The Way Of The Panda

Extinct Galapagos torotise has just been hiding

2012-01-13T18:17:00.003Z

A species of Galapagos tortoise – thought to be extinct for over 150 years – may, in fact, be alive and well. This finding – made by geneticists at Yale University– is particularly surprising when you consider that this reptile is of giant proportions, measuring more than a metre from the front to the back of its shell and weighing more than 200 kg. How could such a behemoth have gone unnoticed

A black and white Christmas

2011-12-02T11:54:00.000Z

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WWF at 50

2011-09-28T09:09:00.002+01:00

Bust of Max Nicholson, courtesy of www.maxnicholson.com If you ever get the chance to sift through Max Nicholson’s archive (which, I’ll grant you, seems a little unlikely), it's something quite astounding. Throughout his long life, which spanned pretty much the entire 20th century, ornithologist, author and administrator Nicholson had a hand in organising or leading dozens of environmental

The perfect swarm: GM mosquitoes

2011-09-08T09:07:00.007+01:00

In a business park just outside Oxford, scientists are carefully breeding millions upon millions of mosquitoes. It’s not that they are particularly fond of these biting insects. The opposite, in fact, as their mosquitoes belong to a genetically engineered strain that could help tame the rampant spread of Dengue fever around the world. I have the cover story in this week’s New Scientist that

Darth Ailuropoda

2011-08-14T19:55:00.001+01:00

Is the panda really endangered?

2011-07-06T10:25:00.003+01:00

Weird isn’t it, but we still don’t know how many giant pandas there are. So it’s time for another census of this curious beast. The final figure, when it comes in a few years time, is really rather important. For it’s this estimate that will inform where the giant panda sits on the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species and this matters to a lot of very influential people. <!-- /* Font

Sand martin sex. Where do they do it?

2011-06-28T12:26:00.002+01:00

It is almost exactly 10 years ago that I handed in my PhD on sand martins. What better way to mark this milestone than with some Riparia riparia-related news. I got a press release yesterday from the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust spreading the word about a sand martin colony at the London Wetland Centre in Barnes. They have installed a CCTV camera in one of the nests, providing “amazing close-up

How have conservation brands evolved?

2011-04-20T18:05:00.005+01:00

I have an opinion article in today’s Nature that I’m quite pleased with. It’s called “The art of conservation”, which could make it the first time that a title I proposed at pitch has not mutated en route to publication. Henry Nicholls on Dipity. I have been thinking about conservation imagery for many years, making a brief survey of it in my first book Lonesome George and again in The Way of

Interview with Sagi Haviv

2011-04-20T15:32:00.004+01:00

I interviewed many people for my opinion article on the art of conservation that appears in this week's Nature. I thank them all for their time and willingness to talk openly about this fascinating subject. Here, I include a full transcript of a particularly interesting interview with Sagi Haviv, partner of and principle designer at Chermayeff & Geismar and the man behind Conservation

Are pandas dangerous?

2011-03-22T15:48:00.000Z

Bai Yun. Photograph by San Diego Shooter @Flickr By and large, no. Wherever possible, a wild panda will (very sensibly) steer well clear of humans. But they can be, as a story that appeared in the Los Angeles Times last week demonstrates. This reported that Bai Yun, a 19-year-old star attraction at San Diego Zoo, pushed through a gate that separated her from her keepers and bit one of them on

Cameroon’s Gagarin: The Afterlife of Ham the Astrochimp

2011-02-07T07:52:00.093Z

In February 2007, journalists descended upon the the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. in the wake of Washington Post allegations of mind-boggling bureaucracy, cockroachy conditions and substandard treatment of injured war heroes. Later that year, I stood outside the very same Medical Center on a bright November morning and, as I approached the security gates, I was distinctly

Cameroon's Gagarin: celebrating the life of Ham the Astrochimp

2011-01-31T07:55:00.011Z

It was 50 years ago that astronaut Ham the Chimp made it into space ahead of Soviet pioneer Yuri Gagarin. To commemorate Ham’s historic space flight and subsequent life, I have a short piece in the G2 section of today's Guardian but there's so much more to say. Here is some of it: Ham the Chimponaut following his space flight 50 years ago. Courtesy of NASA. The story, or my version of it at

Is Hollywood listening in on my brain?

