Cool Green Science: Best of the Blog 2017

For five years, Cool Green Science has been connecting you to nature, whether it’s helping you understand the birds in your backyard or reporting on the biggest conservation science challenges around the globe.

Here’s a look back at ten of our most popular posts of 2017.

Thank you, as always, for reading, commenting and sharing our conservation science blog. We look forward to continuing our nature blog journey with you in the new year.

1. Owls in the Outhouse: Opening the Bathroom Door on a Foul Bird Issue

   By Kris Millgate

   

   It’s not a potty joke: owls are falling into outhouses in public lands. Fortunately, there’s a solution. This is undoubtedly the grossest conservation story we’ve ever run. (And warning: the photos are not for queasy stomachs).

2. Elk in the Neighborhood: On Conservation and Lost Hope

   By Matt Miller

   

   An improbable evening encounter with an elk herd is only possible because conservationists kept fighting when all hope was lost.

3. Better Restoration Through ‘Shrooms?

   By Cara Byington

   

   Conservationists trying to restore eastern spruce struggled to establish new trees. Then they found the special sauce: ‘shroom juice.

4. Tongue Orchids & Corpseflowers: 7 Insanely Weird Plant Species

   By Justine E. Hausheer

   

   Cool Green Science has always brought you the weird side of nature. Here’s a celebration of some truly bizarre, even unsettling, flora. A plant that captures shrew poo? Read on.

5. Threatened Bats Find a Slice of Paradise in New Jersey

   By Lisa Feldkamp

   

   “Netting a bat in an open area is like finding a needle in a haystack,” says one bat researcher. And that challenge is compounded when it’s a bat species that’s been decimated by White-Nose Syndrome.

6. Recovery: Benefits of Salmon Failure

   By Ted Williams

   

   An ambitious effort to recover Atlantic salmon failed. But what a failure! A look at how an unsuccessful conservation effort restored huge runs of other native fish.

7. Tracing the Wild Origins of the Domestic Turkey

   By Joe Smith

   

   Think you know everything about the Thanksgiving bird? How about its origins? Ornithologist Joe Smith tracks down the mysterious (and perhaps gone in the wild) Aztec turkey.

8. The Quest to Restore American Elms: Nearing the Finish Line

   By Suki Casanave

   

   The quest to restore the American elm has been underway for more than half a century. Today, with help success is closer than ever—good news for our floodplain forests, as well as our urban communities.

9. The Mountain Lion in the Window

   By Cara Byington

   We love backyard wildlife, and regularly feature posts helping you understand nature near you. But on The Nature Conservancy’s Matador Ranch, backyard wildlife is even more exciting – especially when a large predator appears in your window well.

10. Can Ancient Herding Traditions Help Cattle Coexist with Wolves and Sage Grouse?

    By Matt Miller

    

    I was here to see a conservation success on public ranchlands. The one problem: my horse was trying to kill me.