We provide insights into the motivations of one landowner to acquire land and devote it to biodiversity conservation, and on the conditions that contributed to the success of this privately-funded project. After two decades, the Los Barranquillos Wildlife Refuge has restored habitat, enhanced animal populations, fostered education, contributed to large conservation projects, and inspired naturalists, school children, university students, and administration officers. Photo: inspection of artificial refuges for rabbits – a keystone species.

Verbesina encelioides (Golden crownbeard) is a highly invasive annual forb species at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), which is the world's largest albatross colony. Past control efforts have been impeded by a lack of biological information about this invasive plant species. Here, we document the success of incorporating phenology information into invasive plant control operations at Midway Atoll NWR, ensuring that efforts to eradicate V. encelioides will have a higher chance of succeeding.

Ongoing monitoring is essential for the management of wildlife populations. The collaboration between local stakeholders and researchers is envisaged as an important partnership to monitor game species for long periods and vast territories. Here, we implemented a framework aimed at broadening the field applicability of Distance sampling techniques to areas where ongoing technical assistance is limited.