As any gardener can attest, pests are an unwelcome, nasty surprise that can turn your…

The post Helpful Tips for Natural Pest Control appeared first on Earth911.

If you’re a shopper who evaluates environmental facets of products you purchase, please direct your…

The post To the Point: Pens and Pencils Offer Eco-Responsible Features appeared first on Earth911.

Take a look at one of the most awesome outdoor accessories we’ve seen.

The post Weekend Project: DIY Patio Table With Built-In Coolers appeared first on Earth911.

Down-filled bedding doesn’t belong in a landfill, especially when there are many better options for…

The post How To Reuse or Recycle a Down Comforter (and Why You Should) appeared first on Earth911.

By Expedition Leader Eddy Savage

One of the most rewarding experiences of my photo expeditions to China with Natural Habitat Adventures would have to be the time spent with golden snub-nosed monkeys. We spend a day of our adventure searching out these wild monkeys in a remote valley flanked on either side by tall, steep and gorgeous mountains. These unlikely primates are the most outstanding contrast of colors. These monkeys showcase brilliant golden-orange fur of varying intensities. Older male golden snub-nosed monkeys display long, brilliant golden guard hairs on their backs. The distinctive nose, where they get their name from, is unlike any primate nose I’ve seen. Sharply upturned, the nose and area around hint at a light blue skin coloration. It’s a spectacular contrast that surprisingly (or understandably) blends well into their natural habitat in the mountains around Sichuan Province, China. Please enjoy this collection of my photographs taken while on Nat Hab’s Wild China Photo Expedition. 

Here, we see an adult male golden snub-nosed monkey. One of the distinguishing facial features of male monkeys is the wart-like growths on either side of their mouth. They appear once the monkey approaches sexual maturity. It is thought they likely have something to do with breeding and communication, but there is no conclusive evidence yet. 

© Eddy Savage

These tree-dwelling monkeys spend more than 90% of their time in the canopy. Their food source varies throughout the seasons. In the dead of winter, they’ll prefer lichens, and in the spring and summer, they’ll eat new growth, leaves and fruits.

© Eddy Savage

These primates survive in the coldest winter conditions of any primate on Earth, secondary to humans. One adaptation thought to be derived from their cold-weather lives is the snub-nose: flattened and tucked away under the forehead, it is likely an adaptation to protect them from frostbite during the -13°F winter temps.

© Eddy Savage

Their habitat is in the deciduous broad-leaved and coniferous forests that sit between 4,000 feet and 13,000 feet in elevation. Snow is often a contender for their winter lives, so having a healthy fur coat goes a long way. 

© Eddy Savage

During my observations of the troop, which can number between 40 and 70, it appeared as though demographics split up well. Family groups in one direction, sub-adults/juveniles in another, and males with females in another. Here, we see a group of juveniles playing in the trees.

© Eddy Savage

Here is a trio of young monkeys playing with each other. Highly distractable and chaotic, they climbed up and down each other while one or two held onto the tree branches.

© Eddy Savage

Breeding behavior can occur at any time of year; however, it will only be successful during the fall and winter months. October through January is the rough breeding window. Typically, most baby golden snub-nosed monkeys are born between April and August, and their gestation is approximately seven months. This photo is from April, so this is a super young golden snub-nosed monkey.

© Eddy Savage

When it comes to instigating breeding, the females are usually in control. When receptive to breeding, they will lounge upside-down and make faces toward the male monkey. If the male is interested, he’ll make a wide and toothy grin before journeying toward the female.

© Eddy Savage

Huddling among golden snub-nosed monkeys is also common. I’ve often observed them bundled together like this, sometimes grooming each other. It’s also hypothesized these monkeys huddle together more readily than others to stay warm, due to their colder habitat. It’s interesting that whenever a stressful event occurs within the troop, the monkeys scatter and join into small huddles like this. It may also provide comfort to each monkey.

© Eddy Savage

Baby golden snub-nosed monkeys are weaned at approximately one year. There is also evidence that females share in the nursing and care for the young, often seen in groups of several moms and offspring. 

© Eddy Savage

The post Photograph Endangered Golden Snub-Nosed Monkeys in China’s Nature Reserves first appeared on Good Nature Travel Blog.

In the autumn of 1973, wilderness writer and naturalist Peter Matthiessen joined preeminent field biologist George Schaller high in Nepal’s Himalayan Mountains on a journey that would soon become legendary. While Schaller was there to study the mating habits of the bharal, or Himalayan blue sheep, Matthieseen was on a quest for spiritual enlightenment. That is, a quest coupled with the hope of glimpsing one of the region’s most elusive animals: the snow leopard.

