You’ve probably seen the “US Southern Border Crisis” plastered across news media the last few months. There is a surge of migrants coming from Central America, particularly what’s known as the Northern Triangle highlighted by Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Only this surge is nothing new, it’s been building for over a decade. And the true cause of it is barely touched on in the news media, be it left or right leaning, and that’s climate change. If terms like climate displacement, climate migration, and climate refugees are not too familiar, you’re not alone. And that right there is a ..read more

THIS POST IS MEANT TO PROVIDE THE BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR ONE OF OUR CURRENT FUNDRAISERS YOU CAN FIND MORE INFO AT HERE ON GOFUNDME.  THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!   We walked carefully across the black sand beach in the hours in between sunset and the rise of the moon, the darkest of the day.  Trailing behind a man named Hernan, a local poacher turned conservationist, the 4 of us visitors were very much out of our element.  We trekked for miles up and down the coastline looking for essentially a dinosaur.  If we were lucky enough to find one who was nesting, we gath ..read more

The G7 Summit was held last weekend - an annual event of leaders from the US, UK, France, Germany, Japan, Canada and Italy - where they hang out at a fancy resort and agree on things to work on and prioritize. Now, notably missing from this list is China, and then India, and then some really fast developing nations like Indonesia and some still impactful larger countries like Brazil. Still, what happens at the G7 Summit matters. With this collection of countries, one would think that when the topic of Climate Change and Protecting the Planet comes up, they would be very ambitious and aggressiv ..read more

The 17-Year Wait is Finally Over One of the most incredible events in the natural world is finally upon us. And so this week we thought we’d dedicate our entire newsletter to this phenomenon. Much like the cherry blossom bloom in Japan, or the Northern Lights in Iceland, we have our own spectacular show here in the United States and it only happens once every 17 years. In the coming days and weeks, trillions of creatures will crawl from underground where they’ve been tunneling for food, shed their skin, and fulfill their destiny 17 years in the making. While this might sound like something fro ..read more

What is Happening? The debate over nuclear energy and it's role in meeting our aggressive clean energy targets is really starting to heat up in light of Biden laying out his goals and targets. Biden wants the US to cut it's carbon emissions in half by 2030 and become net-zero as a nation by 2050. Aggressive, but we like it! There are lots of challenges to getting there, but one of the bigger ones is electricity. Today the US draws about 60% of it's electricity from fossil fuels. Only 20% comes from renewables (solar, wind, hydro) and even most of the aggressive estimates that are pro-renewable ..read more

We try to focus on positive stories and developments here at Animalia, but sometimes we have to flag the negative ones so they don’t go unnoticed, especially when they are happening in our own backyard here in the US. Last week Idaho legislature passed a devastating bill that would result in killing 90% of the wolf population in the state. A population of an estimated 1,500 wolves today that have been built back up for 25+ years dating to 1995 Yellowstone reintroduction. This bill would wipe out 2 decades of progress nearly overnight. All it needs now is approval from gover ..read more

Dolphins are a favorite of many. Their playful mannerisms and extensive intelligence also make them a popular and exciting area of study for many researchers. We already know that dolphins live in complex social groups and have highly-developed brains, and also that they have demonstrated self-awareness, empathy and problem solving before. So yeah, what’s not to love? All the Bells and Whistles And now, a groundbreaking new study has revealed that they also learn each other's names.... well, the dolphin equivalent of what we would think of as names: unique, one-of ..read more

If you have ever seen the 1986 film “Stand By Me”, then you are already very familiar with what a parasite is. The notorious leech scene in the film makes your skin crawl every time you watch it, and as disturbing as it is to watch, somehow you can’t look away. If you haven’t seen the iconic film, maybe you know what leeches are anyway. Leeches are parasitic worms that live in water or on land and suck the blood of birds, frogs, fish, and larger organisms- like Gordie Lachance- if they get the opportunity. Leeches are just one type of commonly known parasite, though, and their portrayal in the ..read more

The Lowdown on Biden’s Infrastructure Plan It’s been one week since Biden announced the details of one of his larger campaign promises - a $2 trillion+ plan for Clean Energy and Infrastructure. As you can imagine, it’s causing a lot of stir. Particularly amongst conservatives who not only disagree with the allocation, but also how Biden plans on paying for it. Ok, So what’s in the Plan? Let’s give you the broad strokes for those who have not looked in detail yet $621 billion is going to Transportation $115b going towards repairing roads and bridges, or what some conservatives are mislabelin ..read more

There was big news this past week of a new study looking at population numbers of Africa's 2 subspecies of elephants - Forest elephants and the more common Savanna elephant you usually think about - and classifying each in a very dire and endangered state. Only, this is nothing really new. Biologists and conservationists have long seen these as 2 separate species with unique needs and challenges. This was a bit of journalism click bait to raise your panic meter. That said, elephants are in need of help in a big way. So we decided to talk to an expert - Niall McCann, co-founder o ..read more