Northern Mariana Islands

United States

U.S. Minor Outlying Islands

U.S. Virgin Islands

Guam

American Samoa

Puerto Rico

US & Territories

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs in a fiery global catastrophe. But we know little about how their successors, the mammals, recovered and took over the world. Now, hidden inside ordinary-looking rocks, an astonishing trove of fossils reveals a dramatic new picture of how rat-sized creatures ballooned in size and began to evolve into the vast array of species—from cheetahs to bats to whales to humans—that rule our planet today.

Amazing fossils reveal how mammals took over after an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs.

Rise of the Mammals

NOVA Wonders What Are Animals Saying? Hero

From singing whales and squeaking bats to thumping spiders and clicking dolphins, the world is filled with the exotic sounds of our fellow creatures. What are they saying? While we believe language sets us apart, some animals demonstrate they can learn our language—like Chaser the dog, who recognizes hundreds of words, and Kanzi the bonobo, who appears to have a sophisticated understanding of spoken English. But can we decode their own communications? NOVA Wonders follows researchers around the globe who are deciphering an amazing array of clues that reveal how animals share information critical to their survival. Will we one day be able to write the bat dictionary or decode the hidden sign language of chimps? And what can these findings tell us about the roots of our own language?

Can we crack the code of animal communication?

What Are Animals Saying?

(This program is no longer available for online streaming.) A seven-mile-wide asteroid collided with Earth 66 million years ago, triggering a chain of events that coincide with the end of the dinosaurs. But experts have long debated exactly what happened when the asteroid struck and how the giant beasts met their end. Now, scientists have uncovered compelling new clues about the catastrophe—from New Jersey to the wilds of Patagonia—and an international expedition of scientists has drilled into the impact crater off the coast of Mexico, recovering crucial direct evidence of the searing energy and giant tsunami unleashed by the asteroid. Join NOVA as scientists piece together a chillingly precise unfolding of the Earth’s biggest cataclysm, moment by moment, and discover how our early mammalian ancestors managed to survive and repopulate the Earth. (Premiered December 27, 2017)

Experts drill into the impact crater of an asteroid that created a worldwide cataclysm.

Day the Dinosaurs Died

Koch Foundation

NOVA Science Trust Logo

Draper

Hear from two scientists trying to hack photosynthesis.
RUBISCO, which helps make photosynthesis happen, is the most plentiful enzyme on the planet. But it&#x27;s not the most efficient. Can a team of researchers give it a boost?
Meet the Enzyme Driving PhotosynthesisPublished: February 22, 2021David Pogue: Usually you hear about efficiency, like of a gas engine, measured in terms of percentage, how much fuel is ultimately converted to energy. What’s the percentage efficiency for a plant?Lisa Ainsworth: Well, in terms of how much of the light energy it turns into sugar, it’s pretty low maybe around three percent%.David Pogue: Three percent? That’s terrible. .Lisa Ainsworth: That’s the plan.David Pogue: To improve photosynthesis, two researchers, Amanda Cavanagh and Paul South, have focused on one of its key molecules. It has a very catchy name.Amanda Cavanagh: So the molecule is what we biologists call an enzyme. And so it does the work. Enzymes are like biological workers. And the enzyme’s called RUBISCO.Paul South: It’s RUBP, or ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase oxygenase.Amanda Cavanagh: And it’s, for most plant biologists, one of our favorite enzymes on the planet.Paul South: Yeah RUBISCO is our shortened term for it.David Pogue: Mainly because it’s fun to say.Amanda Cavanagh: Well it’s super fun to say.David Pogue: RUBISCO.Amanda Cavanagh: Of course. RUBISCO. But, it is also a really cool enzyme because it makes life on Earth possible.David Pogue: RUBISCO may not look so special but it is arguably the most important enzyme on the planet because of its critical role in photosynthesis. RUBISCO’s job is to grab a molecule of carbon dioxide and feed it into a molecular machine that’s building carbon chains. That means, any carbon atom, that’s part of any plant anywhere got there thanks to RUBISCO, or one of its close variants. And because we eat plants or animals that ate plants that also includes just about every carbon atom in your body—all approximately eight hundred, million, billion, billion of them. That’s 26 zeroes. Not bad RUBISCO, not bad.Paul South: Yeah so if it’s ever come from a plant, it had to have gone through that enzyme of RUBISCO.David Pogue: That’s wild. How come there’s not a memorial to RUBISCO in Washington? It seems like, sort of important.RUBISCO is important and that’s why it’s the most plentiful protein on Earth. But just because you’re important, doesn’t mean you’re entirely competent.Paul South: It’s, in this case, not the best enzyme in the world.Amanda Cavanagh: It’s got a hard job, so it’s doing its best, but at the same time it exists in an atmosphere that’s not predominantly carbon dioxide, it’s mostly oxygen.Paul South: And about one in every four or five reactions it grabs oxygen instead of carbon dioxide.David Pogue: That’s right. RUBISCO screws up about a fifth of the time. Instead of attaching a carbon dioxide, it attaches an oxygen molecule. And that’s trouble.You’re saying nature has created a screwed-up little worker enzyme?Paul South: Yeah so 400 million years ago, when this enzyme evolved, there wasn’t very much oxygen in the air.David Pogue: All right. So I’m the little RUBISCO enzyme and like on the conveyor belt here. And like carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide, oxygen and I- I don’t notice I accidentally grabbed oxygen out of the box.Paul South: And it produces compounds that are inhibitory to photosynthesis, so it kind of starts to shut things down.David Pogue: I mean it’s been going on for billions of years and nobody has cared.Amanda Cavanagh: Yeah, well..David Pogue: I mean, it all basically works.Amanda Cavanagh: Photosynthesis right now is sort of a victim of its own success, RUBISCO certainly is. So by oxygenating the atmosphere via photosynthesis, you now have a huge amount of oxygen in the atmosphere but you need a carbon dioxide to make the reaction work.David Pogue: So what happens when RUBISCO screws up? The result gets shipped out through a couple other parts of the cell to where the mess is taken apart and recycled, all of which consumes a lot of energy.So, if you could fix this inefficiency problem, the plant might make more soybeans, corn, whatever it is?Amanda Cavanagh: That’s exactly it. Then they will have that energy to put towards something that we will consider useful like making more food for us to eat.David Pogue: Is this just a crazy theory or is this some indication that this could actually work.Amanda Cavanagh: There is quite a bit of evidence that this is working. So right now, we have this tested in a couple of model species.David Pogue: It is tropical in here.Amanda and Paul take me to the greenhouse to see one example. Using two genes one from algae and the other from a pumpkin, they’ve modified tobacco plants to address RUBISCO’s “sloppy work.”And why are we using tobacco plants?Amanda Cavanagh: Yeah tobacco’s a really useful model crop for us.David Pogue: Why tobacco? Turns out it’s one of the easiest plants to genetically manipulate which makes it a common test subject.Paul South: They have definitely shown improvements in plant growth and total biomass, and we’ve been studying the rates of photosynthesis, and we are pretty confident now that our model crop is successful in this pathway, and now we’re really interested in moving these into something we like to eat.David Pogue: Reducing the energy penalty crops pay for RUBISCO’s mistakes could be huge. In soybeans, a 25% reduction could result in plants that produce more than 60 million more bushels a year.Amanda Cavanagh: This to a lot of people is an idea that might be out there, but if we can get it, if we can get this moonshot approach to work, then we’re going to have more food. And so that’s really what drives what I do.

