Inside the Fight to Stop Giraffes’ ‘Silent Extinction’

Inside the Fight to Stop Giraffes’ ‘Silent Extinction’

Giraffe researcher Julian Fennessy recently boarded a helicopter in Ethiopia’s Gambella National Park, which borders the turbulent new nation of South Sudan. His mission: To collar giraffes and collect tissue samples from the animals, which have been rapidly disappearing from Africa in what Fennessy calls a “silent extinction.” After successfully handling one of the Gambella […]

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Bloodsucking flies help scientists identify rare, hard-to-find mammals

Bloodsucking flies help scientists identify rare, hard-to-find mammals

Last year scientists released a study that is likely to revolutionize how conservationists track elusive species. Researchers extracted the recently sucked blood of terrestrial leeches in Vietnam’s remote Annamite Mountains and looked at the DNA of what they’d been feeding on: remarkably researchers were able to identify a number of endangered and rarely-seen mammals. In […]

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Lord’s Resistance Army funded by elephant poaching, report finds

Lord’s Resistance Army funded by elephant poaching, report finds

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is using lucrative elephant poaching for ivory to fund its activities, according to a report published on Tuesday. Eyewitness accounts from park rangers, Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) escapees and recent senior defectors report that the fugitive warlord Joseph Kony, who is wanted by the international criminal court for war crimes […]

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