Ian Markham
alumni

The Mamanuca islands lie west of the main island of Fiji. Serveral villages and over a dozen resort share these islands with the Fijian wildlife. The Mamanuca Environment Society is working between them on reef and dry forest restoration to protect and enhance the future of these communities Follow the story at @wildhopecollective

The Mamanuca islands lie west of the main island of Fiji. Serveral villages and over a dozen resort share these islands with the Fijian wildlife. The Mamanuca Environment Society is working between them on reef and dry forest restoration to protect and enhance the future of these communities.
#Fiji #travel #conservation #climatechange #restoration #forests #reefs #WildHope #drone #nature #art #color #lifesabeach #beach #tropical #paradise #island #ocean
Follow the story at @wildhopecollective

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Ian Markham
alumni, conservation, marine studies, marine-lab, travel

Ocean Wanderers

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. ” -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Mantas are mysterious ocean wanderers. They have a grace unparalleled on land. Watching them underwater feels like an otherworldly experience. Thinking of them makes me long for the sea.
#mantas #grace #dream #big #alien #ocean #nature #wildlife #nofilter #animal

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Ian Markham
alumni

An odd fact about chimpanzees

A bit odd that we named the chimpanzee “troglodytes” meaning “cave-goer” and called ourselves sapiens meaning wise when the one almost never goes in caves and the other could scarcely be considered wise. Perhaps Linnaeus would switch things around if he could see it now? (taken in Kibale national park in Uganda…the success of this park and survival of these our closest non human relatives hinged on the collaborative effort of local people, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the wise actions of a number of true Homo sapiens)

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Ian Markham
alumni

Bit of Sacramento. A stilt in (non-) Flying V formation with Gadwalls. Let’s be thankful that these feathered mixrodinosaurs transcended gravity, escaped extinction and took flight. “Hope is a thing with feathers”

Bit of #Thanksgiving #Birding Sacramento #nationalwildliferefuge. A stilt in (non-) Flying V formation with Gadwalls. Let’s be thankful that these feathered mixrodinosaurs transcended gravity, escaped extinction and took flight. “Hope is a thing with feathers”

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Ian Markham
alumni

As if humpbacks were not astounding enough…

As if humpbacks were not astounding enough, a small subset have learned to break their solitary habits and form cooperative bubble net feeding groups with distinct specialities. The screamer calls the cadence and petrified the herring with a high pitch squeal that causes them to ball up. Then fin flappers flash the white underside of their pectorals to add a bewildering stimulus while a bubble blower ascends from below creating a rising spiral of expanding effervescent gas that forms a net to contract the fearful fish. Then altogether these unrelated whales rise and engulf in their huge maws the school of fish taking up to 16,000gallons in a single gulp and straining the contents back across their baleen. Not only does this suggest these animals have culture but also that they are tool users not so unlike ourselves!

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