Meet the Enzyme Driving Photosynthesis Hero

Hear from two scientists trying to hack photosynthesis.

Meet the Enzyme Driving Photosynthesis

A few months after competing in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Norweigian horseback rider Tony André Hansen was stripped of his bronze medal. His horse Camiro had failed a drug test during the Games, testing positive for capsaicin. The International Equestrian Federation <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/sports/olympics/22doping.html">dismissed the pair</a>, along with three other showjumping riders and horses, from the competition. Hansen has not competed in the show ring since.Capsaicin is the chemical responsible for the “heat” in chile peppers. Like many over-the-counter muscle rubs—think “IcyHot”—capsaicin can bring on both tingling sensitivity and numbness.
 

 
 <div class="related"></div>
 

 
 When applied as a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-equestrian-doping/norway-bronze-medalist-suspended-idUSPEK303420080821">paste or lotion to horses’ forelegs</a>, capsaicin can cause a burning sensation that would be exacerbated by knocking against the rails of a jump. If a showjumping horse lifts its legs higher, it avoids the potentially irritating touch of a fence—and its rider avoids incurring penalties. But capsaicin can also soothe aches and pains by temporarily <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6006555/">deactivating the nerve endings</a> where it’s applied. An exhausted horse with numbed nerves will perform better than an equally tired one that can feel the full pain of its aching muscles, according to the <a href="https://aaep.org/horsehealth/lameness-and-poor-performance-sport-horse-eventing">American Association of Equine Practitioners</a>, which is why capsaicin is banned from equestrian competitions to this day. “Capsaicin binds to the TRPV-1 receptor—a pain receptor present all over our bodies,” says Ivette Guzmán, a horticulturist and member of the Chile Pepper Institute of New Mexico State University. If a horse is sore, “applying capsaicin binds up those pain receptors,” she says. A horse may feel a little bit of heat from topical capsaicin, but “they won’t feel the pain,” Guzmán explains. “It works on us, too.”Just as horses experience a numbing feeling from a topical application of capsaicin, your tongue will tingle when you chew a hot pepper. This numbing sensation is often coupled with a burning one that’s enjoyed by spicy food-lovers around the world: Whether eating centuries-old cuisines like <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/04/why-we-call-indian-dishes-curry-colonial-history/586828/">Indian curry</a> or saucy chicken wings on the popular YouTube series “Hot Ones,” human beings have subjected themselves to the uncomfortable chemistry of capsaicin <a href="http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2012/issue131b/">for millennia</a>.<h3>The need for heat</h3>Pepper species native to the Americas fall within the genus Capsicum. Some Capsicum peppers, like the mild bell pepper, have no capsaicin at all. Others, like the jalapeño and habanero pepper—popular additions to dishes requiring some extra “heat”—do have the chemical. (A few Capsicum peppers, including the incredibly-hot ghost pepper, were developed in South Asia by hybridizing varieties from the Americas.)“A lot of people mistakenly think the seeds are what hold the spice,” Guzmán says. But “capsaicin is found in the part of the fruit called the placenta: the membrane that holds onto the seeds.”But spicy food doesn’t have to be hot to convey heat. In fact, capsaicin doesn’t physically burn your tongue and innards at all. When your body processes capsaicin, your nervous system sends out a response that activates your senses for touch and temperature. The same receptors responsible for blocking topical pain send signals to your brain that you’re being burned when you eat something spicy. And here’s the kick: Capsaicin alters the sensitivity of the pain receptors in your mouth, effectively lowering the temperature at which you feel burning pain. This is why jalapeño sauce feels burning hot even after being refrigerated.“These [receptors] work really well when they detect the correct stimulus,” says Joanna Buckley, a chemist at the University of Sheffield in England. “They respond to anything over 43 C (109 F). So if you have a hot cup of tea, this receptor will work correctly and tell you, ‘Oh, your tea’s a bit hot.’” The problem is, Buckley adds, these heat-sensing receptors are also triggered by a class of compounds called vanilloids. Capsaicin is one of them.
 

