extinction

In the second selection from our new Issue 26: Dark Ocean, Savannah Pearson writes a letter to a 15th-century painter of ‘sumptuous’ still lives, highlighting the losses of the once-teeming ocean. With artwork from the issue by John Weeden.

Conservation biologist Nicholas Wilkinson begins to tell the story of the dove, 'Ectopistes migratorius', and is overwhelmed by the number of wings around him and the difficulty of accounting for one of the most notorious extinctions ever to occur on the planet: the destruction of the passenger pigeon.

On a small Scottish island, writer and photographer Hannah Close seeks out a beach only briefly exposed at the lowest tide, where the sand is made of the bones of a hard-shelled algae both threatened by human damage and the source of regeneration. With images by the author.

An endangered tortoise speaks through a poem by Rachel White, asserting its right to exist using the only language it has: that of its desert landscape. With tortoise photographs by Adam Elliott.

Alexa Firmenich plunges us into the Earth's 'staggering bedlam' of complex and symbiotic relationships and asks what happens when they disappear?

First extract from the autumn special issue 20 - ABYSS: two short searing pieces on the costs of civilisation's pursuit of coal, oil and lithium

From our just published new book, Issue 17, a non-fiction litany and praise song by Jennifer Case,  with artwork by Meridel Rubenstein.

The latest in our The Vanishing series, Kim Schnuelle tells the tale of three rhinoceros encounters and reflects on the true meaning of 'extinction'

From our anniversary edition Dark Mountain: Issue 16 - REFUGE: a lament for the disappearing beauty of the coral reef by Jay Griffiths. With sea image by David Ellingsen.