Below: Thottada beach in Kerala, India. Photo by Daniel J. Rao/Shutterstock
This week, we can finally share our plans for bioGraphic’s next chapter.
Our team has been working hard over the past six weeks to secure the magazine’s future. In late April—just days after celebrating bioGraphic’s 10-year anniversary—we received the news that the California Academy of Sciences is unable to continue providing financial support for the magazine. That gave us two urgent tasks: (1) to find a new home by June 30, and (2) to identify new sources of funding.
I’m pleased to share that we’ve completed the first task, and we’re making progress on the second.
Starting July 1, bioGraphic will be working with the Food and Environment Reporting Network (FERN) in an arrangement known as a fiscal sponsorship. That means FERN will receive grants and large donations on our behalf and issue tax receipts. This will be our temporary home while we prepare to embark on our own.
Our plan is for bioGraphic to become fully independent. Within the coming months, we will incorporate as a nonprofit organization and then we will apply for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status so bioGraphic can stand on its own.
There are so many benefits to becoming an independent organization. We’re looking forward to being more nimble, having control over all of our own systems, and developing a funding model that we hope will be less vulnerable to sudden budget cuts.
But we have a lot to do, and we need your help. This brings me back to the second task—making up our US $200,000 funding gap. We have been reaching out to many foundations and potential donors. So far, a small family foundation and a few very generous individuals have stepped up to help us cover the gap. But we still need to raise close to $150,000.
It’s a lot of money, and we’re hamstrung by the fact that we can’t yet accept your donations by credit card. We will let you know as soon as we can.
If you can support bioGraphic with a major donation or through a donor-advised fund (DAF), however, please reply to this email.
Separating from the Academy and setting up our own nonprofit organization involves some pretty significant steps. To focus on this transition, we have decided to pause publishing new stories over the summer. We have seven excellent stories coming out between now and June 30. And in the fall, we will be back with a slate of fantastic new pieces.
As you can imagine, it has been difficult for our team to face yet another existential threat, just 18 months after we successfully merged with Hakai Magazine, with big growth plans for 2026 and 2027.
We’ve had to adjust those plans, but I believe that a fully independent bioGraphic will be stronger for it.
Thank you for reading bioGraphic. Thank you to our bioGraphic Insiders, our major donors, and everyone who has ever supported our work. We plan to be here for the long haul. Stay with us.
Ancient DNA, preserved for 700,000 years in ground squirrel poop, offers a new view of Pleistocene ecology.
by Moira Donovan • 900 words / 4 mins
Ten Stories from 10 Years of bioGraphic
To celebrate bioGraphic’s 10-year birthday in April 2026, we’re sharing 10 stories that are beloved by people who have helped produce the magazine during its first decade.
For 10 weeks, we’ll be sharing one story selected by a bioGraphic editor, past or present. Here’s why publisher Dave Garrison chose “The Anomalies: The Acorn Woodpecker,” originally published in 2017.
I am a bit of a bird nerd, and I love learning new things about birds. I wasn’t familiar with acorn woodpeckers so was fascinated by these black-and-white birds with their striking red caps and their industrious way of storing acorns. But the most interesting part of the video was how it reveals the complex and unusual social structure of acorn woodpecker family groups, which can number 15 adults and their offspring.
These highly social birds defy the typical two-parent family structure, proving that cooperation can make good evolutionary sense.
by Day’s Edge Production • 8 mins
What We’re Reading
Texas’s Lower Rio Grande Valley is one of the last places in the United States to see ocelots, though few people ever catch a glimpse of the elusive felines. In the coming years, the number may be fewer still as the area is transformed by border fortification, liquified natural gas export, and space exploration infrastructure. “The plan,” writes journalist Joseph Bullington, “is to make the [region] into a secure, LNG-producing ‘gateway to Mars’—at the cost of denuding and despoiling one more wondrous corner of our own ailing planet.” (The Baffler)
Fewer than 100 Rice’s whales still exist, and the calls they use to communicate must compete with shipping noise and sonic blasts from undersea oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. This immersive, interactive story offers an auditory sample of the whales’ noisy underwater environment. (The New York Times)
Humans aren’t just changing how our planet sounds, but how it smells, too. As pollution and pesticides reshape “environmental smellscapes,” plants, insects, birds, and other species that rely on chemical signals to communicate, eat, or reproduce are struggling to make scents—er, sense—of the changes. (Yale Environment 360)
Biochemist Sébastien Fontaine wanted a sample of plain old dirt—completely devoid of life—for an experiment. But when he tried to kill off the microbes in his soil samples, the dirt refused to die. He and his colleagues pivoted to studying how soil “breathes,” and found that the metabolic process that powers much of life on Earth could happen outside living cells. (Quanta Magazine)
Rhyme Time is a weekly puzzle exclusively for our newsletter readers. Each week, we provide a cryptic clue and you guess the answer, which will be two rhyming words with the same number of syllables. For example, the clue “The hour of the day for writing couplets” has the answer “rhyme time.”
Last newsletter’s clue was “A Brazilian dance performed by a venomous snake,” and the answer is “mamba samba.” Congrats to Jessica M., Gordon D., Dianne P., Doug S., Rachel M., Barbara B., Lois W., Khozema G., Callie M., and Tella G. for being the first to guess correctly.
This week’s clue is “A meal for a shark’s flat relative.” Send your guess, just for fun, by replying to this email. The answer will be revealed in our next newsletter.
The pattern on the bottom of a western painted turtle’s shell grows more complex as the turtle ages, yet remains recognizable throughout its life, allowing scientists to track individuals over time. Photo courtesy of Peter Ballin.
Since 2003, I’ve been monitoring the western painted turtle population in and around Niskonlith Lake, near Chase, British Columbia. I got fascinated with the turtles one winter when I looked down through the clear ice on the lake and saw three turtles walking on the bottom—I had thought they were supposed to be sleeping! Since then, I’ve captured and photographed 568 turtles, each with its own unique plastron, or lower shell, pattern. I use a small kayak to access the lake, and when I capture a turtle with a dip net or by hand, I photograph, measure, and mark it. I also track the turtles’ movements and find where they nest. Turtles can move farther than you’d think. My most thrilling moment was tracking a missing turtle with radio telemetry for 5 kilometers (3 miles) all the way back to the lake where I had caught her a month and a half earlier. I report my findings to government wildlife biologists, generate reports and articles, and make presentations about my research. My greatest satisfaction comes from presenting my research to different audiences and working with collaborators, some from as far away as Portland, Oregon.
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bioGraphic is part of the California Academy of Sciences, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN 94-1156258). Thank you for supporting our mission to regenerate the natural world through science, learning, and collaboration.
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