Where: Zambia Grantee: Matthew BeckerWildlife ecologist Matthew Becker is CEO and program manager of the Zambian Carnivore Program (ZCP). Wire-snare poaching is widespread and increasing in Zambia’s Luangwa Valley, with significant impacts on lion populations through bycatch and prey depletion. In 2011, with a grant from the Big Cats Initiative, Becker and his team set out to combat lion snaring in the Luangwa through a combination of collaborative anti-snaring work, medical rescue of snared lions, and an applied research study of snaring patterns to inform anti-poaching and community conservation efforts. A second grant in 2012 funded the removal of 357 snares by a lion anti-snaring team in an area deemed highly dangerous. Snared lions decreased significantly during the study period, but teams still treated four snared lions, with a 100 percent recovery rate and no snaring bycatch mortality. Rigorous investigations into snaring patterns revealed a strong correlation between snaring and rapidly increasing human development in the community game management areas. These areas are heavily trafficked by lions but have no management plan to prevent human encroachment. ZCP’s findings will be utilized by policymakers as Zambia undergoes rapid transitions in the management of community areas that contribute to the viability of Zambia’s big cat populations.

Though often called the koala "bear," this cuddly animal is not a bear at all; it is a marsupial, or pouched mammal. After giving birth, a female koala carries her baby in her pouch for about six months. When the infant emerges, it rides on its mother's back or clings to her belly, accompanying her everywhere until it is about a year old. Koalas live in eastern Australia, where the eucalyptus trees they love are most plentiful. In fact, they rarely leave these trees, and their sharp claws and opposable digits easily keep them aloft. During the day they doze, tucked into forks or nooks in the trees, sleeping for up to 18 hours. When not asleep a koala feeds on eucalyptus leaves, especially at night. Koalas do not drink much water and they get most of their moisture from these leaves. Each animal eats a tremendous amount for its size—about two and a half pounds (one kilogram) of leaves a day. Koalas even store snacks of leaves in pouches in their cheeks. A special digestive system—a long gut—allows koalas to break down the tough eucalyptus leaves and remain unharmed by their poison. Koalas eat so many of these leaves that they take on a distinctive odor from their oil, reminiscent of cough drops. These plump, fuzzy mammals were widely hunted during the 1920s and 1930s, and their populations plunged. Helped by reintroduction, they have reappeared over much of their former range, but their populations are smaller and scattered. Koalas need a lot of space—about a hundred trees per animal—a pressing problem as Australia's woodlands continue to shrink.

A plague of locusts is a devastating natural disaster. These infestations have been feared and revered throughout history. Unfortunately, they still wreak havoc today. Locusts are related to grasshoppers and the two insects look similar. However, locust behavior can be something else entirely. Locusts are sometimes solitary insects with lifestyles much like grasshoppers. But locusts have another behavioral phase called the gregarious phase. When environmental conditions produce many green plants and promote breeding, locusts can congregate into thick, mobile, ravenous swarms. Locust swarms devastate crops and cause major agricultural damage and attendant human misery—famine and starvation. They occur in many parts of the world, but today locusts are most destructive in sustenance farming regions of Africa. The desert locust is notorious. Found in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, they inhabit some 60 countries and can cover one-fifth of Earth's land surface. Desert locust plagues may threaten the economic livelihood of one-tenth of the world's humans. A desert locust swarm can be 460 square miles (1,200 square kilometers) in size and pack between 40 and 80 million locusts into less than half a square mile (one square kilometer). Each locust can eat its weight in plants each day, so a swarm of such size would eat 423 million pounds (192 million kilograms) of plants every day. Like the individual animals within them, locust swarms are typically in motion and can cover vast distances. In 1954, a swarm flew from northwest Africa to Great Britain. In 1988, another made the lengthy trek from West Africa to the Caribbean.

Spring peepers are to the amphibian world what American robins are to the bird world. As their name implies, they begin emitting their familiar sleigh-bell-like chorus right around the beginning of spring. Found in wooded areas and grassy lowlands near ponds and swamps in the central and eastern parts of Canada and the United States, these tiny, well-camouflaged amphibians are rarely seen. But the mid-March crescendo of nighttime whistles from amorous males is for many a sign that winter is over. Spring peepers are tan or brown in color with dark lines that form a telltale X on their backs. They grow to about 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) in length, and have large toe pads for climbing, although they are more at home amid the loose debris of the forest floor. They are nocturnal creatures, hiding from their many predators during the day and emerging at night to feed on such delicacies as beetles, ants, flies, and spiders. They mate and lay their eggs in water and spend the rest of the year in the forest. In the winter, they hibernate under logs or behind loose bark on trees, waiting for the spring thaw and their chance to sing.

