hunting, which grew into market hunting, saw the end of the hyper-abundant passenger pigeon and massive declines in most all birds. The great passion for bird hunting and consumption left the Canada goose in decline, and the biggest of the seven subspecies, the giant Canada goose, thought to be extinct.

The subsequent revival of wild Canada geese populations is among the greatest successes of wildlife agencies in the United States. In the 1960s, the giant Canada goose was rediscovered and reintroduced widely in the east and into the south, beyond its historic range. Better management of hunting allowed for the return of this and other goose subspecies across the country. [Growing Bird Populations Show Conservation Successes ]

With a revival of Canada geese in the east came two dramatic changes that are greatly in evidence today. First, this giant fowl has become an abundant denizen of our urban and suburban landscapes. Second, it has become so comfortable in these environments that it has widely lost its migration habit. The re-introduced giant Canada goose has found ample food by eating residual grain from fallow fields.

Geese now enjoy the perfect habitat and refuge in and around our modern cities. We have created large green spaces, parks and golf courses, with lush grasses that we mow regularly. Short grass is high in protein content, low in roughage — perfect for grazers like geese. Our parks and golf courses have water (lakes and ponds) important for refuge from land predators. Also found among our green spaces are small islands in those water bodies perfect for nesting geese.

We don't hunt in urban centers or in suburbia. Because we have unwittingly provided abundant food, habitat and security from predators, these Canada geese populations have few checks on population growth. As a result, the revived giant Canada goose in the east and south is now a common and resident pest. So, too, the large western Canada goose subspecies.

Eating pests?

Like gulls, pigeons, rats and other commensal animals around us, we are not inclined to eat geese, which have achieved quite a different image in the public imagination since Dickens, describing the meat of this bird, observed that its "tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration." Our animal "pests," by contrast, are associated with real and imagined public health concerns.

We haven't domesticated the Canada goose, but the growth of parks and other natural spaces have created both habitat and food to sustain an abundant urban wildlife species. According to the old nursery rhyme, the fattening of the geese tells us Christmas is nigh. That today it more likely indicates the arrival of a new spot of urban green space is a development even the Ghost of Christmas Future would not have predicted.

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Justina Ray, a wildlife biologist, is executive director and senior scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada. She contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Reindeer are an enduring and beloved Christmas icon. However, Dasher and Dancer only slightly resemble their wild cousins — strong and graceful caribou. If you let your imagination run wild, you might be forgiven for thinking that reindeer — or caribou, as they're called in North America — seem to fly as they run across frozen lakes.

The holiday season offers one of the few opportunities for people to make a quick connection between the celebrated reindeer of song and story, and their real-world equivalent in the wild. As a conservation biologist, I have had the special privilege of witnessing their movements across boreal forest expanses during my winter survey research.

I was trained as a carnivore biologist, and my experiences in the northern boreal forests of Ontario began more than 10 years ago in work focused on finding wolverine tracks in the snow. During those searches, I would often encounter caribou, or their tracks, in the same remote areas. Both caribou and wolverines are species that require large, wild areas and have relatively low tolerance to land clearing, roads and habitat fragmentation.

Over time, I have become increasingly engaged in caribou research and conservation . This research has become especially urgent in the context of society's increasing appetite for natural resources and subsequent expansion into previously wild areas. In addition to having less space, majestic animals like caribou must adapt to a changing climate and the consequences of unpredictable weather patterns. Offering an extreme example of the consequences of intensive habitat change, several caribou populations in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and Alberta have disappeared — or number fewer than 10 individuals — as a result of habitat destruction, and leases are still being granted for energy development within the best habitats that remain.

Three Christmases ago, I authored an op-ed on caribou published in The New York Times. In the piece, I cautioned that caribou populations in Canada were declining after having vanished from at least 40 percent of their southern range across the country during the last century. I explained that, caribou faced significant threats to their future, and three years later, there is a heightened sense of urgency. While I thought my characterization of the challenges facing caribou was forceful in 2011, in re-reading my words today, they feel understated.

What has changed in this short time? As a member of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada — an independent committee of wildlife experts established under the federal Species at Risk Act to provide the government with scientific assessments wildlife risk of extinction — I have led or been involved in the scientific assessments of 11 caribou population groups across Canada, from Newfoundland to the western mountains to the Arctic.

