By Dan Fletcher

Hello! I’m sorry for the radio silence on the newsletter for a while, but we’ve been really focused on our Park Vibes YouTube channel, which has grown to more than 17,000 subscribers. We’re releasing a new documentary about our public lands, wildlife and national parks every two weeks or so, and they’ve been fascinating (and time consuming!) to put together.

And while I’ve refrained from sharing ALL of them with you who subscribed to FUZZ, I thought I’d call out our latest on the fall and recovery of the American bison.

It hits on a lot of themes we come across time and again in animal conservation — wanton destruction before we realize what we’ve done, and then a slow and painstaking path back to recovery. But we focused on a few very unique herds in the piece — one right off Colorado’s busiest interstate that are the direct descendants of the few wild bison that survived the massacre, and another making their home in the shadow of what used to be a chemical weapons factory.

We also look at William F. Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, who made his fortune and fame as a bison hunter and then late in life, started to recognize the harm he had done.

I hope you’ll check it out, and let me know other videos you’d like to see us tackle. Wishing all of you happy holidays and a great end to the year.

Watch the full film on YouTube

In Death Valley National Park, in the most unlikely place imaginable, one of the rarest fish on earth makes its home in what amounts to a flooded cave. Every time there’s an earthquake anywhere on earth, their tiny world shakes violently. The water is so hot that they’re the only species of fish that can tolerate it.

We’ll take you to Death Valley National Park to introduce you to these special fish, the legal battle they sparked that changed the entire American west, and the people working tirelessly to save this tiny, endangered species.

Watch the full feature now on our YouTube!

From the desolate peaks of Nevada’s Great Basin National Park to California’s remote White Mountains, we filmed in some of the most closely guarded locations in American conservation. You’ll see why some secrets are worth keeping… and what happens when they get out.

This is the first documentary about America nature we’ve put together for a new brand chronicling the wonder of America’s national parks and public lands — and the threat they face. It’s called Park Vibes, and I’m excited to share our first story with all of you on FUZZ.

I’ll keep sharing these films with all of you when they touch on nature and conservation, but if you’re interested in learning more about the fight to save America’s national parks and wild spaces, join our dedicated newsletter for updates and ways you can help over on ParkVibes.com.

Let me know what you think!

By Dan Fletcher

When the deadline for arguably the most important conservation comment period in decades hits at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on September 19, America will have spoken on whether 45 million acres of its wildest forests deserve to survive intact.

Over 40,000 submissions were received in just the first week after the Trump administration opened public comments on its plan to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. That's a remarkable response, but it pales next to what happened when the rule was first proposed: over 1.6 million comments — the most that any rule had ever received — with over 90% of the letters in favor of it.

⭐ If you’re tight on time, stop reading and submit your own comment in favor of preserving the roadless rule right here! ⭐

This time around, the administration gave the public just three weeks to weigh in on a key step of its attempt to scrap the Roadless Rule — compared to a full month for the original rulemaking. It's a truncated timeline that seems designed to limit input on what would be the largest rollback of conservation protections in U.S. history.

The stakes for wildlife couldn't be higher. These stretches of untouched forests are some of the last refuges for some of America's most vulnerable animals. Wolverines, Canada lynx, grizzly bears, cougars, wolves, all depend on these large, undisturbed habitats to survive. For a grizzly bear emerging from hibernation in Montana's high country, or a lynx hunting snowshoe hares through pristine forests, roadless areas represent the difference between persistence and extinction.

Take grizzly bears. Almost 40% of Cabinet-Yaak National Forest grizzly bears' habitat is in roadless areas, and the loss of conservation protections would be devastating for a population that already faces connectivity challenges and has not yet reached recovery goals. This population of about 67 bears in northwest Montana and northeast Idaho is already struggling to maintain genetic diversity. Remove their roadless refuges, and they face an even bleaker future.

The Canada lynx faces similar pressures. Without roads fragmenting habitat, deer and elk have more room to roam and trout streams run cleaner, but it's the lynx that really need those vast, unbroken territories. These cats require enormous home ranges and are so sensitive to disturbance that a single new road can render hundreds of acres unsuitable.

Then there are the wolverines — arguably North America's most elusive large carnivore. A recent study found that wolverines were less likely to occur at sites with logging or burned areas, making the protection of roadless areas critical for their survival. With fewer than 300 wolverines remaining in the lower 48 states, these animals simply can't afford to lose any more secure habitat.

Roadless areas in forests shelter more than 220 species that are threatened, endangered or proposed for Endangered Species Act protection. For many of these animals, roadless areas aren't just preferable habitat — they're essential strongholds without which local populations simply cannot persist.

The administration's rationale for rescission centers on wildfire prevention and economic development. "For nearly 25 years, the Roadless Rule has frustrated land managers and served as a barrier to action – prohibiting road construction, which has limited wildfire suppression and active forest management," says Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz.

But the science tells a different story. Research consistently shows that roads increase rather than decrease fire risk, with most wildfires starting near human infrastructure. And for the wildlife that call these places home, the cure — fragmenting intact habitat with roads and logging operations — is worse than the disease.

If you care about the future of American wildlife, tonight is your last chance to make your voice heard. Comments must be received in writing by September 19, 2025 through the Federal Register at regulations.gov under docket number FS-2025-0001.

Don't let the grizzlies, lynx, wolverines, and hundreds of other species that depend on roadless areas become footnotes in the history of American conservation. The clock is ticking, and after tonight, the next opportunity to comment won't come until March 2026 when the draft environmental impact statement is released.

These 45 million acres are lifelines for wildlife that cannot survive in an increasingly fragmented landscape. And right now, every voice speaking up for them helps.

The Center for Biological Diversity broke the news this week through newly released federal records: U.S. government agents in a helicopter had shot and killed a 3-month-old Mexican gray wolf pup on New Mexico's Gila National Forest. And the pup wasn't just any wolf — she carried genes that could have helped save her entire subspecies from extinction.

Mexican gray wolves are the most endangered wolves in North America. After a government extermination campaign that began in 1915 wiped them out across their range, only seven survivors were captured and bred to restart the population. Today, their descendants number just around 300 animals roaming the Southwest, all carrying the genetic legacy of those seven founders. Every individual matters, but some matter more than others — wolves with rare genetic combinations that could strengthen the entire population's health and resilience.

The pup killed last week was one of those genetically valuable animals. So is the second wolf federal agents have been ordered to kill: a young male whose mother was shot from the air in April while likely pregnant. He's found a mate and is starting a family of his own, but his kill order remains active.

The rationale behind these executions is familiar: livestock conflicts on public lands. When wolves take cattle or sheep, ranchers demand action, and federal agencies comply by removing the "problem" wolves. It's a cycle that's played out for over a century, with predictable results for both sides — ranchers remain frustrated by ongoing losses, while wolf populations struggle to recover under constant pressure. (It happens here in Colorado too, with our newly released wolves.)

What makes this particularly galling is that these killings are happening during what should be a recovery effort. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — the very agency charged with bringing Mexican wolves back from the brink — is ordering their execution. Since President Trump's return to office, removals have accelerated: five wolves killed in just four months, including pregnant females and genetically important individuals whose loss sets back recovery efforts by years.

The cruel irony isn't lost on conservationists. "Gunning down a wolf pup from the air whose precious genes could have helped save her entire subspecies was cruel and will further stall recovery of these animals," said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity. The genetic diversity that took decades to slowly rebuild through careful breeding programs can be erased in minutes by helicopter gunmen.

There's still time to prevent the second killing. Conservation groups are pushing federal agencies to cancel the kill order for the young male wolf. But the broader question remains: how can we claim to be recovering a species while simultaneously destroying the very individuals most crucial to its genetic future?

Quick Links! 🔗

• More bad news for wolves: Montana's Fish and Wildlife Commission just adopted regulations allowing hunters and trappers to kill 452 wolves statewide — nearly half the state's estimated population of 1,091. The decision came after six hours of heated debate, with most public commenters opposing the plan. The new rules also increase individual bag limits to 15 wolves per hunter (provided at least five are killed in northern regions), allow infrared scopes on private land, and remove trap setbacks in several counties. Critics argued the quota ignores ecological science and economic benefits wolves bring to tourism, while supporters claimed stable wolf populations justify aggressive reduction efforts to appease livestock interests. The commission will revisit the regulations next summer, but for now, Montana continues its aggressive campaign to slash wolf numbers by roughly half.

• Prints for Wildlife is back for one month only, offering limited-edition prints from over 200 global wildlife photographers with proceeds going directly to Conservation International. Since 2020, the initiative has raised more than $2.1 million for conservation programs worldwide — funding that's becoming increasingly critical as traditional sources dry up. "In 2025, the crisis isn't a virus—it's a withdrawal of critical funding for wildlife and conservation," says co-founder Pie Aerts. The fundraiser runs through September 21, giving photographers and conservation supporters a chance to turn stunning wildlife imagery into direct support for protecting biodiversity hotspots around the world.

By Dan Fletcher

Sorry I missed you all last week — we're deep in the edit for our first set of mini nature documentaries, and I didn't want to rush out a half-baked newsletter while buried in footage. The first film should be ready in the next couple weeks, along with a new brand launch focused specifically on national parks and nature. More on that soon.

But I couldn't wait any longer to share some good news: the Great Basin Institute won last month's FUZZ Funds vote. I just sent over $300 toward their programs to restore and educate people about the vast, weird stretch of America that exists in the rain shadow of the Sierras. It's the only place on Earth you'll find the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine — trees that can live over 4,000 years, making them among the oldest living things on the planet.

I think this marks the first time we've sent our monthly support toward a plant, though Great Basin National Park is far from just trees. The park hosts more than 300 species of mammals, birds and reptiles, seven of which exist nowhere else on Earth. It's a remarkable place that most people have never heard of, and one you'll get to see a lot more of in two weeks when our documentary premieres.

And now onto the news.

The breakthrough that turns every camera trap into a wildlife psychologist

Looking at camera trap photos from around the world, scientists face the same challenge everywhere: we can tell you a leopard walked past at 3:47 AM, but was it hunting? Stressed? Investigating a scent mark from another cat? The subtle behavioral cues that reveal what animals are actually thinking remain largely invisible to us.

That's about to change, thanks to a breakthrough from Swiss researchers who've just created something that sounds like science fiction: an AI system that can watch wildlife footage and understand what animals are actually doing, not just that they're there.

