ALL THE SLOP

800 VILLAGERS. 350,000 OBSERVATIONS.

They used to hunt the wildlife. Now the photos pay better.

About 800 villagers across nine Borneo villages get paid for verified photos, video and audio of wildlife. Two villages have since banned hunting themselves.

SOURCEBorneo Futures

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EIGHT LESSONS. NEARLY 2,000 SCHOOLS.

Kindergarten PE now includes learning to ride a bike.

An eight-lesson learn-to-ride curriculum is now in nearly 2,000 US elementary schools. Balance bikes first, pedals when you are ready, gym class credit either way.

SOURCEAssociated Press

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$650 AND JEOPARDY AT 7.

The rent was too high. Then she met her 77-year-old roommate.

Affordable rent, useful help, and Jeopardy at 7.

SOURCEGood Good Good / HomeShare Vermont

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TWO WIRES, SWITCHED OFF.

Kenya’s pangolins kept dying on electric fences. So landowners switched off the bottom wires.

The fix was two unpowered wires.

SOURCEMongabay / The Pangolin Project

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EIGHT POUNDS OF RARE CAT.

An Ohio zoo just had its first-ever Amur leopard cub.

Eight pounds of extremely rare cat.

SOURCECleveland Metroparks Zoo

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208 TURTLES, HAND-DELIVERED.

Seven “turtle women” sent 208 hatchlings back to the Amazon.

235 eggs in. 208 tiny turtles out.

SOURCEMongabay

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SHE WENT BACK. SHE STAYED.

The gorilla they rescued as a baby just had one in the wild.

Rescued at 18 months. Rewilded eight years later. Now Lulingu is raising a baby of her own in the forest.

SOURCEGRACE Gorillas

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SAME BLOOD DRIVE. DIFFERENT DOORS.

The church and mosque next door keep giving blood together.

They started as new neighbors. Fifteen years later, the annual blood drive is still on the calendar.

SOURCEMemphis Islamic Center

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THE LAND CHANGED HANDS.

7,500 acres just switched sides.

An English grouse-and-sheep estate is being reworked around peat, wildlife and long-term restoration instead.

SOURCEThe Guardian

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653 FROGS, RELOCATED HOME.

653 frogs just got their mountains back.

653 endangered frogs. Two mountain-stream releases. One species getting a real shot at coming back.

SOURCELos Angeles Zoo

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ONE BIRD BOUGHT THE LAND.

One weird bird helped build 19 nature reserves.

A bird nobody had scientifically recorded helped trigger a conservation network protecting habitat across Ecuador.

SOURCEThe Guardian

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THE BOAT ADAPTED.

The wheelchair stays on shore. The sailor doesn’t.

Sometimes inclusion looks like a hoist, a custom boat and a wide-open sea.

SOURCEReasons to Be Cheerful

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A SHED FULL OF GLOW.

The glowworms came back. A garden shed was involved.

After a century away, tiny green lights are blinking again in North Yorkshire.

SOURCEThe Guardian

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HE BOUGHT THE MARQUEE.

Rick Steves bought his hometown movie theater so it wouldn’t die.

A century-old neighborhood movie house just got a very determined new owner.

SOURCEKNKX Public Radio

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SNAKES, APPARENTLY, HAVE FRIENDS.

The baby rattlesnakes are cuddling. Please adjust your worldview.

Livestream cameras in California, Colorado and Pennsylvania captured live rattlesnake births, dozens of newborns and baby snakes cuddling adults for protection. Apparently even rattlesnakes have a snuggle phase.

SOURCECal Poly / Project RattleCam

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THE WATER IS COMING BACK.

We drained the swamp. Now we’re un-draining it.

A 23-square-mile tract of drained North Carolina peatland is being rewetted, replanted and restored to hold water, reduce fire risk, rebuild habitat and stop releasing so much stored carbon. Sometimes progress is admitting the ditch was a bad idea.

SOURCEAssociated Press

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TINY TRACKERS, BIG MIGRATION.

The warblers have backpacks now.

Researchers are fitting tiny songbirds with Tic Tac-sized geolocator backpacks that record light and atmospheric pressure across entire migrations. Serious science has once again required an extremely small backpack.

SOURCESmithsonian Migratory Bird Center / The Conversation

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A BRIDGE JUST FOR DEER.

The deer have infrastructure now.

Washington’s I-90 Snoqualmie Pass wildlife overcrossing recorded its 10,000th successful animal crossing in July. Add 11 undercrossings and the project is nearing 40,000 recorded crossings since 2014. Apparently the elk were just waiting for civil engineering.

SOURCEWashington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) via Good Good Good

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THE PARROT SAID NO.