Skip To Main Content
Jude Isabella on Muck Rack

Jude Isabella

Verified
British Columbia, Victoria
As seen in: bioGraphic, The Guardian, WIRED Magazine, Slate, Atlas Obscura, Smithsonian Magazine, Popular Science, Mother Jones, Archaeology Magazine, Nautilus, The Walrus Magazine and
Covers:  wildlife, environment, ecology, canada's west coast, salmon, herring, fisheries, climate change, archaeology, canadian science, science for kids
Editor in chief @hakaimagazine. Ecology, urban wildlife, author of Salmon, A Scientific Memoir, and Bringing Back the Wolves. 🦋 @judeisabella.bsky.social

Get in touch with Jude

Contact Jude, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.

Learn more about Muck Rack

Actions

Share this page

Jude Isabella’s Biography

Read Full Bio →

A science journalist for over three decades, Jude Isabella is executive editor at bioGraphic.com. She was the founding editor of Hakai Magazine, an online publication focused on coastal science and society that closed in 2024 after 10 years. Prior to Hakai, she was managing editor of YES Mag, a Canadian science magazine for kids. She has written for numerous newspapers and magazines, as a staff writer or freelancer. She continues to write science for kids; her fifth book (Kids Can Press, "Chit…

Jude Isabella’s Journalist Portfolio

See all →
In the Kingdom of the Bears | Hakai Magazine

In the Kingdom of the Bears | Hakai Magazine

The human-bear bond is ancient, but across the northern hemisphere, only a few societies remember the art of …

View article →
From Prejudice to Pride | Hakai Magazine

From Prejudice to Pride | Hakai Magazine

In the 20th century, Japanese anthropologists and officials tried to hide the existence of the Indigenous Ain…

View article →
On the Trail of Whales | Hakai Magazine

On the Trail of Whales | Hakai Magazine

Forget the engines: shore-based whale watching takes off.

View article →
The Right to Roam | Hakai Magazine

The Right to Roam | Hakai Magazine

Scotland's liberal access laws make life a whole lot better for everyone.

View article →
How Ecosystems Got a Keystone | Hakai Magazine

How Ecosystems Got a Keystone | Hakai Magazine

One day in 1963, ecologist Bob Paine started plucking sea stars off rocks and tossing them into the sea. His …

View article →
Embracing the Weirdness of Waterless Waterways | Hakai Magazine

Embracing the Weirdness of Waterless Waterways | Hakai Magazine

The drought in California has created an obsession with water, but sometimes, no water is just fine.

View article →

Articles

Plight of the bumblebees: How commercial pollination is putting wild species at risk

|
By Jude Isabella Verified
| Canadian Geographic Verified
Bumblebees are lovable, adorable, and admirably occupied. They tumble along like toddlers drunk on the sweet smells of pretty flowers, breathing in one, then another, and another. If Winnie-the-Pooh were an insect, he would be a bumblebee—a fuzzy, chubby, stinging insect that rarely stings. But I had no idea how much I cared about bumblebees until I had trouble meeting one particular species: the western bumblebee, Bombus occidentalis.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

A Deep Look Into the Wild and Not-So-Wild World of Bumblebees

|
By Jude Isabella Verified
| Smithsonian Magazine Verified
Over the past several decades the lives of the domesticated and native pollinators have increasingly overlapped Bumblebees are lovable, adorable and admirably occupied. They tumble along like toddlers drunk on the sweet smells of pretty flowers, breathing in one, then another and another. If Winnie-the-Pooh were an insect, he would be a bumblebee—a fuzzy, chubby, stinging insect that rarely stings.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

Could Aardvark Burrows Be Ground Zero for the Next Pandemic?

|
By Jude Isabella Verified
| Smithsonian Magazine Verified
Animals of all kinds mix and mingle in the underground refuges, offering troubling opportunities for diseases to jump species In theory, it would take just one of these monkeys to bring Paris to a standstill. Or New York City. Or, for that matter, Belgium, thought Belgian ecologist Cédric Vermeulen as he watched recent video footage of patas monkeys, vervet monkeys and a host of other animals navigating the entrances to aardvark burrows in Senegal’s Niokolo-Koba National Park.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?
See all 95 licensed articles (106 Total)

Interview

See all →

What was your first job as a journalist?

Newspaper reporter.

Have you ever used a typewriter?

Hahahahaha!

How is social media changing news?

A lot more media reporting on the media. First major de-coupling of journalism from newspapers entirely. Opens up publishing to everyone.

Awards

See all →

Canadian Science Writers' Association Science in Society Awards

2014 - Science Journalism

A national science award for a magazine article about bears in British Columbia, Canada. More here: "The secret lives of bears, - See more at: http://bcmag.ca/blog/b-c-bears-story-wins-national-science-award#sthash.7bqZW3Gq.dpuf

View Award

Digital Leadership Award

2023 - journalism leadership

Canada's National Media Awards Foundation awarded Jude Isabella, the founder and editor-in-chief of Hakai Magazine, the 2023 Digital Publishing Leadership Award, which is the highest individual honour the Digital Publishing Awards can bestow.

View Award

SEJ 20th Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment

2021 - utstanding Explanatory Reporting, Small

Second Place "Big Fish: The Aquacultural Revolution" by Jude Isabella, Brendan Borrell, Brian Payton, Paul Tullis and Jess Mackie for Hakai Magazine Judges' comments: "By 2050 Earth's population should approach 10 billion people who will need to turn to the sea for sustenance. A team of reporters from Hakai Magazine set out to find how seafood can be sustainably farmed. In an interesting, detailed, knowledgeable look inside the aquaculture industry, their story raises crucial environmental issues and the way those challenges could be met. The specificity of information regarding problems with aquaculture and the hit-or-miss nature of solutions are carefully integrated throughout the piece. The aquaculture timeline is a particularly helpful note in framing the longstanding issues."

View Award

National Magazine Awards (Digital) Canada

2020 - Winner of General Excellence in Digital Publishing

Recognition of overall journalism excellence in Canadian media.

View Award

Society of American Archaeology Awards

2023 - Gene S. Stuart Award

An award of $1,000 is made to honor outstanding efforts to enhance public understanding of archaeology, in memory of Gene S. Stuart (1930-1993), a writer and managing editor of National Geographic Society books. The award is given to the author of the most interesting and responsible original story or series about about any archaeological topic published in a newspaper, magazine, or online publication.

View Award