The team at EPFL spent months in Switzerland's oldest national park, deploying nine camera traps across alpine meadows and forests to capture something unprecedented. Instead of the usual brief clips of animals triggering motion sensors, they recorded continuous footage—43 hours of raw video that they've transformed into the first dataset that can teach machines to interpret complex animal behavior.

They call it MammAlps, and it represents a fundamental shift in how we might monitor wildlife. Rather than simply counting animals or noting their presence, this system can distinguish between a deer casually browsing and one alert to predators, or identify the difference between a marmot's territorial display and its alarm call to the colony.

The technical achievement is impressive. They went beyond collecting video to generate detailed behavioral maps that combine multiple camera angles, audio recordings, and environmental context. When a red deer approaches a watering spot, the system doesn't just see "deer at water." It understands the approach behavior, drinking posture, and vigilance patterns that reveal the animal's internal state.

But the scalability of the approach makes it the most exciting for conservationists. Traditional wildlife behavior studies require researchers to spend months in the field, watching and interpreting animal actions. A single PhD student might analyze hundreds of hours of footage over years. This AI system could process that same amount of data in hours, recognizing behavioral patterns across thousands of camera trap locations simultaneously.

Imagine applying this technology to camera trap networks worldwide. Instead of just knowing that jaguars pass through a territory in the Amazon, scientists could understand their hunting strategies, stress levels, and social dynamics. They could identify when human activity is disrupting natural behaviors or track how climate change affects feeding patterns—all from the footage these remote cameras are already collecting.

The Swiss team has made their dataset freely available to researchers worldwide, recognizing that the real breakthrough comes when this technology spreads beyond any single research group. They're essentially providing the foundation for a new generation of wildlife monitoring tools that could transform how we understand and protect animal populations.

Of course, there are limitations. The system currently works best with larger mammals in relatively open environments—smaller, more elusive species might still prove challenging for even the most sophisticated AI. But as the technology develops, it promises to unlock secrets hidden in the millions of hours of wildlife footage collected every year by researchers, park managers, and conservation groups around the world.

Scientists are left wondering what camera trap images from tigers in India to snow leopards in Central Asia might reveal if we could truly understand the behavioral stories they contain. Perhaps that predator captured at 3:47 AM wasn't just passing through—maybe it was demonstrating hunting techniques that could help us understand how these species adapt to changing landscapes. The tools to decode those stories are finally within reach.

Quick links! 🔗

• The scimitar-horned oryx just became one of the first large mammals to successfully come back from complete extinction in the wild. These elegant antelopes vanished entirely from their native Sahara in 2000, but over 600 now roam free across Chad's Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim reserve after one of conservation's most ambitious rescue efforts. The turnaround required 220 zoos worldwide to coordinate breeding programs for two decades, maintaining genetic diversity while scientists prepared release sites. Since 2016, more than 500 calves have been born in the wild, proving these desert specialists can reclaim their ancestral home.

• Scientists discovered six new butterfly species that have been hiding in plain sight by looking exactly like each other. These glasswing butterflies from Central America appear identical to human eyes—and to predators who might want to eat them—but they use secret chemical "passwords" to find the right mates. It's like having six different people who all look like twins but can tell each other apart by smell. The butterflies evolved this clever strategy to stay safe from predators while still being able to reproduce with their own species. The discovery, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows how much biodiversity we're still missing even in well-studied regions, and demonstrates evolution's ingenuity in solving the problem of staying alive while finding love.

Hello from Oakland. After a raft trip down the west’s last untamed river, a whirlwind tour through Mongolia’s steppe and several weeks traversing some of the the west’s national parks, I’m finally about to start home for a little bit to start editing this first series of mini-documentaries.

We have terabytes of footage on stories from the oldest trees to the rarest fish on earth, and I’m excited to share them with you soon. But first, I wanted to share the story of how an environmental near-catastrophe inadvertently created the perfect home for one of nature’s coolest birds of prey.

And if you’re a paid supporter, be sure to scroll to the middle of the newsletter to choose where we send this month’s FUZZ Funds donation! If you haven’t joined yet, add to our pool of conservation funds and become a subscriber today — 100% of your paid support goes directly to conservation causes we choose together each month.

Subscribe now

Now, onto the osprey.

When destruction creates sanctuary

Each morning at first light, a dozen pairs of ospreys launch from limestone towers rising like ancient monuments from Mono Lake's alkaline waters. They're embarking on one of nature's more improbable commutes: a journey that can stretch up to 20 miles round trip to catch fish for chicks waiting at a lake that contains no fish at all.

These towers, called tufas, stand as proof of one of California's great environmental scandals. When Los Angeles began diverting Mono Lake's tributary streams in 1941, the lake dropped 45 vertical feet over four decades, losing half its volume. The receding waters exposed these calcium carbonate spires that had grown underwater for centuries — and inadvertently created perfect nesting sites for birds that shouldn't logically exist here.

It's a story that captures conservation's strangest ironies: how environmental destruction sometimes creates new habitats, and how nature finds ways to thrive in the most unlikely places.

The first osprey pair arrived in 1985, drawn by the newly exposed towers. For five straight years they failed to raise young, but their persistence paid off in 1989 when two chicks finally fledged. That pioneering success sparked a colonization that has grown into California's most unusual raptor population.

What makes these birds extraordinary isn't just where they nest, but how they've adapted to life at a fishless lake. Mono Lake's water is 2-3 times saltier than the ocean, with a pH of 9.8 — equivalent to household glass cleaner. Nothing swims here except brine shrimp and alkali flies. So the ospreys commute, flying 8-10 miles each way to fish at June Lake, Grant Lake Reservoir, and other freshwater bodies scattered across the Eastern Sierra.

Despite this daily marathon, environmental scientist Lisa Fields discovered something surprising: Mono Lake ospreys achieve breeding success rates of 1.42 young per nest — comparable to or better than populations with nearby food sources. The tufa towers offer unparalleled advantages. Surrounded by water too saline for mammalian predators, these natural fortresses eliminate threats from raccoons, coyotes, and snakes. The stable limestone platforms don't sway in storms like trees, and California State Parks enforces a 200-yard buffer zone around active nests.

Recent satellite tracking has revealed the continental reach of these commuter birds. Banded Mono Lake ospreys have been spotted as far away as Alabama and Texas during migration, connecting this desert lake to a hemispheric network of habitats.

But the ospreys are just the most visible beneficiaries of this accidental sanctuary. While they capture attention with their improbable daily flights, Mono Lake's true ecological significance lies in supporting nearly 2 million birds annually, drawn from the more than 325 species recorded at this vital oasis. As a critical stopover on the Pacific Flyway — the major migration route from Alaska to Patagonia — the lake has earned designation as a Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network site of hemispheric importance.

The most spectacular visitors are Eared Grebes, with 1-2 million birds — representing 30% of North America's population — staging here each fall. These diving birds gorge on brine shrimp until they triple their body weight, becoming temporarily too fat to fly. During their 3-4 month flightless molting period, they transform the lake into a massive avian gathering.

California Gulls represent another success story, with up to 65,000 adults nesting here annually in the second-largest breeding colony globally. Wilson's Phalaropes arrive by the tens of thousands in July, doubling their weight before undertaking a non-stop 3,000-mile flight to South American saline lakes.

The foundation of this spectacular abundance is deceptively simple: trillions of brine shrimp and alkali flies that thrive in the lake's extreme chemistry. Each Eared Grebe consumes 28,000-30,000 brine shrimp daily. The flies exhibit behavior that has fascinated scientists for decades — walking underwater in air bubbles to graze and lay eggs, an adaptation that also provided sustenance to the indigenous Kutzadika'a people for millennia.

This productivity stems from 760,000 years of mineral accumulation in a terminal basin with no outlet. Evaporation has concentrated salts to create a unique chemistry found nowhere else on Earth, supporting one of the planet's most productive yet simple food webs.

But recent years have brought troubling developments. The 2024 California Gull breeding season ended in catastrophe, with only 324 chicks surviving from over 20,000 adults — down from 11,000 the previous year. Scientists attribute this collapse to water stratification following exceptionally heavy winter runoff that disrupted brine shrimp production.

The lake's level remains significantly below the state-mandated target needed to ensure ecosystem health, protect nesting islands from predators, and prevent toxic dust storms from exposed lakebeds. Climate change projections show 2.5-4.1°C temperature increases and 15% decreases in streamflow by century's end.

The exposed tufa towers epitomize conservation's unexpected turns. These formations, revealed by environmentally destructive water diversions, now provide critical nesting habitat not just for ospreys but for violet-green swallows, rock wrens, mountain bluebirds, and even great horned owls. What began as ecological damage transformed into architectural marvels supporting biodiversity.

Despite conservation victories — Los Angeles now voluntarily limits water diversions and has become much more water-efficient — Mono Lake's story remains unfinished. The lake faces new challenges as climate change intensifies and the 2024 gull breeding collapse reminds us how quickly ecological victories can unravel.

The ospreys thriving atop towers exposed by ecological destruction embody both nature's resilience and conservation's complexity. In a world where water becomes increasingly precious, Mono Lake stands as a test case for whether human society can balance its needs with ecological imperatives.

The exposed tufa towers — simultaneously monuments to past damage and pillars supporting new life — perfectly capture this conservation paradox. Sometimes the most improbable accidents become sanctuaries for life we never expected to find there.

Choose this month’s FUZZ funds recipient!

In traversing the high desert this month, I met a ton of dedicated volunteers and conservationists working on America’s public lands to preserve and protect habitats and species at risk. Support for their work is more critical than ever, as cuts to the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service set in.

Across the Great Basin, the Great Basin Conservation Corps works to preserve one of America’s most unique climates, preserving habitat and training conservationists for work that includes protecting the rare groves of the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine, the oldest non-clonal living thing on earth.

In Death Valley, the Death Valley Natural History Association works to protect some of the most critical breeding ground and habitats for a wide variety of species, including the rarest fish on earth, in one of the most unforgiving places to live on earth.

And finally, the Mono Lake Committee watches over the osprey and the entire Mono Lake Basin, as increasing droughts and roll-backs to water efficiency standards threaten to further impact this critical nesting ground which still hasn’t managed to recover to its state-mandated level after decades of abuse.

Trees, fish, birds. All worthy causes, but you get to choose. We have $291 to donate this month — where should we send it? I’ll leave the poll open until next week’s newsletter.

