Showing results for "Change" in Animals

Our precious archipelago is ravaged by climate change, bereft of natural ecosystems and lies at the mercy of global warming, flooding, drought and catastrophic biodiversity loss. But could restoring species that once helped protect our islands help turn this crisis around? From familiar yet imperilled honeybees and ancient oak woods to returning natives like beavers and boars, Britain’s cornerstone species may hold the key to recovering our biodiversity on land and in our seas.

Written by a beginner bird-watcher with the freshness and passion of a convert, Waiting for the Albino Dunnock explores the world of birds through the seasons of a single year. It describes encounters with particular birds in the landscapes of East Anglia, where the author is rooted. Occasional journeys farther afield take the listener to truly wild places in the Outer Hebrides and Eastern Europe. Yet the ordinary experience of bird-watching is also far more than just that.

Madagascar is a place of change. A biodiversity hotspot and the fourth largest island on the planet, it has been home to a spectacular parade of animals, from giant flightless birds and giant tortoises on the ground, to agile lemurs leaping through the treetops. Some species live on, many have vanished in the distant or recent past. Over vast stretches of time, Madagascar’s forests have expanded and contracted in response to shifting climates and the hand of people is clear in changes during the last 1,000 years or so.

In the past two decades, our understanding of the navigational and physiological feats that enable birds to cross immense oceans, fly above the highest mountains, or remain in unbroken flight for months at a stretch has exploded. What we've learned of these key migrations is nothing short of extraordinary. This breathtaking work of nature writing also introduces listeners to those scientists, researchers, and bird lovers trying to preserve global migratory patterns in the face of climate change and other environmental challenges.

As a young boy, the author took part in collecting specimens for his father. Fifty years later, he was asked to join a team from the same institution studying the state of sea life in the Bahamian waters where he grew up, as measured against his father’s benchmark. The first of the sea changes presented in this eloquent book stems from climate change and is the drastic transformation of ocean life due to global warming - but there are more.

Trish O’Kane is an accidental ornithologist. In her nearly two decades writing about justice as an investigative journalist, she'd never paid attention to nature. But then Hurricane Katrina destroyed her New Orleans home, sending her into an emotional tailspin. Enter a scrappy cast of feathered characters—first a cardinal, urban parrots, and sparrows, then a catbird, owls, a bittern, and a woodcock—that cheered her up and showed her a new path. Inspired, O'Kane moved to Madison, Wisconsin, to pursue an environmental studies PhD.

For the last three billion years or so, life on Earth was shaped by natural forces. Evolution tended to happen slowly, with species crafted across millennia. Then, a few hundred thousand years ago, along came a bolshie, big-brained, bipedal primate we now call Homo sapiens, and with that, the Earth’s natural history came to an abrupt end. We are now living through the post-natural phase, where humans have become the leading force shaping evolution. This audiobook considers the many ways that we’ve altered the DNA of living things and changed the fate of life on earth.

Every spring, billions of birds sweep north, driven by ancient instincts to return to their breeding grounds. This vast parade often goes unnoticed, except in a few places where these small travelers concentrate in large numbers. One such place is along Lake Erie in northwestern Ohio. There, the peak of spring migration is so spectacular that it attracts bird watchers from around the globe, culminating in one of the world’s biggest birding festivals. Now climate change threatens to disrupt patterns of migration and the delicate balance between birds, seasons, and habitats.

From best-selling author James Raffan comes an enlightening and original story about a polar bear’s precarious existence in the changing Arctic, reminiscent of John Vaillant’s The Golden Spruce.

Why Elephants Cry is a fascinating frolic through the literature and evidence surrounding the use of unusual behavior of animals to measure and predict the environment. The role of animals, from the smallest ant to the biggest elephant, as predictors of environmental changes is framed around the climate crisis, which highlights the increasingly important part that animals will have to play in the future. Renowned biologist Professor John T. Hancock collects anecdotal stories and myths along with scientific evidence, demonstrating that observation of animals can be of tangible use.

For the past year, veteran journalists Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal traveled more than 25,000 miles across the Americas, chronicling costly experiments, contentious politics, and new technologies to save our beloved birds from the brink of extinction. Through this compelling drama, A Wing and a Prayer offers hope and an urgent call to action: Birds are dying at an unprecedented pace. But there are encouraging breakthroughs across the hemisphere and still time to change course, if we act quickly.

Several years ago, ecologist Lauren E. Oakes set out from California for Alaska's old-growth forests to hunt for a dying tree: the yellow-cedar. With climate change as the culprit, the death of this species meant loss for many Alaskans. Oakes and her research team wanted to chronicle how plants and people could cope with their rapidly changing world. Amidst the standing dead, she discovered the resiliency of forgotten forests, flourishing again in the wake of destruction, and a diverse community of people who persevered to create new relationships with the emerging environment.

This mould-breaking, exciting, revolutionary book is a result of seven years' research and practical experience by the author, Meljay Turner. It explains that the communication of horses is as comprehensive, deep, and remarkably effective as any human language. Meljay goes into great detail about the communication methods of horses in The Equine Semaphore Code and the entire audiobook is infused by her love of horses and by her constant desire to find better ways for humans to communicate more efficiently with horses, for a greater working partnership.

"Der Klimawandel bestimmt, wie wir als Menschheit in Zukunft leben, das Artensterben, ob wir auf der Erde überleben." Die Natur ist unsere Lebensversicherung; sie versorgt uns mit Luft, Wasser, Nahrung und Erholung. Und doch kündigen wir diese täglich auf: Der rasante Artenschwund vernichtet unsere Lebensgrundlagen, nimmt uns die wichtigsten natürlichen Ressourcen u. a. für medizinische Wirkstoffe und gefährdet die globale Wirtschaft.

In the 1930s, the last wolves disappeared from Yellowstone National Park. Without them, elk herds overran the plains. Bears starved, rabbit families shrunk and birds flew away to new homes. Then plants and trees started to die off, too—even the flow of rivers was affected. Could the park be saved...by the wolves it had lost? After years of planning, in 1995 a team of experts was ready to find out. They carefully relocated 14 wolves from the Canadian Rockies to Yellowstone. This is the story of their homecoming.