Everyday Biophilia

 When I was three or four years old I horrified my mother when she discovered that both front pockets of my little blue jeans were stuffed full of earthworms. I was fascinated by animals then, and I remain fascinated by them today. Over the years my animal companions have included four dogs, four cats, numerous goldfish, a couple of full aquarium set-ups – one with cichlids, and one with a tiger oscar – three mice, a rat, two black widow spiders, a garter snake, a fish tank full of crayfish, two ornate box turtles, an emperor scorpion, a horned toad, and a tank full of tadpoles, five of which fully metamorphosed into frogs and were released into a nearby pond. I would have to say that I got along, by and large, with all of those animals. Yes, I’ve been griped at by a dog that wanted to go outside, and both of the box turtles peed on me, as did the garter snake, and who amongst us has not been audience to a cat as it aired its daily litany of grievances, but these were minor bum...

Anyone with a functioning sense of biophilia is familiar with the concept of biodiversity. It is the very substance of conservation biology; you cannot discuss one without discussing the other. Attempting to do so would be a bit like a biography of Bruce Springsteen failing to mention New Jersey. Yes, we have all heard the word, but it is often helpful to ensure that we are defining our terms correctly.  So, then, what does the word biodiversity actually mean? Generally speaking, it seems that many people define biodiversity in a rather wiggly fashion, something along the lines of “a bunch of natural stuff interacting with other natural stuff.” That’s close, but the concept is a good deal more complex. According to the book An Introduction to Conservation Biology , biodiversity is defined this way: [Biodiversity is] the complete range of species and biological communities on earth, as well as the genetic variation within those species and all ecosystem processes. Broken do...

The planet is home to a great many attractive amphibians, but one of the very prettiest is the Panamanian golden frog  ( Atelopus zeteki ). These tiny frogs (in point of fact, they are true toads of the family Bufonidae) were once common along the high country streams of Panama. They are 2 to 2 ½ inches long and weigh less than an ounce. Most could sit comfortably on a silver dollar. Males and females share similar coloring; yellow backs with unique patterns of black blotches, and uniformly yellow bellies. As is common among tropical and subtropical reptiles and amphibians, the golden frog’s bright coloration is a signal to would-be predators that the frogs are poisonous, and therefore a really bad snack option. The golden frog secretes through its skin a poison all its own, a toxic nerve agent called “zetekitoxin.” The nerve agent is poisonous to humans but it would take a great many golden frogs to secrete enough of it to do one of us any serious harm. They prefer habitats a...

  The newly-released feature Sherni  (now streaming on Amazon Prime) is set in the central-Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and was shot almost entirely on locatio in its lush countryside. Starring Vidya Balan, the story centers on newly-minted Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Vidya Vincent as she confronts the complexities of a dangerous tiger at large in her district. As directed by Amit Masurkar, the movie comes at the issue of humankind's conflicted relationship with wildlife from every angle - competing government bureaucrats, who run the gamut from unreasonable to ridiculous; candidates for office who use the tiger situation to further their personal political ambitions, while preying on the ignorance of their constituents; starving, impoverished citizens, trapped between governmental ineptitude and the need to graze their livestock; the grieving families of the tiger's victims; scientists from the nearby university trying to understand the motivations behind the tiger's...

Can you put a dollar value on a lion? It would be difficult to express the worth of a living lion in monetary terms; there are too many variables. Let’s just go ahead and call a living lion priceless. But how about a dead lion? What’s a dead lion worth? Luckily for us we can, with a minimum of background information, arrive at a figure that is pretty accurate. For decades, South Africa maintained a multimillion dollar lion breeding industry, with some 350 facilities scattered throughout the country, housing at any one time between 8,000 and 12,000 captive lions. The lions were sold to zoos, to companies that offered children a chance to pet cubs, to canned hunting operations (where cowardly rich assholes pay to shoot a “ferocious wild beast” that has been caged in a small enclosure for their “hunting” convenience) and lastly, lion skeletons were exported to China for use in traditional medicine. Captive-Bred Lions Photo by Karl Ammonn South Africa was granted special permission f...