As my beloved seedlings languished untouched on the display table, I improved my sales pitch: “Would you like a late-flowering thoroughwort to help migrating butterflies refuel? What about an aster that’s the only pollen source for some bee species?” But unlike the animals who would devour these...

The suspect creeping up near my front fence was a tough character—broad-leafed and thick-stemmed and threatening to invade my property and swallow it whole if I didn’t act fast. There was no hesitation that summer morning as I headed to work: Off with his head! It was a decision made all too easy by...

When a snake bit Lolo, one of 62 chimpanzees Humane Society International cares for in Liberia, sanctuary director and veterinarian Richard Ssuna gave him antibiotics and pain medicine hidden in rice balls. Lolo lives on one of six mangrove islands where animals were retired from research starting...

Wherever you are in the U.S., a coyote may be taking up residence less than a mile away. If you live in the city, you’re more likely than your rural cousins to encounter raccoons. And regardless of geography, you probably share your home with dozens of species of insects and spiders. These facts...

It was a rude awakening: Just as my thoughts drifted into a pre-sleep jumble, a skunk pounced onto my nighttime reading. Not just any skunk, but a giant one flashing her black-and-white tail in a series of pungent leaps. Back and forth she went, bed to floor to bed, before my eyes caught up with my...

Minnow It makes sense that her best friends are turkeys. Minnow spent the first five months of her life on a dog meat farm in South Korea before she was rescued by Humane Society International in 2015 and adopted by Abbie Hubbard, who worked at a Virginia shelter where the rescued dogs were flown...

Somewhere toward the end of the last ice age, we formed an alliance with wolves: Maybe the ancestors of dogs got food scraps while our own ancestors gained protection from predators and other humans. These social species eventually collaborated on a vast scale, possibly even hunting woolly mammoths...

When a young Jane Goodall entered the forests of Tanzania to study wild chimpanzees, neither she nor those supporting her work imagined the influence she would have. Today, Goodall—Ph.D., DBE, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, and United Nations Messenger of Peace—is recognized not only as a...

As monarch butterflies and hummingbirds headed south this fall, I dreamt of following my favorite snowbirds to Mexico and Central America. But I stayed home instead, where I have a window onto the spectacular world of winter wildlife: northern flickers tossing maple leaves with their beaks in search...

Following one former lab worker's path to advocacy.