You’ve arrived at another dead end. Except it’s not dead, and it isn’t the end of anything…it’s the circle of life.

Put on some headphones and sit back a moment.

Contemplate these juvenile Guadalupe fur seals rejoicing at life itself. Arctocphalus townsendi is known as the Guadalupe fur seal despite having visible ears, a morphological feature of Otariidae, the family of sea lions rather than Phocidae, the family of earless, true seals.

But nevermind taxonomy.

This dancing wolf of the sea once roamed the Pacific coast from California to Mexico, before an insatiable and uniquely human hunger to commodify their fur propelled industrious hunting practices in the early 1800s. Tens of thousands of seals were killed annually until numbers dwindled to as few as 15 known individuals found around offshore islands near Baja California, Mexico. The species was thought extinct before a handful were found on Isla Guadalupe in 1954, and since then, the population has been steadily climbing, today numbering more than 30,000. This calm, continuous rising tide is just the force of nature at work—countless spirited organisms vigorously competing, foraging, reproducing, thriving as best they can in the big blue game of life.

The rising numbers of A. townsendi are positive. It’s an encouraging result of  neighboring nations coinciding on regulation to protect an animal or ecosystem. It demonstrates the will of people leading to to real change, engendering a more harmonious relationship with the natural world we share.

More people ought to know good things like this, so they might nod along, ruminate over what went right, and how to imitate the good in other places…are we telling enough of the good stories?

Do you have a good story that ought to be heard, regarded, and repeated?

We’re a phone call away :)