BATAM, Indonesia – The Indonesian city of BATAM is a popular tourist destination. On an October day, the huts along Mirota Beach were packed with visitors who were taking advantage of the beautiful white dunes, clear waters, and peaceful attitudes. The peace was broken when a group of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) arrived on the beach […]
Tag: deforestation
The mass movement of people to Indonesia’s new capital threatens endangered orangutans
Borneo, a tropical island off the coast of Southeast Asia, was formerly one of the world’s most inaccessible locations. It is the only area in the world where orangutans exist in the wild, along with Sumatra. The deep tropical jungles of Borneo are known as “Paru-Paru Dunia,” which translates to “lungs of the earth.” Deforestation […]
Dave the koala goes home after treatment for a fractured pelvis
Many species are fighting to survive as a result of climate change and deforestation. The koala is one of the animals whose numbers are rapidly dwindling. Thousands of koalas were harmed by the bushfires that ravaged 19 million hectares of land in 2020-2021. In addition to the injuries and homelessness suffered by koalas as a […]
Siberian tigers are being hunted at night for their body parts
The tiger was already dead when they spotted it, the hunters said—a furry, ochre mound against the snowy backdrop of Primorye, a sprawling region eight time zones from Moscow, in Russia’s Far East. The seven men took a picture with the massive Amur tiger, their arms casually slung around each other’s shoulders, the straps from […]
Bare-faced curassows return to Argentina’s Iberá after 50-year absence
Biologist Sofía Zalazar wasn’t born yet the last time a bare-faced curassow was seen in the Iberá forests in Argentina. The bird began disappearing from the wild in the 1970s, surviving only in small populations in forest areas in the provinces of Chaco and Formosa, in the northeast of the country. A couple of years […]
Endangered chimps ‘on the brink’ as Nigerian reserve is razed for agriculture, timber
ORE, Nigeria — More than two decades ago, fate took Tajudeen Babalola to his lifelong ambition. The 52-year-old longed for a more serene life that offered hope for survival away from the fake fancies of Lagos, Africa’s second-largest city and Nigeria’s commercial nerve center. One evening, after an exhausting shift of commercial driving, he received […]
U.K. conglomerate Jardines ‘caught red-handed’ clearing orangutan habitat in Sumatra
BALI, Indonesia — Satellite imagery has detected deforestation in a gold mining concession in Indonesia that overlaps with the habitat of the most threatened great ape in the world. U.S.-based environmental advocacy group Mighty Earth said it had detected 13 hectares (32 acres) of forest loss within the Martabe gold mining concession in North Sumatra […]
Amazonian birds are shrinking in response to climate change, study shows
The canary in the coal mine for how climate change is affecting the treasure trove of biodiversity in the Amazon is … also a bird. Dozens of them, in fact, according to a new study that shows the changing climate is actually shrinking their bodies and elongating their wings. “Our findings show that man-made climate […]