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 […]
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European tuna boats dump fishing debris in Seychelles waters ‘with impunity’
In 2019, when Jeremy Raguain turned up for a cleanup campaign on Aldabra Atoll, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, he bagged a marine monstrosity like no other: a beached fish aggregating device, or FAD. It was a massive tangle of buoys, netting and fishing ropes weighing hundreds of kilograms. The fishing aid, like most FADs, […]
Red flag: Predatory European ships help push Indian Ocean tuna to the brink
Until Jan 9, 2014, the Playa de Anzoras, a 2,200-ton tuna fishing vessel named for a beach in Spain, built in Spain and owned by Spaniards, sailed under the Spanish flag. On Jan. 10, it dropped the Spanish flag in favor of that of Seychelles, a small archipelagic nation in the Indian Ocean. Neither Spain […]
Spiny new chameleon species described from Bale Mountains of Ethiopia
Researchers have described a new chameleon species from the Bale Mountains of south-central Ethiopia, and say the biodiversity hotspot may harbor even more. Named Wolfgang Böhme’s Ethiopian chameleon (Trioceros wolfgangboehmei), in honor of the senior herpetologist at the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig (ZMFK) in Bonn, Germany, the chameleon is around 15 centimeters (6 inches) […]
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 […]
In Indonesia, an illegal leopard trade thrives out of sight, new study shows
This is the story of how Indonesia is losing its spots. In a recent paper published in Nature Conservation, researchers found that the archipelagic nation has a significant illegal trade in two regional leopard species: the Javan leopard (Panthera pardus melas) and the Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi). This trafficking could pose a serious threat […]
Dying of curiosity: Why people shoot harpy eagles
The rancher peers at an enormous bird high in the treetops. Reining in his horse, he squints upward. It’s not moving; maybe it will still be there when he gets back. An hour later, he returns with a gun. The huge animal is still there, motionless. Taking aim, he fires, and the heavy body comes […]