In many places with good survey information, there is evidence of bad news. Very few of the areas where caribou roam show signs of recovery following population declines. As someone who looks forward to witnessing the majestic movements of caribou every year, the collective picture that continues to emerge regarding their long-term survival is both distressing and discouraging.

Despite what caribou are up against, a growing body of evidence and experience offers options to provide caribou with more meaningful protection than they currently receive. The question is whether there will be sufficient courage to restrain our galloping human footprint and whether we have the patience to undertake the habitat restoration that is necessary.

If this effort is to succeed, it will take decades. But any hope of progress must begin with a clear awareness of the threats caribou face in North America's boreal forests and elsewhere across Canada and Alaska. There are major choices to be made to help ensure that this holiday icon will endure in the wild and continue to spark the imaginations of youngsters dreaming of a reindeer-driven sleigh for generations to come.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Steve Zack is coordinator of Bird Conservation for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). He contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Thanksgiving is upon us, as families and friends gather for food, drink and conversation. The latter can be fraught with risk, of course — politics and religion have long been out of the question, and this year football divides those obsessed with fantasy drafts and those grounded by the game's toll on heads and bodies. 

Here's a suggestion for a safer alternative: Talk turkey.

Physiology of the feast

Thanksgiving cutting boards hold the centerpiece of our beloved autumn feast. But look closer, and you will find skeletal and muscular adaptations for flight forged over millions of years of evolution. Before we begin, it is worth a gentle reminder for those who are not hunters (traditional or urban hipster) that the turkey in front of us once had a head, feet, and feathers — now discarded along with most of the innards. 

What remains are the exposed workings of a highly aerobic flying machine — the turkey's flights taking place in short, powerful bursts. If you are eating a factory-bred variety with a breast supersized for your gastronomical pleasure, rest assured that the anatomy of flight is in place even if the capacity is limited. [Thanksgiving Myth Busted: Eating Turkey Won't Make You Sleepy ]

The basic framework of the turkey resembles our own: backbone, long limb bones like the femur, a rib cage, etc., for the attachment and work of muscles. Yet compared to mammals like us, the bones are light and hollow, with considerable fusion — particularly in the pelvis, the back, and tail vertebrae (called the pygostyle), and at the end of the wing among the digits. 

The fusion of the backbone provides the strut of the avian flying machine: the chest plate (or sternum) and its keel where the major flight muscles reside. The keel exists in birds, not mammals, and provides more surface area for attachment of flight muscles.

The clavicles are fused and called the furcula, popularly known as the wishbone. The wishbone acts like a spring to maintain the symmetry of wing beats as it braces the shoulders. 

The keeled sternum and furcula help connect the mechanics of flight with the respiratory and energy demands of powering flight. We mammals inefficiently mix oxygenated and de-oxygenated air in our lungs with inspiration and expiration. Bird flight , by contrast, uses an amazing one-way airflow across the lungs that does not rely on a diaphragm. Evolution and the demanding requirements of flight resulted in the development of a series of air sacs and connected hollow bones that create unidirectional airflow across the rigid lungs of birds with no mixing of de-oxygenated air. 

The sternum acts as a pump and the furcula a spring, creating a bellows-system moving air to air sacs and then to the lung. The wing muscles move the sternum elliptically, creating the pump-like action with the furcula as both move air flow (and pressure) in and out of the air sacs. Flight as inspiration, literally!

The meat of the matter

Finally, there are reasons why turkeys have white and dark meat that relate to the flight of fowl. In these birds, the most active muscles are in the legs. Turkeys walk, run, and strut far more than they fly. When turkeys do go aloft, it is not in sustained flights like most other birds, but rather in sudden bursts of short duration.

Blood vessels of the leg and thigh muscles contain myoglobin, which constantly delivers oxygen from the lungs. The more myoglobin, the darker the muscle (and hence the meat). In contrast, the breast muscle is filled with the carbohydrate glycogen, which provides energy for sudden bursts of flight but quickly depletes, requiring time for replenishment.

The different makeup of dark and white muscles leads to their different cooking times. White meat is best at 155° Fahrenheit. Any hotter risks a cooked bird in which the meat is too dry. Dark meat takes longer to cook to reach its best taste and avoid chewiness at about 180°F. One simple solution: cover the breast with an ice pack while the rest of the bird comes to room temperature before cooking.