Quick links! 🔗

• We’ve talked before about the tough decisions necessary to curb rhino poaching — here’s one more clever attempt at solving the problem. South African researchers have launched a groundbreaking anti-poaching strategy: injecting rhino horns with radioactive isotopes that can be detected by airport security scanners worldwide. The University of the Witwatersrand's "Rhisotope Project" began mass injections this week after successful trials showed the low-level radiation is completely safe for animals but triggers alarms in customs detectors — even when horns are hidden inside 40-foot shipping containers. With South Africa losing about 500 rhinos annually to poaching and global populations down from 500,000 to just 27,000 since 1900, researchers hope this invisible tracking system will finally give law enforcement the upper hand against trafficking networks.

• And remember how I talked about how earthquakes as far away as Japan can rattle the Devils Hole habitat in Death Valley for the critically endangered pupfish? The 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula sent 10-inch waves rippling through Devils Hole. The Devils Hole pupfish, with only 38 individuals counted in their latest survey, depends on a shallow shelf within the 500-foot-deep cavern for feeding and breeding. While the seismic waves "removed some materials" from this critical habitat and disrupted algae growth, National Park Service scientists are cautiously optimistic — the timing coincides with ideal sun conditions for algae regrowth, and pupfish are known to increase spawning rates after disturbances.

By Dan Fletcher

There's a hole in the Nevada desert, about an hour northwest of Las Vegas, where 47 fish live in what might be the strangest habitat on Earth. The opening is barely 20 feet across, but the water below glows an otherworldly blue and stays a constant 91 degrees year-round. Every single one of these fish was born on a limestone shelf the size of a conference table, 15 feet underwater.

They're called Devil's Hole pupfish, and they shouldn't exist. This hole is a part of Death Valley—the hottest, driest place in North America. The nearest river is miles away. Yet these tiny fish have been making it work in this flooded cave since before humans built cities.

But perhaps most remarkably, in 1976, the fate of these fish went all the way to the Supreme Court. And the fish won.

The trouble started in 1968 when Nevada ranchers Francis and Marilyn Cappaert began pumping groundwater for their farming operation. They'd invested $7 million turning empty desert into productive farmland, employing 80 workers and following every water law on the books. By Nevada's rules, they owned the water beneath their land.

Except their pumping started draining Devil's Hole. For the first time in recorded history, water levels dropped. The shallow shelf where every pupfish had been born for hundreds of years was suddenly exposed to air. These fish had survived ice ages, but agriculture was about to wipe them out.

The legal battle was brutal. The government argued that when President Truman made Devil's Hole a national monument in 1952 — in large part due to the unique fish — he'd automatically reserved whatever water the fish needed to survive. The ranchers' lawyers said this would destroy western development—if the feds could claim water just by declaring land protected, every farm and city in the arid West was vulnerable.

Chief Justice Warren Burger delivered a unanimous decision: the fish would endure. Federal land reservations automatically include the water needed to fulfill their purpose, and these rights supersede state-approved claims. The Cappaerts lost their ranch. Forty-seven fish in a hole in the ground had reshaped American water law.

That was just the beginning of their problems, though. Population counts revealed something no biologist expected—wild swings from 500 fish down to a terrifying low of just 35 in 2013. Most populations that small simply disappear, but these fish kept bouncing back.

When scientists finally decoded their DNA in 2022, they found out why these fish shouldn't exist. The Devil's Hole pupfish showed the most extreme inbreeding ever documented in a wild vertebrate. The average fish shared 58% of its DNA with every other fish—equivalent to multiple generations of sibling breeding. They'd lost entire genes, including ones needed for their low-oxygen environment, yet somehow they keep reproducing.

Then earthquakes hit. A 7.0 quake in California last December created violent sloshing in Devil's Hole 500 miles away, washing eggs and larvae off their breeding shelf. A February quake repeated the damage. Spring counts revealed devastation: only 38 fish remained.

For the first time ever, scientists intervened directly. In May, they released 19 captive-bred pupfish into Devil's Hole—fish raised in a $4.5 million facility that perfectly replicates their impossible home. Today, 47 fish continue their ancient routines in water that glows like a portal to another world.

I was in Devil’s Hole last week working on a full video about this story—the Supreme Court drama, the genetic impossibilities, the conservation miracles. It's a tale that spans evolutionary history and legal precedent, proving that the loneliest species on Earth might have the most to teach us about survival. Look for it in a few weeks.

Back among the bristlecones

I’m writing this newsletter today from the Ancient Bristlecone Forest in California, part of the Inyo National Forest. We’re finishing up our bristlecone film by visiting the Schulman Grove, home to the Methuselah tree, the current oldest known living organism. But there’s rumors of another, even older tree that’s been lost to science due to an untimely death, a culture of secrecy and the protections necessary to save the oldest living things on earth.

More on that coming soon. But we also used it as an opportunity to do some night sky photography last night, since the lack of light pollution and high elevation make for some stunning views of the Milky Way.

Here’s the sky with a bristlecone that my friend Kyle and I found last night. It’s probably not the oldest living thing on earth, but who can say! It’s part of the mystery of this place.

Quick links! 🔗

• Scientists discovered orangutans are just like us when they don't get enough sleep—they take power naps the next day to catch up. A 14-year study in Sumatra found that for every hour of nighttime sleep an orangutan loses, they nap an extra 10 minutes the following day. That's eerily similar to what sleep experts recommend for humans: short 5-15 minute power naps to restore mental performance. After my recent jet lag from Mongolia, I've never felt more kinship with our tree-dwelling cousins. The research also revealed that orangutans sleep poorly when others are nearby (relatable) and struggle to nap properly when it's too hot (extremely relatable). Unfortunately, rising temperatures from climate change could make it harder for these critically endangered apes to catch up on lost sleep—a problem that hits close to home for anyone who's ever tried to nap during a heat wave.

• Scientists discovered a new species of ancient shark at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, which feels like finding a penguin in the Sahara until you remember that 340 million years ago, Kentucky was underwater. The foot-long Macadens olsoni had curved teeth perfect for crushing mollusks in the warm, shallow sea that once covered what's now famous for limestone caves and bourbon distilleries. It's a perfect reminder that our planet's geography has been constantly reshuffling—today's underground cave systems were once teeming coral reefs. The discovery is part of a fossil bonanza at Mammoth Cave, where researchers have identified more than 40 different ancient shark species in just the past 10 months

By Dan Fletcher

FUZZ is on the road for the next few weeks, working on a series of little mini-documentaries in preparation for launch of a new YouTube channel. And that trip took us high above the desert floor yesterday, visiting an ancient tree that’s famous enough to appear on currency.

But before we get to that, I wanted to give you a quick update about this newsletter. Since launch in January, this little community has raised almost $10,000 for conservation causes around the world — a huge accomplishment! And each month, thanks to the ongoing support of paid subscribers, we have about $300 ready to add to those donations.

But there’s a lot more to do and the more I travel, the more I realize how small amounts of funding from communities like FUZZ can make a big difference for scientists around the world. But here’s the tough bit: Substack just isn’t growing in the way that I had hoped. Part of this may be the platform — Substack’s cultivated an audience that’s mostly interested in political content, and while politics occasionally touches on the issues in this newsletter, I’ve consciously tried to not make it the main focus. But that means there aren’t too many other readers necessarily looking for wildlife updates here, too.

And part of it may be the posts — I’d love any suggestions on what would make this newsletter more engaging for you, or if you’re a free subscriber, what changes might convince you to upgrade to paid, remembering of course that 100% of all paid support goes directly to conservation organizations we choose together each month.

Subscribe now

But I suspect more than anything, it’s just a matter of time. Everyone’s inbox is inundated with interesting information and urgent appeals, and even with the best of intentions, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle.

So here’s the changes I’m going to make. This newsletter won’t go away — I really enjoy writing for you all — but I’m going to focus on one really high quality update for you each week, based as much as I can on something I’m discovering out in the world. It’ll land on Friday mornings, so hopefully it can become a trusted weekend read.

And with that added time, we’re going to focus more on new platforms to grow our community here. That means a lot more videos from around the world — video posts are generally the most popular on FUZZ, and by making more of them, not only will we give you a deeper way to understand these stories but hopefully we can grow this community to be larger on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, all of which have more of an audience that’s engaged with conservation causes and that we can bring back to Substack.

And when those videos are ready to release, paid subscribers on FUZZ will be the first to get a sneak preview.

I hope you enjoy the new, more visual version of FUZZ and that together, we can continue to raise more money for the scientists and advocates doing work to save animals and the habitats in which they live. And as always, I’m reachable at dan@fuzz.net with any suggestions and ideas.

Now onto the very high heights above the Nevada desert.

A tree famous enough to appear on currency

One of the very first FUZZ films we’re working on is about the bristlecone pines in Nevada and California, which are the oldest non-clonal organisms on the planet. Look for the full video in August, but here’s an intro to one of the trees we met after a crushing 13-mile hike yesterday.

If you've ever fumbled through your pocket change and pulled out a Nevada state quarter, you've held a tiny portrait of one of the planet's most ancient living creatures. The gnarled, twisted tree depicted on that 25-cent piece isn't just any pine — it's a Great Basin bristlecone pine, and the specific specimen that posed for the U.S. Mint is still growing today on a windswept ridge in Nevada's White Mountains, quietly adding another ring to its nearly five-thousand-year story.

The bristlecone pines of the American West represent some of the oldest known living organisms on Earth. While coastal redwoods grow tall and sequoias grow massive, these high-altitude survivors specialize in persistence. They've weathered everything our planet could throw at them: ice ages, droughts, volcanic eruptions, and the rise and fall of entire civilizations. Some were already ancient when the pyramids were built, and they were middle-aged when humans first figured out how to work iron. The secret to their longevity lies in their harsh environment — growing slowly in thin air, poor soil, and extreme weather actually helps them live longer. It's the botanical equivalent of "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Finding these living monuments requires commitment. The hike to the bristlecone pine groves follows Snake Ridge, a serpentine (and sometimes barely there) path that climbs through one of North America's most unforgiving landscapes. At almost 11,000 feet above sea level, the air is thin enough to make every step painful, and the rocky terrain demands careful footing. But as you ascend, something magical happens — the landscape strips away everything unnecessary, leaving only the essential elements of earth, sky, and these impossibly resilient trees clinging to life in conditions that would kill almost any other plant.

