Bridging major investigations, WIRE's newsletter brings updates and voices from the front lines of wildlife crime and environmental exploitation worldwide.

A crime scene investigator from London’s Metropolitan Police dusts for prints on a confiscated elephant tusk. (Courtesy Britta Jaschinski)

Exposing hidden threats to nature

By Rene Ebersole, Editor-in-Chief
January 16, 2026

I used to keep a small newspaper clipping folded in my wallet. It was about conservationist Jane Goodall’s early life, including—most importantly to me at that time—how she’d once worked as a waitress to save up for her ocean passage to Kenya, where she would begin the famous chimpanzee studies that transformed our understanding of primate cognition. Like thousands of other girls, I’d grown up wanting to be like the late Jane Goodall. I chased that dream earnestly: a degree in ecology, a minor in psychology, a plan to study animal behavior in a faraway forest. 

While applying to graduate schools in the late 1990s to study primatology, like Jane, I waited tables. It was a night job. By day, I worked as a zookeeper dishing out pelletized monkey chow and scrubbing concrete floors spattered with animal poop at Monkey Jungle, a private roadside attraction in Miami, Florida—close to primates, yes, but far from the life I’d imagined. I quickly discovered that I didn’t like the hands-on labor, and, more disturbingly, the conditions in which some animals were kept, including the main attraction, a male gorilla named King living in isolation. Monkey Jungle’s refusal to transfer King to Zoo Atlanta’s gorilla colony drew the attention of Goodall herself, who wrote letters urging his relocation, and of animal rights activists led by TV personality Bob Barker, who stood outside the gates waving placards that read, “Let King Go!” 

Ebersole attempts to blend into the landscape while reporting a story on illegal raptor killings in the U.K. during the pandemic. (Courtesy Anastasia Taylor-Lind)

This was not a place where I wanted to work, but I still hoped to gain experience with primates to improve my chances of getting into a graduate school to study them in the wild. So when shortly after starting the zoo job, a PhD researcher at Florida International University who ran the nonprofit Dumond Conservancy for Primates and Tropical Forests, next door to Monkey Jungle, invited me to volunteer on her orangutan behavior study, I happily turned in my khaki uniform and took extra shifts at the restaurant to pay the bills.

It was pure joy spending time with Ray, a five-year-old ape. We were conducting a classic cognition experiment designed to test whether an animal can recognize itself. The premise is simple: place a mirror in front of Ray and observe whether he treats the reflection as someone else—or understands it as his own image. Decades of research show that a small collection of intelligent species—notably great apes, elephants, dolphins, and African grey parrots—pass the test. They use the mirror as a tool for investigating parts of their bodies they normally can’t see.

Ray left little doubt. He hooked his finger at the corner of his mouth to inspect his teeth, craned his neck to study the top of his hairy head, hung upside down to examine his reflection from new angles—and checked out his genitals. Watching him, I felt I was witnessing not just intelligence but a rich inner life: curiosity, self-awareness, and a quiet sense of agency that demanded respect.

This experience crystallized something in me. I didn’t just want to study animals, or write academic papers read only by scientists. I wanted to tell stories to the wider public, exposing the people and systems exploiting wildlife and harming the environment, and I wanted to help protect animals like orangutans and the fragile worlds they inhabit.

So instead of pursuing a PhD in primatology, I got a masters degree in science, health, and environmental journalism at NYU. More than two decades later, I’m still writing articles that educate the public about threats to wildlife and the environment—and inspire real-world impact. Over the years reporting on six continents, I’ve built a career that blends staff editing with extensive freelance work for a wide range of outlets, from National Geographic and the Washington Post to Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and Audubon.

My coverage often takes me to places where wonder and exploitation exist side by side. In Africa, I’ve sat on the forest floor, watching wild lowland gorillas scarf termites like Skittles, even as I investigated the bushmeat trade driving wildlife populations into steep decline. In Japan, I soaked in a hot spring where a wild snow monkey waded in, steam rising from her fur, while in nearby villages other macaques were being trapped to perform in circus acts. I’ve dived into the oceans to spy on octopuses threatened by overfishing, listened to the trumpeting of imperiled cranes in Israel’s Hula Valley, and marveled at 10-foot crocodiles, hunted for luxury leather, sunning themselves along Australian riverbanks. I’ve joined scientists tracking everything from threatened jaguars in Belize to moose in a Wyoming wilderness. In England, I wore camouflage to secretly observe gamekeepers suspected of shooting protected raptors soaring overhead. In Trinidad, people told me—half joking, half serious—that the endangered scarlet ibises I’d admired roosting in the mangroves don’t taste like chicken (or fish) and that one ibis alone wouldn’t be enough for a proper curry. I’ve explored the hidden lives of many other creatures, from tiny bees and slippery eels to whales, wolves, and grizzlies—all facing human threats.

