A thick-thumbed bat, a color-changing lizard, and a Muppet-looking orchid are just a few of the 380 new-to-science species found and described in the Greater Mekong region of Southeast Asia between 2021 and 2022. In a report released this week by WWF, researchers highlight the remarkable diversity in this underexplored hotbed of life. The report […]
Tag: mongabay
One left: British Columbia’s last chance on northern spotted owls
A thousand northern spotted owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) once lived among the sweeping cedars and towering Douglas firs of southwestern British Columbia’s old-growth forests. Today, only one female survives. She lives alone now within the traditional territory of the Spô’zêm First Nation. While a larger – albeit still threatened – population remains in the United […]
‘Anthill tiger’: Putting one of Africa’s rarest wildcats on the radar
Every night, somewhere unseen across the vast, semidesert and dry savanna habitat of Southern Africa, the continent’s deadliest cat emerges to hunt. Black-footed cats (Felis nigripes) are ideally suited for nocturnal stalking: They are evolutionarily older than jungle cats and domestic cats, boast exceptional night vision and hearing, and are believed to kill more prey […]
One elephant a day: Sri Lanka wildlife conflict deepens as death toll rises
COLOMBO — On average one elephant has died each day in Sri Lanka in the first three months of this year, with nearly half of those deaths due to human causes. This escalation of the perennial problem of human-elephant conflict on the island has prompted calls for urgent solutions to save this endangered and iconic […]
Seabird conservation mostly works, comprehensive new data set shows
Fifty years ago, ornithologist Stephen Kress had a bold vision for Eastern Egg Rock, an island off the coast of Maine. He wanted to restore the island’s former colony of Atlantic puffins that hunters had wiped out in the 1880s. This kind of seabird restoration had never been done before, but Kress was determined to […]
Honey production sweetens snow leopard conservation in Kyrgyzstan
SHAMSHY, Kyrgyzstan — “I was only 9 when I first saw a snow leopard with my father. He was a ranger bringing injured animals found in the mountains to the veterinarian,” says Asanbek Sasukilov, 62, a beekeeper and herder. “I was sitting close to the cage. Suddenly, the snow leopard started to roar, and I […]
‘I’m not distressed, I’m just pissed off’: Q&A with Sumatran rhino expert John Payne
In 2019, the last Sumatran rhino in Malaysia died. Her name was Iman and ever since her capture in 2014, she had been under the care of the Bornean Rhino Alliance (BORA), headed by executive director John Payne in the Malaysian state of Sabah. After her death, Payne, who’d worked on Sumatran rhinos since 1979 […]
Ethiopia used chemicals to kill locusts. Billions of honeybees disappeared
Between 2019 and 2021, swarms of desert locusts̨ swept across the Horn of Africa and East Africa. In response, the worst-affected countries, Kenya and Ethiopia, sprayed millions of hectares of cropland and pastures with chemical pesticides. A new study now finds the chemical spraying coincided with a steep decline in honey production in Ethiopia. Co-author […]