The Quarter Tree earned its nickname after being selected as the model for Nevada's “America the Beautiful” state quarter, minted in 2013. Unlike some of its more famous cousins — including the tragic case of Prometheus, a 4,900-year-old bristlecone that was cut down by researchers in 1964 — the Quarter Tree continues its patient vigil over Great Basin. Forest Service officials now carefully protect the locations of the oldest specimens, having learned hard lessons about the irreplaceable value of these ancient witnesses. The tree's distinctive silhouette, with its gnarled trunk and sparse crown shaped by millennia of high-altitude winds, captured the imagination of mint designers who wanted to represent Nevada's rugged endurance.

Standing among the bristlecone pines on Snake Ridge, you're in the presence of living history that predates written records. The Quarter Tree could have been a thousand years old when Jesus was born, already ancient when the Library of Alexandria was at its peak. Each ring in its trunk represents another year of survival in one of Earth's most challenging environments. While most trees would perish in these conditions, bristlecones have evolved to thrive here, their dense wood and waxy needles perfectly adapted to the thin air and brutal temperature swings of the high desert.

What makes encountering the Quarter Tree particularly moving is knowing that this same gnarled survivor now travels in millions of pockets across America. Every time someone receives a Nevada quarter in change, they're carrying a tiny tribute to persistence and endurance. In a world that often feels ephemeral, there's something comforting about hiking to meet these patient survivors — especially knowing that while you're reading this, somewhere high in the mountains, the Quarter Tree is still slowly, steadily, adding another microscopic layer to its five-thousand-year story.

By Dan Fletcher

Here is today’s audio edition!

It's World Chimpanzee Day, and I want to tell you about one of conservation's most troubling paradoxes. The very thing that's keeping our closest evolutionary relatives from extinction might also be killing them, one common cold at a time.

Picture this: You're trekking through Uganda's Kibale National Park, and you spot a family of chimpanzees just 20 feet away. A mother grooms her infant while juveniles swing overhead, completely unbothered by your presence. It's magical — the kind of encounter that transforms tourists into conservationists and funds the protection of entire ecosystems.

But here's what you can't see: the respiratory virus you're carrying from your international flight, harmless to you but potentially lethal to every chimpanzee in that forest.

Over the past 35 years at Kibale, nearly 60% of chimpanzee deaths have been traced to human pathogens — common colds, flu viruses, and other respiratory infections that barely make us sniffle but prove devastating to our evolutionary cousins. In 2016, a human metapneumovirus outbreak killed 25 of 205 chimpanzees at the park's Ngogo site, a 12% mortality rate from what would be a common cold in humans.

And that’s the problem. The diseases killing chimpanzees aren't exotic tropical pathogens — they're the mundane viruses we carry in our throats and lungs every day. When researchers genetically analyzed the respiratory syncytial virus that killed chimpanzees at Kibale, they found it was identical to strains circulating in the nearest human village. The viral outbreak at Taï National Park in 2016 also came from tourists. Even the common cold virus that infected 56 chimpanzees at Ngogo could be traced directly back to human contact.

What makes this especially insidious is that we often don't even know we're carrying these killers. A 2024 study revealed that while human children show symptoms when infected, adults humans become asymptomatic carriers — making the temperature checks and health screenings at park entrances essentially useless for preventing transmission.

But here’s the paradox: the tourism and research that brings these diseases are some of the only things standing between chimpanzees and total extinction.

Chimpanzee tourism generates extraordinary conservation benefits across Africa. In Uganda alone, it accounts for 52% of all tourism revenue. At Rwanda's parks, tourism contributed over 70% of foreign exchange earnings for a decade. This money translates directly into anti-poaching patrols, habitat restoration, and community development projects that give local people alternatives to hunting.

The protective effect goes beyond economics. At Gombe, where Jane Goodall began the world's longest-running chimpanzee study 65 years ago, constant human presence has kept poachers at bay. The simple fact that tourists and researchers are watching creates a deterrent effect that's proven more effective than any fence.

Only 150,000 to 340,000 chimpanzees remain in the wild today, down from as many as a million a century ago. Western chimpanzees have crashed by 80% in just 25 years. Without the revenue and protection that human contact provides, most remaining populations would likely disappear within decades.

So we're stuck with an impossible choice: engage with chimpanzees and risk making them sick, or leave them alone and watch them get poached into extinction.

The COVID-19 pandemic offered an unexpected opportunity to test ways around this paradox. Despite sharing identical ACE2 receptors with humans — making them highly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 — no wild chimpanzee that we know of contracted COVID-19. But this success came at enormous cost: complete tourism shutdowns devastated conservation funding while proving that strict biosecurity actually works.

Research sites rapidly adapted with enhanced protocols that would have seemed absurd pre-pandemic. Mandatory 14-day quarantines for international visitors. Distance requirements increased from 7 to 30 feet. Universal masking, daily health checks, reduced group sizes. But it worked — at Kibale's Ngogo site, coughing rates in chimpanzees dropped from 1.73% to just 0.075% after implementing these measures.

The results suggest a path forward that doesn't require choosing between contact and isolation. Rwanda's Gishwati Forest showcases what's possible — the chimpanzee population increased 130% from just 13 individuals in 2008 to 30 today through a combination of strict health protocols, high-end tourism, and deep community engagement.

But maintaining these protocols requires constant vigilance and significant costs. Quarantine facilities, health monitoring systems, and reduced group sizes all eat into the revenue that makes conservation possible. It's a delicate balance that becomes harder to maintain as tourism pressure increases and budgets tighten.

Tourism has ramped back up across Africa after pandemic shutdowns. The protocols that kept chimpanzees COVID-free are being relaxed as economic pressures mount. Whether we maintain the hard-won gains in disease prevention or slide back into old habits may determine whether future generations get to meet our evolutionary cousins in the wild, or only read about them in history books.

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• More monkey business for today: Scientists just discovered that long-tailed macaques have surprisingly human-like viewing preferences when watching videos. In a study at a Dutch research center, 28 macaques consistently chose to watch footage of fights over grooming, running, or sitting around — and they paid extra attention when the videos featured monkeys they actually knew rather than strangers. Lower-ranking, less dominant monkeys were the most engaged viewers, possibly because they need to stay alert to potential threats. The findings suggest our fascination with conflict and familiar faces in media might be an evolutionary trait we share with our primate relatives — making monkey movie nights not so different from our own.

• Grand Teton National Park rangers are dealing with an unexpected problem: foxes have stolen 32 shoes from campers, and the situation is getting worse because visitors are now deliberately leaving footwear outside their tents hoping to catch a glimpse of the "cute" thieves. What started as 19 missing shoes prompted park signs asking people to secure their footwear, but instead of solving the problem, it backfired spectacularly. Rangers posted a humorous PSA reminding visitors that while the behavior seems adorable, teaching wildlife to associate humans with opportunity can lead to the animals being relocated or euthanized. Nobody knows why the foxes want the shoes, but park officials are clear that feeding this habit isn't helping anyone — especially not the foxes.

By Dan Fletcher

Here is today’s audio edition.

Picture this: you're floating in the middle of the ocean when a 6,000-pound orca swims up and offers you a fish. Not aggressively — gently, like a friend sharing their lunch. It holds the fish in its mouth, waits for your reaction, and seems genuinely curious about what you'll do next.

This scene has played out 34 times across four oceans over the past two decades, according to a new study published this week. Scientists call it "interspecific generalized altruism," which is a jargon-y way of saying "being nice to other species for no particular reason." These apex predators are essentially trying to make friends by sharing their food. Yeah, with us. The species that's spent centuries either hunting them or keeping them in concrete pools.

In 97% of cases, the orcas waited for a human response before doing anything with their offering. Sometimes they'd try again if humans didn't take the hint. One orca off New Zealand repeatedly offered pieces of stingray to an underwater photographer, seemingly frustrated that this incompetent human couldn't figure out how to properly accept a gift.

But this behavior isn't actually new. We just forgot that orcas have been trying to work with us for a really long time.

From 1840 to 1930, a pod of orcas in Eden, Australia, had the most unlikely business partnership in history. Old Tom, a 22-foot male, would slap his tail on the water to alert local whalers that baleen whales had entered the bay. The orcas would help herd the whales, even grabbing harpoon ropes in their teeth. In return, they got the whale's tongue and lips — "The Law of the Tongue." That was the deal, and both sides honored it for 90 years. Old Tom's skeleton still shows wear marks from all that rope-pulling.

But whhen Old Tom died in 1930, the partnership died with him (and thankfully, whaling like this has died off, too.) But now, nearly a century later, orcas are trying to forge a relationship again. And we should probably pay attention, because these are some of the smartest animals on the planet and they’re not always using that energy for good.

Last year, scientists documented orcas manufacturing tools from kelp to groom each other. Meanwhile, off Spain and Portugal, a more mischievous group has figured out how to systematically remove rudders from boats. Over 700 incidents since 2020 suggest they're teaching this skill to their kids.

Here's the tragic irony: as we're discovering how brilliant orcas are, we're simultaneously driving some populations toward extinction. The Southern Resident killer whales — some of the same ones offering us fish — number just 73 individuals. They're starving because we've dammed their rivers and depleted their salmon. They're going deaf because ship noise interferes with their echolocation.

But it's not hopeless. The Bigg's killer whale population has bounced back from near-extinction to over 400 individuals. Programs like Quiet Sound have shown that when ships slow down, underwater noise drops by 50%, allowing orcas to hunt effectively again.

So what do these fish offerings mean? Maybe orcas think we're terrible hunters who need help. Maybe it's play, or teaching. But I think it's simpler than that.

Pacific Northwest Indigenous peoples have always called orcas relatives. The Tlingit people tell of the legend of Natsilane, who carved the first orca from cedar and commanded it to never harm humans but to help those in distress. For thousands of years, these cultures understood what science is just now proving: orcas are capable of genuine relationship.

Maybe these fish offerings are exactly what they appear to be — invitations. Attempts to rebuild a partnership that once worked for both species. A reminder that in a world where we've mostly forgotten how to live alongside other animals, some animals haven't forgotten how to live alongside us.

The question isn't why orcas are offering us fish. The question is whether we're smart enough to figure out what they're really offering: a chance to be better neighbors in the ocean we share.

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• Scientists just discovered that chimpanzees follow fashion trends too, with researchers documenting how a "grass-in-ear" look went viral at a Zambian sanctuary. Starting in 2010, a female chimp began dangling grass blades from her ears during leisure time, and the behavior quickly spread through her group. More than a decade later, chimps in a completely separate group nine miles away started doing the same thing—plus adding a twist by inserting objects into their rectums. The key connection? Human caregivers who had a habit of cleaning their ears with matchsticks, suggesting the chimps learned by watching their human companions. Lead researcher Ed van Leeuwen notes these behaviors aren't functional (no pain relief or scratching involved) but seem to be about social bonding and fitting in—just like human fashion trends.

