Mothering Mozambique’s Mangroves Back to Life

Seven years ago, we were grooving to “Sugar” by Maroon 5 and “Uptown Funk!” by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, Fast & Furious fans were flocking to theaters to catch the seventh film in the franchise, I was studying for some high school exam in my parents’ kitchen, and a small but mighty team was preparing for the launch of Hakai Magazine. There was a lot going on, and even more has changed.

After nearly 2,000 stories, incalculable hours of editing, dozens of awards, hundreds of Zoom meetings, several interns and fellows (myself included), one prelaunch office break-in, and a handful of inquiries about our combined use of the metric system and American spelling—today is Hakai Magazine’s seventh anniversary! According to Hallmark’s exhaustive list of traditional anniversary gifts, this year should be marked with copper or wool. In honor of these unusual requirements, our gift to you, loyal readers, is a list of some of our wooliest, most coppery stories from over the years.

“No Wool, No Vikings” Wool was as much a part of Viking life as ships and the sea.

“Clues in a Copper Band” A copper artifact recovered on an island off the coast of Georgia provides insight into 4,000-year-old trade routes.

“The Dogs That Grew Wool and the People Who Love Them” Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest bred fluffy white dogs and wove their fur into blankets.

“When History Washes Ashore” Over the years, beachcombers have found thousands of counterfeit copper coins on Rehoboth Beach in Delaware from a 1785 shipwreck.

This also happens to be Earth Day, so if you’re looking to mark both of these special occasions, maybe head outdoors for a beach cleanup or say something nice to a seabird on our behalf—it’s up to you.

Devon Bidal

Associate editor

This Week’s Stories

Mothering Mozambique’s Mangroves Back to Life

Villagers along the Limpopo River are restoring an estuary and securing their food supply, one mangrove at a time.

by Dianne Tipping-Woods • 1,600 words / 8 mins

Oregon’s Intertidal Ecosystem Is Approaching a Tipping Point

Ecologists are already finding the warning signs—hopefully it’s not too late.

by Rebecca Dzombak • 950 words / 4 mins

Bear-Dar Warns of Approaching Polar Bears

Researchers are developing an artificial intelligence–powered radar system to reduce polar bear-human conflicts.

by Andrew Chapman • 800 words / 4 mins

In Graphic Detail: The Right Whales Aren’t All Right

But the news isn’t all bad.

by Vanessa Minke-Martin • 450 words / 2 mins

What We’re Reading

We wrote about Louisiana’s Cancer Alley in 2020. Now the US Environmental Protection Agency has opened a series of civil rights investigations into state agencies to examine whether permits granted in the industrial corridor violated the rights of Black citizens. (Hakai Magazine, The Guardian)

Holy site fidelity, Batman. Chemical analysis on the bones of short-tailed albatrosses held in museum collections and obtained at archaeological digs at First Nations village sites, shows that generations of these birds returned to the same feeding sites for over 4,250 years. And then the feather hunters arrived. (Globe and Mail)

There are over 1,000 dams controlling water flow in rivers in California. Now the 99-year-old Scott Dam on the Eel River is being decommissioned. It’s the first step in river restoration which will, hopefully, see the river become California’s longest free-flowing river. (Active NorCal)

Fish ladders have been the go-to strategy for getting salmon around dams, but sometimes fish need a literal helping hand. This conservation group on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, is moving fish around human-made barriers by hand and truck. This dedicated team is not alone in its efforts to help stranded fish. (CBC, Hakai Magazine)

No doubt you’ve heard of sea level rise and how it might affect low-lying islands and coastal regions, but in many parts of the world—including Iceland—land is rebounding as ice melts. (CNN)

Binge listen to our five-part podcast, Ballast, on our site or subscribe now through your favorite podcast app.

We are proud to announce that Matthew Halliday’s feature “The Hard Sell of Whale Sanctuaries” is a finalist in the Written Feature category of the Canadian Association of Journalists awards. Congratulations, Matthew!

The cut of someone’s jib

A person’s general appearance or demeanor. The phrase came into popularity during the 19th century when a jib referred to a type of sail at the front of the ship. Different nationalities sported different shaped jibs, so sailors could determine if a ship in the distance was friend or foe.

It’s harder than you might think to know how many animal species live on Earth. Some new species are hiding in plain sight—it’s called cryptic diversity. Genetic tools and careful observations are revealing more biodiversity than we ever knew. Learn more in the latest episode of the Hakai Institute’s Long Story Shorts series.

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