I could smell the salty sea in her heavy breath, filled with exhaustion and the quiet pain of giving up. A full-grown Olive Ridley sea turtle, she was washed ashore a beach in Dahanu, a seaside town over a hundred … Read More
“The lifting of the snake’s head had caught my eye and it was not until the head had been raised some two or three feet from the ground and the hood expanded that I realised it was a hamadryad. It … Read More
In the Middle of the Pandemic, a Water Heater Brings Hope for Human and Forest Health Even as marginalised communities in rural Maharashtra struggled with the challenges presented by Covid-19, a project to safeguard human and forest health by the … Read More
Conservation and Science Writer with WCT, Purva Variyar, and naturalist Gaurav Shirodkar talk about an obscure, yet enchanting destination in Maharashtra called the Lonar crater. Extra-terrestrial origins, unique soda lake, rare microbial life, and thriving forest, they discuss it all! … Read More
Ever wondered what fossils might have meant to our ancestors in older times, when the concepts of geology, evolution, and palaeontology were still to be uncovered? The scientific field of palaeontology (study of fossils) was formally established only in the … Read More
Manipulation is a domain that certain parasites have exploited to bizarre degrees. They can literally turn their victim hosts into fully-controlled ‘zombies’ to do their bidding. Call them Frankensteins if you will! Different parasites inject the hosts with highly-specific chemicals … Read More
More than one third of the world’s fish stocks are overexploited. Our ocean is already suffering. And right now, billions of dollars in government subsidies just encourage more fishing. The good news is that we have an opportunity to end … Read More
I grew up in a family which cooked and served the most mouth-watering seafood delicacies every so often. But I haven’t had a bite of seafood in over 15 years now. For someone who would drool on hearing the names … Read More
On the bank of a gushing river in the forests of India’s Western Ghats, under the black velvet dome shimmering with countless stars, a tree lights up with flashes of neon, and goes dark again. On the opposite bank, another … Read More
MUMBAI: Twenty-seven NGOs from India, Vietnam, USA, UK, Canada, South Africa and Germany, on November 18, 2020, published an open letter to lawmakers in China urging them to act to reduce demand for wild animal species threatened with extinction. Photo … Read More
The threat of wildlife crime has always loomed large over wildlife in India. Be it the hunting and poaching of charismatic, larger mega-fauna such as the tiger and the Indian one-horned rhino, or the lesser-known and lesser protected ungulates and … Read More
A lone male sparrow, perched on a television cable that runs past my window, calls every morning. He is raising a family in a ceiling nook of a store room on the opposite terrace. He’s a neighbor I have been … Read More
Over the past few months, I have been consistently coming across rather disturbing news from all over the world, the headlines for which when read together could pass off for a ‘fictional’ doomsday film plot. But, this is real life. … Read More
Dr. Anish Andheria, a conservation biologist, naturalist and wildlife photographer, is the President of the Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT) that works in and around 160 national parks and sanctuaries in 23 Indian states. After decades of studying and monitoring wildlife … Read More
As we wrestle with the countless conservation challenges, it becomes all the more clear that the interplay between humans and their natural environment is at the heart of every single environmental issue. Conventional conservation efforts are falling short sans the … Read More