• Lemurs are aging gracefully in ways that could teach humans a thing or two about getting older. Biological anthropologist Elaine Guevara compared ring-tailed and sifaka lemurs at Duke Lemur Center, expecting to find "inflammaging" (chronic inflammation that develops as humans age and contributes to heart disease and diabetes). Instead, she discovered something surprising: neither lemur species showed age-related increases in inflammation. Ring-tailed lemurs actually showed declining inflammation as they aged. Since lemurs and humans share a common primate ancestor, this suggests inflammaging isn't inevitable in primates — and might not even be universal in humans.

By Dan Fletcher

Here is today’s audio edition!

In the pristine, glacier-fed waters of Kachemak Bay, Alaska, a large sea otter nicknamed "Fat Rat" floats lazily around metal cages filled with Pacific oysters, looking like he's plotting a shellfish heist. But here's the surprise: he never takes a single oyster.

This unexpected restraint, documented in a study published in the Journal of Wildlife Management last month, reveals something encouraging about the relationship between recovering wildlife populations and human enterprise. Sometimes, if we design things right, everybody wins.

The research, led by University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate student Emily Reynolds, spent over 80 hours observing sea otter behavior around oyster farms in Kachemak Bay. What they discovered upends conventional wisdom: sea otters don't eat farmed oysters when they're protected by metal cages, and the otters' presence might actually benefit farmers by cleaning fouling organisms off equipment.

"Going into the project, there were a lot of unanswered questions about the interactions between sea otters and oyster farms," Reynolds explained in an interview with Alaska Sea Grant. "We thought that sea otters might be drawn to farms for resting or for feeding. They could preferentially forage at farms, either directly by feeding on the oysters or indirectly by feeding on other organisms that associate with farms or grow on farming structures."

This matters because Alaska aims to grow its mariculture industry nearly 50 fold, from today's $2.7 million to $100 million within 20 years. To do that, understanding how to coexist with wildlife is crucial for sustainable growth. And the stakes are high: Alaska hosts about 75% of the world's sea otters, making it a perfect testing ground for whether aquaculture and wildlife recovery can happen in the same waters.

The key to peaceful coexistence lies in the farming equipment itself. Alaska's oyster farmers use metal cages to protect their crops from predators, and these barriers prove effective against sea otters. Reynolds and her team found that while sea otters spent 49% of their time resting at oyster farms compared to just 27% in non-farm areas, they never once consumed a farmed oyster during the study period.

And that finding matters because sea otters eat a lot — 20–25% of their body weight per day. If the oysters were a bit more accessible, the species could quickly find itself in conflict with the farmers on their turf.

But instead, the research revealed that otters primarily use farms as convenient rest stops, taking advantage of the sheltered waters while leaving the oysters untouched. The otters do consume natural prey around the farms—primarily clams, crabs, and wild mussels—maintaining their typical foraging patterns. And this natural cleaning crew helps maintain equipment efficiency while the otters get an easy meal from the fouling organisms.

Greg Bates, who moved from Maine with his wife Weatherly to establish Alaska Shellfish Farms in Halibut Cove in 2007, has watched this coexistence play out daily. He's the one who named their most frequent visitor—that rotund otter called "Fat Rat." According to The Oyster Guide, Fat Rat and other sea otters "play all day around the cages," with Fat Rat looking like "he's just itching to get his mitts on their shellfish." But the metal cages work: Fat Rat has never breached them.

Dr. Brenda Konar, who supervised the research at UAF, emphasized the broader implications: "Alaska has vast potential for mariculture development, but the sustained use of these waters requires an understanding of the relationship between the farms and their environment. This project will help farmers, agencies, and the public better understand how sea otters interact with oyster farms."

This peaceful coexistence represents a turnaround from history. Sea otters were hunted to near extinction for their valuable pelts, with populations crashing from an estimated 300,000 to fewer than 2,000 by 1911. Alaska's current population of approximately 73,000 sea otters represents one of conservation's great success stories, though regional variations persist—the Southwest Alaska stock remains listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The otters' recovery coincides with Alaska's push to develop sustainable food systems. Unlike many agricultural frontiers that pit development against conservation, the oyster farming model suggests a different path. The cold, pristine waters that sea otters need to survive also create ideal growing conditions for oysters, which never spawn in Alaska's frigid temperatures and thus maintain consistent quality year-round.

The Alaska findings offer hope for other regions where sea otter populations overlap with aquaculture. In California, where approximately 3,000 southern sea otters range along the central coast, the shellfish industry watches nervously as the protected species slowly expands its range. British Columbia faces similar dynamics with at least 8,000 sea otters following successful reintroduction programs.

Reynolds emphasized that more research remains: "We still need to make comparisons with otters feeding in bays that have no farms present to gain a broader perspective on how farms may be influencing otter behavior." But the initial findings provide scientific backing for what farmers like the Bates family experience daily: sea otters and oyster farms can share the same waters peacefully when operations are designed with wildlife behavior in mind.

The study's most profound message extends beyond Alaska's icy waters: coexistence between wildlife and human enterprise isn't just possible—it can be mutually beneficial. Fat Rat may look like he's plotting to raid those oyster cages, but science shows he's content just to float nearby, cleaning the occasional mussel while the farmed oysters grow safely in their metal homes. In the shadow of towering glaciers where bears outnumber people 100 to 1, it’s nice to see a quiet revolution in human-wildlife relations unfolding —one playful otter and protected oyster at a time.

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• A wildlife photographer in Northern California hit the jackpot when his remote camera captured rare footage of Sierra Nevada red foxes in Lassen Volcanic National Park. With only 18-39 individuals remaining in the wild, these critically endangered foxes are among the world's rarest mammals. Randy Robbins hiked 5 miles through deep snow to retrieve his camera, discovering video of two different foxes - one collared for research - wandering the rocks at 8,500 feet elevation. While thrilled with the footage, Robbins admits his quest isn't over: "I still want my photo." The thick-furred foxes face threats from wildfire, drought, and competition with coyotes, making each sighting precious documentation of a species teetering on extinction's edge.

• New research is flipping the script on primate power dynamics, revealing that "males dominate females" occurs in only 17% of primate populations (including baboons and chimps), while clear female dominance appears in 13% (like lemurs and bonobos). The remaining 70% exist in a flexible middle ground where either sex can be on top. Physical advantages favor male dominance, while female control over reproduction—like bonobos who can "mate with whoever they want, whenever they want"—tends to flip the power structure. According to lead researcher Elise Huchard, humans would likely fall into that flexible middle category, supporting evidence that our hunter-gatherer ancestors had more egalitarian relationships than later agricultural societies.

By Dan Fletcher

After a whirlwind journey through Mongolia and a subsequent battle with a stubborn cold, I'm finally back and eager to share the story and pictures from my summer expedition to the steppe.

The landscape was unrecognizable compared to my February visit — not just because temperatures had soared 140 degrees (literally), but because the steppe was alive in a way that only a brief summer can bring.

This is the season when mother manuls guard their kittens in rocky dens, watching as their young take their first tentative steps into the world. Over just a week of observation, we witnessed one family of kittens transform from bird-wary balls of fur to confident rock-hoppers, their mother keeping a vigilant watch. Out here, you grow up fast or you don't grow up at all.

The family we followed most closely was a trio of kittens — two adventurous and one perpetually cautious. Unlike many manul dens where the mother remains invisible, this one was a constant, powerful presence. We watched her hunt with remarkable precision, taking down vole after vole. Most kills were for her own survival, but occasionally she'd bring prey back to the den, a critical teaching moment for her young. (We named her Nutella, after the one bit of western comfort present at our breakfasts each morning.)

From our camouflaged photo blind, we witnessed an intimate portrait of steppe survival. Though Nutella was aware of our presence, she remained remarkably calm — at one point, she nursed all three kittens in full view, her penetrating gaze a clear reminder that we were guests in her harsh, unforgiving world. In that moment, surrounded by rocky outcroppings and windswept grass, we were witnessing something awesome: the quiet, fierce resilience of a manul mom. These cats are small, twitchy and slow, but they’re tough — no other cat, big or small, can endure the scorching summer heat and the bitter winter cold like they can.

The wildlife was spectacular beyond just the cats. Corsac foxes darted between burrows, migratory Eurasian hoopoes arrived at their summer breeding grounds, and we even caught a glimpse of a Eurasian eagle-owl fledgling resting near its ground nest, parents perched protectively on the nearby hillside.

This particular stretch of steppe offered a reprieve from some of the typical threats these creatures face. Herding dogs — a significant danger to manuls — were notably absent, and the local Steppe Wildlife Center has been doing remarkable work monitoring population health, reintroducing marmots, and educating local villagers about the unique species sharing their landscape. (They also hosted us in traditional gers, which I navigated with varying degrees of success — mostly involving me repeatedly bumping my head on the tiny doorframe.)

Because of the incredible work I witnessed firsthand, we're sending our June FUZZ Funds donation of $298 to the Steppe Wildlife Center. A fuller update on FUZZ’s summer plans is coming Wednesday — we’re hitting the road and making some films! — but for now, I wanted to share a few of my favorite moments from this extraordinary trip, a thank you for supporting these tiny, tenacious cats in one of the world's most remote landscapes.

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I’ll have a lot more to say about the trip in a future newsletter — the conditions on the steppe, the cats we’re seeing and the other wildlife around. But for now, wanted you to be the first to see footage from this morning of a den near camp.

We found these three kittens last night, and they’re just about ready to start venturing out of their den. We think they’re about 3-4 weeks old and don’t worry, their mom was watching from a ridge line above.

I have another four full days of photography here, so I’ll have more to share soon.

By Dan Fletcher

I’m back on the road today, starting the long journey west toward Mongolia and my second attempt this year to spot manuls (also known as Pallas’s cats) in the wild.

The trip’s made a bit easier for us Americans by United adding a summer route from Tokyo to Ulaanbaatar — even remote Mongolia is getting on the well-trodden tourist map. And hopefully my task is made easier by the fact that these grumpy wildcats are a bit more stationary, just emerging from their winter dens alongside a crop of new kittens.

Here’s a recap of our manul adventures and the news so far:

• Manuls are the world’s hardiest and fluffiest wildcats, capable of withstanding the bitter cold of -40° Fahrenheit that sweeps across the winter steppes they call home. But that fortitude is their primary defense — with short, stubby legs and smaller size (about the same as a house cat), these cats are ambush predators who depend on surprise in order to secure a meal.

