Wild Tobago

  Thousands of shorebirds set out on their maiden voyage from the frozen north to winter in the south. You’ll see many of them bobbing and running on beaches along Tobago’s coasts. Faraaz Abdool, birding enthusiast and photographer, champions the cause of creatures whose annual migrations take them from the north pole to the south in search of food. All photos by Faraaz Abdool     As the Earth hurtles around the Sun, its axis angles away from the flaming giant at the centre of our solar system plunging the northernmost regions into frigid darkness. The frosty fingers of winter crisscross land and sea, uniting them under white, featureless sheets of ice and snow. It is the boreal winter, a time associated with indoor activities and reunited families. We may huddle indoors making every attempt to insulate ourselves from the natural elements, but for the animals, their existence is the antithesis of this.   Hundreds of thousands of eggs hatch on the Arctic tun...

Not only birds, all nature is threatened by humans’ burgeoning population, our demand and consumption of more resources. Faraaz Abdool sounds the alarm: where the birds go, there goes our wellbeing. All photos by Faraaz Abdool It is an established fact that we are on the verge of a major ecological collapse. More than sixteen thousand species of plants and animals are currently listed as endangered, and a far greater number are still experiencing precipitous declines. We are losing species at a rate never previously experienced in human history – and there is little or no effort being made to change our ill-fated trajectory.   The Caribbean's only native species of toucan, the Channel-billed Toucan, is found on Trinidad and is officially listed as “vulnerable to extinction.” Right here in the Caribbean we are still in the process of discovering new species. The commonly seen horsewhip was described as its very own species only in late 2020 – now officially called Rutherford’s V...