 
 

<div class='cove-video'>
 <iframe allowfullscreen="" class="inline-cove-player" frameborder="0" height="100%" id="partnerPlayer" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//player.pbs.org/partnerplayer/oqcBDm0F49udaZUIkmE3Fg==/?topbar=false&amp;end=0&amp;endscreen=true&amp;start=0&amp;autoplay=false" width="100%">
</iframe>
</div>


 

 
 Chemically, capsaicin is corrosive (like hydrogen peroxide), acutely toxic (like chlorine), and irritating (like ammonia). And its irritant qualities won’t just fire up your mouth: Capsaicin can have a similar effect on other mucous membranes. If you’ve ever chopped peppers and then accidentally touched your eye, you understand how irritating this compound can be. So why do some people enjoy—and even get a thrill out of—eating a fruit with such a kick?“We get interviewed often by chiliheads,” Guzmán says. “I’m Mexican. I grew up eating jalapeños, I grew up eating really spicy food, and I understand that there are other chemicals in [peppers] that are medicinal. But when it comes to chiliheads, I think they’re fascinated by the chemistry of capsaicin and how it makes you feel something you’ve never felt before. It gives you a euphoria.” Measuring that euphoria depends on the Scoville scale.<h3>Let’s talk Scovilles</h3>Named for American pharmacist Wilbur Scoville, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/1/22/10810564/wilbur-scoville-google-doodle">the Scoville scale</a> ranks the pungency of chile peppers based on the concentration of capsaicin in the pepper. It’s this concentration that determines how our bodies will react to peppers; while small amounts of capsaicin fall within the “spicy chicken dinner” category, stronger concentrations spell out “weapon-grade pepper spray.” In the early 1900s, Scoville, who was working as a chemist at the time, attempted to test out people’s relative capsaicin tolerance. He recruited five human subjects to taste-test mixtures of dried pepper and sugar water and had them report how hot they found each mixture to be. The basis of his heat scale is the amount of sugar water needed to dilute the mixture enough for the majority of his subjects to no longer feel the heat. These days, a technique called high-performance liquid chromatography is used to determine exactly how much capsaicin a pepper contains in parts per million, and multiplying the result by 16 converts it to <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-hot-is-that-pepper-how-scientists-measure-spiciness-884380/">Scoville Heat Units (SHUs)</a>.
 

 
 <div class="ad"></div>
 

 
 The highest level of naturally occuring capsaicin is in the Carolina Reaper, the hottest pepper in the world. Its creator, chile pepper grower Ed Currie, bred the pepper by taking one uniquely spicy <a href="https://www.palmettobluff.com/discover/fear-the-reaper">habanero</a> grown on the La Soufrière volcano on Saint Vincent in the Caribbean and crossing it with a Naga Viper pepper, which was developed in the United Kingdom from peppers hailing from the Caribbean and South Asia. The hottest single Carolina Reaper ever to be harvested rang in at 2.2 million SHU, meaning that more than a tenth of the pepper was pure capsaicin.High amounts of capsaicin, like those found in the Carolina Reaper, can cause injury. “Capsaicin is a really potent chemical. If you have too much of it, it can be toxic,” Buckley says. “It’s the thing that’s used in pepper spray. We’ve all seen images of people who have been pepper sprayed. Their eyes are swollen up, they’re crying, they can’t see…so it’s incredibly important to know how to handle capsaicin” safely, she says.<h3>Your body’s battle against spice</h3>If you don’t welcome spicy burns, there’s a way to neutralize the compound’s effects: dairy. “Capsaicin is an oil and it is insoluble in cold water,” Buckley says. Though it’s somewhat soluble in alcohol, like beer, Buckley explains, capsaicin is best dissolved by another oil. “You need to find something that’s fatty to dissolve the capsaicin,” she says. “That’s why the best thing to drink is milk.” Although spicy food is sometimes associated with stomach problems—Currie, who not only created the Carolina Reaper but also eats one every day, still <a href="https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-reaper-pepper-20141127-story.html#">experiences severe stomach cramps</a>—there is no direct evidence that spicy food causes belly cramps or nausea. The perceived pain, Guzmán explains, may just be a side effect of your gut membranes being irritated. While a 2016 study showed capsaicin can cause those with abdominal disorders to experience <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27094759/">flare-ups in their symptoms,</a> the same can be said for <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/unless-you-have-celiac-disease-gluten-sensitivity-is-probably-just-in-your-head/">too much bread</a>, a famously unspicy food.But there are always worst-case scenarios.
 <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="Trinidad scorpion pepper" class="richtext-image full-width" height="450" width="800"
 src="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/Trinidad_Scorpion_Pepper.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption>A Trinidad moruga scorpion pepper, which is currently the second hottest pepper in the world to the Carolina reaper. Image credit: John Vonderlin, Flickr<div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
 </figure>
 More than 150 different varieties of chile grow in a garden at New Mexico State University’s Chile Pepper Institute. “One year we had a group of students we were doing a tour with in the garden. And one student thought it would be funny if he bit a tiny piece off a Trinidad Scorpion pepper,” Guzmán says. “He did that, and he threw up in the garden, and he passed out, and we had to carry him to a shaded area under some trees.” Because capsaicin is a toxin, Guzmán explains, the human body’s first response to an excess of it is to flush it out. (In the student’s case, by vomiting.) In 2018, the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5893965/">National Institutes of Health reported</a> that a previously healthy 34-year-old man was admitted to the hospital with “thunderclap headaches”—sudden, severe head pain accompanied by fever, blurred vision, and even seizures—after eating a Carolina Reaper whole. Doctors treated him by flushing the capsaicin out of his body, which, like many chemical compounds in large amounts, can be dangerous. Of course, Olympic equestrian Tony André Hansen’s story shows that even a small amount of this complex compound can be damaging (and in some cases, even career-ruining). It just depends on where—or upon whom—the capsaicin ends up.
 

 
 <div class="newsletter"></div>

Red hot chili peppers, and other hot peppers within the Capsicum genus, get their heat from the chemical capsaicin. Image credit: Austin Kirk, Flickr

Discover capsaicin, the active ingredient in chile peppers. (If you can take the heat.)

