One Species at a Time

Every year monarch butterflies begin a journey north from their overwintering grounds in Mexican forests. The epic migration spans generations and the better part of a continent. In this first of two episodes, we’ll meet a pair of women united by their fascination with this iconic insect. Mexican geographer Isabel Ramírez and American biologist Karen Oberhauser are working to save monarch habitat on both ends of this remarkable insect’s 2,500 mile journey. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports.

How much trouble can an unassuming black beetle no bigger than your fingernail be? Plenty, as we learn in this episode of One Species at a Time. Tiny stowaways like the European Gazelle beetle are arriving on container ships and wreaking havoc with native ecosystems. Long-standing pests like the gypsy moth have been joined by new exotic species that are crowding out North American fauna. Ari Daniel Shapiro journeys to the forests of Oregon to meet the beetles.

The species that was Àlex Lorente’s passion was an extraordinarily long-lived seagrass, once common along the coast of his native Spain. Tragically, Lorente himself was not to enjoy a long life: he died in 2012 at the age of 37. But his colleagues in marine conservation are working to make sure the links Lorente forged between scientists and fishermen survive, for the good of the Mediterranean that he cherished. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports.

For centuries, human commerce has played a role in distributing plant and animal species around the globe. But not every species can claim the title of circumnavigator. In this week’s episode, Ari Daniel Shapiro journeys to the Gulf Coast of the U.S. to meet a tiny Magellan, the star of an unlikely story that has come full circle.

Find out more about Red Swamp Crawfish Procambarus clarkii.

Growing up in a village in the foothills of the French Alps, Francis Roucher used to hunt the chamois. But on the day one of his shots went astray, Roucher was transformed from hunter to game manager, working to reverse the chamois’ decline.

Find out more about Chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra) 

Every morning when he walks the dog, retired professor of natural history Peter Slater can identify as many as thirty birds by their song alone. On a walk in a Scottish town with Ari Daniel Shapiro, Slater explains what two common songsters, the chaffinch and winter wren, are singing about, and how even city dwellers can learn to “bird by ear” in their own neighborhoods, with rewarding results.

Over the past century the grasslands of northern Mexico have been taken over by shrubby mesquite and turned to desert. On One Species at a Time, ecologist Gerardo Cellabos takes on the challenge to turn them back. Can he restore an entire prairie ecosystem? Cellabos hopes he can, with the help of an unlikely ally. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports from Chihuahua.

Find out more about Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs

There’s a snake in the grass—but the viper in this Hungarian meadow is more threatened than a threat, at least to people. On One Species at a Time: as new ways of farming replace the old, these vipers have been pushed to the brink of extinction. Can conservationists change the hearts and minds of local farmers in time to preserve this critically endangered species? Ari Daniel Shapiro reports from Kiskunság National Park.

Likes moths to a flame, some people are irresistibly drawn to the woods at night. Carrying bedsheets and armed with special lights and lures, they come seeking moths. In July 2012, in 49 states and numerous countries across the world, scientists and ordinary folk alike fanned out to get a closer look at these insects. They may be less gaudy than their butterfly cousins, yet they’re anything but ordinary.

What can species as different as a hedgehog, a swift, and a glow-worm possibly have in common? To find out, we journey to southwest England. We’ll join two naturalists on a walk through the heart of Exeter, a city known more for its football club and cathedral than for its wildlife. You may be surprised at what we find.