Richard Conniff
@richardconniff.bsky.social
Author, magazine feature & NY Times essayist, about wildlife, public health, poetry, museums, & other topics. National Magazine Award. Guggenheim Fellowship. Latest book, "Ending Epidemics: A History of Escape from Contagion" from MIT Press. .
The truth is that even Paris is not doing nearly enough to restore streets for pedestrian use, and it’s the pedestrians, not the drivers, who should be furious. richardconniff.substack.com/p/city-stree...
City Streets Are for People First, Not Cars
We've let traffic rules urban life. Now walkers and cyclists need their turn.
richardconniff.substack.com
East coast ospreys are in decline. They are resilient and will survive. What happens to the many other *unseen* wildlife that depend on abundant menhaden is of greatest concern. We need more adaptive management of forage fish that accounts for localized depletion along the entire coast.
Richard Conniff@richardconniff.bsky.social · 2w agoI'm hoping osprey lovers and striped bass fishermen will band together on behalf of the menhaden, before Omega Protein turns this fish into the next passenger pigeon. richardconniff.substack.com/p/a-great-wi...
Time for American cities to redesign their streets as if people matter. richardconniff.substack.com/p/city-stree...
City Streets Are for People First, Not Cars
We've let traffic rules urban life. Now walkers and cyclists need their turn.
richardconniff.substack.com
I'm hoping osprey lovers and striped bass fishermen will band together on behalf of the menhaden, before Omega Protein turns this fish into the next passenger pigeon. richardconniff.substack.com/p/a-great-wi...
A Great Wildlife Success Story Crashes Down
On the Atlantic Coast, ospreys are suddenly in grave trouble
richardconniff.substack.com
I realize pretty pictures are more the thing on social media, but can anyone help me identify the animal responsible for this poop? 🌿
Find four bats in this 1611 painting by Jan Breughel--and describe the astonishing thing one of them is doing. (Or just read the story.) substack.com/home/post/p-...
What *actually* works — right here, right now — to address climate change? Here you go. This is the result of thousands of hours of painstaking research and analysis from the Project Drawdown team.
Somewhere in this 1611 Breughel painting there's a behavior scientists only figured out eight months ago. Can you find it? (Or just read the story.) richardconniff.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-...
The difference between Madison Grant & Donald Trump? Grant at least accomplished some good in his life, as a wildlife conservationist, before turning utterly bad. open.substack.com/pub/richardc...
The All-American White Supremacist Role Model
To understand the dark side of American history--& Donald Trump--meet Madison Grant.
open.substack.com
You can travel 10,000 miles for a good wildlife story. But sometimes it just turns up in your living room. (Story by Richard Conniff, Photo by Joel Sartore) richardconniff.substack.com/p/how-a-flyi...
How A Flying Squirrel Made a Fool of Me
OK, it wasn't hard. But did it have to happen in my own house?
richardconniff.substack.com
At the #KennedyCenter, down comes the "D," the beginning of the end for Donald Trump's pathetic celebration of himself. (Photo: Cliff Owen/Associated Press)
"Intelligent machines and their hulking data centers seem to be everywhere, taking our jobs, our electricity, our water supply, and our world down a giant suckhole into whatever grim future they imagine for us" richardconniff.substack.com/p/what-the-l...
What Made the First Luddites Fighting Mad?
Companies were turning technology against their workers. Sound familiar?
richardconniff.substack.com
Such a weird Kobe Bryant + “Kill Bill” + black mamba story that I had to add it as an update here. richardconniff.substack.com/p/how-to-get...
How to Get Bitten by a Black Mamba
Plan carefully, and keep your camera close at hand.
richardconniff.substack.com
Everything in James Dwight Dana's life, including his friendship with Darwin, prepared him to become an evolutionist, except his religion. richardconniff.substack.com/p/dana-and-t...
Dana and the Rock of Ages (Conclusion)
Faith, Friendship, and Science
richardconniff.substack.com
Selfies with sloths implicate you in the deaths of these splendid animals. richardconniff.substack.com/p/what-we-do...