This strenuous two-month expedition resulted in one of Matthiessen’s best-known and award-winning books, The Snow Leopard—a work that still enlightens and inspires readers today.

It’s no secret that big cats stir imaginations, from the majestic lions of Kenya’s Maasai Mara to the jaguar, a large and spotted feline that holds court over South America’s Pantanal. And snow leopards are no exception. For a long time, so little was known about these shy and solitary creatures that inhabit Earth’s uppermost reaches that they took on an almost mythical status. Local residents call them the “gray ghost” or the “ghost of the mountains” because they’re so rarely seen.

© Surya Ramachandran

In fact, when Matthiessen embarked on his expedition, only two Westerners had reported seeing a snow leopard over the previous 25 years. One of those Westerners was Schaller, who was also the first to capture a snow leopard on film. In 1971, his photos appeared in the pages of National Geographic, giving the world its first opportunity to view this fabled being in its natural habitat.

The Elusive Snow Leopard

Getting a photo of a wild snow leopard is no easy task, although it’s been made much easier in recent years. Spotters and master trackers know exactly where to look and what to look for, such as fresh scat, snow-embedded tracks and even marking patterns.

Since Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard was first published in 1978, a lot has been learned about these shy and solitary creatures. They can reach up to seven feet in length and weigh anywhere from 60 to 120 pounds. They roam mostly at dawn in the pre-morning hours, then again in the afternoons and evenings.

(function(d,u,ac){var s=d.createElement(‘script’);s.type=’text/javascript’;s.src=’https://a.omappapi.com/app/js/api.min.js’;s.async=true;s.dataset.user=u;s.dataset.campaign=ac;d.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)[0].appendChild(s);})(document,123366,’h26miydqw9qxx8tbdoix’);

Due to a difference in their anatomical structure, snow leopards can’t actually roar, though they do chuff, purr and growl. They move about quietly, preferring steep, snow-covered mountainsides high above the treelines, in places where the air is thin and the weather often relentless. Their thick fur—colored whitish to gray with black spots and rosettes along the neck, head, and back—easily camouflages them within the landscape, making them extremely difficult for the average eye to see.

Where to See Snow Leopards in the Wild 

According to the Snow Leopard Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the snow leopard, between 3,900 and 6,400 wild snow leopards are believed to be left around the world, though the actual number remains unknown. They inhabit a large swath of alpine and subalpine terrain that traverses 12 countries in northern and central Asia, including Mongolia, Afghanistan and Bhutan.

Schaller captured his now-famous photos in Pakistan’s Chitral Valley—another place snow leopards are known to frequent—and dozens of them roam freely in Russia’s Altai Mountains, at the convergence of China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. However, one of the best places for spotting them is in India’s Ladakh territory, part of the larger Himalayan mountain range, where approximately 200 or so reside. 

© Surya Ramachandran

India’s Ladakh Region Awaits 

For the perfect opportunity to explore this storied region and capture images of the rare snow leopard, embark on Nat Hab’s Snow Leopard Quest Photo Expedition. Tucked away in the remote Himalayas of northern India, Ladakh itself is framed by dramatic peaks and dotted with Buddha-filled monasteries, meditation caves and secluded villages. It’s a region heavily influenced by Tibetan culture and home to India’s largest national park, Hemis National Park, where you’ll find one of the highest population densities of snow leopards in a protected area on the planet.

Nat Hab’s small group size of eight and a flexible daily schedule offers participants the best chance of catching a snow leopard undisturbed. Perhaps we’ll see one who has descended to a lower altitude to feed on bharal, ibex and smaller marmots and hares that inhabit the sides of steep rock walls and graze along valley streams. Or we may spy a cat perched inconspicuously along a high ridge line. Be sure and keep your camera at the ready!

Getting a Good Photograph 

The odds of capturing snow leopard pics increase once you immerse yourself in the territory of these magnificent creatures. Nat Hab’s adept spotting scouts and master trackers work tirelessly to follow the cats’ every move. The terrain may be rugged and difficult, but the rewards of seeing a snow leopard in the wild are indescribable. If you’re especially lucky, you might even spot a snow leopard cub (or two!). 

Ladakh’s additional wildlife is as equally as incredible. Look for long-legged wild sheep known as urial, golden eagles and bearded vultures soaring overhead. And stay alert for a sighting of the Himalayan wolf, known for its wooly fur and ability to adapt to cold and high altitudes.

There are also the natural and cultural beauties of Ladakh itself, such as narrow valleys and colorful roadside prayer flags, winding rivers and unoccupied palaces, all of which are ripe for discovery…and for photographing. 

