Two African penguin chicks have emerged from their nest beneath a boulder at a site in South Africa where conservationists have used lifelike decoy penguins and broadcast penguin calls to entice adult penguins to breed. Christina Hagen, the Pamela Isdell Fellow of Penguin Conservation at BirdLife South Africa, who leads the project, was on one […]
Tag: Panthera pardus
Protect Persian leopards, and their defenders, for World Environment Day (commentary)
At times of anguish and confusion we turn to nature to quiet the mind and find healing. We hold on to the miraculous survival of wildlife and ecosystems, to persist in the face of struggles we have no control over, leaving us often drained and hopeless. For us, one of those miracles is a beautiful […]
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 […]
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 […]
For border-crossing Thai tigers, the forest on the other side isn’t as green
Big cats require big home ranges. In February 2016, a young male Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti) walked from Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary in western Thailand to Kayin state in Myanmar. After crossing mountains, rivers, roads and national borders over the course of its 170-kilometer (105-mile) journey, he ventured out of the forest into […]
Deaths and media-driven panic threaten human-jackal coexistence in Sri Lanka
COLOMBO — Gayan Chamila, a resident of a village near Horana in western Sri Lanka, recalled rushing to his backyard in response to hearing an animal cry. There, he found a golden jackal (Canis aureus naria) chasing his dog. The jackal then turned on Chamila, snarling. The villager managed to grab a wooden pole to […]
Don’t cross this tiger mom: Close encounter in Russia’s Far East
On Sept. 15, Aleksandr Rybin was checking a camera trap in Russia’s Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve when something red and long-tailed darted in the bushes in front of him. “A thought flashed in my head: cougar?” Rybin, a 45-year-old researcher at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Russia, said in a statement. “No, what cougar can be […]
Cambodia’s banteng-eating leopards edge closer to extinction, new study finds
For Cambodia’s last remaining Indochinese leopards (Panthera pardus delacouri), extinction could be just around the corner, a new study has found. The only breeding population of this leopard subspeciesin Cambodia is believed to occur within a large protected area complex in a part of the country called the Eastern Plains Landscape (EPL). But in just five […]