From jumping horses to jalapeños: the science of spicy peppers

What’s in this snail’s paralyzing venom?
Scientists explore how the powerful peptides found in marine cone snail venom can be used for medicinal and therapeutic purposes.
How Killer Snail Venom Plays a Key Role in Drug DevelopmentPublished: February 11, 2021David Pogue: Time to meet my first Professor of Venoms, Mandë Holford, of Hunter College. Now, I couldn’t help noticing, there’s a huge, terrifying tarantula on me. Is she poisonous?Mandë Holford: No, no, she’s not poisonous.Pogue: Oh, whew!Holford: She is, however, venomous and could still be lethal.Pogue: Thanks for bringing that up. Poisonous and venomous don’t mean the same thing?Holford: No, no, no, not at all.Pogue: Poisonous versus venomous: it all comes down to the delivery system. If you bite it and get sick, it’s poisonous, but if it bites you and you get sick, it’s venomous. In general, the source of their toxins is different, as well.This poison dart frog becomes poisonous from its diet. If raised in captivity, on different foods, it can become non-toxic, whereas this rattlesnake generates its own venom. It’s built into its D.N.A. So, snakes, scorpions, spiders: which fearsome creature is the focus of Mandë’s work?Killer snails? Is it accurate to say that you study killer snails?Holford: Killer snails are actually my affectionate term for venomous marine snails. And so, these are snails that live in the sea, and they have a venom, like snakes or scorpions or spiders, and the venom can be very lethal to humans.Pogue: It’s true that the snail can kill you, but usually it’s just looking for dinner, a worm or a fish.So, I’m a fish. What happens to me?Holford: Well, what happens is this guy will smell that you’re in the water, right? He puts out something called a siphon, and it’s a chemosensory organ, smells that, “Hmm, tasty meal in the water,” then it sticks out something like a tongue. It’s called a “false” tongue, “proboscis.” And, on the tip of the tongue, it has a little tooth, filled with venom that then will get injected into the fish. The fish instantly will become paralyzed, depending on what cocktail of venom gets injected into it. The snail will then open its mouth really wide, swallow the fish whole and have a really nice, tasty meal.Pogue: The whole thing sounds so improbable.Holford: I love it. Just when you think you’ve heard of everything, nature will surprise you with something new.Pogue: So, what’s in that paralyzing venom? To find out, Mandë and her team collect specimens from around the world. Back at the lab, they analyze tissue samples from the snail’s muscular foot and its venom gland.Juliette Gorson: So, we’re eventually going to look at the D.N.A., so we can make a species identification. That, we can use the foot tissue for. And then the venom gland tissue we can use to look for the individual venom toxins within the venom duct.Pogue: Turns out, the cone snail’s venom isn’t one thing but a cocktail of as many as 250 short “mini” proteins, also called peptides.Holford: So, if you think of venom, think of it not as like a single bullet, right? It’s more like, I like to describe it as a cluster bomb. It’s a series of bullets coming at you, and each individual bullet has a target in the physiological system.Pogue: Each venom peptide has evolved to mount a very specific attack, often acting as keys that fit a cell’s lock-like receptors. In the case of the nervous system, that can prevent a specific neuron from transmitting an impulse or, conversely, jam the neuron open, generating a flood of signals.In the wild, all those targeted attacks paralyze the snail’s prey, but the precision with which the venom peptides act also means that they may have another role as medicines.Holford: And so, we study these venoms to try to figure out novel medicines for treating things in pain and cancer. Actually, they make great drugs because they’re highly specific, very fast-acting and very potent.Pogue: A venom curing instead of killing? Wouldn’t be the first time.There are currently at least seven drugs on the market developed out of the study of venoms. They include an anticoagulant derived from medicinal leeches and a diabetes medicine from Gila monsters. There’s even one already from cone snails, an analgesic to treat severe chronic pain.Holford: And it’s the exact peptide that you would find in the venom. It’s not a derivative of it, it’s not a small molecule, it’s exactly as nature expressed it in the animal.Gorson: And I’ll just run a simple D.N.A. extraction.Pogue: Mandë’s team has already made some major breakthroughs.Tanya Napolitano: So, I could do a nano-LC-MS and see what’s inside of here.Pogue: In 2014, they identified a peptide from another venomous snail that attacks liver tumor cells, inhibiting their growth. It’s cutting-edge work that’s reaping the rewards to be found at the intersection of chemistry and biology.Holford: Learning how the venom is used more in ecological settings helps to further us in terms of how we understand how it can be applied for medicinal or therapeutic applications. And so, right now, it’s a fun time to be a venom scientist, because those worlds are colliding.

How Killer Snail Venom Plays a Key Role in Drug Development Hero

What’s in this snail’s paralyzing venom?