Scott Sroka was born in St. Petersburg, Florida, and has a B.A. in cinematography from the University of South Florida. He has been creating images for more than 30 years in locations from Florida to Alaska, the southwest United States, and along Route 66.

Sroka has worked as a staff member in National Geographic's Image Collection and has produced photographs for numerous National Geographic educational products on subjects such as firefighting, police, the post office, television, newspapers, hospitals, and the environment.

Sroka also photographed the children's book Firefighting: Behind the Scenes, published by Houghton Mifflin, and his work has been used by the U.S. Capitol Historical Society for calendars and postcards. Much of his work is done as stereo photography.

The Sroka family adopted Henry, a blue-and-gold macaw, who for 28 years was a fixture in Explorers Hall at National Geographic's Washington, D.C., headquarters. They cared for him for 15 years.

This South American otter is the world's largest, at some 6 feet (1.8 meters) long. It lives only in the rivers and creeks of the Amazon, Orinoco, and La Plata river systems.

These huge members of the weasel family swim by propelling themselves with their powerful tails and flexing their long bodies. They also have webbed feet, water-repellent fur to keep them dry and warm, and nostrils and ears that close in the water.

Fish make up most of the giant river otter's diet. They hunt alone or in groups, sometimes using coordinated efforts, and must be successful often to meet their daily intake quota. Each animal may eat six to nine pounds (three to four kilograms) of food per day. Fish are supplemented by crustaceans, snakes, and other river creatures.

Giant river otters live in family groups which include monogamous parents and the offspring from several breeding seasons. They den by burrowing into banks or under fallen logs, and establish a home territory that they will aggressively defend.

Like most other otter species, giant river otters come ashore to give birth. Females retreat to their underground dens and deliver litters of one to six young. Young otters remain in the den for a month but grow up quickly. After nine or ten months, it is difficult to tell mother from child.

Giant river otters have been hunted extensively and are now among the rarest otters in the world—only a few thousand are believed to survive in the wild.

Sifakas are lemurs. Local Malagasy people named them for the unique call they send echoing through Madagascar's forests, which sounds like shif-auk. These primates spend most of their time in the trees, but don't get around in the same way that other lemurs do. Sifakas remain upright, and they leap quickly from tree to tree by jumping with their powerful hind legs. In this way, they clear distances of over 30 feet (9 meters). They can also move quickly on the ground, which they do using a two-legged sideways hop.

Sifakas are beautifully colored. They may have different colored limbs and bodies, and often their heads are multicolored with patches of black, white, gray, or golden-colored fur. These vegetarian primates eat leaves, flowers, fruit, buds, and tree bark—sifakas have been known to eat about a hundred different plants. They forage during daylight hours and go to sleep aloft before sunset.

Sifakas live in small family groups of three to ten animals. It is believed that only one female from each group breeds, while males may move from group to group.

There are three species of sifaka: Coquerel's sifaka, the diademed sifaka, and the golden-crowned sifaka. The golden-crowned sifaka wasn't photographed until 1982 and wasn't known to be a separate species until 1988. They are the smallest of the sifakas and among the most endangered. There may be fewer than 10,000 living in the wild.

All sifakas are threatened by the destruction of their forest habitats. Some species are hunted for meat, though others are protected by Malagasy tradition that forbids eating their flesh.

This powerful predator roams the Americas, where it is also known as a puma, cougar, and catamount. This big cat of many names is also found in many habitats, from Florida swamps to Canadian forests.

Mountain lions like to prey on deer, though they also eat smaller animals such as coyotes, porcupines, and raccoons. They usually hunt at night or during the gloaming hours of dawn and dusk. These cats employ a blend of stealth and power, stalking their prey until an opportunity arrives to pounce, then going for the back of the neck with a fatal bite. They will hide large carcasses and feed on them for several days.

Mountain lions once roamed nearly all of the United States. They were prized by hunters and despised by farmers and ranchers who suffered livestock losses at their hands. Subsequently, by the dawn of the 20th century, mountain lions were eliminated from nearly all of their range in the Midwest and Eastern U.S.—though the endangered Florida panther survives.

Today, whitetail deer populations have rebounded over much of the mountain lion's former range and a few animals have appeared in more eastern states such as Missouri and Arkansas. Some biologists believe that these big cats could eventually recolonize much of their Midwest and Eastern range—if humans allow them to do so. In most western U.S. states and Canadian provinces, populations are considered sustainable enough to allow managed sport hunting.

Mountain lions require a lot of room—only a few cats can survive in a 30-square-mile (78-square-kilometer) range. They are solitary and shy animals, seldom seen by humans. While they do occasionally attack people—usually children or solitary adults—statistics show that, on average, there are only four attacks and one human fatality each year in all of the U.S. and Canada.