Now, please pass the turkey. Discussion over. It is time to give thanks for our sumptuous meal and the miracle of flight. And when the furcula has dried and is ready for tugging, please consider a simple wish for the conservation of nature and the astonishing world of form and function.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Stuart Campbell is director of the WCS Indonesia Marine Program, for which Prayekti Ningtias is a senior marine program officer. Erika Reuter is the WCS Sharks & Rays program manager. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

A relatively recent trade in manta rays and devil rays — largely for their use in a tonic with alleged health benefits — is depleting ray populations around the world. Ray gill plates (appendages that filter the plankton that rays feed on) fuel an estimated $30 million annual trade to Chinese markets, despite the fact their efficacy as a health remedy is not recognized within mainstream traditional Chinese medicine.

A November 7th arrest of a manta ray trader in Bali, Indonesia, resulted in one of the largest seizures of illegal manta gill plates recorded to date, a shipment that topped the scale at 227 pounds (103 kg). The seizure was recently documented in a broadcast by Al Jazeera and showcased at the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in Beijing this month. [Manta Ray Traffickers Busted in Indonesia ]

Ironically, while much of the ray trade is supplied by fishers who depend upon the sea for their livelihoods, both reef (Manta alfredi) and oceanic (Manta birostris) manta rays have the potential to generate significant economic benefits through marine tourism. A single manta ray has a tourism value of more than $1 million over its lifetime, but these majestic and long-lived cartilaginous fishes, relatives of sharks, are being killed for a much lower price, estimated at only about $500 per animal.

Indonesia turns tide against illegal ray trade

Much of the ray trade originates from Indonesia, home to the world's largest shark and ray fisheries. Fisheries in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India account for nearly 90 percent of recorded deaths of manta rays each year, with a global catch of 3,400 oceanic mantas annually, according to the most recent figures reported by Manta Ray of Hope — a project of Shark Savers, WildAid, and a diverse group of the top manta ray researchers.

In March 2013, the Sixteenth Conference of the Parties of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) voted to list manta rays and five shark species on CITES Appendix II, thereby regulating trade in their parts and products once the listings entered effect in September 2014. At that point, CITES member states became legally bound to: Permit exports only when specimens are legally acquired and when their collection is shown to be non-detrimental to the survival of the species; document such exports; and record and report all international trade for independent monitoring.

Following the CITES conference, the directorate general of Indonesia's Marine and Fisheries Resources Surveillance, under the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF), worked with non-governmental organizations (including WCS) to initiate a process to regulate trade in CITES-listed sharks and rays in that nation.

Thanks to this commitment, hunting and trade of manta ray species has been outlawed, with maximum penalties for trafficking in manta products punishable by fines of up to $25,000.

Poaching arrests mount, and resonate

The combined efforts of the MMAF and the WCS Wildlife Crimes Unithave resulted in a series of successful busts ofmanta ray traders, beginning inAugust 2014in Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city. That arrest, based on information provided by the Jakarta Animal Aid Network,involved a shipment of 110 pounds (50kg) of gill plates, of which 43 pounds (19.5 kg) were from manta rays, as well as products from other protected marine species, including sea turtle meat and sawfish snouts.

Since then, MMAF staff havemade four additional arrests, including the November 7th apprehension in Bali, a hub for the export of illegal marine products from Indonesia.

Remarkably the recent law enforcement efforts may be resonating. Preliminary findings emanating from WCS manta-monitoring locations suggest that fishers have been unable to sell manta and devil ray products such as gills, skins and oil — a trend that could lead fishers away from targeting mantas.

The recent arrests, and the commitment shown by the Indonesian government through MMAF to intercept and prosecute illegal trade in marine products, suggest a promising paradigm shift in the way Indonesia approaches fisheries management and trafficking in protected marine species.

Importantly, those landmark efforts to curb manta hunting and trade send an encouraging message that improvements in the global conservation outlook for these threatened species could be achieved.

Both government and non-government actors, however, must remain vigilant, continuing to identify key trading points, working to apply the rule of law, and monitoring the effects of these enforcement actions on fishing and the populations of threatened species that the laws protect.

Conservationists in iconic land and seascapes like the Serengeti and Patagonia have long understood that wildlife can be worth far more alive than dead. Following the recent arrests, it is clear that mantas and other threatened marine species are as well.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

James Watson directs the Global Climate Change program for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and is a principle research fellow at the University of Queensland. He contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

In the late 19th century, a new ethos arose that combined the naturalist spirit of recent scientist-explorers like Charles Darwin, the transcendent values of outdoorsmen like Theodore Roosevelt, and a growing perception that urban industrialization was removing society from the pastoral world of our forebears. Within a century, that awareness would lead to the creation of some 200,000 protected areas across the globe.

