As part of his role in the Air Force Volunteer Reserve, John Lewis often visited military schools. But it was at a London school in 2014 that an accident happened. He had 11 operations in total and it was two years before he could walk again.

Although John improved physically, he couldn’t recover from what had happened. John was diagnosed with post -traumatic (创伤后) stress disorder (PTSD), but none of the treatment seemed to help. Then last year, at a hospital, a doctor told him a puppy   (小狗) could manage stress and might help with his anxiety.

In May 2019, they adopted a black puppy called Gibson. He says, “I'd never thought of it as a comfort. After just a few weeks, I could feel myself improving. If I was feeling anxious, he would jump up on the sofa and sit on my chest and I found that really relaxing and comforting. Wherever I go, he will follow me and it’s really helpful to my anxiety. We go out and play Frisbee (飞盘) and I now look forward to going out for walks while I would always make excuses to stay in the house before.”

His wife Anna has also noticed a difference. She says, “Gibson is an incredible dog that adores John. He is a fantastic companion. It has given him a focus and a lease on life.”

John is now. taking part in Generation Pup, a groundbreaking study that tracks puppies through adulthood to learn how their early experiences and environment affect their development. John says, “I really enjoy tracking this through the study, watching his personality begin to grow and support me on my road back to mental health, which he is playing a big part in.” “Gibson has done so much for me in a short space of time. I want to do something for him.”

Canada has reintroduced some bisons (北美野牛) to the country’s oldest national park in Banff, Alberta, officials said on Monday, more than 130 years after the North American animal last appeared on the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies.

The protection team moved a group of 16 bisons into enclosed grassland in Banff National Park in the west of the province last week. The group will stay under observation in the Panther Valley until next summer, when the animals will be released into the full 1,189 sq km reintroduction zone in the park’s eastern valleys.

Parks Canada said bisons were once main grazers (plant-eaters) and that bringing them back would recover their missing role in Banffs ecosystem. “This would be one of only four bison groups in North America that would be fully interacting with their predators (meat-eaters) and shaping the ecosystem as they did over a hundred years ago,” said Karsten Heuer, the bison reintroduction project manager. Those predators will include wolves and bears native to the park.

Ten pregnant female bisons and six young bulls were disease-tested before being driven 400 km across Alberta by truck. Since the Panther Valley is not easy to reach by road, officials attached the containers by a long line to a plane and flew them in one at a time for the last 25 km.

Vast bison groups of up to 30 million animals once lived freely across North America. The animal was nearly hunted to extinction, and park keepers estimate bisons have not grazed in Banff National Park since before it was set up in 1885.

Great white sharks! Just hearing that name makes many people’s hair stand on end. In reality, these big fish have more to fear from us than we do from them. For many years, people killed countless great white sharks in the waters around the United States.

But thanks to conservation (protection) efforts, great whites are making a comeback in the U.S. Two recent studies show that the population of these sharks is rising along the east and west coast.

Why is the growing population of a killer fish something to celebrate? “When you fish too many of them, you start to lose balance in the environment,” says shark researcher Tobey Curtis. As the biggest killer, sharks help keep the populations of fish, seals, and other creatures they eat from growing too large.

In spite of their importance, great white sharks had long been hunted for their meat and their fins (鳍). Then, in 1997, the U.S. government passed a law that didn’t allow the hunting of great whites. Afterwards, the numbers of these sharks in the U.S. waters started to increase.

The law wasn’t the only thing that has helped great whites. Conservationists have also played a part in the sharks’ comeback. The research group OCEARCH is using a method called tagging (加标签) to help change people’s attitudes about great white. They let the public follow each shark as it travels the world’s oceans. OCEARCH also gives each tagged shark a name to help people form a closer connection with the big fish.

The group’s most well-known shark is named Katharine. She was tagged last year near Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Since then, thousands of people have tracked Katharine’s movements on Twitter and the OCEARCH website.

This helps people see sharks in a new way. Chris Fischer, the founder of OCEARCH believes learning to appreciate great whites will encourage people to do more to protect them.