How Killer Snail Venom Plays a Key Role in Drug Development

Lions and African wild dogs hunt their prey very differently.
Gorongosa National Park&#x27;s top feline predator—the lion—hunts by ambush. Discover how gregarious wild dogs use an entirely different strategy to take down prey.
The Anatomy of an African Wild Dog HuntPublished: January 26, 2021Narrator: In an African wilderness like Mozambique&#x27;s Gorongosa National Park, each animal faces a fundamental task—day in, day out—finding something to eat. Herbivores have an additional challenge: they must also avoid being eaten. As for carnivores, to survive, they must kill. And to kill, they must hunt. Paola Bouley: There&#x27;s some dance that happens between those two groups of species. One doesn&#x27;t want to be eaten, the other needs to eat. So, they each fulfill a unique niche in the ecology of the system.Narrator: Two top carnivore species roam the forests and floodplains of Gorongosa: African wild dogs and lions. Each has their own particular style of hunting, and their own unique effect on the prey species around them. Bouley: A lion is an ambush predator and our lions in Gorongosa tend to hang out in the tall grass and they almost literally wait for something to walk into their mouths. They’re not out running on the flood plains chasing down prey. They don’t have to spend that energy. There’s a stray waterbuck or a warthog that’s just walking through the grass… and all of a sudden, a lion is there. And it takes a split second for a lion to take it down.Narrator: Prey are so plentiful in Gorongosa, lion rarely roam from their favorite grasslands, limiting their impact on the ecosystem. Wide-ranging wild dogs provide an essential contrast. Bouley: Compared to an ambush predator like a lion, a wild dog is a coursing predator. And that means that it chases down its prey. It’s not sitting, lying in wait for something to walk up to its area. It’s going to chase down what it wants to consume.Narrator: Weighing less than eighty pounds, African wild dogs are built for speed and endurance. Their long, thin legs can carry them over a mile during a hunt and propel them at speeds approaching 40 miles an hour. Bouley: Now, a lion is going to think twice about running after something, especially if they can just pick it out of the grass. But dogs are not stealthy in that sense. They’re gregarious. They’re playing together. They’re noisy. Animals see them coming from far. They’re not stealthy at all. So, they have to rely on the chasing. Chasing, clearing, very different strategy to a lion.Narrator: And there&#x27;s much more to that strategy than simply out-running prey. The pack&#x27;s meals emerge from an extraordinary routine. Bouley: A typical day for the dogs right now is they tend to rest during the heat of the day but in the early mornings and late afternoons they begin to play, socialize more together and they hunt. António &quot;Tonecas&quot; Paulo: (Translated from Portuguese) About thirty minutes before the hunt, they start playing, and you can see at that stage that they start to lower their heads and prick up their ears a bit and they make a calling sound between them.Bouley: So, we&#x27;re looking at some of the best wild dog habit here. It&#x27;s a wide-open expanse, really flat, hard substrate—and they&#x27;ll course through here.They start moving across the landscape and then fractions of the pack break off and begin to select prey. Those dogs out in front who want to start hunting are out there already sussing everyone out.Here we go.Here in Gorongosa, we have palm thickets, and termite mounds and little patches of forest. Animals like a bushbuck or an oribi would be hunkered in the shade and what we have is a pack of dogs and a wave of teeth that are just sweeping through the landscape, sifting animals out of their refuges, and looking for that one weak moment.Narrator: Once a victim is flushed out, the wild dogs kick into high gear. Paulo: (Translated from Portuguese) They chase their prey at a very high speed. When this wave arrives, the prey has little chance to survive the attack.Bouley: The beauty of a pack is that they function as a whole. Everybody needs to do well together. The sum is greater than the parts with a wild dog pack. There&#x27;s no fighting at kills. There&#x27;s no outward aggression like you&#x27;ll see with the lion. Everybody gets to eat, nothing is wasted. So, vultures will hang around, but there&#x27;s very little scraps to be taken. They consume everything.So, they’re having an impact on how animals are distributing themselves because herbivores understand: that’s a predator. They are fulfilling a unique role as a coursing predator in this system. And that’s a good thing.

The Anatomy of an African Wild Dog Hunt Hero

Lions and African wild dogs hunt their prey very differently.

The Anatomy of an African Wild Dog Hunt

Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique was once one of the most species-rich places in Africa.
By protecting lions from traps and snares, veterinarians, park rangers, and ecologists are working together to restore this feline&#x27;s population in Gorongosa National Park.
Lions Return to Mozambique&#x27;s Gorongosa National ParkPublished: November 2, 2020Onscreen: Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique was once one of the most species-rich places in Africa. But like the rest of the country, the park was decimated by a long and bloody war.Antonio &quot;Tonecas&quot; Paulo: (Translated from Portuguese) The war brought misery and unemployment. Many people died of hunger, because they were unable to grow crops. They were always on the move trying to escape the fighting.Paola Bouley: Armies had to eat, elephants were killed, tusks were sold to buy guns. So, everything just pretty much got wiped out.Onscreen: After the fighting ended, some herbivore species quickly rebounded. But the only top predators to survive were a handful of lions. By the time Paola Bouley arrived in 2012, the war had been over nearly 20 years. Bouley: When I got here, nothing was known about lions. There had never been any formal research on carnivores. So, people had, you know, casual observations about how many lions and where, but we really had no data.I thought I saw something back there.The first thing you want to do is count. You want to know how many and where.Where is everybody?But we had a hell of a time in the beginning, actually finding lions in this wilderness. It&#x27;s mostly roadless, it&#x27;s long-grass habitats, so we worked in the beginning just to be able to see lions.He’s a beautiful lion…And then, we took it a step further and began to put GPS collars on prides and coalitions – so, groups of females, groups of males – and those, in turn, took us deeper into the story. And what we quickly found is that lions were still being killed.People were setting wire snares in the landscape to catch warthogs and waterbuck and buffalo, but they were also, they were catching lions. Lions are by-catch in those traps.Jinga lost his foot in a gin trap in February.And the numbers were showing 1 in 3 were either maimed – like losing actual limbs – or killed in these snares. I came here as an ecologist, as a scientist…Start the timer....but quickly had to switch gears, because when we saw the trends for lions here and other species we had to intervene.That was the leap that we made as a team. We went from being scientists – purely scientists just collecting data – to intervening and really trying to get the population jumpstarted.So, we’ll collar him so we can monitor his progress and keep treating him.So, we had to stop the illegal hunting. We had to create a refuge for these species to naturally recover.Paulo: (Translated from Portuguese) When I started working here, the situation with traps was traumatic. It was a very serious problem. The area was full of traps and snares. That’s when we started training our rangers to clean up and remove wire snares and traps from places where the lions roamed.Bouley: The rangers are the ones on the ground, and we put technology in their hands – high resolution satellite imagery – and we paired their patrols with GPS data we were getting from the collars. So, those satellite collars at our lions send us positions every few hours, so we know where lions are, we know where the core habitats are, and so we know where to focus strategic patrols. In the first two years we saw a complete turnaround in the situation. Lion poaching declined by 95%. We haven&#x27;t had a lion snared in over a year already and believe me, I look.Paulo: (Translated from Portuguese) Now, it is possible to go through a whole year without any animals getting caught in a trap. And for us that’s a fantastic result. Now, we have to preserve what we have.Onscreen: The current estimated Gorongosa lion population is around 150. Bouley: In the past three years, we&#x27;ve had 13 cubs and seven of those have been female. And that&#x27;s the beauty of lions. If you give them the opportunity, they grow. They breed almost every two years, the survival is very high in Gorongosa, there&#x27;s a lot of food, there&#x27;s a lot of space. So, they&#x27;ve done very well. We understand from the science and the data that we’ve collected that we could have three times as many lions in this park than we currently have and so that’s a target. That’s a goal. And so, we use the science and the data to really guide us towards those. What we&#x27;re trying to do here is heal the ecosystem. Put the pieces back together.Onscreen: In 2017, Gorongosa was considered safe enough to reintroduce African wild dogs to the park. Bouley: Lions took us straight to the heart of a problem, and once we solved their problem, it laid the ground for all these other species to come back too. It really was just a matter of letting nature do what it does best, and we did that by just taking the human factor out of the situation. So, where before humans were having a negative impact on populations – by setting snares, by shooting animals – you remove that, and you just step back and you let nature take its course. And in a system as robust and resilient as Gorongosa, you can let that happen.