Although Matthiessen never did spot a snow leopard during his 1973 expedition, seeing one wasn’t his sole purpose. As a 2018 New Yorker article points out, “If Matthiessen had merely wanted to set eyes on a snow leopard, he could have driven from his home on Long Island to the Bronx Zoo, where snow leopards have been bred in captivity since 1966.”

Matthiessen knew that the possibility of glimpsing a snow leopard in its natural habitat, rather than in a zoo or menagerie, would be something else entirely. However, even not seeing one would be a tremendous feat, especially when you’ve scoured the world’s tallest peaks and loftiest landscapes in your quest. That’s because it’s in the ‘seeking,’ Matthiessen realized, that the real magic occurs.

Ready to see and photograph snow leopards in the wild? Learn more about our Land of the Snow Leopard adventure and our photo-focused Snow Leopard Quest Photo Expedition. Or, explore our photo expeditions around the globe!

The post How to Get a Picture of a Wild Himalayan Snow Leopard first appeared on Good Nature Travel Blog.

Bones are everywhere in Patagonia. They dry on the brown steppes and jut up from the desert’s gray floor. They protrude like blue spikes through the surface of lakes and bleach white on the ocean’s shore. And, right now, mine are shaking. I’m just barely managing to hold on to the side of a mountainous cliff in Argentina’s La Leona Petrified Forest. Being from Wisconsin, I don’t believe anything technically called a “forest” should be as windswept, thirsty and barren as a lunar landscape; nonetheless, it is. And I’m hanging on to this hard-rock surface for dear life.

Our small group is taking a tour of this place of beating sun, high winds and tree-rocks with a local guide who is part Argentinean and part mountain goat. The forest was here at a time when South America was tipped farther north; thus, this area was once leafy and green and home to dinosaurs. Their petrified bones and the bones of the once-breathing trees are 65 to 90 million years old.

Bones are everywhere in Patagonia. They dry on the brown steppes and jut up from the desert’s gray floor. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

Our guide strides up the rocky contours with the ease of one born to it, leading us over narrow footpaths that drop off on each side into the steep canyons and slots below. Climbing up and climbing down, switchback after switchback, I think I’ve put on a strong and brave front so far. My backpack is heavy; determined to capture this once-in-a-lifetime trip, I’m hauling two cameras and several weighty lenses, as well as the usual fleeces and rain gear. It’s been an hour and a half of dizzying height after dizzying height, and even though I’ve been afraid of heights for as far back as I can remember, I’ve hidden my terror. On the final, straight-edged climb up, however, I lose all footing and resort to grabbing on with all fours. I am now the one who’s petrified. Once I find the nerve to release my hand from the prickly bush I’ve taken hold of, our van driver hoists me up the rest of the way.

For three days prior to our visit to La Leona, our small van had shuddered and shook over the washboard highways of the UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve of Peninsula Valdes, almost as if we were traversing the rib cage of some sleeping giant. Small dust devils followed our vehicle down the gravel roads.

On the peninsula, there is no freshwater. Showers are taken in saltwater, and electricity is turned on only at night. We sleep in a remote lighthouse inn. On a beach at Punta Norte, my footsteps make the sound of tinkling, shattering glass as I step on the bright shells. Magellanic penguins are everywhere, and I photograph them standing under the hot sun, bleating from their shallow burrows in the ground or hurrying down to the waves.

Being from Wisconsin, I don’t believe anything technically called a “forest” should be as windswept, thirsty and barren as a lunar landscape; nonetheless, it is in Argentina’s La Leona Petrified Forest. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

I eat my sandwich lunch in front of the Atlantic Ocean. Along with the bread and meat, I swallow dust. We take a walk to look for orcas that will sometimes beach themselves intentionally to hunt baby sea lions. We do not see them; instead we find elephant seals lying along a sandbar. A gray fox wanders nearby. I didn’t know beaches could sound that way–that they could clink and bay, bark and bleat.

Riding on Steppes and Hiking on Glaciers

On my last evening on Peninsula Valdes, I go horseback riding on the steppes of Patagonia. My horse is big and fawn-colored, like the dust. During a slow sunset, we ride the narrow trail that sweeps down to the ocean on one side and stretches out to the horizon on scrub plain to the other. A few sheep and an occasional brown hare share the expanse with us. I look down and see tiny bones of other animals in the dust. A skull here; a perfect, complete hare skeleton there. Life is harsh, elemental and beautiful on these steppes, and I think I am falling in love with the bones of Argentina. On the ride back to our lighthouse home, we listen to tango music on the van’s CD player. Argentina—heat, death, passion.

After our stay on Peninsula Valdes, we make the three-hour drive to Trelew, followed by a two-hour flight to El Calafate and the now infamous La Leona Petrified Forest walk. If that walk was testing my mettle, the walk on Viedma Glacier near El Chalten and Bahia Tunel took the measure of my soul.