2011-01-26T17:50:00.006Z

For the past few years, I’ve occasionally had this feeling that someone in Hollywood must be watching over me, or at least listening in on the strange ideas that go chunking through my head. The first I knew of this possibility was in early 2008, when I received word that there was to be a cartoon called Kung Fu Panda. At the time, I’d done quite a bit of research that would eventually form part

Panda news update

2011-01-14T19:23:00.001Z

It’s been quite a week for pandas. “We are still struggling to fully understand the panda’s ecological requirements.” This is pretty much how the latest panda paper (out this week in Biology Letters) kicks off. After 30 years of research on wild pandas, it is rather surprising that there is still uncertainty over what pandas really want, but there you go. As I’ve said before, there’s little

How do zoos choose?

2010-12-08T16:32:00.000Z

The standardized pictures of 17 macaw species from PLoSOne Which of these macaws do you find the most attractive? There's an interesting paper in PLoSOne entitled "Being Attractive Brings Advantages" in which a team of scientists from the Czech Republic and Germany provide some rather nice evidence that supports what we all suspect: that "the size of zoo populations is not only determined by

Panda Makers

2010-12-07T22:20:00.000Z

Well panda fans, that was good wasn't it? I'm talking of course about Panda Makers, the BBC2 Natural World documentary on pandas and the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. I thought it was going to be solely focused on the captive effort and whilst this was where all the photo opportunities were, the hour-long documentary covered just about every important panda base there is. You

Post-publication depression

2010-12-01T11:46:00.000Z

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Panda mug

2010-10-14T13:05:00.002+01:00

IMG_6011 Originally uploaded by wayofthepandaThis is a mug I was given by Wang Dajun at the Center for Nature and Society at Peking University. I still treasure it even though I no longer use it. A plasticy film on the lip, you see, has started to peel away. If you look closely too, you'll notice that the black dye has started to run. I guess it wasn't dishwasher-proof. Turning the mug around

Wigtown Book Festival

2010-09-22T10:22:00.000+01:00

It’s time I put together my talk for the Wigtown Book Festival next week. I was excited to read that the festival programmer Adrian Turpin selected my book/talk for the first of two “Festival Director’s Cuts”. He says:Everyone loves pandas. But until 150 years ago they were unknown outside China. Now they've become diplomatic pawns. Henry Nicholls' black-and-white tale should be read all over.I

FT Weekend Magazine

2010-09-18T16:43:00.001+01:00

I have an feature in today's Financial Times Weekend Magazine. It starts and finishes in Baoxing (left), a few hours' drive north of Ya'an City, and uses the town and surrounding panda habitat to explore two sides of modern China: one determined to extract prosperity from the natural world and another intent on conservation even at the expense of development.The feature opens with a double-page

First review

2010-09-17T09:11:00.003+01:00

My first review of The Way of the Panda appeared today in The Daily Mail. It's a very thorough run-down of what's in the book. Here's a nice pull-quote: "Henry Nicholls expertly charts the panda’s decades of fame and binds together many intriguing facets of 150 years of Sino-Western interaction" Peter Forbes, The Daily Mail.

Galapagos Day

2010-09-16T23:35:00.000+01:00

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Today Programme?

2010-09-10T11:06:00.000+01:00

I got a call on Wednesday to tell me that Radio 4's Today Programme wants me on to discuss the point of pandas with BBC natural history presenter Chris Packham. You'll remember that he said - in my opinion - some strange things about pandas back in 2009. I blogged about this at the time and have talked to a lot of people who were really annoyed by what he said. I'll admit that the responsiblity

It's printed

2010-09-08T09:36:00.000+01:00

I returned from a two-week break in time to receive delivery of The Way of the Panda. It looks great. It even comes with a very generous quotation from zoologist and author Desmond Morris, who describes it as "A fascinating story of an extraordinary animal". Profile Books have sent out masses of copies. For example, I am gladdened to see that novelist Clare Dudman has received a copy and has

Wei Fuwen's desk

2010-08-04T22:19:00.001+01:00

It's strangely tidy. In an earlier post about fragmenting habitat - Pandas don't like roads - I mentioned my interview with Professor Wei Fuwen at the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences back in March. I promised to dig out the photo I took of Professor Wei and here it is. I wonder whether he had just had a spring clean. My desk looks this neat about once every two months