Inbreeding adds to growing threats to Africa’s smallest wildcat, study finds

Inbreeding adds to growing threats to Africa’s smallest wildcat, study finds

Populations of the black-footed cat, a little-known feline in Southern Africa, have been declining for the last half a million years and exhibit very high degrees of inbreeding. This could increase their risk of a disease called amyloidosis, according to a new genetic study. “Frequently genomic studies focus on large charismatic cats so that small […]

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Population crash means African penguins are now critically endangered

Population crash means African penguins are now critically endangered

Africa’s only resident penguin species is now officially critically endangered, according to a recent assessment by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Over the past century, the African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) has suffered precipitous declines in its population. In the mid-1950s, there were an estimated 141,000 breeding pairs of African penguins, or 282,000 […]

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Will ‘Trump Part II’ be the wakeup call needed toward more effective conservation? (commentary)

Will ‘Trump Part II’ be the wakeup call needed toward more effective conservation? (commentary)

What a week. The global biodiversity conference in Cali, Colombia (COP16) had just concluded. And then Trump got re-elected as President of the United States. Clearly the latter puts an enormous damper on the former. That is, if one believes that the Cali conference actually made significant progress in terms of tackling the biodiversity crisis. […]

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