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15 notes · free to read
A species card tells you what is true about one animal. A field note is the reading around it — a count and what it measures, a law and what it reaches, the people doing the work. Every note carries the sources it was written from.
Half the Earth · 17 September 2026
China closed its longest river to fishing for ten years. The finless porpoise recovered. The Chinese sturgeon, endangered for another reason, did not.
Numbers · 16 September 2026
On Guam the consequence was measured. When the baiji left the Yangtze, there was no baseline to measure against. The loss was the same size.
Policy · 15 September 2026
California banned lead ammunition twice, and condor lead deaths went up. An analysis of nearly three decades of records explains how both can be true.
Attention · 14 September 2026
What charity ratings measure, what they leave out, and why the structure of a gift decides more than a star score does.
Dispatches · 13 September 2026
Serial numbers are cut into ploughshare tortoise shells to ruin their black-market value. Within two years, marked animals were being sold anyway.
Policy · 12 September 2026
The third list people confuse with the other two. What the treaty controls, what it cannot touch, and why a party can opt out of any listing it dislikes.
Dispatches · 12 September 2026
In 2019 rabies and distemper reached the Bale Mountains together and the outbreak ran past 220 days. What that changed about how the wolves are vaccinated.
Numbers · 12 September 2026
Extinct in the Wild is a category with a written test, and the axolotl does not meet it. What the Xochimilco counts counted, and what 2025 found.
Numbers · 10 September 2026
An assessment of extinction risk, made by named groups under a published standard. It is not a law, and it does not decide what gets protected.
Half the Earth · 9 September 2026
About a sixth of the land and a twelfth of the sea, by the latest global count. What the figures include, why they move, and how far they are from thirty.
Attention · 8 September 2026
No app tracks which species are at risk. The stores offer identification tools, a showcase last updated in 2021, and fundraising products.
Species · 7 September 2026
Whooping cranes learn their migration route by flying it with older birds. What that means for a species rebuilt from captivity, and what it puts at risk.
Numbers · 6 September 2026
The highest threatened category on the IUCN Red List, the five criteria an assessor applies, and why the label describes risk rather than rarity.
Species · 4 September 2026
The 2025 census counted 2,663 Iberian lynx and then said the number is a floor, not an estimate. Why success makes a population harder to count.
Species · 3 September 2026
The most recent survey saw between seven and ten, and at least one calf. What that number counts, and why published figures disagree.
Field Notes is published separately, in English and Spanish, and the archive here is what it reads around.