Zambia lifts hunting ban on big cats
Lions in South Africa's Kruger National Park. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Nine months after Zambia lifted its general trophy hunting ban—including on elephants—the country has now lifted its ban…
South African Airways bans all wildlife trophies from flights
Wildlife trophy room. Photo by: Fabio Venni/Creative Commons 2.0. Trophy hunters may need to find another flight home, as South African Airlines (SAA) has announced a new ban on any…
Australia becomes first country to ban lion trophies
Young lion in Kruger National Park in South Africa. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Last month, Australia became the world's first country to ban the import or export of lion…
King of the jungle returns to Gabon after nearly 20 year absence
Male lion in Kruger National Park, South Africa. Most of the world's lions are now found in southern and eastern Africa. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. There's a new cat…
Videos: new film series highlights bringing Gorongosa back to life
Tracking lions, photographing bats, collecting insects, bringing elephants home: it's all part of a day's work in Gorongosa National Park. This vast wilderness in Mozambique—including savannah and montane rainforest—was ravaged…
Photos: slumbering lions win top photo prize
This photo of slumbering lions has won Michael 'Nick' Nichols the much-coveted Wildlife Photographer of the Year Title. Photo by: Michael 'Nick' Nichols / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2014.…
Zambia ends trophy hunting ban, elephants fair game
Wild cats will remain protected from hunting for now. After 20 months, Zambia has lifted its ban on hunting, allowing trophy hunters to target numerous species in the wildlife-rich country…
Four donors pledge $80 million for big cats
Four donors from around the world have pledged $80 million to cat conservation group, Panthera. The money will fund projects working to preserve tigers, lions, jaguars, cheetahs, leopards, snow leopards,…
Predator appreciation: how saving lions, tigers, and polar bears could rescue ourselves
Lioness feeding. Photo by: Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson. In the new book, In Predatory Light: Lions and Tigers and Polar Bears, authors Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Sy Montgomery, and John…
Over 75 percent of large predators declining
The world's top carnivores are in big trouble: this is the take-away message from a new review paper published today in Science. Looking at 31 large-bodied carnivore species (i.e those…
86 percent of big animals in the Sahara Desert are extinct or endangered
Bigger than all of Brazil, among the harshest ecosystems on Earth, and largely undeveloped, one would expect that the Sahara desert would be a haven for desert wildlife. One would…
Samburu’s lions: how the big cats could make a comeback in Kenya
Shivani Bhalla will be speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 12th, 2013. In 2009 conservationists estimated that less than 2,000 lions survive in Kenya,…
Lions rising: community conservation making a difference for Africa’s kings in Mozambique
Colleen Begg will be speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 12th, 2013. Everyone knows that tigers, pandas, and blue whales are threatened with extinction—but…
Protecting predators in the wildest landscape you’ve never heard of
A Ruaha male lion in his prime. Photo © : Sasja van Vechgel. The Serengeti, the Congo, the Okavango Delta: many of Africa's great wildernesses are household names, however on…
Scientists: lions need funding not fences
Fences are not the answer to the decline in Africa's lions, according to a new paper in Ecology Letters. The new research directly counters an earlier controversial study that argued…
Lions for sale: big game hunting combines with lion bone trade to threaten endangered cats
Koos Hermanus would rather not give names to the lions he breeds. So here, behind a 2.4-meter high electric fence, is 1R, a three-and-a-half-year-old male, who consumes 5kg of meat…
Male lions require dense vegetation for successful ambush hunting
Female lion with wildebeest kill in Tanzania. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. For a long time male lions were derided as the lazy ones in the pride, depending on females…
Forgotten lions: shedding light on the fate of lions in unprotected areas
Male lion in Zambia. Photo by: Stuart Pimm. African lions (Panthera leo) living outside of protected areas like national parks or reserves also happen to be studied much less than…
The end of wild Africa?: lions may need fences to survive
Lions hang out by a fence in Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Photo by: Luke Hunter. In order for dwindling lion populations to survive in Africa, large-scale fencing projects may…
Geneticists discover distinct lion group in squalid conditions
Behind bars and waiting for science: the power of genetic testing for the Addis Fifteen. Male and female Addis lions in the Addis Ababa Lion Zoo. Photo courtesy of: Klaus…
Three developing nations move to ban hunting to protect vanishing wildlife
African savannah elephants on the Chobe River in Botswana. From 2014 on, hunting will no longer be allowed in Botswana's public lands. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. Three developing countries have…
Lion population falls 68 percent in 50 years
Female lion with wildebeest kill in Tanzania. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. African lions, one of the most iconic species on the planet, are in rapid decline. According to a…
Africa’s great savannahs may be more endangered than the world’s rainforests
Grasslands in Kenya's Masai Mara. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Few of the world's ecosystems are more iconic than Africa's sprawling savannahs home to elephants, giraffes, rhinos, and the undisputed…
Wolves, mole rats, and nyala: the struggle to conserve Ethiopia’s highlands
Gaysay Grasslands in Bale Mountains National Park. Photo courtesy of the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS). There is a place in the world where wolves live almost entirely off mountain rodents,…
Illegal hunting threatens iconic animals across Africa’s great savannas, especially predators
Lion with a snare around its neck. Photo by: Frederike Otten. Courtesy of Panthera. Bushmeat hunting has become a grave concern for species in West and Central Africa, but a…
Picture of the day: the maned lioness
A maned lioness in Botswanna's Okavango Delta. Photo by: Deon de Villers. The title is not a typo. Sometimes lioness grow manes as rich and large as males, and there…
Elephant ancestors and Africa’s Bigfoot: new initiative works to preserve a continent’s wildest tales
Africa's Wildest Stories is a new initiative in Kenya to capture personal stories about the relationship of people to nature. Elephant Keeper Mishak Nzimbi (above) has been working at the…
King of the jungle: lions discovered in rainforests
Female lion peers through the thick foliage of a montane rainforest in Ethiopia. Photo by: Bruno D'Amicis/NABU. Calling the African lion (Panthera leo) the 'king of the jungle' is usually…
New campaign targets snares in effort to save world’s big cats
This six-month old Sumatran tiger cub was strung up in a snare for three days before it was rescued. However, it's paw had to be amputated. While the cub survived,…
Bushmeat trade driving illegal hunting in Zimbabwe park
Bushmeat hunting is one of the major threats to mammals in sub-Saharan Africa. Although widely discussed and recognized as an issues in Central and West Africa, a new study in…