• In February, I traversed 2,600 kilometers around eastern Mongolia with Russian-Ukranian scientist Vadim Kirilyuk, checking his network of remote camera traps and looking for signs of how the manuls were overwintering. We didn’t find much. Without fresh snow on the ground, these cats — who have huge natural ranges — were nearly impossible to track, and even the camera traps held little evidence of cats. I’m hoping to meet up with Vadim again this trip and get an update on how the Mongolian population is doing.

• In April, for International Pallas’s Cat Day, we raised more than $7,000 for manul conservation and monitoring through the Manul Working Group. And in a recent update from central Kazakhstan, the MWG shared that the manul population appeared to be thriving. On the 29 camera traps they checked, manuls appeared on more than half of them — fueled by a strong population of pikas, their natural prey.

This trip, I won’t be driving around as much — I’ll be stationed out of a remote ger complex known as Manul Camp, which is in range of several den sites where manuls have been spotted. I’ll join up with Cat Expeditions again — Sebastian and Rachel also guided me through Estonia’s lynx adventure — and they’ve had lots of success finding manuls last summer.

We’ll be situated in camouflaged photo blinds, situated at some distance from the dens to minimize disturbance and allow us to see as much natural activity from the cats as possible. If all goes well, I should be able to observe kittens at several different stages of development — from taking their very first peek out of the den, to taking their first steps out into the wild world. Fingers crossed, and more updates later this week.

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• From the annuls of total insanity: A hotel in China's mountains was using endangered red pandas as living alarm clocks, bringing the animals into guest rooms for "wake-up calls" until wildlife officials shut down the practice this week. The Lehe Ledu Liangjiang Holiday Hotel near Chongqing offered guests the chance to cuddle with these critically endangered animals (fewer than 10,000 remain in the wild) as part of a "red panda-themed holiday." The scheme only came to light after British tourists posted a viral video of their furry wake-up call, drawing the attention of forestry officials who couldn't believe what they were seeing. While hotel staff claimed the pandas were borrowed from a local zoo and properly cared for, the practice violates China's own 2018 ban on close contact activities with protected wildlife. It's a reminder that even in their native range, red pandas face threats from human exploitation — though at least this time, the viral nature of social media worked in the animals' favor.

• The world's cleanup crew is disappearing, and that's bad news for all of us. A new study reveals that 36% of the 1,376 species that eat carrion are either threatened with extinction or declining in numbers — and it's the big, efficient scavengers we're losing fastest. Vultures in India have crashed by up to 99.9% since the 1990s, while sharks, hyenas, and other apex scavengers face similar declines worldwide. The problem? Smaller scavengers like dogs and rodents are moving in to fill the void, but they can't process nearly as much carrion and they're far more likely to spread diseases to humans. When vultures disappeared from parts of India, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe, dog populations exploded, bringing with them increases in rabies, leishmaniasis, and other deadly diseases. It's a stark reminder that even the least charismatic animals — the cleanup crews working behind the scenes — play crucial roles in keeping ecosystems and human communities healthy.

By Dan Fletcher

The movie that taught the world to fear sharks might have saved them.

Fifty years ago today, Steven Spielberg unleashed a mechanical shark on unsuspecting moviegoers and accidentally created one of conservation's strangest success stories. While "Jaws" undeniably sent thousands of real sharks to early graves, it also sparked the modern shark conservation movement in ways no one could have predicted.

Shark numbers in the 50 years since the film's release have dipped substantially, and the blockbuster bears some responsibility. Oceanic shark populations have declined 71% since 1970, with 37% of all shark species now facing extinction. After Jaws premiered on June 20, 1975, East Coast fishing tournaments exploded as weekend warriors set out to kill their own movie monster. California's great white population nearly collapsed from what researchers now call "vendetta killings." Even Spielberg himself admits regret, telling the BBC in 2022 that he truly regrets "the decimation of the shark population because of the book and the film."

But just as any good movie, there’s a twist: Jaws may have terrified beachgoers but it also inspired a generation of marine biologists. Dr. Greg Skomal, now one of the world's leading white shark researchers, credits the film with launching his career. "I thought Matt Hooper, the marine biologist in the movie, had the best job on Earth," he says. He wasn't alone — Jaws author Peter Benchley received thousands of letters from aspiring scientists thanking him for sparking their interest in sharks.

When Jaws premiered, shark science was essentially prehistoric. Researchers knew almost nothing about great white behavior, migration patterns, or even basic population numbers. The film's cultural impact, combined with new research funding, accelerated technological development that transformed shark research from guesswork to precision science. Within two decades, the very scientists inspired by Jaws were producing the data that would justify protection measures.

The economics tell an even more interesting story. That primal fear Jaws exploited morphed into fascination, and fascination became big business. Shark ecotourism now generates $314 million annually, supporting 10,000 jobs worldwide. In Palau, researchers calculated that a single reef shark is worth $1.9 million alive over its lifetime versus just $108 dead. The Maldives discovered that shark diving contributes more than $65 million to their economy. Cage diving with great whites — a concept that emerged directly from the fascination Jaws created — became a multi-million dollar industry that turned former shark killers into shark protectors.

The species that Jaws demonized became among the first sharks protected globally. Great whites received legal protection in California in 1994, federal U.S. waters in 1997, and internationally through CITES in 2004. The most feared shark got the strongest protections — a counterintuitive outcome that demonstrates how fascination can drive conservation even more effectively than sympathy.

Benchley's personal transformation perhaps best embodies this broader cultural shift. The author who created the ultimate shark villain spent his final decades as an ardent ocean advocate, working with conservation groups and writing extensively to correct the misconceptions his novel had created. He acknowledged that he couldn't write Jaws today — the extensive new knowledge of sharks would make it impossible to create such a villain "in good conscience."

As we mark this anniversary, a staggering 274,000 sharks still die daily in commercial fisheries, but they swim in an ocean transformed by the film that nearly destroyed them. Former killing grounds have become marine sanctuaries. Inspired scientists use satellite tags to unlock migration mysteries. Coastal communities that once supported shark culling now protect their marine predators as valuable tourism assets.

Today's great white populations face wildly different regional outcomes. California's protected population shows modest but consistent growth to approximately 2,000 individuals. The U.S. East Coast population is actually increasing, with NOAA documenting record juvenile catches in 2024. But South Africa, once the "Great White Capital of the World," has seen virtually no sightings in former hotspots since 2017. The Mediterranean population faces even grimmer prospects, with fewer than 100 individuals likely remaining.

The Jaws phenomenon was one of destruction at first, but 50 years later, there’s reason for hope. It’s a reminder that human perception, once changed, can shift from destruction to protection with startling speed. The species that Hollywood taught us to fear may yet be saved by the fascination it created. Not a bad legacy for a movie about a rubber shark that often refused to work.

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• Scientists have discovered that Bogong moths use the stars of the Milky Way to navigate their epic 1,000-kilometer migration across Australia — the first invertebrate known to use celestial navigation for long-distance travel. Every spring, billions of these moths escape southeastern Australia's heat by flying to cool Alpine caves they've never visited before, then return in autumn to breed and die. Using a flight simulator with projected star maps, researchers proved the moths read specific patterns in the night sky to determine direction, reversing course when the Milky Way image was rotated 180 degrees. While dung beetles also use stars for navigation, they only travel short distances without purposeful direction. As one researcher noted: "It really is astonishing" — and likely just the beginning, as many other migratory moth species may share this remarkable ability.

• The Los Angeles Zoo just welcomed 10 California condor chicks in another huge step toward preventing North America's largest bird from slopping toward extinction. Four of the chicks are being raised using an innovative "double-brooding" technique where surrogate condor parents raise two babies simultaneously — a method the L.A. Zoo pioneered. All 10 chicks are eligible for eventual release into the wild as part of the California Condor Recovery Program. It continues the turnaround for a species that had just 22 individuals remaining when the program started four decades ago. Today, 561 condors soar across western skies, with 344 living wild.

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By Dan Fletcher

Here’s today’s audio edition.

Picture an area larger than Texas and California combined. Now imagine putting all of it up for sale, with just 30 days' notice and no public hearings. That's essentially what Senator Mike Lee's budget reconciliation bill would do to America's public lands — forcing the sale of up to 3 million acres from a pool of 258 million eligible acres across the West.

The lands at risk aren't just empty desert. They include wilderness study areas, critical wildlife habitat, and the migration corridors that elk, bears, and countless other species have used for millennia. Breaking up these connected landscapes doesn't just reduce habitat — it fragments entire ecosystems in ways that can doom wildlife populations for generations.

Scientists have spent decades documenting why fragmenting connected landscapes is catastrophic for wildlife. When you break up large habitats into smaller, isolated patches, you don't just reduce available habitat — you fundamentally alter how ecosystems function. A 2015 study found that 70% of the world's forests now sit within one kilometer of a forest edge, subject to the degrading effects of fragmentation.

Consider an elk herd when development appears in their traditional migration route. These animals follow the same paths for generations, moving between summer alpine meadows and winter valleys. Break that corridor, and you force entire herds to find new routes — if they exist.

The bill's supporters claim they're targeting "underutilized" lands suitable for housing. But most of these 258 million acres sit nowhere near major population centers. In California alone, 16 million acres become eligible for sale, including areas adjacent to Yosemite, Mount Shasta, and Lake Tahoe. These aren't forgotten urban lots — they're intact ecosystems that hold the West's wildlife together.

Many of these areas were designated as critical wildlife habitat through a rigorous federal process under the Endangered Species Act. Scientists spend years identifying specific areas with the physical and biological features essential for species conservation. It’s a complicated mix, finding land with the right mix of denning sites, prey abundance, and connectivity. Selling off those acres doesn't just eliminate habitat; it can doom recovery efforts that taxpayers have funded for decades.

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The timeline for this land grab is deliberately rushed. The bill demands agencies nominate tracts for sale within 30 days, then continue every 60 days until hitting arbitrary acreage targets. No public hearings, environmental assessments, or meaningful community consultation are required. (Montana’s also conspicuously excluded, for the simple reason that Lee needs the state’s two senators for this to have any chance of passing.)

This breakneck pace makes sense only if you're avoiding public scrutiny. When Americans learn their favorite hiking areas and hunting grounds are suddenly on the auction block, they get upset. The bill also sets up a bidding process favoring wealthy buyers over local communities. While state and local governments get "right of first refusal," most face budget shortfalls and can't compete with well-funded developers.

