The O’Reilly Animals
From Perl to Hadoop, the O’Reilly Animal books have been there to help you advance your knowledge—and you’ve thrived under their tutelage. In real life, the animals themselves have not done nearly as well. Many are now critically endangered, and if the current trend continues, conservationists estimate that one-eighth of all bird species, one-fifth of mammal species, and one-third of amphibian species are at risk of extinction within the next 40 years.
But it doesn’t have to end this way.
One person with a bright idea and a little technology can make a big difference. Just think what someone with your mad skills could do.
Click on an animal to learn more
[ Cool Ways to Help ] [ Project Watch ]
Get your hands dirty
Ever since we started the O’Reilly Animals project last summer, people have been asking how they can really help. Although there are a number of ways to bring your tech skills to bear on behalf of non-profit conservation organizations—by designing websites, setting up databases, and developing mobile apps that enable crowdsourcing, among other things—there’s no substitute for walking in the shoes of the people working hands-on in the wild.
Opportunity Knocks
Wildlife ACT, a non-profit conservation organization working in Zululand, is currently accepting applications for their volunteer program. Wildlife ACT monitors wildlife on reserves that don’t have the resources to do it themselves—and the volunteers actively participate in the work. The fees paid by the volunteers fund Wildlife ACT’s projects. Read more…
[ Project Watch ]
Tracking the Black Market in Endangered Species
An Arowana fish can sell for $20,000 on the black market. Photograph by User:Qwertzy2 [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
According to an article from the Guardian cited on the Havocscope website, wildlife trafficking is a $19 billion business, with up to 350 million specimens bought and sold on the black market every year. Havocsope has collected and analyzed data on the prices of animals that are being trafficked on the black market. Read more…
[ Project Watch ]
Secret Lives of Elephants
Ginormous: Elephants actually can eat up to 900 pounds of food. A day.
What do JavaScript, Loxodonta, GPS, convergent evolution, SQL APIs, and 11-pound brains have to do with one another? In one mapping experiment involving African bull elephants, each of these elements is caught in a lovely conspiracy that points to the storytelling power of data.
As recently reported by Spaceforgiants.org, information transmitted by GPS collars fitted onto five bull elephants inhabiting the Laikipia County area of central Kenya captured their roaming habits, reflecting memory, education, spatial understanding—and mischief.
Read more…
[ Project Watch ]
The Future of Conservation: Data
Something smart is happening in the realm of conservation. People are coming together under a common set of management principles, data collection efforts, and organizing techniques to reduce the impact of illegal and deadly activities throughout the world.
The SMART Partnership is a newly-founded group of global conservation agencies that share a mission to conserve biodiversity, reduce the impacts of illegal extraction and trade of natural resources, strengthen law enforcement related to biodiversity conservation, and strengthen overall management of conservation areas.
The name is an acronym for “Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool” (SMART), and its members currently include World Wildlife Fund, Wildlife Conservation Society, Zoological Society of London, Frankfurt Zoological Society, North Carolina Zoological Park, and the CITES – Monitoring Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) program. Read more…
[ Cool Ways to Help ] [ Project Watch ]
New lessons, new lives
Prison inmates help endangered frogs and butterflies—and themselves.
Oregon Spotted Frogs are raised in captivity, then released into the wild.
In Washington State, the Evergreen State College and the Washington Department of Corrections have implemented the Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP), a program that offers prison inmates the opportunity to participate in conservation, scientific research, and sustainability projects. According to the SPP website, the inmates are introduced to educational and employment opportunities that they may pursue after release, reducing recidivism.
In early 2009, SPP partnered with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on a project to restore endangered Oregon spotted frogs, which are declining due to loss of habitat and predation by exotic bullfrogs. The project involves raising the frogs in captivity until they are mature enough to be released into the wild. Read more…
[ Cool Ways to Help ]
Happy World Pangolin Day! Saturday, Feb. 16
Walking Artichoke? Why . . . yes.
It looks, to quote a source no less sober than National Geographic, like a walking artichoke. It is a mammal with no teeth. A mammal entirely covered in scales. A mammal covered in scales made from keratin, the same substance that produces human fingernails, human hair. Like a human, it is a carnivore. Like an anteater, it is a carnivore. Like an anteater, it consumes thousands of ants and plump yummy termites at a time. And like a rhino or even a tiger, it is nearly extinct.
Read more…
[ Project Watch ]
Putting Wildlife Crime on the Map
A new open source mapping platform provides a clearer view of where these crimes happen — and, possibly, why.
Elephant poaching has become increasingly—and devastatingly—common in many parts of Africa.
Photo by Khakiweed (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
A project is underway to integrate WorldMap with the Wildlife Enforcement Monitoring System (WEMS) of the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies (UNI-IAS). When the integration is complete, anyone – researchers, policymakers, and the general public — will be able to map and track wildlife crime, and will be able to connect that data to a host of socioeconomic data, including ethnicity, income, and environmental conditions. Read more…