Church visit by a mountain goat Did you hear the one about a goat that walked into a church? If this sounds like a line from a joke, read on. As a subscriber to my blog or if you've perused my writing, you know that I’m a fan of the mountain goat. There’s so much to admire about these beasts of the peaks that inhabit remote, rugged realms. They’re adapted to survive there. And it’s the only place they live. Yet on rare occasions, an itinerant goat can be found

Tilcayo cat New species of animals and plants continue to be found and catalogued around the globe. Yet, it's been more than a century since the last new species of cat has been discovered. Until now. In the depths of Bolivia's Yungas cloud forest lives the tilcayo cat (Leopardus tilcayo) , a gorgeously spotted cat the size of a small house cat. It was likely known to the people native to this remote region. Now the world has one more species of wild feline to admire, tr

Every three days, someone is killed for defending nature. In 2025, watchdog group Global Witness documented 124 such deaths worldwide, a toll that is likely but a fraction of the total because repression and armed conflict make many killings impossible to document. The victims include Indigenous People, small-scale farmers, and community organizers who peacefully protect forests, farmlands, waterways, and natural ecosystems from harm. The perpetrators of environme