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Maeve Kiley explores how Dolly Parton’s Appalachian roots shaped her music, philanthropy, and environmental advocacy. Known as the “Smoky Mountain Songbird,” Parton supported wildlife conservation, protected native habitats, and assisted communities affected by natural disasters, leaving a legacy rooted in compassion for the land, wildlife, and people of the Great Smoky Mountains.

Vienna’s Vegetable Orchestra turns fresh produce into music, dinner, and a lesson in sustainability. Most of us were taught not to play with our food. A group of musicians in Vienna heard that instruction and chose a different path. And the music is truly an acquired taste. The Vegetable Orchestra performs with instruments made from fresh produce. Carrots become recorders. Pumpkins provide percussion. Radishes form bass flutes. Leeks fill in for violins. Eggplants clap, celer

Scientists are studying the microscopic structure of cicada wings for clues to creating antibacterial surfaces. The discovery offers a striking example of biomimicry and a reminder that biodiversity may hold solutions we have not yet learned to recognize.

In 1971, scientists exploring a remote Galápagos island discovered a solitary giant tortoise living among the cactus and Palo Santo trees. Soon named Lonesome George, he carried an unimaginable burden beneath his massive shell: he was the last of his kind. In Endling: The Story of Lonesome George, Maeve Kiley traces the human choices that connects his story to Martha, Sudan, Toughie, and other animals pushed to extinction’s edge.

America’s native bees sustain ecosystems, crops, and food security, but the federal scientists who study and protect them face devastating cuts. As bee losses mount and research stalls, the consequences could reach far beyond the hive. Maeve Kiley examines what is at risk and how each of us can help protect pollinators.

National Animal Rights Week asks us to confront a painful contradiction: animals are loved, honored, and remembered, yet too often treated as expendable. From Ahimsa to Mitákuye Oyás'iŋ, many traditions teach that animals are not objects, but living relations worthy of protection, dignity, and care.

Four black-bellied whistling ducks have recently appeared at Chipco Preserve, bringing their soft flute-like calls, long-legged silhouettes, and quiet signs of ecological change. Once more common farther south, these social wetland birds are expanding across Florida, reminding us that habitat, water, and conservation matter. Their arrival is a gentle signal that the Preserve remains part of a larger living map shaped by wings, weather, and wild movement.

Small things that makes us smile.

A brief discussion about Chipco Preserve's podcasts.

A story about a bird that is making a family in our garage.

Maeve Kiley Everglades wildfire, August 20, 2025, taken by Felix Mizioznikov. Unsettling Trends This year has been the driest winter and spring in decades. 2026 has seen an unprecedented number of wildfires in Georgia and Florida due to the uncharacteristically hot conditions. According to Direct Relief, at least 87 homes have been destroyed by wildfires, and thousands have been forced to evacuate. Many counties in Florida and Georgia are under burn bans to combat the combu

Maeve Kiley The Cruelest Month The 20th-century author & poet, T.S. Elliot, famously stated in the opening lines of The Waste Land , “April is the cruelest month.” The paradoxical reversal of a hopeful spring is framed as “painful” because it forces memory and passion to emerge from the numbness of winter. With April labeled the “Month of Spring,” it is now important to prepare for the new season. Earth Month 2026 In a digital age so focused on centering its captors’ lives

Can you guide wildlife safely through a human-shaped landscape? Test your instincts in Crossing Paths, our new free conservation puzzle game.

Maeve Kiley A Grand Return One small step for a tortoise. One giant leap for tortoise kind. In 2026, the Floreana giant tortoise set foot on its namesake Galápagos island for the first time in 180 years. Scientists first found remnants of Floreana giant tortoises at Wolf Volcano on Isabella Island in 2008. By 2017, they established a “back-breeding” programme, determined to return the species to the island that had mourned their absence for nearly two centuries. Although this

Maeve Kiley A Magnificent Lyrebird. As the first month of 2026 comes to an end, many animals face constant threats from deforestation, habitat loss, pollution, and climate change. According to the I nternational Union for Conservation of Nature ( IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, over 48,600 species are at risk of extinction, but this is an estimated fraction of the total, which could be close to a million. Some do not see the value in protecting the many struggling s

Maeve Kiley Global Impact of Environmental Efforts As 2025 comes to a close, environmentalism and environmental efforts have been a significant part of the cultural zeitgeist. Climate change and deforestation are common talking points in political and scientific debates. Meanwhile, scientific thought and research are continually evolving, with discoveries and advances reshaping the field. Although there are many challenges worldwide, particularly in environmental efforts,

Maeve Kiley The Modern Zombie Zombies checking out a new rental Zombies have taken a sizable bite out of the world of pop culture. Dangerous, cursed, reanimated corpses have their origin in Haitian legend and folklore, but the word ‘zombie’ was not used until an 1838 newspaper clipping. Since then, authors and Hollywood directors popularized stories of the reanimated deceased, but they did not receive global acclaim until the 1968 movie, Night of the Living Dea

The Monarch Butterfly migration.

Maeve Kiley The Price of the Gated Community About 30 kilometers away from Buenos Aires and conceived as an ‘exclusive home for...

Maeve Kiley UCFP489 and UCFP490 On August 10, the remains of two 3.5-month-old panther cubs were discovered in Collier...