by Erika Zambello
I stood atop Yampah Hill with Kerstin Wasson, Research Coordinator for the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve (ESNERR). A large tidal creek wove through the marsh grass, its arms snaking…
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by Joe Cutler
Crowds of people funneled past me as I unloaded my sampling equipment from the back of a taxi in Cameroon’s Kumba Market. The driver helped me pull my gear from the trunk: a huge backpack, a sack of gillnets,…
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by Erika Zambello
Established in 1999, the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (GB NERR) now stretches across 18,000 acres. In addition to the estuary’s salt marshes, the reserve also covers rare pine savannas,…
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by Erika Zambello
Birders had their binoculars and checklists ready on May 13 for the annual Global Big Day, and I was one of them. Armed with my eBird phone app, which allows me to record when and where I see specific…
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by Laurel Mundy
I grew up drawing animals. Birds, bugs, whales, my cat, anything you can think of, including animals that didn’t exist. My best friend and I would sit for hours doing nothing else.
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by Ryan Huang
Life as a bird is hard. Life as a seabird can be really hard. Seabirds spend the vast majority of their time in a habitat that provides no drinkable water or shelter, a place that can be as vast and empty…
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by Sarah Abdelrahim
Humans interact with other animals in a number of ways. When we think about other animals, we might think about our pet dogs, the squirrels we see in our backyards or the giraffes we visit at the zoo.…
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by Erika Zambello
As part of an ongoing project, Erika Zambello is visiting all National Estuarine Research Reserves in the continental United States. Established by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),…
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by Jacqueline Gerson
“Dip your hand in the water!” I yelled over the crash of whitewater, and then a few seconds later, “Now try it again!”
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by Madison Toonder
Oysters are bivalve mollusks that provide shelter and food for a variety of organisms, all while improving water clarity and quality through filtration. Oyster reefs formed by aggregations of shells are…
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by Erika Zambello
I disembarked at Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve (mercifully abbreviated to GTM NERR) with a group of practitioners, researchers and ecologists from around the world. The group…
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by Erika Zambello
Apalachicola Bay has long been famous around the world for its thousands of acres of oyster beds. In fact, in the past, 90 percent of Eastern oysters served in Florida were from Apalachicola.
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