Cool Green Science

Birding at Nags Head Woods is a chance to experience a quieter, wilder side of the Outer Banks, one where centuries-old trees shelter migrating songbirds. The post Birding the Outer Banks’ Hidden Gem: Nags Head Woods Preserve appeared first on Cool Green Science .

Regular readers will know that we often write about Australian wildlife. But more often than not, we’re intrigued by the more charismatic species… tree kangaroos and bowerbirds, cassowaries and ghost bats. These three new nature books from CSIRO make the case that there’s much to appreciate about the less traditionally charismatic creatures of the Australian continent. Read on for our reviews on …

Featured Stories When a tiger shark coughs up an echidna, it’s more than internet gold—it’s a surprisingly useful clue to our changing oceans. Become a Member Make a lasting impact for nature when you join The Nature Conservancy CGS Favorites Conservation Science Wildlife on the Move Learn how scientists are mapping migrations to make smarter conservation decisions. All About Wildlife Explore wil…

Featured Stories When a tiger shark coughs up an echidna, it’s more than internet gold—it’s a surprisingly useful clue to our changing oceans. Become a Member Make a lasting impact for nature when you join The Nature Conservancy CGS Favorites Conservation Science Wildlife on the Move Learn how scientists are mapping migrations to make smarter conservation decisions. All About Wildlife Explore wil…

Featured Stories When a tiger shark coughs up an echidna, it’s more than internet gold—it’s a surprisingly useful clue to our changing oceans. Become a Member Make a lasting impact for nature when you join The Nature Conservancy CGS Favorites Conservation Science Wildlife on the Move Learn how scientists are mapping migrations to make smarter conservation decisions. All About Wildlife Explore wil…

Featured Stories When a tiger shark coughs up an echidna, it’s more than internet gold—it’s a surprisingly useful clue to our changing oceans. Become a Member Make a lasting impact for nature when you join The Nature Conservancy CGS Favorites Conservation Science Wildlife on the Move Learn how scientists are mapping migrations to make smarter conservation decisions. All About Wildlife Explore wil…

The headline read: “Tiger Shark Regurgitates Echidna.” I clicked the link so fast, I should have burned my fingers. Tiger shark? Regurgitated echidna? I had so many questions. The first being: Wait? Echidnas can swim? Yes, they can. In fact, I learned that echidnas—small monotremes (egg-laying mammals) native to Australia and New Guinea—swim quite well. Which, for this particular echidna, turned …

There’s a unique wildlife crossing sign on the side of the road among Idaho’s vast sagebrush sea. It’s a standard, yellow diamond with a black symbol, but the symbol is anything but ordinary. Usually, wildlife crossing signs display a leaping deer, but this isn’t a deer. It’s a sage grouse, tail feathers fanned, sandwiched between two bold, black-lettered words that read, “SLOW DOWN.” The sign in…

When I step outside my southern Idaho home on a warm March day, the bird migration is difficult to miss. The red-winged blackbirds have shown up in huge flocks. The first ospreys carry sticks to begin building their nests. I may be lucky enough to hear the trilling of sandhill cranes or the nasally honks of a huge flock of snow geese. Birders, backyard nature observers and casual walkers notice a…

My attempt to see a snow leopard has been years in the making. Countless hours researching, tracking animal movements, and staring at camera footage. You’d think I’d know enough about where to find them by now. At least enough to spot one during my research trip to Mongolia over the summer of 2025. Nope. But to be honest, it comes as no surprise. We knew that would likely be the case all along. S…

It’s a bright, sunny day in the foothills, but I’ll admit I’m not really paying attention. I’m walking at a brisk pace and my mind is focused on work and various worries. Auto-pilot mode. And then I catch a flash of white in the distance. I stop and take a longer look through binoculars. I see sleek tan-and-white animals, moving as a large herd. Pronghorns. I’ve seen countless pronghorns during m…

Ashley Schmitz checks his traps. One—a vertical chain of green plastic funnels—is attached to a tall ponderosa pine. It stands on the edge of a grassy area in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, where cool green hillsides perch high over the Chihuahuan Desert. Inside the trap, known as a lindgren funnel, Schmitz is surprised to find something he’d been looking for elsewhere: a Euphoria casselberry…

Peatlands store vast amounts of carbon worldwide—when they’re healthy that is. Degraded peatlands can actually give off some emissions of their own. To study just how much carbon dioxide and methane degraded peatlands give off, Mark Felice, a peatlands scientist for The Nature Conservancy, and his colleagues are using monitoring equipment—devices with canisters strapped to their backs not unlike …

Migration is perhaps one of the most well-recognized phenomena of the natural world. From the wildebeest traversing your television screen in wildlife documentaries, to the warblers in your backyard, we’ve always been fascinated by animals on the move. Tens of thousands of years ago, knowledge about the movement of animals would have been critical to our own species’s survival. Today we can simpl…

Editorial photographer Greg Kahn specializes in finding the small details that reveal a larger theme in the stories that he shoots. One of his ongoing pursuits has been finding scenes and subjects that show the intersection of climate change, science, nature and people. That brought him to become fascinated with dendrochronology, which is the science of understanding a tree’s history through its …

On Long Beach Island, volunteer anglers help researchers uncover the hidden journeys of sharks in threatened salt marsh ecosystems. The post Catching Sharks for Science appeared first on Cool Green Science .

How extreme winter weather can challenge many species, from opossums to manatees to Carolina wrens. What are you seeing in your neighborhood? The post How Extreme Winter Weather Can Affect Wildlife appeared first on Cool Green Science .

Shark tagging in New Jersey’s salt marshes reveals migration patterns and shows how restoring wetlands strengthens vulnerable coasts. The post Seeing the Salt Marsh for the Sharks appeared first on Cool Green Science .

Why do some birds raise chicks that aren’t their own? A look at the surprising strategy of cooperative breeding and what drives it. The post It Takes a Village: What Birds Teach Us About Cooperation and Family appeared first on Cool Green Science .

Low-tech field science and community partnerships combine to help identify the most climate-resilient reefs in Raja Ampat. The post Stress-Testing Corals to Find Raja Ampat’s Most Resilient Reefs appeared first on Cool Green Science .