COLOMBO — Over the past two years, Daham Piyasena has lived through momentous times: the worst economic crisis in Sri Lanka’s history, which led to unprecedented public protests that forced…
COLOMBO — This past Aug. 17 would have been just another ordinary day for the elephants of Sri Lanka: feeding, drinking, resting and, for some, raiding nearby farms. But for…
CENTRAL ACEH, Indonesia — Mak Besan dropped a clutch of cayenne peppers picked from a neighbor’s land in Karang Ampar village into a white canvas bag, her head protected from…
Elephants are known to be “ecosystem engineers,” altering habitats to suit their own needs, but this sometimes comes at a cost to other species. Hedging, or stem snapping, is the…
TEBO, Indonesia — Electrified fences set up around farms are an emerging threat to the critically endangered Sumatran elephant, conservationists told Mongabay Indonesia following a series of deaths this year…
MADI, Nepal — Surya Prasad Paudel, a lean 42-year-old with an aquiline nose, sunken eyes and gray facial hair, stands waveringly in front of his mud house with the sunlight…
KATHMANDU — Asian elephants traverse vast distances, ingesting things they encounter as they retrace the ancient paths their ancestors followed. In doing so, they alter landscapes, create habitats, and earn…
In eastern Sierra Leone, straddling the border of Liberia, lies Gola Rainforest National Park, one of the last remaining intact tracts of the tropical Upper Guinean forests in West Africa.…
BLANTYRE — Police and wildlife department officials in Malawi have arrested two men suspected of having killed an elephant in Kasungu National Park in the country’s west. In July 2022,…
Ten years ago, says Mike Chase, the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area was one fluid contiguous elephant habitat. “An elephant could be in Botswana in the morning, midday in Zimbabwe…
In the more than 10 years since Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe signed a 2011 treaty to create the Kavango Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area – the world’s largest…
At almost 1.4 million hectares (3.4 million acres), a little smaller than the U.S. state of Connecticut, Kerinci Seblat National Park is the second-largest park in Indonesia, and a jewel…
ANURADHAPURA, Sri Lanka — “He is a king without a crown.” This is how wildlife lovers refer to the majestic elephant Agbo, named after a king from an ancient kingdom…
Opening doors may not seem that hard, but when you have a trunk instead of hands, things can get complicated. Researchers tested the problem-solving skills of wild elephants for the…
Home to iconic, threatened wildlife and extraordinary biodiversity, Indonesia’s Tesso Nilo National Park is continuing to crumble. Satellite data and imagery show deforestation jumped yet again in 2022 — with…
The state of Assam in northeastern India has one of the highest incidences of human-elephant conflict in the country, with more than 70 people and 80 elephants dying every year…
Protected areas are one of the oldest conservation tools in the box. Setting aside portions of land and water for conservation can offer species a chance of recovery while preserving…
HARAR, Ethiopia — In the hilly terrain of Babile Elephant Sanctuary in Ethiopia, Fetiya Ousman, a female wildlife ranger, is leading her team on a patrol. Dressed in a jungle-green…
PU TROM, Cambodia — The quiet life that Sambo leads today seems as distant from her past plight as the searing-hot streets she once trod as a tourist attraction in…
MONDULKIRI, Cambodia — In a rare win for conservationists and Cambodia’s Indigenous communities, the Ministry of Environment has opted to suspend a planned marble mining operation within a wildlife sanctuary…
The approach to the “village of elephants” in the Sangha Rainforest in the Central African Republic must be made in complete silence. Not even the faintest rustle of backpack on…
Asian elephants have long been described as forest “cleaners” by the Orang Asli people of Peninsular Malaysia who have lived alongside the giant mammals for tens of thousands of years.…
SAROLANGUN, Indonesia — On a night in early July, Solikin was awake chasing elephants past sunrise. The animals had entered the community’s oil palm fields and raised hell, mashing hundreds…
On May 17, an elephant was killed after a train hit it in the capital Dhaka’s Uttara area. The incident took place in the Court Bari area while two captive…
For the last couple of decades, Bangladesh has been taking on several projects with an aim to protect the wild Asian elephant (Elephas maximus indicus), which is critically endangered in…
Nestled within the lofty Cardamom Hills, which forms part of the Western Ghats UNESCO World Heritage Site, lies the picturesque town of Munnar in the southern Indian state of Kerala.…
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…
CHITWAN, Nepal — Wild male elephants in search of females to mate with are homing in on captive domestic elephants, in the process posing a threat to human settlements and…
On March 20, officials in Vietnam seized almost 7,000 kilograms (15,400 pounds) of elephant tusks at the port of Haiphong. This confirms the gradual return to normalcy in the illicit…
Previous studies have shown that Africa’s tropical forests store more carbon per hectare than Amazonian forests. But how they do so is still a puzzle. It turns out that elephants…
In contrast to their reputation, big plant eaters such as elephants that disturb forest and grassland vegetation could help curb climate change.
KATHMANDU — On the afternoon of Oct. 28, a wild male elephant attacked and killed a woman herding her sheep at a pasture in the town of Amlekhgunj, in the…
