“Nature Accelerates” highlights the work of two alumni who separately study two endangered mammals that are genetically related, and face threats to their survival on separate continents.
The package explores the careers and adventures of these two zoologists—Liza Dadone ’97 and John Byers ‘70—who both research animals that have an advanced ability to accelerate. As a unique way to pair the research of two alumni, the article was included in a magazine package themed Life in Motion, in which we looked at many ways movement appears in the world.
The giraffe and the pronghorn—genetic cousins—face pressure from humans and environmental changes. The story asks the question: could external forces potentially stop two iconic species that have run for millennia? We explain how the Swarthmore alumni are working to keep that from happening.
Dadone is head veterinarian at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado, home to one of the largest captive giraffe herds in North America. The zoo’s partnership with the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, a Namibia-based nonprofit working across Africa, is part of a global effort to save giraffes from extinction.
The article then explores the 38-year career of Byers, who chronicles the evolutions of Earth’s second-fastest land mammal, the American pronghorn. Together the story shows the breadth of scholarly vision that these two alumni have achieved by intense focus on their subject matter, and how their work impacts the interconnectedness of the planet and its inhabitants.