Lions Return to Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park Hero

Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique was once one of the most species-rich places in Africa.

Lions Return to Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park

Hear what it’s like to be a vet for wild animals.
“To be a veterinarian in one of the best conservation areas in the country [of Mozambique] is to have the best office in the world,” Dr. Tonecas Paulo says.
Meet Gorongosa National Park’s Head VeterinarianPublished: November 2, 2020Tonecas Paulo: (Translated from Portuguese) My name is Tonecas Paulo. I&#x27;m from Búzi, Sofala province, very close to Gorongosa. I&#x27;m a veterinarian at Gorongosa National Park.To be a veterinarian in one of the best conservation areas of the country is to have the best office in the world.Breathing the fresh air every day and getting to share the space every day with wild animals, living with them in a natural way to really understand what the animals need from us and to help save them. It’s a challenging job and a fantastic one. Onscreen: Gorongosa National Park is in central Mozambique. It is recovering from a long war that wiped out 95% of the park’s large animals. Herbivore populations have already rebounded. Now, the park is trying to bolster its large predator populations, including African wild dogs.Tonecas Paulo: When the wild dogs first arrived last year, I was a bit nervous because it was the first time I had any direct contact with them and I was also aware of the great responsibilities facing us. The park needs the wild dogs because having too many herbivores without predators can lead to overgrazing. As a veterinarian, I am responsible for ensuring the good health of those wild dogs and also for monitoring them every day.My inspiration to become a veterinarian came from my grandmother. She was very fond of household animals, especially cats. I began to love animals, and then I discovered I could study veterinary medicine. I could take care of animals.I went through five years of training at Eduardo Mondlane University here in Mozambique. My first idea was to be a veterinarian working with domestic animals, but then this opportunity came along to join the Gorongosa team, and that led to a new passion, to conserve the environment.We are able to see animals in Gorongosa today because there were people who looked after them. Now, I have this noble mission of protecting and caring for the animals that need us so much. Here in the wild, each day is different from the next. For a veterinarian working with domestic animals, the patients go to the veterinarian, but here in the wild, we have to chase after the patients. Our work has no routine. Normally in a day, I work two hours with the wild dogs, two hours with lions, three or four hours with the pangolins. But it changes every day. There is no kind of routine. Every day brings us surprises. We must always be ready to attend to any type of emergency. The pangolin project was created to respond to illegal trafficking. The pangolin is at risk of extinction. They are the most trafficked animals in the world. This concerns us very much, which is why we created this center to try to return this species to nature.When the pangolins arrive here at Gorongosa, they arrive with wounds, signs of abuse and exhaustion. We treat and then return them to the wild. Pangolins have great ecological importance. They consume around 70 million insects annually. They also help with the aeration and fertilization of the soil.Onscreen: So far, the Gorongosa Pangolin Project has saved the lives of nearly 40 pangolins rescued from traffickers.Tonecas Paulo: It&#x27;s been a year and two months since we reintroduced the wild dogs to Gorongosa National Park. And since then, many things have happened. The most important milestone we&#x27;ve had is one that happened about two and a half months ago. A historical birth for the first time since the civil war.The birth of these wild dog pups brings me great hope. It is like a light at the end of the tunnel that in the very near future this population can grow and stabilize here in the park. Onscreen: The land surrounding Goronogsa National Park is home to some 200,000 people. The median age in Mozambique is 17.Tonecas Paulo: I am proud to be a young man who came from a community similar to the communities around the park taking on a job with such huge responsibilities. I think that it’s extremely important that the people who live around the park understand Gorongosa’s mission and the work we do daily. Gorongosa’s fundamental objective is the conservation of biodiversity while promoting development in the communities surrounding the park.We have a lot of hard conservation work to do so that the next generations can come here to Gorongosa, to see for themselves what a lion really is, an elephant, a hippopotamus, a crocodile, and not just to see them in cartoons or photographs. For that reason, we have to do what we can to protect this ecosystem.What motivates me to work so hard is to achieve the objectives of the Gorongosa Restoration Project in support of the animals lost during the 16-year war. I want young people to see me as a model so that they can believe it is possible to be a veterinarian in a conservation area right here in Mozambique. To bet on their training and to fight for this opportunity.

Meet Gorongosa National Park’s Head Veterinarian Hero

Hear what it’s like to be a vet for wild animals.

Meet Gorongosa National Park’s Head Veterinarian

<div class="related"></div>
 

 
 In July 2013, Krishnamurthy Ramesh, head of the monitoring program at Panna Tiger Reserve in central India, received a security alert. Someone was attempting to access his email account from a location more than<a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131010-poaching-technology-tigers-endangered-animals-science/"> 600 miles away from his office</a>. Sitting in Ramesh’s inbox was an email reporting the encrypted coordinates of an endangered Bengal tiger.
 

 
 Tigers are considered “walking gold” on the black market. Although leading Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) organizations have <a href="https://bit.ly/3jGDvgg">banned the use of tiger parts</a>, a robust illegal market that values tigers as luxury items—particularly their bones and pelts—still exists.
 

 
 However, the demand for wildlife products is not limited to tigers. Elephants, rhinos, pangolins, sharks, and many other species are part of this massive illicit trade. The world of wildlife trafficking and poaching is orchestrated by highly organized crime syndicates which rake in profits<a href="https://www.interpol.int/en/Crimes/Environmental-crime/Wildlife-crime"> exceeding $20 billion</a> per year. It is the fourth most profitable illegal enterprise behind<a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/corruption/wildlife-and-forest-crime.html"> narcotics, weapons, and human trafficking</a>, and is considered a significant contributor to the<a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/117/24/13596"> sixth mass extinction</a>.
 

