The news of several recent bear attacks on humans — including one near Yellowstone and another in Alaska — serves as an important reminder to be aware of wildlife while enjoying the outdoors. Understanding the behavior of grizzlies and mountain lions can help prevent negative interactions with hikers and campers. Grizzly bears are a wide-ranging […]
As if coral didn’t have enough to worry about – global warming, pollution and excess UV radiation now threaten 60 percent of the world’s reef systems – there’s a new menace on the block, and it fits in your pocket: sunscreen. According to recent studies, some of the UV filtering ingredients in sunscreen have been […]
Despite its isolated location along the Thai-Burmese border, Wat Pa Luangta Bua Yannasampanno Forest Monastery (the “Tiger Temple”) attracts up to 800 visitors daily. For 300 baht apiece (approximately nine U.S. dollars), tourists can pose for pictures with tigers and Buddhist monks. The temple – which has been featured on Animal Planet and Slate – […]
On a bamboo bed in a dark clinic at Loi Tailang, a woman sits with her three children. One has a severe foot burn, which is all infected and ugly looking. It is very common for children in the rural villages to be burned when cooking pots overturn on the fire at the center of […]
All over the village boys are fashioning bows from natural materials, preparing to compete in the big archery contest. Small children kick a Takraw ball, a small hollow ball made of rattan. I pull out my camera, but the mothers quickly tell the children to hide their faces. Photographing people who are planning to live […]
Nora Dunn and Kelly Bedford, two Canadian travelers with a penchant for service, were in Chiang Mai, Thailand, when Cyclone Nargis struck Burma in early May. While the rest of the world watched in shock and horror as the death toll climbed and Burma’s junta blocked critical aid, Dunn (31) and Bedford (32) took action. […]
In the mid 1990’s, the federal government reintroduced wolves into Yellowstone National Park in hopes of restoring this animal to its natural landscape after eradication from much of North America. Since their reintroduction to the region, wolves have been steadily recovering and scientists believed 300 wolves distributed across the Northern Rockies demonstrated this recovery. Since […]
The Long neck Karen (Karen-Padaung) are not actually Karen at all, but they are also refugees, escaping the genocidal madness in Burma. They have become a symbol of tourism in Thailand’s Mae Hong Son province. On the Burmese side of the border, agents of the junta gather the Karen, Akha, Lihsu, Lahu and other tribal […]
New figures from the UN have the death toll, possibly, at 216,000. The junta still hasn’t allowed any aid workers into the country. They allowed two plane loads of food and medicines in but then immediately commandeered everything. Now the US refuses to send anymore aid, unless aid workers are allowed to accompany the materials […]