The bill's safeguards reveal its true priorities. National parks and official wilderness are exempt, as are lands with oil and gas leases, mining claims, and grazing permits. But areas set aside specifically for wildlife conservation can be sold to the highest bidder.

The economic analysis is dishonest too. These lands generate billions annually through recreation, hunting, fishing, and ecosystem services. The outdoor recreation economy alone contributes $1.2 trillion annually to the U.S. economy. Selling off the source of that economic activity for a one-time payment (estimated at $10-12 billion) is like selling your home to pay this month's rent.

Every western senator who claims to support hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation now faces a choice. They can stand with their constituents and the 90% of Americans who oppose selling public lands, or they can trade away irreplaceable wildlife habitat for some chump change and a pat on the back from developers.

The animals using these migration corridors don't get a vote. The elk don't understand state boundaries, and the lynx can't lobby for their survival. It's up to us to speak for them, and to remember that once these connections are broken, they can never be restored.

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• A haunting piece of footage from Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park shows what might be the country's last remaining elephant, captured on camera for the first time in five years. The solitary bull, nicknamed "Ousmane" after a park ranger, represents a heartbreaking endpoint to West Africa's elephant crisis — where hundreds once roamed this park, researchers now believe he may be completely alone. Ousmane is part of what conservationists call "ghost elephant" populations — tiny, isolated groups (often fewer than five individuals) scattered across West Africa that are too small to sustain themselves long-term. While his solitary appearance is sobering, Panthera and Senegal's park service are exploring whether they can bring in female elephants to establish a breeding population, potentially giving Ousmane — and Senegal's elephants — a fighting chance at survival.

• And finally, sometimes the best conservation news comes from simply undoing past mistakes. California's northwestern pond turtle — the state's only native freshwater turtle — is making a remarkable comeback in Yosemite National Park after a seven-year effort to remove invasive American bullfrogs that had been devouring turtle hatchlings for decades. A UC Davis study published in Biological Conservation shows that where once only large adult turtles survived (too big for bullfrogs to eat), juvenile turtles are now thriving again. The recovery has created a ripple effect across the ecosystem: with bullfrog populations down, native frogs and salamanders are also returning to areas where their calls had been drowned out by the invasive species' notorious honking. It's a reminder that targeted removal of invasive species can sometimes restore natural balance more effectively than complex intervention programs.

By Dan Fletcher

Here is today’s audio edition!

I spent last week entirely without service, on a raft trip through the ancient landscapes of Dinosaur National Monument, trying my best not to step on what looked like patches of blackened, crusty dirt scattered between the sage and brush. Our guides constantly reminded us to stay on trails and avoid the "crypto" — not a warning about the perils of bitcoin, but a reminder to respect one of the tiniest organisms that calls the desert home.

After a few days of carefully sidestepping these dark patches, I started to wonder: what exactly was I protecting? And why did something that looked like burnt toast warrant such zealous protection?

It turns out I was walking through one of conservation's most patient success stories — and one of its most fragile. Those unremarkable patches of blackened soil represent some of Earth's most persistent ecosystem engineers, microscopic communities that can take up to 1,000 years to fully recover from a single boot print.

During my hikes through Dinosaur, I kept thinking about those timeframes. While I planned my visit in weeks and experienced the landscape in hours, the communities beneath my feet were operating on scales that span centuries and millennia. Every step carried consequences that would outlast not just my visit, but potentially my entire lifetime.

At Dinosaur, this living soil covers more than 70% of the ground between plants, quietly orchestrating desert life in ways that most visitors never notice. Understanding these cryptobiotic communities reveals how conservation often hinges on the smallest, most overlooked organisms — and how your footsteps in the desert carry consequences measured not in moments, but in centuries.

The crust is built by cyanobacteria, lichens, mosses, and tiny fungi that bind soil particles with sticky filaments, creating a foundation that determines which plants can grow, where animals can thrive, and whether the ecosystem stays put during windstorms. These organisms have mastered suspended animation — dried samples have survived over a century in laboratory storage, ready to spring back to life with the first drops of moisture.

While these communities can begin photosynthesis within 30 minutes of rainfall, they operate on geological timescales that make old-growth forests seem rushed. Cyanobacteria can start colonizing disturbed soil within months, but fully developed crusts require 20-100 years under favorable conditions. In harsh environments, complete recovery can take up to 1,000 years. In extreme cases, scientists have documented recovery times of nearly 4,000 years.

This incredible patience comes with an equally incredible vulnerability. Even gentle foot traffic can shatter the delicate networks that took decades to build, exposing loose soil to wind and water erosion that can undo generations of slow, patient growth.

What makes this especially important for wildlife is that these soil communities function as hidden ecosystem engineers whose influence extends far into complex food webs. Desert geckos and lizards show strong preferences for areas with developed soil crust — studies find that 80-94% of their burrows are dug in crusted areas. The crust creates optimal conditions by moderating soil temperatures and supporting plants with dramatically higher concentrations of essential nutrients.

Plants growing in crusted areas are essentially vitamin-packed, containing more nitrogen, phosphorus, and other minerals that cascade up the food chain. Meanwhile, mature crusts support thriving communities of tiny invertebrates — one Mexican desert study documented over 4,600 microarthropods representing 40 different species in crusted soils. These microscopic communities form the foundation for desert biodiversity that remains invisible to most visitors.

But climate change poses a particularly cruel threat to these ancient communities. The very organisms that help stabilize desert soils are among the most vulnerable to changing precipitation patterns and rising temperatures. These communities need stored carbon reserves to reactivate after dry periods, and insufficient moisture can gradually deplete these reserves until entire communities die. As climate change brings more frequent drought and extreme weather, many crust communities are being pushed beyond their remarkable resilience.

The scale of this conservation challenge is huge. Biological soil crusts cover 12% of Earth's terrestrial surface — an area larger than the continental United States. They provide nearly half of the nitrogen that plants need to grow across the world's land surfaces and help prevent desertification across 44% of the world's cultivated systems.

Yet some cool new solutions are emerging. Arizona State University recently discovered that solar panel installations can function as biocrust nurseries — the panels create greenhouse-like conditions that double biomass and triple cover compared to open areas. This "crustivoltaics" approach proves 10,000 times more cost-effective than traditional restoration methods, suggesting renewable energy development could actually aid desert ecosystem recovery. You wouldn't want solar panels dotting Dinosaur National Monument, but for less protected desert areas, it's a heartening solution.

Scientists have also created the world's first "biocrust farm" in Utah, where they cultivate entire communities for transplantation to degraded sites. These efforts represent a new frontier in ecosystem restoration, recognizing that saving desert wildlife requires protecting the invisible communities beneath their feet.

The story of cryptobiotic soil crust changes how we think about desert conservation — from protecting individual species to safeguarding the microscopic communities that make larger life possible. As climate change accelerates, the fate of desert wildlife increasingly depends on our willingness to protect what we can't easily see.

The next time you visit a desert landscape, remember you're walking through one of Earth's most patient ecosystems, where every step matters for centuries to come.

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• The trek to Everest just got a little spicier. Scientists discovered 10 king cobras at elevations up to 9,000 feet near Mount Everest — a shocking find since these tropical snakes typically stick to hot, lowland jungles. The world's longest venomous snakes were rescued from four locations in Nepal's Everest region, raising questions about whether rising temperatures are pushing them into cooler, higher altitudes where they've never been found before. Nepal's mountains are warming faster than its lowlands, with temperatures rising 0.05°C annually, potentially making previously uninhabitable elevations survivable for heat-loving species. While some researchers urge caution about directly linking the discovery to climate change, the pattern suggests we may be witnessing real-time shifts in wildlife distribution as the planet warms.

• Scientists finally cracked the mystery of why bats almost never get cancer despite living far longer than their tiny size should allow — some species clock 35 years in the wild, equivalent to 180 human years. University of Rochester researchers discovered that little brown bats carry two working copies of the crucial p53 tumor suppressor gene (humans have just one), plus telomeres that barely shorten with age, allowing endless tissue regeneration. The real trick is balance: when their supercharged cell division threatens to turn cancerous, that extra p53 immediately orders rogue cells to self-destruct. Combined with immune systems that fight disease efficiently without causing chronic inflammation, bats have essentially evolved a three-part cancer prevention system that could inspire new human therapies targeting both aging and malignancy.

By Dan Fletcher

Here is today’s audio edition! And a programming note — no FUZZ on Monday/Wednesday of next week for a mini summer vacation. I’ll be taking a float down the Yampa, the west’s last free-flowing river, through Dinosaur National Monument. See you in a week.

I thought back to my conversations with Mark Kaptein as I read some new research on rhino dehorning. You met him in a March newsletter — the Dutch conservationist who spends nine months a year removing poaching snares from a South African reserve, watching the animals he's grown to know individually fall victim to an endless stream of wire traps. He's also the guy who casually mentioned helping with rhino dehorning operations, a detail that stuck with me long after our conversations in Estonia's forests.

This week, a new study published in Science put hard numbers on something Kaptein has witnessed firsthand: dehorning works, dramatically. Across eight South African reserves, removing rhino horns before poachers could get to them reduced killings by 78 percent over seven years. That's not a small improvement — that's the difference between watching a species slide toward extinction and buying crucial time for populations to recover.

The study shows a tactic that is desperate but effective. Researchers found that a horned rhino faces a 13 percent annual risk of being poached, while a dehorned rhino's risk drops to just 0.6 percent. Between 70 and 134 rhinos were saved from poaching in the 12 months following dehorning procedures. The intervention cost just over one percent of the reserves' $74 million anti-poaching budget, making it far more cost-effective than round-the-clock patrols or surveillance systems.

But those statistics tell only half the story. The deeper question, as lead researcher Timothy Kuiper puts it, is whether "a rhino still a rhino without its horns?" It turns out the answer is more complicated than conservationists initially hoped.

Additional research reveals that dehorning fundamentally changes how rhinos experience their world, particularly black rhinos. After losing their horns, these animals shrink their territories dramatically — on average, their home ranges contract by 45 percent. They also become 37 percent less likely to engage in social encounters, especially the crucial male-to-male interactions that establish dominance hierarchies and determine access to mates.

These aren't minor adjustments. They represent a fundamental shift in how black rhinos navigate their landscape and relate to each other. The horn isn't just an ornament or weapon — it's integral to their identity as a species. Without it, they become more cautious, more withdrawn, operating in a smaller world with fewer social connections.

