For smokers, the world has always been one big ashtray, with cigarettes flicked away pretty much anywhere. That’s especially true now, since smokers are increasingly forbidden to light up in restaurants, office buildings and even new no-smoking condos. In the great river of litter human beings create each year, so tiny a thing as a …
Wildlife
Whales in Motion
“They say the sea is cold,” D.H. Lawrence wrote, “but the sea contains the hottest blood of all.” Whales aren’t just physically majestic, but as warm-blooded mammals who give birth to live young, they provide a human link to an underwater region that can often feel so alien. Still, between the last vestiges of whale hunting and …
How Whale Songs Rocket to Number One
There’s no accounting for musical taste — particularly when the kind of music you’re talking about doesn’t even originate in your own species. Bird songs may be lovely, but whale songs? Say what you will about the combination of whoops, clicks groans and faintly flatulent rumbles that whales use to communicate and woo, the odds are …
GoDaddy CEO on Shooting an Elephant: I’m Not Sorry
GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons ignited an Internet firestorm when he uploaded a video of himself hunting and killing an elephant in Zimbabwe. What video? That would be this one:
[vodpod id=Video.5877956&w=425&h=350&fv=]
So is Parsons sorry for the elephant hunt—or at the very least, sorry that he put it up on the Internet? Absolutely …
The Economic Cost of Losing Bats
It can be hard to feel much sympathy for bats. Like snakes or spiders or sharks or bunnies (OK, maybe the last one is just me), there’s something primordially alarming about bats, something that activates the lizard part of the brain and shutters empathy. Bats aren’t actually “flying rodents,” but you likely won’t see them on the …
Shooting an Elephant: Why GoDaddy’s CEO Was Wrong
UPDATE, 3 p.m. Thursday: GoDaddy competitor Namecheap has launched a campaign to woo away offended GoDaddy customers. Our colleagues at Techland have the full story: Switch business now, and Namecheap is offering to make elephant donations on your behalf.
We all shoot vacation videos, but most of us choose to keep them to ourselves …
How to Clean Up the Sardine Apocalypse: Call in the Foodies
Not so long ago, I was sitting at King’s Harbor in Redondo Beach, which is about a ten minute drive from where I grew up in LA. I was drinking a glass of wine at a restaurant on the marina, watching people on their liveaboard boats at sunset, and thinking how great it must be one of them, perpetually barefoot, with a dog that has …
Why the Albatross Is Our Albatross
An irresistible press release popped up in my inbox this morning. Last month, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist spotted this Laysan albatross on the world’s most remote coral atoll, smack in the middle of the Pacific near Hawaii. The bird was first tagged by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in 1956, when she was estimated …
The Next Great Extinction Could Be Coming Sooner Than You Think
It’s no secret that wildlife around the world is under severe stress. The most recent Red List from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature estimated that 33% of the species evaluated by the group are at least threatened. The causes are many—hunting, disease, habitat loss, invasive species, even climate change—but …
Guam Now One of the Shark-Friendliest Places on Earth
If you’re a shark, the Pacific Islands are not a bad place to be these days. Yesterday, the Senate of Guam followed Hawaii’s lead and became the third region to move to ban the sale, possession and distribution of shark products in the U.S. territory. Hawaii was the first U.S. state to make the move last year, followed by the …