During the past two months, The Orangutan Project has seen a significant increase in confiscations of orangutans that were being illegally kept as pets, the organization reports. The organization has worked with partners and authorities to rescue eight critically endangered orangutans. After being rescued, the orangutans are rehabilitated and given another chance to live in […]
Tag: deforestation
Why Wildlife Trafficking is Not Just Immoral But Extremely Unsafe
For more than a year, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted virtually every aspect of life on Earth. As we find ways to adapt to the new living, working, and social conditions necessitated by the pandemic, and look forward to an eventual end to it as vaccines become more widely available, we must ask what we […]
An owl not seen in over a century makes a brief return — then vanishes again
The Bornean subspecies of the Rajah scops-owl (Otus brookii) was first described from the montane forests of the Malaysian state of Sabah in 1892. Since then, however, its whereabouts have been a mystery. It was not until 2016 that a group of researchers documented the first sighting of a live individual in more than a […]
Turning the Spotlight on Asia’s Smallest Feline—the Elusive Rusty-Spotted Cat!
Weighing a mere 2 pounds (almost 300 times smaller than a tiger)—the Rusty-spotted cat is one of the smallest cat species in the world. However, what they lack in size, they make up for in being fierce hunters! The Rusty-spotted cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus) is endemic to the dry deciduous forests, scrubs, and grasslands of India, […]
Farmers move to occupy a critical elephant corridor in Sri Lanka
UDAWALAWE NATIONAL PARK, Sri Lanka — Earlier this month, more than 300 people gathered near the borders of the Dahaiyagala Wildlife Sanctuary in Sri Lanka’s Uva province armed with axes, long knives, ropes and handheld hoes called mamoties. Their apparent intention: Take control of sanctuary lands and expand their farms. Triggered by a rumor that […]
New Species of Bird Discovered in Brazil
A team of ornithologists from the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Paraguay has described a new species of trogon from the Atlantic Forest of north-eastern Brazil. The trogons and their close relatives, quetzals, are members a pantropically distributed order of birds consisting of a single family, the Trogonidae, which contains at least 43 species and […]
Australia’s pivot to plantations may be too late for nearly extinct parrots
HOBART, Australia — A dividing line of marking tape separates a clearcut area from intact native forest in the Denison Range of Tasmania, Australia’s southernmost state. An hour’s drive from the state capital, Hobart, the forest sits just outside the boundary of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, Na UNESCO site. The logged area is […]
Two new species of endangered screech owls identified from Brazil
Two new species of tiny screech owls from the Amazon and Atlantic rainforests in Brazil have been described by science. “They’re cute little owls, probably five or six inches long [13-15 centimeters], with tufts of feathers on their heads,” said John Bates, curator of birds at the Field Museum in Chicago and one of the […]