Unfortunately for fosa, their first major big-screen appearance came in the form of the fictitious villains in the widely popular 2005 animated film, Madagascar. Most people don’t realise that these strange cat-like creatures are alive and living across Madagascar today, however. Cryptoprocta ferox, more commonly known as fosa (pronounced foo-sah), is Madagascar’s largest predator (fosa […]
Tag: threatened
POLL: Should Zimbabwe and Namibia be allowed to sell their ivory stockpiles?
A huge legal sale of ivory intended to cut elephant poaching instead catastrophically backfired by dramatically increasing elephant deaths, according to new research. The revelation comes just months before a decision on whether to permit another legal sale and against a backdrop of more African elephants being killed for ivory than are being born. In […]
Nepal’s extinct bird spotted after disappearing for 178 years
A team of bird-watchers stumbled upona bird that hasn’t been seen in eastern Nepal for almost 200 years. The red-faced liocichla (Liocichla phoenicea) hasn’t been spotted for 178 years and was thought to be locally extinct, according to Australian Geographic. A group of ornithologists spotted the bird on a 10-day bird watching tour. “We were […]
Elephants could vanish from one of Africa’s key reserves within six years
Elephants could disappear from one of Africa’s most important wildlife reserves within six years unless industrial scale poaching is stopped and mining is brought under control, the WWF has said. Selous national park, a world heritage site in southern Tanzania, has lost an average of almost 2,500 elephants a year since the 1970s. But it […]
One-third of North America’s birds at risk of extinction
More than one-third of North America’s native bird species are at immediate risk of extinction, a new report has found. The 2016 State of North America’s Birds report — compiled by scientists, government and non-governmental organizations and citizen scientists from Canada, the continental U.S. and Mexico, and publishedby the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI) […]
POLL: Can there be too many eagles?
There can never be too many eagles, right? The comeback of northern Europe’s largest bird of prey could challenge that notion. Some scientists are worried that the white-tailed, or sea, eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), which has recovered from near-extinction in the 1980s, poses a new threat to other at-risk birds. There are now as many as […]
POLL: Should Poland’s Białowieża forest be protected?
Europe’s last primeval forest is facing what campaigners call its last stand as loggers prepare to start clear-cutting trees, following the dismissal of dozens of scientists and conservation experts opposed to the plan. Poland’s new far right government says logging is needed because more than 10% of spruce trees in the Unesco world heritage site […]
POLL: Should Australia do more to protect threatened species?
Nearly 50 new species of flora and fauna have been added without fanfare to the federal government’s list of threatened species, including nine that are critically endangered. Among the species to be added to the list under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act were the brush-tailed bettong (endangered), the three-toed snake-tooth skink (vulnerable), the […]