Could it have come at a worse time for Kenya’s Tourism and Wildlife Ministry? With Kenya still stinging from the humiliation and embarrassment over the translocation-related deaths of 11 rhinos, a Kenyan court declared on August 3 that convicted ivory trafficker Feisal Mohamed Ali was to be set free. Lady Justice Dora Chepkwony ruled that […]
Tag: Mongabay.com
Protected landscape across India-Bhutan border a refuge for wildlife during armed conflict
From the late 1980s until 2003, recurring ethno-political violence rocked Manas National Park, a protected area in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, in the Himalayan foothills. The conflict changed the park’s spread and abundance of wildlife, including the endangered Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris). But Manas’s continuity with Bhutan’s Royal Manas National Park (RMNP) […]
The Japan pig is a tiny colorful pygmy seahorse smaller than a fingernail
Researchers have just described a species of colorful pygmy seahorse that’s both adorable and very easy to miss. The newly described creature,occurring in the watersoff the coast of southeast Japan, is much smaller than the average fingernail and camouflages well against the corals and rocks it lives on, researchers report in a new study published in […]
Scientists say endangered whale sharks can live up to 130 years
We know very little about the growth and reproductive biology of whale sharks, the world’s largest fish species. Because they’re listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, scientists are looking for ways to fill this gap in our knowledge without overly disturbing or distressing individual whale sharks. Scientists at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) in […]
In protecting songbirds, Indonesia ruffles owners & breeders’ feathers
JAKARTA — Songbird owners in Indonesia are up in arms over the recent inclusion of hundreds of bird species in the national list of protected animals. The owners plan to protest outside the Ministry of Environment and Forestry in Central Jakarta on Aug. 14, according to the Indonesian Songbird Fan Club (FKMI), a coalition of owners’ […]
A ‘perfect policy storm’ cuts puma numbers by almost half near Jackson, Wyoming
Like many places in the American West, the region is a patchwork of land that’s under the control of different government agencies with differing opinions and management goals. “It makes that part of our country really unique,” Mark Elbroch, a biologist with the wild cat conservation group Panthera and one of the study’s lead authors, […]
POLL: Should Trump’s border wall be scrapped to protect wildlife populations?
The infamous proposed border wall between the U.S. and Mexico has been, to put it lightly, controversial. The apple of the Trump administration’s eye, a total barrier between the two countries remains entrenched in the wish list of the U.S. president. But while Donald Trump maintains that it would effectively reduce illegal immigration, critics say […]
‘Better and better’: Thermal cameras turn up the heat on poachers
Nearly 2 million animals, mostly wildebeest and zebra, migrate roughly 800 kilometers (500 miles) each year between Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and Maasai Mara National Reserve across the border in Kenya. Their joint search for fresh green grass is an ecological phenomenon and a major tourist attraction in both countries. But along with tourists, […]