Established first in North America, Australia, Europe and South Africa, these areas were intended to protect spectacular natural fea­tures and wildlife, principally in areas with little potential for eco­nomic use. Recognition of the importance of local conservation led to the creation of many more protected areas in the latter part of the 20th century in places where species and ecosystems could be conserved from the rapid changes taking place.

Ten years have passed since the last International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) global conference on protected areas, the sixth such congress to take place since 1962. During this period, nations have established of tens of thousands of new protected areas on land and in the sea. Unfortunately, at the same time, so many of those areas (an estimated 80 percent) have been poorly managed that progress has now backtracked, a situation my colleagues and I discuss in the recent Nature paper "The performance and potential of protected areas."

That trend must not continue. When well-managed, protected areas play a crucial role in conserving the planet's biodiversity, while also sustaining large numbers of the world's poorest people.

Saving wildlife, sustaining people

In India's Western Ghat Mountains, government action and strong partnerships helped drive a 300-percent increase in wild tiger populations — the result of strict government-led anti-poaching patrols, voluntary relocation of villages away from tiger habitats, and the vigilant local presence of conservationists.

In Indonesia's Karimunjawa National Park, community participation combined with ecotourism and business development reduced the impact of fishing on marine ecosystems while giving a larger political voice to the local residents. Such ecotourism has become one way established protected areas can become increasingly important revenue sources for nations.

Tourists visiting Rwanda to catch glimpses of mountain gorillas generate $200 million every year, making up that nation's greatest source of foreign revenue.

Protected areas also provide local communities with benefits that go beyond the economy, as many store great quantities of carbon, provide clean water sources and serve as natural buffers against extreme weather.

Sustaining sustainability

Nevertheless, while many nations talk the talk about creating protected areas, they fail to walk the walk for securing the right resources and necessary oversight for success.

Recent research on coral reefs within marine protected areas in the Coral Triangle, a globally-recognized biodiversity hotspot, found that only 1 percent of those reefs was effectively managed. And research on Asian and African protected areas have revealed widespread declines of threatened species such as lions, Sumatran rhinos, and African elephants.

Even renowned protected areas designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites have experienced serious ecological degradation due to poor resources and ineffective management.

One such site, Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, has suffered significant damage, leading to massive loss of coral, declines in a range of species populations, and loss of habitat across large areas. Such collapse occurred even as reef tourism annually contributed some $5.2 billion (in Australian dollars) to the Australian economy. [Experts: Great Barrier Reef's Biggest Threat is Coal]

Similarly, Ecuador's Galapagos National Park and Marine Reserve has witnessed a collapse of exploited marine fauna, ecosystem declines, and the rapid growth of invasive species.

Selling out on nature

Inadequate financing of protected areas is a core problem, but thornier challenges include the loss of parks' special status and their increased exploitation for resource extraction from mining, logging, and energy exploration.

In the Nature paper, I and several co-authors document many cases where government ministries responsible for mining or logging issued leases on land or water already designated as "protected."

In Uganda, oil exploration and development is occurring inside the western portion of Murchison Falls National Park, where fantastic assemblages of elephants, giraffes, Nile crocodiles and aquatic birds live. Meanwhile, Tanzania's Selous Game Reserve World Heritage site — home to charismatic species that include cheetahs, black rhinos, hippos and elephants — has been downsized to allow for uranium mining.

Nor are developed countries immune to this trend, as witnessed in Australia as parks have been opened to industrial logging, livestock grazing, mining, recreational hunting and fishing.

Such an erosion of support coincides with human-driven climate change, a sudden upsurge in illegal hunting and land-grabs by powerful business interests.

If the nations of the world continue to follow the business-as-usual approach, the broad protection targets set under the 2010 U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity will not be achieved. Globally, a fundamental change is needed to align government policies so that ministries dealing with development, resource extraction and agriculture do not undermine ministries concerned with environment and conservation.

While nations need to meet their CBD obligations, they must rethink the criteria upon which some parks are created. Protecting lands and seas that are not threatened and have little biodiversity value will not solve the crises the planet faces. That will require identifying new areas that are critical to conservation objectives and can be established and maintained with care and imagination.