 
 
 <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="Tiger_Ranthambhore_May2015_Rupa Gandhi_WTI (4).jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="535" width="800"
 src="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/Tiger_Ranthambhore_May2015_Rupa_Gandhi_WTI_4.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption>Less than 4,000 tigers remain in the wild. Image courtesy of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) <div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
 </figure>
 
 

 
 Although the suspicious log-in attempt was thwarted by Ramesh’s server, and the tiger’s exact location was encrypted, the cybersecurity breach exposed the threat of an endangered animal’s GPS coordinates falling into the wrong hands.
 

 
 Today, emails are encrypted by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6FanLhvsEs">coded email programs</a> to prevent others from reading them. However,<a href="https://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nvcy-sci-cybercodes/cyber-codes/"> not all online activity is encrypted</a> and in some cases browsing history, text messages, and data from apps can be intercepted. Emails are normally encrypted when they are sent, but can sometimes be decrypted before they reach their recipient. Cybersecurity news often focuses on how hackers access personal information, bank accounts, social media, and government data. But what if “cyberpoachers” started targeting information on the locations of endangered species through their animal tracking data?
 

 
 <h2>The Rise of Wildlife Cybercrime</h2>
 

 
 The illegal wildlife trade has transformed with the growth and accessibility of the internet. Animals that used to be sold in physical markets are now sold by <a href="https://www.ifaw.org/press-releases/tech-companies-wildlife-trafficking-online">anonymous online vendors</a>. As a result, a largely<a href="https://www.ifaw.org/journal/hot-on-the-trail-of-cyber-enabled-wildlife-traffickers"> unregulated online market</a> allows criminal enterprises to sell illegally acquired wildlife products, and transport them around the world. The consumer-to-consumer marketplace has made buying shark fins, pangolin scales, and rhino horns as easy as click, pay, ship.
 

 
 
 <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="Updated Pangolin Graphic .jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="618" width="800"
 src="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/Updated_Pangolin_Graphic_.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption>Infographic courtesy of IFAW<div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
 </figure>
 
 

 
 The 2018 International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) report <a href="https://www.ifaw.org/resources/disrupt-wildlife-cybercrime">Disrupt: Wildlife Cybercrime</a> identified more than 5,000 advertisements spread across more than 100 online marketplaces and social media platforms, cataloguing close to 12,000 endangered and threatened specimens worth almost $4 million. These items were completely accessible to the public; the report did not include items advertised in closed or private Facebook groups, password-protected websites, or the hidden part of the internet—the <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2019/09/the-truth-about-the-dark-web-kumar.htm">dark web</a>.
 

 
 <div class="ad"></div>
 

 
 “Many of the species preyed upon by wildlife criminals are in danger of approaching a tipping point where their diminishing numbers can no longer sustain their populations,” described Rikkert Reijnen, program director of wildlife crime at IFAW, in the Disrupt report. “Some, such as rhinos, may have already reached that point. Disrupting wildlife cybercrime is a critical component of ensuring the welfare, safety and survival of endangered and threatened animals.”
 

 
 
 <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="Illegal ivory burned - IFAW.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="719" width="800"
 src="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/Illegal_ivory_burned_-_IFAW.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption>A wildlife ranger stands guard as towers of confiscated ivory go up in smoke in Kenya&#x27;s Nairobi National Park. The country burned 105 tons of ivory in 2016 to send a stern message: Ivory is worthless unless it is on elephants. Image courtesy of IFAW<div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
 </figure>
 
 

 
 Unfortunately, illegal online markets aren’t the only “digital threat” to endangered wildlife. In recent years, hackers have exploited the very systems designed to monitor and protect these animals. By decrypting location data from radio tags and GPS collars, hackers can track down animals or reveal their whereabouts to those who would harm them. (Hacking by nature is not good or bad—it is essentially solving problems in creative and innovative ways. Some hackers use questionable methods of acquiring information, whether with intent to help or harm, while others use hackathons to improve existing security protocols by collaborating as a community to solve complex problems.)
 

 
 “Being able to put on a map exactly where animals are in space in time, that’s what one needs to exploit them,” wrote Steven J. Cooke, a biology professor at Carleton University in Canada, in an article in the journal <a href="http://www.fecpl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Cooke_et_al-2017-Conservation_Biology-1.pdf">Conservation Biology</a>.
 

 
 Cooke pointed out that the animal-tracking data scientists use to safeguard animals could potentially be used to harm them by poachers, commercial fishermen, and even nature lovers looking to photograph them.
 

 
 Some of the troubling ways radio tags and collars have been used to “locate, disturb, capture, harm, or kill tagged animals,” Cooke pointed out, include<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/14/researcher-threatens-withhold-information-wa-killing-tagged-sharks"> great white sharks</a> that were killed in Western Australia by individuals who had tracked their radio signals to “reduce human-wildlife conflict,” as well as efforts by “wolf persecution” groups to decrypt data on radio collars to allow them to<a href="https://www.outsideonline.com/1913831/out-bounds-death-832f-yellowstones-most-famous-wolf#close"> hunt down and kill wolves</a> in Yellowstone National Park.
 

 
 
 <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="Wolf watches biologists in Yellowstone National Park - Campbell, William:USFWS.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="553" width="800"
 src="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/Wolf_watches_biologists_in_Yellowstone_Nationa.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption>A wolf watches biologists in Yellowstone National Park after being captured and fitted with a radio collar. Image Credit: William Campbell / USFWS National Digital Library <div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
 </figure>
 
 

 
 According to wildlife criminologist Monique Sosnowski, there are two primary ways poachers can attempt to access animal tracking data.
 

 
 “First, they can attempt to bribe corrupt individuals such as anti-poaching entities or game guides charged with locating and protecting these species,” Sosnowski says.
 

 
 When it comes to infiltrating the tracking systems themselves, Sosnowski notes that this requires more technical skill and is thus more likely attempted by organized criminal networks.
 

 
 “Cases of this have been reported around the world as poachers have attempted to gain access to GPS data, or capitalize on VHF radio signals,” she says.
 

