Observing Nature as a Child
A young Christa October is Kids Free Days at the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park. We’d also like to encourage children to get outside and explore nature. During October, staff at the San...
View ArticleConserving Threatened Palms
The threatened palm Brahea aculeata The descriptor “tropical forests” usually conjures images of lush green forests with high canopies brimming with life—or at least for me it did. But as I look across...
View ArticleA Grand Experiment for Palm Trees
Measuring Sinolao hesper palms in Sonora, Mexico Christa is part of a research team focusing on a threatened palm and how various management practices (i.e. cattle grazing) affect its population in the...
View ArticleThe Right Tools
Two boys admire aguaje fruit, an important resource in the Peruvian Amazon. Sometimes all you need is the right tools. In August 2010, I spent three weeks trudging through swamps in the Peruvian Amazon...
View ArticleInsects Don’t Bug Me
Beetles thrive in the Amazon. Tromping through the rainforest with five other people, loudly discussing how we are going to set up the next sampling plot is not a great way to see wildlife in the...
View ArticleScience Takes Time
It’s nice to be back in the Amazon, with its amazing wildlife and beautiful trees, many of which have large, supporting buttress roots. I recently returned from a three-week trip to the Peruvian...
View ArticleGreen Thumbs Offer Helping Hands
Javier Quiroz, lead arborist at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, brings his climbing skills to the Peruvian Amazon to train researchers and place cameras in the treetops. As I was wrapping up my time in...
View ArticlePondering the Mosquito: Malaria Fever Thoughts
Photo credit: Free Stock Photos I welcomed the New Year with a case of malaria, a direct result of spending weeks at a time in small Amazonian villages where Anopheles mosquitoes and the malaria they...
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