Animals living on small islands are often thought to be more susceptible to extinction compared to those distributed across mainland land masses. Small population sizes, limited habitat availability, and genetic…
Parrots of the Amazona genus are among the most trafficked birds in Colombia. With their distinctive feathers, these parrots are relatively easy to identify by authorities after they have been…
KAFUE NATIONAL PARK, Zambia — At a bend in Zambia’s Kafue River, the bicolored waterberry trees resemble an avenue planted along a city boulevard. Their evergreen crowns stretch as far…
KAFUE NATIONAL PARK, Zambia — “Hippos ahead.” The warning comes from the lead canoe. Hippos are dangerous — highly territorial and fiercely protective of their young. They are capable of…
African Parks, the conservation NGO, has a 20-year agreement with Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW) to co-manage Kafue National Park. Running through the heart of the park…
A crocodile flips over on the river’s surface right in front of the canoe, then disappears into the white water frothing through the narrow channel. It’s too late to stop,…
Chisomo M’hango is a trainee field ecologist at Musekese Conservation (MC), a nonprofit whose research station is located deep inside the Musekese-Lumbeya section of Zambia’s Kafue National Park. M’hango and…
KAFUE, Zambia — “Three cattle on the left, 20 elephants on the right,” shouts the expedition leader from the bow seat of the first of five canoes snaking along a…
Many conservationists dedicated to protecting the endangered Andean cat have never seen one in the wild, with the species known to science by just a few photos until the late…
KAFUE NATIONAL PARK, Zambia – Biologist Mike Ross, balanced in a canoe beneath a star-filled sky in central Zambia, slaps the water with a net attached to a wooden pole…
Tyler Kartzinel likens protecting biodiversity to enhancing cellphone networks. His analogy is pretty straightforward: look for gaps in coverage, and then do what’s needed to fill them. “Engineers have figured…
A glut of social media videos featuring captive Asian small-clawed otters in the mid-2000s led to what wildlife trade experts term “the pet otter boom.” Demand for the species exploded,…
It might sound hyperbolic to say that finding even one female turtle can revive an entire species. However, nothing could be truer for the critically endangered Yangtze softshell turtle, a…
A giant anaconda, a vampire hedgehog, a dwarf squirrel, and a tiger cat were among the new species named by science in 2024. Found from the depths of the Pacific…
KATHMANDU — Researchers have discovered brown bears in a part of Nepal not previously known to host the species, prompting a call to protect this area as a bear “stronghold.”…
KATHMANDU — Scientists and government officials have embarked on the uphill task of coming up with a number, or even just a range, for the population of snow leopards in…
When Manuel Lopes-Lima set out to survey aquatic biodiversity on the Corubal River in 2022, he’d set his expectations very low. The river that straddles the West African nations of…
It’s hard to imagine the history that lies behind the cacao trees grown on agroforestry farms in the Amazon today. For a long time, people believed that cacao’s origins lay…
They might comprise close to 75% of all known animal species. But when it comes to the monitoring and protection of insects, global efforts have been inadequate. The numbers tell…
What do lakes tell us about life on the land surrounding it? When environmental DNA scientist Kristy Deiner and her team started thinking about this question, the answer seemed evident:…
After the first flower bloomed on the Earth, flowering plants evolved a staggering diversity and now make up about 90% of all plant life. Charles Darwin called this rapid domination…
The Negros fruit dove was described from a single specimen collected in the Philippines in 1953 — then never seen again by scientists. Now, thanks to advances in DNA sequencing,…
Shark conservation groups in Thailand are calling for greater marine protections and improved traceability in shark trade supply chains following a study that identified threatened shark species in products commonly…
Scientists named hundreds of new to science species this year, including an electric blue tarantula, two pygmy squids, a silent frog, and some thumb-sized chameleons. These newly uncovered creatures give…
Over the past 50 years, lion numbers have decreased by three-quarters. Only 20,000 to 40,000 of these majestic big cats survive in the wild today. A third of lion deaths…
With their camouflaged coats, impossibly long tails, and extraordinary tree-climbing skills, clouded leopards are evolutionary marvels. They’re beautifully adapted to a feline life in the trees. But what evolution hadn’t…
When they embarked upon an experiment to swab leaves at Kibale National Park in Uganda in June 2022, Christina Lynggaard, Jan Gogarten and Patrick Omeja had little to no expectations.…
From getting alerts about injured elephants to tracking ones that are straying too close to villages, the Mara Elephant Project has used the EarthRanger platform since 2019 to manage the…
A new study foresees a 20% increase in cases of viruses like dengue, Zika and chikungunya over the next 30 years due to climate change. Higher temperatures are already causing the diseases carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito to spread in cooler regions like southern Brazil and southern Europe.
SINGAPORE — A huge drone hums and hovers above the canopy of a tree. Just as one might start to think that the show is over, the action begins. Slowly,…
KATHMANDU — With the start of the monsoon season in Nepal in mid-June, rivers originating from the mountains and the hills of the country become swollen and reach the peak…
KATHMANDU — If you were a grumpy cat, you’d probably want to avoid company. And if you were the world’s grumpiest, as David Attenborough once described the elusive manul, what…
