Barbara J. King

The Elephant Who Tweets

In March 2010, an Asian elephant calf was born at Taronga Zoo near Sydney, Australia, under highly unusual conditions. A pregnant female had, about a week prior, gone into on-again, off-again labor. Medical scanning of this elephant indicated that her baby was lodged in a fetal position so poor that birth (more…)

One Person’s Positive Impact

As of the summer of 2002, the West African nation of Gabon had no system of national parks. What it did have was an abundance of wildlife-- free-ranging forest buffalo, leopards, red river hogs, mandrills, chimpanzees, gorillas, elephants, and hippos; serpents like the famed Gaboon viper; and in the realm (more…)

May 14, 2010
Monkey Stress
A newly published study on African monkeys forges a surprising link among males, infants, and stress. An in-press, just-now-online paper from the journal Animal Behaviour by German scientist Dr. Stefanie Henkel and her colleagues makes a convincing case that male monkeys choose to carry infants as a way to cement good (more…)

This past weekend, my husband and I walked together on the grounds of the Yorktown Battlefield here in southeastern Virginia, across the York River from our home. The day’s temperature exceeded 80 degrees, and when we crossed from the sun into shaded woods, the cooling felt wonderful on our skin. In that (more…)