From the field

Field Dispatches

Narratives from conservation fieldwork across the globe — observations, challenges, and discoveries from the places where wildlife and people intersect.

07Dispatch

Alberta, Canadian RockiesClimate Ecology

The Phenological Trap

2020–2025

Five years of data from the Canadian Rockies reveal a troubling pattern: as spring arrives earlier, the window of peak nutrition for migratory ungulates is narrowing — and the consequences cascade through the entire mountain ecosystem.

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06Dispatch

Hissar Mountains, TajikistanConservation Genetics

Chasing the Ghost Cat

Spring–Summer 2014

At 4,000 meters in the Pamirs, collecting snow leopard scat from ridgelines that no one has walked in decades, I found the clearest expression of what conservation biology demands: faith in evidence you cannot yet see.

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05Dispatch

Grand Teton, WyomingCarnivore Ecology

The Detective of the Tetons

Fall 2012

Tracking grizzly bears through Grand Teton's backcountry revealed that the most dangerous predator in the ecosystem is not the one with claws — it is the one with assumptions.

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04Dispatch

Iringa, TanzaniaHuman-Wildlife Conflict

The Giants of Ruaha

Summer 2011

In Tanzania's Ruaha landscape, where elephant herds and farming communities share a shrinking dry-season water supply, I learned that conservation without justice is just another form of displacement.

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03Dispatch

Cardamom Mountains, CambodiaCommunity-Based Conservation

Tying the Bootstrings

Winter 2010

In the Cardamom Mountains, I discovered that the most effective conservation technology is often a conversation — and that the best data comes from people who have lived on the land for generations.

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02Dispatch

Java, IndonesiaPrimate Conservation

Sometimes You Do, Sometimes You Don't

Spring 2009

A season surveying Javan gibbons in the remnant forests of western Java taught me that conservation failure is not always dramatic — sometimes it is simply the quiet accumulation of small losses.

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01Dispatch

Rajasthan, IndiaWildlife Observation

The Patience of the Tiger

Summer 2008

In the dry forests of Ranthambore, I learned that the most important skill a field biologist can develop is not technical — it is the capacity to wait.

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