In all of this, I’ve learned the lesson that Jane Goodall told so well: to understand what’s at stake, you have to go where the story lives—stay long enough to listen—and then share it widely. As a journalist, that means holding both truths at once: bearing witness to the damage humans inflict on the natural world while also making space, now and then, to pause and simply marvel at its beauty.

That philosophy led me to join with former National Geographic editors Oliver Payne and Rachael Bale to launch Wildlife Investigative Reporters & Editors. Again and again in our work, we’ve seen how wildlife exploitation thrives in the shadows: When crimes are normalized, accountability is weak. Few publications have the resources to not only report these stories but also bring them to life in vivid photography and film for audiences who may never venture into a rainforest or dive into the ocean. We created WIRE to do exactly that—to investigate the forces destroying wildlife and ecosystems and to publish rigorous, independent stories that compel attention and spur change. I believe, wholeheartedly, that the need for this work has never been greater. From illegal trade and habitat destruction to corruption and regulatory failure, these realities are at the heart of the biodiversity crisis. 

All life on Earth is interconnected. The speed at which humans are obliterating nature is not only a crisis for wildlife–it’s a direct threat to our own survival. The dangerous trajectory is shaped by decisions made, and not made, right now, a reality that puts the responsibility—and opportunity—squarely in our hands. 

As Jane Goodall, who generously served as an advisor to WIRE before her passing last year, said: “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” That belief guides the work we do at WIRE.

Tracking WIRE's Impact

The title spread of WIRE's investigation in Rolling Stone's December 2025 issue, photographed by Karine Aigner.

WIRE’s investigation into the illegal African grey parrot trade—The Parrot Cartel—and a companion short film, Grey Zone, was released in mid-November in collaboration with Rolling Stone, reaching more than 60 million people across digital, print, and social platforms. Soon after publication, the story was selected as a Top Story on Apple News+, with roughly 145 million monthly active users, and produced as an audio feature for premium subscribers. It has since been widely shared, driving strong engagement, and is being translated and republished in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a key source region for trafficked parrots.

Public radio’s “Science Friday” and ABC Radio Australia featured WIRE’s reporting, with additional broadcast coverage expected in 2026. Early indicators of impact include heightened consumer awareness and policy-level discussions at the 20th Conference of the Parties to CITES, held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in late 2025. The hashtag #AdoptDontShop is trending on parrot-focused social media, including the account of a rescued African grey, Gizmo, with three million collective followers. Gizmo’s owners say WIRE’s reporting has reinforced their commitment to promote adoption and in the year ahead to devote more content to the realities and consequences of parrot ownership.

In the News

On Instagram, photographer Brent Stirton posted a tribute to Craig, a legendary bull elephant he photographed in 2024.

• RIP Craig:“Kenya lost an icon today—no, the world lost an icon,” award-winning wildlife photographer Brent Stirton wrote on Instagram, mourning Craig, the legendary bull elephant whose long tusks nearly brushed the ground. “A huge, gentle, beautiful elephant, majestic in size and demeanor, Craig finally ran out of life.” At 54, Craig died of natural causes on January 3 in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park, where he had long been a fixture—and a favorite subject—for visitors and photographers. Being in Craig’s presence while photographing him was “profoundly moving,” Stirton wrote. “I only wish everyone could have that experience at least once.” That Craig lived to old age and died untouched by poachers, conservationists say, stands as rare and powerful evidence that sustained protection efforts in Kenya can give giants like Craig the chance to live—and die—on their own terms.
  

• War Zone: On January 1, a Russian bomb attack again hit the Feldman EcoPark in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. “The birds have died. If not all of them, then the majority," the zoo’s founder Oleksandr Feldman, told local media. Tigers and lions were traumatized—but alive—after the bomb exploded near their enclosure, according to the zoo’s veterinarian. Four years ago, the ecopark’s animals were evacuated under fire from Russian forces, a harrowing tale that became the subject of a 2024 documentary, Checkpoint Zoo.
  

• Smuggled Fins: A survey of shark fins sold in Hong Kong found that protected species are turning up far more often than officials are reporting. Of 16,000 DNA-tested shark fin samples, more than 6 percent were threatened or endangered species. What’s more, the study found that the volume of critically endangered oceanic whitetip shark fins was 70 times higher than officials reported under international trade rules.

Conversation Starter

One thing we learned this week

A foul-smelling box at a bus stop in Ecuador last year turned out to contain nearly 3,000 dead seahorses. Authorities suspected it was bound for Southeast Asia, where dried seahorses are sold for traditional medicine.