The State of Nature Update #28

In this episode, we cover five stories from around the world of wildlife and conservation. India's tiger population is booming—but can conservation keep pace with development? We discuss the growing need to protect tiger reserves and connecting habitat corridors that tigers rely on to survive, including through wildlife crossings that guide animals over or under major highways. We also uncover new discoveries about one of the planet's most elusive big cats, the Sunda clouded leopard, that roams the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra, examine surprising research into how female chickadees choose the most intelligent males as mates (even if that means straying outside their long-term pair bond), learn that migratory birds continue to decline despite decades of conservation work, though technological advances in monitoring and coordinated international actions by governments, conservation organizations and individuals could reverse the trend. Finally, we look at a new study that found that individual climate-friendly actions do not reduce support for collective action or broader environmental policies.

Key points:

0:57 - India's tigers are increasing, but protecting and connecting their habitats is the next struggle.

3:39 - Elusive Sunda clouded leopards, ‘ghosts of the forests,’ caught on camera, providing new insights.

5:42 - Female chickadees cheat on their mates with smarter males.

7:52 - Half of migratory bird species are declining, but comprehensive conservation actions could reverse the trend.

9:55 - Personal pro-environmental actions don’t hurt larger climate engagement or policy support after all.

Links to articles and resources:

·       Mongabay, 7/28/2026, by Nirmal Ghosh: India's tiger numbers are rising. Protecting their pathways is next.

·       Wildlife Institute of India

·       International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List: Tiger (Panthera tigris)

·       Science, 6/26/2015, by Kai Kupferschmidt: Controversial study claims there are only two types of tiger.

·       World Wide Fund for Nature: Tigers

·       Scientific American, 7/17/2026, by Douglas Main: Exclusive: See unprecedented images of Sunda clouded leopards, the 'ghosts of the forest.'

·       Kasper et al., 2026: Estimating Sunda clouded leopard lifespans from minimum residence times via long-term photo-tracking. Biotropica 58(2): e70169.

·       International Union for Conservation of Nature: Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi)

·       The New York Times, 7/2/2026, by Annie Roth: Cheating chickadees are seduced by smarts. 

·       Branch et al., 2026: Male chickadees with better spatial cognition sire more extra-pair young. eLife 15:RP110905.

·       The Conversation, 7/22/2026, by Peter Marra and Nathan W. Cooper: More than half of Earth's migratory bird species are declining - here's how we can still save them.

·       Marra et al., 2026. Status, threats and conservation of Earth's migratory birds. Nature Reviews Biodiversity (2026).

·       Road to Recovery - Saving our Shared Birds, an initiative focused on the recovery of declining birds in the U.S. and Canada.

·       Anthropocene Magazine, 7/28/2026, by Sarah DeWeerdt: Do small climate habits help or hurt the bigger cause? What a 4-year study found.

·       Ghasemi et al., 2026: Personal climate actions do not crowd out collective action and policy support: longitudinal evidence. NPJ Climate Action 5:62.