White rhinos appear more resilient to the change, showing minimal alterations in their daily routines and social behaviors. The difference likely stems from their lifestyles: white rhinos are grazers who don't rely heavily on their horns for foraging, while black rhinos are browsers who use their horns to break branches and access foliage. Remove that tool, and you've altered their relationship with their environment in ways we're still trying to understand.

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The behavioral changes raise difficult questions about what we're willing to sacrifice in the name of conservation. Ecologist Vanessa Duthé, who studies these effects, notes that while the behavioral modifications are measurable, they haven't yet translated into reduced population growth rates. The changes are "generally considered acceptable when weighed against the significant reduction in poaching," she told the Washington Post.

That calculation — acceptable behavioral changes versus prevented deaths — represents conservation in the 21st century. It's the kind of impossible choice that keep conservationists up at night, even as they recognize it as necessary. As one conservationist put it, "a live rhino without a horn is a lot better than a dead rhino without a horn."

The practice is expanding across southern and eastern Africa as reserves confront an unwinnable war against poaching syndicates. Even the success comes with caveats — some poachers have begun killing dehorned rhinos for their regrowing stumps, and more than 100 previously dehorned rhinos were still poached during the study period, some just weeks after the procedure. Kaptein told me frustrated poachers would sometimes kill a dehorned rhino to make sure they don’t waste time tracking it again.

So dehorning isn't a silver bullet, but it's bought time for a species teetering on the edge. Whether that time will be enough for larger solutions — addressing demand for rhino horn, dismantling criminal networks, developing alternative livelihoods for potential poachers — remains to be seen. For now, conservationists are making the hard choice to alter what it means to be a rhino in order to ensure rhinos exist at all.

It's the kind of pragmatic, heartbreaking decision that defines modern conservation work. And it's exactly the kind of impossible choice that people like Kaptein face every day in the field, knowing that the perfect solution doesn't exist, but that doing something imperfect is better than doing nothing at all.

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• Disney World just dropped $1 million on one of Florida's most ambitious conservation projects — creating an 18-million-acre wildlife corridor spanning the entire state. The grant to the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation will help close critical gaps between existing protected areas, turning what conservationists call "biological islands" into a connected network where wildlife can actually move and thrive. About half the targeted corridor already exists through purchases and conservation easements, but the trickiest pieces remain: those crucial bottleneck areas that connect everything together. The funding will support "Mind the Gaps" workshops where local stakeholders pore over maps to identify pinch points and brainstorm solutions. It's exactly the kind of landscape-scale thinking that Florida's endangered species desperately need — from the panthers we've covered extensively to the countless other animals squeezed by the state's relentless development.

• And finally, National Geographic covers the aftermath of a terrorist attack that shattered one of Africa's most promising conservation success stories. On April 29, ISIS-linked insurgents stormed Mozambique's Niassa Special Reserve, killing eight people and forcing thousands to flee what had been a 17,000-square-mile sanctuary where wildlife and humans thrived together. The reserve was home to one of only seven lion populations exceeding 800 animals, plus 350 endangered African wild dogs and recovering elephant herds. Unlike typical "fortress conservation" that displaces local communities, Niassa's 70,000 residents in 47 villages were integral partners in protecting the wildlife — their deep connection to the land made them its best guardians. Now half the reserve sits abandoned under military occupation, tourism has collapsed, and the people who spent generations coexisting with lions and elephants are fleeing for their lives. Conservation ecologist Colleen Begg, whose Mariri Environmental Centre was targeted in the attack, lost team members but refuses to abandon two decades of work: "The only antidote to extremism is to keep going with conservation." Heartbreaking.

By Dan Fletcher

Here is today’s audio edition!

What if our most successful conservation efforts are accidentally creating evolutionary dead ends?

It's not a new question for dedicated conservationists, but I encountered it for the first time after diving into some research from Australia, where scientists have documented something that sounds almost impossible. On a small island sanctuary off Western Australia's coast, an entire population of endangered marsupials lost their ability to recognize predators in just 13 generations. We're talking about a complete evolutionary rewiring of survival instincts in what amounts to a biological blink of an eye.

The animals in question are Northern quolls, small carnivorous marsupials about the size of a house cat, with distinctive white spots across their brown fur. In 2003, conservationists moved a population to Astell Island, a predator-free sanctuary where these endangered creatures could breed safely without fear of feral cats or dingoes that were decimating mainland populations.

The relocation was a stunning success—at first. The population thrived, growing from a handful of founders to a stable breeding colony. Mission accomplished, right? Fast forward thirteen years, and researchers decided to test how the island quolls would respond if they ever needed to return to the mainland. They exposed both island and mainland quolls to the scents of their primary predators: dingo and cat urine.

The results showed they had a big problem. While 94% of mainland quolls showed immediate, strong avoidance behaviors—backing away, becoming vigilant, refusing to feed—the island quolls showed absolutely no response. Zero. Not a single animal displayed any recognition that these scents represented mortal danger. They had evolved beyond fear.

This isn't just a quoll problem, or even an Australian problem. Similar patterns are emerging from conservation programs worldwide, and new research published in Biological Conservation suggests we've been missing a crucial piece of the puzzle. It turns out there's a deep biological trade-off between being alert to danger and being good at making babies. The animals that survive longest in the wild often aren't the ones that reproduce most successfully in safety.

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The mechanism is elegant and depressing in equal measure. Decades of research on domestic animals—from sheep farms in Australia to fox breeding experiments in Russia—has revealed that anxious, fearful temperaments are genetically linked to reduced fertility. Nervous sheep produce fewer lambs. Calm, docile animals consistently outbreed their anxious counterparts. The biological response that keeps animals vigilant and alive in dangerous environments are the same ones that suppress reproductive hormones.

In the wild, this trade-off makes perfect sense. Better to have fewer offspring and keep them alive than to breed prolifically only to watch your young get eaten. But remove the predators, and natural selection rapidly tilts toward the calm, fertile animals. Draw that out a few generations, and the population is dominated by individuals with no innate understanding of danger.

The Western Australia woylies tell this story in heartbreaking detail. These brush-tailed bettongs were once abundant across southern Australia until feral predators drove them to near extinction. Predator-proof fences saved them from immediate extermination, creating havens where populations could recover safely.'

But something unexpected happened inside those fences. Over just four generations, the protected woylies became noticeably smaller, with shorter feet and legs—the very adaptations that help them escape predators. They grew less aggressive when handled, less likely to struggle or bite. Most troubling of all, they lost their instinctive fear of predator scents. They had traded their survival edge for reproductive success, and in a predator-free world, evolution rewarded that trade.

Captive breeding programs worldwide are grappling with similar challenges. Research on 93 exotic bird species found that first-generation captive-bred birds lost 84% of their anti-predator responses compared to their wild-caught parents. Hawaiian crow reintroduction efforts repeatedly failed as captive-bred birds fell victim to native hawks they never learned to fear. Even Tasmanian devils bred on predator-free Maria Island show increased vulnerability to vehicle strikes after release—they simply don't recognize cars as threats worth avoiding.

Yet this research isn't just delivering bad news. It's inspiring some wildly creative solutions. In Saudi Arabia, conservationists training houbara bustards for release now expose captive birds to live foxes restrained on leashes, teaching them that certain shapes and movements mean danger. The results speak for themselves: birds that received anti-predator training showed 44% mortality rates compared to 67% among untrained controls.

Australia's Arid Recovery Reserve has taken an even more radical approach with bilby conservation. (Quolls, woolies and biblys… this is a very Australian-sounding newsletter.) Rather than eliminating all predators, they maintain small populations of feral cats within their large enclosures. The cats can't drive the bilby population extinct, but they provide constant, mild selection pressure that keeps the prey animals sharp. Early results suggest this controlled predation maintains natural behaviors while allowing population recovery.

The broader lesson is forcing conservationists to rethink some fundamental assumptions. Perfect safety, it turns out, can be even more dangerous in the long term. The anxiety that helps animals survive in the wild becomes an evolutionary luxury they can't afford in safety. Every generation spent in paradise pushes a species further from its wild roots.

This doesn't mean we should abandon predator-proof sanctuaries or captive breeding programs. These tools have prevented countless extinctions and remain essential for crisis intervention. But the research suggests we need to be smarter about how we use them. Some programs are experimenting with cycling animals between safe and semi-wild environments. Others are using selective breeding to maintain nervous, predator-wary bloodlines specifically for reintroduction while allowing calmer animals to serve as insurance populations.

The Northern quolls on Astell Island highlight both the promise and peril of modern conservation. That population is thriving—growing, breeding, occupying their niche exactly as conservationists hoped. But they're also evolutionary prisoners of their own success, locked into a fearless existence that would spell doom if predators ever reached their sanctuary.

It's a reminder that saving species isn't just about keeping them alive today. It's about preserving their capacity to stay alive tomorrow, in a world that will always be more dangerous than any sanctuary we can build.

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• Meet the world's most widespread wildcat that almost nobody studies. The Afro-Asiatic wildcat ranges across most of Africa, Southwest Asia, India, China and Mongolia—yet only one scientist has ever conducted a long-term study of these elusive ancestors of our house cats. Researcher Marna Herbst spent four years and countless 10-12 hour nights tracking radio-collared cats across South Africa's harsh Kalahari Desert, dodging hyenas and equipment failures in a beat-up 4x4. Her work revealed remarkably adaptable hunters that can take down spring hares their own size and specialize in different prey depending on their territory. But here's the twist: new DNA analysis has completely overturned previous theories about how these wildcats became our domestic companions, suggesting cat domestication happened thousands of years later than scientists thought. Today, the biggest threat to these wild survivors isn't habitat loss—it's interbreeding with the very house cats they helped create.

• I’ve mentioned this nest before, and now there’s an update — California's most famous bald eagle family hit a major milestone this week when one of Jackie and Shadow's eaglets took her first flight from their Big Bear nest. Sunny made her debut at 10:46 a.m. Monday, leaping from a branch and flapping away while thousands of viewers watched via the live eagle cam that's become "one of the coziest corners of the internet." Her sister Gizmo remains in the nest, developing at her own pace—a reminder that even among siblings, every eagle's timeline is different. At nearly 13 weeks old, both eaglets are right on schedule for fledging season, having spent days practicing wing-flapping and branch-hopping in preparation for this moment. The sisters will likely stick around the area for another 1-3 months, popping in and out of the nest as they build confidence, before eventually striking out on their own by fall.