Lisa Marie Ballard

Sep 22, 2024 | blog.nature.org | Christine Peterson |Justine E Hausheer |Dustin Solberg |Lisa Marie Ballard

Sprinkled throughout every county in one of the country’s most densely populated states, lives more than 3,000 furry, lumbering omnivores. Even in New Jersey, black bears have learned to coexist, more or less, with humans. Their adaptability has made them one of the world’s most abundant bear species, and also the one faring the best in an increasingly human-dominated landscape.

May 30, 2024 | blog.nature.org | Matthew Miller |Cara Byington |Lauren Pharr |Lisa Marie Ballard

Lizzie McLeod laughs at the memory: She’s rushing from her job at a local bank to The Nature Conservancy’s office in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. There, she’d spend her lunch hour in a dark room/closet scanning a marine biologist’s old slides to digital. McLeod, now The Nature Conservancy’s Global Director for Oceans, has fond memories of those days. “I began with TNC as a volunteer in a dark room,” she says.

May 5, 2024 | blog.nature.org | Christine Peterson |Justine E Hausheer |Lauren Pharr |Lisa Marie Ballard

Think for a minute about the veery with its cinnamon wings, plump little body and seductive call. Each spring, as the earth begins tilting away from the sun in central and southern Brazil and the days begin to shorten, it knows it’s time to fly north. The thrush makes a quick trip, traveling sometimes up to 100 miles in a night, over mountains and countries and vastly different ecosystems, on a race to arrive at its breeding grounds in leafy woods as far north as southern Canada.

Apr 3, 2024 | blog.nature.org | Christine Peterson |Justine E Hausheer |Matthew Miller |Lisa Marie Ballard

In the mountains of the lives a large mammal most commonly associated with wetlands and willows. Moose migrated on their own to Nevada’s Jarbidge Mountains decades ago, and since then, their numbers have steadily increased. Their success isn’t because they learned to survive in hot, dry places, but because the massive, warm-blooded animal covered in dark brown fur found wet, cool microhabitats where they could make a living.

Mar 19, 2024 | blog.nature.org | Justine E Hausheer |Cara Byington |Mary Terra-Berns |Lisa Marie Ballard

Rats don’t always get a good rap in Western culture. They’re infamous for transmitting disease, invading our food stores, and sending seabird populations extinct. And their very name was once invoked as a watered-down curse word. (“Oh, rats!”)But if we put our cultural prejudices aside, these much-maligned rodents are actually quite spectacular. Oceania is a particular hotspot for rodent diversity, with ample islands creating the right conditions for evolution to work it’s magic.