Achieving those goals on an increasingly crowded planet will not be easy. One requirement should be that nations' progress be measured not merely by the amount of land protected, but also its ecological connectivity, biodiversity, management effectiveness, and the social and economic benefits achieved.

Managing an expanded network of marine and terrestrial protected areas is estimated to cost nations a total of $45 billion each year, which is just 2.5 percent of global military expenditures. Such outlays are neither impossible nor unreasonable, but do require a shift in thinking.

For a tiny fraction of the cost of developing and deploying instruments of war we can protect core areas essential to the future of life. Now that's a bargain.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Brian Horne is coordinator of turtle conservation for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). WCS manages the Bronx Zoo, the New York Aquarium and other sites, in addition to its global conservation work. Horne contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. 

Turtles are popularly perceived as slow, lumbering animals, typically found alone and seemingly unaware of their surroundings. The spectacle of marine turtles hauling themselves out of the surf to lay a hundred or so eggs ends with an image of them returning to the ocean, never to see their offspring again. 

The concept of a turtle caring for and communicating with a hatchling perhaps one hundredth her size is the stuff of children's stories and films like "Finding Nemo."  

Yet the assumption that all turtles leave their young to fend for themselves may not be the case with every species. A team of researchers in Brazil recently found that indeed some turtles do "talk," and females are at least associating with hatchlings after they leave the nest — and even as the hatchlings travel hundreds of kilometers along the Amazon.  

Turtle talk

The mewling of newborn kittens is a familiar sound, but now we find that giant South American river turtle hatchlings make sounds before they exit their eggs, and continue to do so even as they clamber out of the nest chamber onto the river beach. The underwater vocalizations of the responding adult turtles may likewise help the newly-hatched turtles find their way once they are in the water . 

Scientists Camila Ferrara of the WCS and Dick Vogt of the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas de Amazônia have scientifically documented turtles producing a limited repertoire of clicks and clucks at very low frequencies. By using low frequencies, the turtles are able to produce sounds that travel long distances underwater. 

Serving the species

Turtle conservation for many decades has been focused on how to best produce the most hatchling turtles with little thought about relationships between the hatchlings and the parents.  

Conservationists have at times moved nests many miles from their original location in hopes of higher hatch rates. At other times, they have kept hatchlings in captivity for short periods of time so that they can grow to a size that minimizes their risks of being eaten by a predator.  

But what these biologists haven't considered is how these well-intended actions may disrupt important audible communication cues, as the recent findings on the surprising behavioral complexity of the giant South American river turtle may suggest. Perhaps with this species, environmental factors necessitate parental guidance.

Thousands of miles long and in places miles across, the Amazon is a massive river on a scale that is hard to grasp. Imagine being a hatchling turtle weighing just a few ounces and confronting that enormous expanse alone. 

If the research done by Ferrara and Vogt holds true, it appears that mother turtles are actually waiting for the eggs to hatch before guiding the tiny hatchlings into rich foraging areas. This unprecedented discovery may greatly shape turtle conservation around the globe. 

Saving social turtles

In 2011, WCS worked with the Turtle Survival Coalition to document the 25 most endangered turtle species on Earth. Many of my current conservation activities occur in Asia, where large river turtle populations have been decimated — in some cases down to just a handful of adult animals remaining in the wild. My colleagues and I have relied heavily on head-starting — incubating eggs and hatching turtles in captivity before their release into the wild — to boost populations and prevent individual species from going extinct. 

What we have not been doing is investigating the importance of social behavior in the survivorship of the head-started turtles once they are released back into the wild. [Shell Shock: 25 Turtle Species in Terrible Trouble ]

We always assumed we were truly giving turtles a "head-start" in their effort to survive because predation appeared to be the greatest challenge to their conservation. But what if by head-starting the turtles, we have been preventing them from learning important migratory behaviors from the adult population?  

How can we rectify this? Do we need to play underwater recordings of adults during the time the turtles are being raised? Do we need to train the turtles to follow recordings to important foraging areas?

Through the use of a hydrophone listening instrument, I hope to begin unraveling this latest mystery in my next research project. Only time will tell what precisely is taking place. But one thing we know already: our understanding of how turtles survive in their respective environments, and how hatchlings may benefit from parental care, may never be the same again.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitterand Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.