Guanacos are found throughout South America, living in dry, open country in the mountains or on the plains. A domesticated version of the guanaco is the llama. Another branch of the family tree is the alpaca, also a type of domesticated guanaco raised for its soft wool. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

A boat transports us to the rocky front of the glacier, and after scrambling up the huge boulders, we sit down to put on our crampons. Stepping from rock to ice is stepping back in time. There are billions of years under my feet, when Pangea was new. We walk among the glacier’s caverns, peaks, hollows, crevasses and formations for two-and-a-half hours. We take a moment to sit down on this unfathomable landscape to drink a toast of Bailey’s Irish Cream, chilled by the glacier’s ice. It is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a holy drink.

On our way out of El Chalten back to El Calafate, I see Cerro Torre coming out of the clouds for the first time. Cerro Torre juts out of the young Andes Mountains, like a splinter from the spine of the continent, picked clean and worn shiny by the Patagonian winds.

A Floating Cemetery and a Very Rare Deer

In Punta Bandera, there is a blue cemetery—an iceberg cemetery. On the teal blue of Lago Argentino, the cerulean of hundreds of icebergs floats, backed by the ultramarine of the mountains. Through my camera lens, I see these bones of ice close up, poking through the skin surface of the lake.

Magellanic penguins live along the coastlines of South America, on both the Atlantic and Pacific shores. During the hot South American summers, they cool off by panting and standing with their flippers extended to catch a breeze. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

In Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, we can see the French Glacier. It looks gray, like slippery skin newly shed from the vertebrae of the mountains. Standing in an alpine meadow, I can hear the avalanches on the other side of the mountain and see the Andean condors soaring overhead.

My last night in Chile, I take an early evening walk with our guide out to a peninsula, located a short distance from the lodge, which promises a direct view to Grey Glacier. I decide to take this last walk unencumbered, without my heavy backpack and camera. The sun will be setting soon anyway, I think. At the start of the path leading down to the water, which winds through a small forest, we spot a huemul, a Patagonian deer. There are only about 20 in the park and less than 1,500 left in the world. I begin to rethink my decision to leave my camera behind. The only thing to do now is drink in the moment and try to burn the image into my memory.

The peninsula is made of stones blown in by the winds. Just as we come down the path out of the woods and onto the peninsula, the setting sun illuminates the three needles of Torres del Paine. It is the first time during our stay in Patagonia that we can clearly see all three. From our vantage point, Grey Glacier slides out below them, and icebergs float all around us. It is a perfect moment.

The southern sea lion (or South American sea lion) is found throughout the South American coastal region. In the past, they were hunted for food, oil and hides. Today, the threat is conflict with fisherman, who will shoot sea lions that enter their fisheries. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

A perfect moment, that is, except I don’t have my camera. But maybe that’s what was meant to happen. I was meant to see this last evening as a writer, not as a photographer. It’s something I’ve felt in my bones for a while now.

Here’s to finding your true places and natural habitats,

Candy

Geologists believe that at one time, Patagonia was part of the Antarctic continent. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

On Peninsula Valdes, a gray fox wanders. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

First brought to Patagonia by Spanish settlers, horses have become as much a part of the landscape as the Andes Mountains. Gauchos later bred a powerful, sure-footed horse called the “criollo” to help herd livestock. Hundreds of these hardy horses now roam wild. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

A walk on the Viedma Glacier is like stepping back in time. There are billions of years under my feet, a time when Pangaea was new. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

The Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina, is one of the largest glaciers in South America. Its terminus is 3 miles wide, and its average height is 240 feet above the surface of the water of Lake Argentino. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

The birdlife of Patagonia is rich and diverse. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

Patagonia is still the unspoiled frontier of South America. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

A pair of guanacos greet me on a mountain hike. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

The views on a Patagonia road trip are unparalleled; I highly recommend one. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

A traditionally dressed woman rides her horse on the Patagonia Steppe. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

The mesmerizing landscapes look like paintings. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

Perfect moments seem to come often in Patagonia—camera along or not. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

The post Getting Down to the Bones in Patagonia: A Photo Diary first appeared on Good Nature Travel Blog.

After you’ve purchased a new pair of sports shoes, don’t throw away the old ones….

The post We Earthlings: Don’t Throw Away Your Sports Shoes appeared first on Earth911.

You jog in them. Compete in them. Maybe even meet your friend for lunch in…

The post Recycling Mystery: How To Recycle Your Tennis Shoes appeared first on Earth911.

Replacing all your old stuff with new green products scratches the consumer itch and feels…

The post When and How To Get Rid of Your Old Car appeared first on Earth911.