The Things We Do for Love of Sloths
A story about science writing, sloth tchotchkes, and the deadly rise of sloth selfie tourism
richardconniff.substack.com
Backyard chickens are the key to stop people from eating their way down the wildlife food chain. open.substack.com/pub/richardc...
Trump economics: His IRS budget cuts reduce federal spending by an estimated $46 billion over 10 years--but, oops, cost $643 billion in lost revenue. budgetlab.yale.edu/research/wea...
A Weakened IRS Has Significant Consequences
budgetlab.yale.edu
When did right-wingers get a monopoly on the word "populist"? Politicians who need to rig the electoral system--like Hungary's Victor Orban--are not populists (especially when they still end up losing). The correct word is "authoritarian" or "right-wing." www.npr.org/2026/04/12/n...
Viktor Orbán concedes defeat in historic Hungary election
Hungarians turned out in historic numbers to vote against Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's and his Fidesz party. NPR's Rob Schmitz discusses with reporter Esme Nicholson and political scientist Abel Boja...
npr.org
"For scientists, the La Brea death trap matters because the animals entombed here, now mostly extinct, are remnants of a lost North America. Not long ago, big scary animals, both predator and prey, dominated the landscape." richardconniff.substack.com/p/tales-from...
Death Trap Tales
La Brea Tar Pits tell life-or-death true stories in a town hooked on make-believe.
richardconniff.substack.com
"A wooden crate stands open, revealing what looks like a crude sculpture roughly five feet tall. It’s a tableau of death, a cataclysmic mix of blackened ankles, teeth, femurs and skulls jammed together ..." (Photo: Michael Christopher Brown) open.substack.com/pub/richardc...
Good to see lawsuits beginning to fly against the "God Squad" push to let species go extinct in the cause of oil industry profits. www.tampabay.com/news/environ...
Wildlife rule carve-out for Gulf oil industry risks extinctions, lawsuits allege
Environmental groups sued the Trump administration over an exemption to endangered species rules for drilling.
tampabay.com
Henry David Thoreau did not want you to make a pilgrimage to his woods--but to become a pilgrim in your own woods. open.substack.com/pub/richardc...
Please Don't Visit Walden Pond
Make your pilgrimage right where you live. For Thoreau, that was the whole point.
open.substack.com
With apologies to subscribers, I had to post early this week to cover a good story going off embargo today.
Richard Conniff@richardconniff.bsky.social · 5mo agoIt's a cetacean block party, plus cool new science on the highly social business of getting a sperm whale into the world (Photo: Brian Skerry/Nat Geo) open.substack.com/pub/richardc...
It's a cetacean block party, plus cool new science on the highly social business of getting a sperm whale into the world (Photo: Brian Skerry/Nat Geo) open.substack.com/pub/richardc...
The Birth of a Sperm Whale
Bringing a 4900-pound calf into the world takes a group effort, and then a party
open.substack.com
It's a cetacean block party, plus cool new science on the highly social business of getting a sperm whale into the world (Photo: Brian Skerry/Nat Geo) open.substack.com/pub/richardc...
The Birth of a Sperm Whale
Bringing a 4900-pound calf into the world takes a group effort, and then a party
open.substack.com
As is often the case with Donald Trump, the terrible things he says about others will later turn out to be most true about himself.
Was just reading a 1934 description, at dawn, of the "swift up-flinging rush of quiet birds in circling flight" and realized we don't see this any more. Here's what you can do to bring them back. richardconniff.substack.com/p/lobbying-f...
How to Make a Bird-Friendlier World
Building new habitat doesn't have to mean dirt under your fingernails
richardconniff.substack.com
Letting house cats outdoors may be easier for humans. But it means turning a subsidized killer loose on local wildlife. Sooner or later, wildlife returns the favor. open.substack.com/pub/richardc...
Lessons from the Death of Our Last Outdoor Cat
Keeping cats indoors is the best way to protect birds--and cats, too.
open.substack.com
