sheril

As a child of the 80's growing up in the US of A, I was raised under the 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle' mantra. The phrase was as familiar as Stop, Drop, and Roll or This is your Brain on Drugs. To improperly dispose of a plastic bottle was an act of sacrilege in a world of neatly labeled disposal bins…

Map of South Africa from Safarinow.com. It's before 6:00 am in the field with temperatures around -9C. Winter in South Africa. A thick sheet of frost covers the countryside. Our small caravan includes an ecologist, botanist, naturalist, biologist, herpetologist, theologian, and four of Stuart's…

Although the act lasts only a minute or two at most, lions mate up to 100 times a day during the breeding season. That's a serious undertaking - once every 15 min or so. [More photos from the tracking expedition after the jump] Setting out at sunrise on a cold winter morning Tracking cats…

Day two of the Society for Conservation Biology conference. While I love this stuff, I admit there are times I'm sitting in a talk and my eyes are heavy with boredom. It's the very same phenomenon that happens in congressional offices during long tedious briefings when we the people are…

I was going to comment on Chris' post, and then thought to myself, "Am I a co-blogger, or what?" So I'm sitting here in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, amid a whirlwind of conservation biologists with very little battery remaining on my laptop -- pausing to provide my perspective on the book that…

The Baobab in Messina ProefPlaas: I sat under a great baobab at dawn and shared with him stories of humanity since agriculture began. I spoke of our music, art, literature and the great discoveries and conflicts of modern times. He stood unmoved for a long while. Then laughed at me whispering, 'I…

Kruger National Park June 27, 2007

Humans are born naturally curious creatures. As youngsters, our world is mainly governed by what's within reach - or even better - fits in our mouths. For most of us, that changes as bigger folks start telling us to stop playing in the mud, eating crayons, and picking up beetles. We learn about…

I've arrived in South Africa. The Southern Cross is visible and the moon is spectacularly bright from where I sit. Seasons and skies are backwards here. On June 24, it's the start of winter and 6 hours into the future. Tonight finds me pondering whether I'm now upside down on this great…

For a few years now, folks have been up in arms trying to come up with a universally accepted definition for Ecosystem Based Management - a goal about as realistic as an episode of Laguna Beach. At best, it's a theoretical approach, so instead of debating what it means, we should be asking how to…