 
 Tarah Wheeler, an international security fellow at New America, highlighted a third way “cyberpoachers” can track wild animals. If the location setting on your cell phone is switched on when snapping a photo of an animal, that data is embedded in the photo you post on social media, creating a<a href="https://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nvcy-sci-parable/a-cyber-privacy-parable/"> digital roadmap</a> for poachers to track wildlife.
 

 
 “Because of the way cell phones track your location now, you don’t need to critique someone’s photograph to find out where they were at a given time,” Wheeler told <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/your-safari-selfies-are-cute-they-re-road-map-poachers-n1016031">NBC News</a>. “Metadata, including exact longitude and latitude, is stuck to the background of the photo.”
 

 
 <h2>Hack the Poacher</h2>
 

 
 Just as poachers might access animal tracking data through vacation selfies posted from a smartphone, <a href="https://hack-the-planet.io/">Hack the Planet</a> software engineers Tim van Deursen and Thijs Suijten have leveraged mobile phones to create a detection system to turn the tables on poachers.
 

 
 Van Deursen and Suijten designed the <a href="https://www.hackthepoacher.com/">Hack the Poacher</a> system with the intent to deter poachers from protected areas and aid rangers in their ongoing fight against wildlife crime. The system uses sensors placed throughout the target area to detect poacher’s GSM cell phone signals as well as radio frequencies so rangers that patrol poaching hotspots can be alerted to their presence. Hack the Poacher works with individual parks to tailor their technology to the issues that rangers are seeing on the ground in specific poaching hotspots.
 

 
 
 <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="Hack the Poacher.png" class="richtext-image full-width" height="565" width="800"
 src="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/Hack_the_Poacher.width-800.png"/><figcaption>In Zambia, where the Hack the Poacher system has been tested, poachers rely heavily on their mobile phones and radios for navigation and communication with each other to coordinate and organize extraction of ivory. Illustration courtesy of Hack the Poacher.<div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
 </figure>
 
 

 
 “When your cell phone is on, it&#x27;s always searching for GSM towers,” Suijten says. “The rangers at the park we are working with in Zambia told us that poachers always have a phone on them. Even if there is no GSM coverage, if their cell phone is on, it will always be searching for a cell phone tower and transmitting a strong signal to connect to service.”
 

 
 The Hack the Poacher system can monitor up to 300 square kilometers (115 square miles) with just 30-40 sensors. The founders believe this system could eventually work in tandem with other tech tools like automated camera traps, machine learning, and satellite imagery, sending rangers alerts in real time and keeping them steps ahead of poachers.
 

 
 “Many initiatives in the past focused on optimizing detection of poachers by trying to get eyes on the poacher with, for example, the use of drones, night vision cameras, radar, and satellites,” van Deursen says. “While these techniques can be effective, the costs are often too high to implement on a large scale, or too technologically advanced to be operated by people other than the tech team behind the product.”
 

 
 Hack the Poacher is powered by three agencies:<a href="https://hack-the-planet.io/"> Hack the Planet</a>,<a href="https://www.q42.nl/en"> Q42</a>, and <a href="https://www.irnas.eu/">Irnas</a>. These strategic technology companies work on creating and implementing pragmatic technologies to tackle humanitarian and sustainability challenges. The Hack the Poacher project has also received support from World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Google, Green Safaris, No Wildlife Crime (NWC), and Smart Parks.
 

 
 <h2>Using Radical Collaboration to Save Wildlife</h2>
 

 
 Just as Hack the Poacher is working to stop poaching at its source, IFAW is working alongside the world’s largest e-commerce, technology, and social media companies to shut down online marketplaces that deal in the trade of illegal wildlife.
 

 
 “Within IFAW, we have a lot of innovative and unique partnerships that we leverage to address cybercrime and analyze data related to wildlife trafficking,” says Danielle Kessler, acting US director of IFAW. “We are working through the <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/coalition-to-end-wildlife-trafficking-online">Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online</a> to collaborate with 36 tech companies across continents, such as eBay, Google, Microsoft and Tencent, to unite the industry and maximize impact for reducing wildlife trafficking online.”
 

 
 
 <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="African elephant.png" class="richtext-image full-width" height="721" width="800"
 src="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/media/images/Screen_Shot_2020-10-27_at_5.39.36_PM.width-800.png"/><figcaption>African elephants are the largest land animals on Earth and could be extinct in the next decade. Poachers kill an estimated 55 elephants a day. Image courtesy of IFAW<div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
 </figure>
 
 

 
 When it comes to finding solutions at the nexus of wildlife crime and cybersecurity, hackathons provide opportunities for students to invent and innovate new technology for the good of the planet. This November, the Department of State is co-hosting<a href="http://www.zoohackathon.com/"> Zoohackathon</a> 2020, a global competition bringing together university students, coders, developers, and wildlife trafficking experts to create innovative solutions that address on-the-ground wildlife trafficking issues. Over the course of two and a half days, participants from five regional areas across the globe will compete virtually to address wildlife trafficking challenges, analyze the connections between wildlife trafficking and zoonotic disease in each region, and discuss locally focused case studies.
 

 
 For Suijten, a focus on hard skills such as software engineering are critical, but relationship building and the ability to adapt and respond to circumstances in the field have proven to be invaluable to Hack the Poacher’s success.
 

 
 “It’s amazing how much impact we can have with smart engineers, pragmatic tech, and a bit of duct tape,” Suijten says.
 

 
 As people’s lives become more intertwined with the internet, the opportunities in cybersecurity continue to expand. To learn more about this growing field, visit the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/labs/lab/cyber/">NOVA Cybersecurity Lab</a> to explore stories of real-world cyber attacks, profiles of cybersecurity experts, and short animated videos that explain the need for cybersecurity, privacy versus security, cryptography (cyber code), and the nature of hacking.
 

 
 <div class="newsletter"></div>

Where confiscated wildlife ends up - Moehring, Ryan, USFWS.jpg

Confiscated wildlife ends up in the National Wildlife Property Repository, a 22,000 square foot warehouse near Denver, Colorado that houses wildlife items that have been forfeited or abandoned to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Image Credit: Ryan Moehring / USFWS National Digital Library

The growth and accessibility of the internet has transformed the illegal wildlife trade.

Topic: Nature

Hero Feature