Deforestation could pose disease threat to Amazon’s white-lipped peccaries

Deforestation could pose disease threat to Amazon’s white-lipped peccaries

Ongoing deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest jeopardizes multiple species, such as the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari). It can also increase the risk of other threats like disease, potentially including spillover events from domestic animals. How this is impacting the species remains broadly unknown and understudied, according to a recent paper published in the journal Biological […]

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Climate Crisis and Deforestation Are Bringing Tree-Dwelling Primates Down to Earth

Climate Crisis and Deforestation Are Bringing Tree-Dwelling Primates Down to Earth

San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance postdoctoral associate Timothy Eppley, Ph.D., was observing southern bamboo lemurs in Madagascar when he noticed something odd. Usually, these lemurs spend their entire lives in the trees. But in places where their forest habitat had been thinned by human activity, the primates would risk descending to the ground to search […]

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World’s smallest primate is fading into extinction, scientists fear

World’s smallest primate is fading into extinction, scientists fear

The world’s tiniest primate, the Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur (Microcebus berthae), a creature small enough to curl inside a human fist, could soon disappear as the human imprint on its forest habitat grows. Since 2018, surveyors deployed at the lemur’s preferred habitat in Madagascar’s western dry forests have failed to spot the animal, stoking fears […]

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Venezuelan Amazon deforestation expands due to lawlessness, mining, fires: Reports

Venezuelan Amazon deforestation expands due to lawlessness, mining, fires: Reports

More than 140,000 hectares (346,000 acres) of primary forest in the Venezuelan Amazon were lost between 2016 and 2020, deforestation that was driven by illegal mining, agricultural expansion, and fires. This is according to a report generated using extremely high-resolution satellite images and published by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP). This significant […]

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