For rescued rhino calves in Nepal, return to the wild is a fraught option
CHITWAN — The chirping of birds is interrupted by the rustling of leaves and the sound of breaking twigs. It’s breakfast time at the office of the National Trust for…
Sagarmatha microbes may survive harsh conditions for decades
KATHMANDU — The South Col in the Sagarmatha (Mount Everest) region faces blasts of unrelenting winds that sweep away almost everything in their path, including snow. Located nearly 8,000 meters (26,000…
Nepal’s vultures, recovering from a poisoning crisis, fly into another
KATHMANDU — As dawn breaks over the forest in the Kawasoti area on the edge of Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, early risers can catch a glimpse of rare vultures roosting…
As Himalayas thaw, snow leopards scramble for habitat: Q&A with Bikram Shrestha
KATHMANDU — When researchers last year confirmed the presence of the manul, the “world’s grumpiest cat,” on the world’s highest mountain, they immediately looked at past records of the elusive…
Himalayan catfight looms as tigers, leopards venture into snow leopard land
KATHMANDU — A tiger sits quietly surrounded by trees, observing something in the distance. It then roars and darts toward its target: a leopard that jumps down from a tree.…
For tigers in Nepal, highways are a giant roadblock best avoided
KATHMANDU — It starts off like the premise for a joke: “Why did the tigers cross the road?” But for researchers and conservationists in Nepal, the spread of roads throughout…
Nepal’s community forest program misses the biodiversity for the trees
KATHMANDU — When NASA’s Earth Observatory published a post on its website earlier this year describing how Nepal had regenerated its forests between 1992 and 2016, it received a lot…
Mating season rings death knell for cheer pheasants in Nepal’s western Himalayas
KATHMANDU — One of the ways people living in the western Himalayas of India, Pakistan and Nepal know that the spring season has started is by listening to male cheer…
In Nepal, conservationists suspect link between canine distemper and human-leopard conflict
KATHMANDU — On Nov. 1 last year, a leopard dragged off an 8-year-old boy as he was playing just steps away from the cowshed where his grandmother was milking the…
Nepalis’ love of momos threatens endangered wild water buffaloes
KATHMANDU — A popular dish in Nepal, momos are small, bite-sized dumplings filled with spicy minced meat and wrapped in dough. Served piping hot, they are often accompanied by a…
‘Grumpiest cat’ leaves its calling card on the world’s highest mountain
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…
With climate change, Nepal’s leopards get a bigger range — and more problems
KATHMANDU — Climate change is likely to expand the habitat of leopards in the Nepal’s high mountain regions, potentially increasing conflict with humans and competition with snow leopards, a new…
Proximity to humans both boon and bane for Egyptian vultures in Nepal’s Pokhara
KATHMANDU — When residents of Pokhara Valley in western Nepal spot Egyptian vultures nesting on cliffs and trees, they sometimes misidentify them as crows and shoo them away. Sometimes they…
Rare case of rhino poaching jolts conservation community in Nepal
KATHMANDU — When residents of Nandapur village on the western fringes of Nepal’s Chitwan National Park rushed to the scene of a rhino death near the Narayani River on Jan.…
Bird strike warnings resurface amid probe into deadly Nepal plane crash
KATHMANDU — On the morning of Jan. 16, the day after Yeti Airlines Flight 691 crashed near Pokhara International Airport in Nepal, killing all 72 people on board, authorities at…
‘Sustainable livelihoods go a long way’: Q&A with pangolin expert Tulshi Suwal
KATHMANDU — When Tulshi Laxmi Suwal was a student in the zoology department at Tribhuvan University in Nepal, she looked through an encyclopedia in search of interesting animals for her…
The tiger in the snow: Cameras capture abundance of life in a Himalayan refuge
KATHMANDU — During his regular patrol in the forests of Dadeldhura district in Nepal’s westernmost tip in 2020, forester Bishnu Prasad Acharya heard something strange from a temple priest. “He…
For Nepal, 2022 was a roaring Year of the Tiger
KATHMANDU — The country received accolades and applause from all around the world for its success in conserving the endangered species. However, with the growing number of big cats, attacks…
Illegal orchid trade threatens Nepal’s ‘tigers of the plant world’
KATHMANDU – Thousands of pilgrims from Nepal and India visit a garden in Siraha in eastern Nepal on the first day of the Nepali New Year (around the second week…
Himalayan community takes initiative to help dogs, wildlife and itself
KATHMANDU — Pictures of enigmatic snow leopards roaming the scenic Annapurna area come to mind when outsiders think about carnivores and predators in the Himalayas. The cats often grab the…
Of Yetis and extinct turtles: Top wildlife discoveries in Nepal in 2022
KATHMANDU — Throughout 2022, Mongabay reported on important biodiversity-related scientific discoveries in Nepal. The stories, some of them republished by different media outlets in Nepal and abroad, brought the country’s…
Crafting Nepal’s conservation success: Q&A with Sharad Chandra Adhikary
KATHMANDU — The National Trust for Nature Conservation was set up in 1982 as a semi-governmental body to spearhead conservation activities in Nepal. Today, it manages some of the most…
‘Bizarre’ newly classified scorpionfly shines light on Nepal’s insect diversity
KATHMANDU– When German professor Jochen Martens and his associate W. Schawaller visited subtropical forests in Nepal in 1988, they collected samples of different insects found in eastern Nepal, including a “bizarre”…
New standard brings best practices to bear in Nepal’s red panda conservation
KATHMANDU — Conservationists in Nepal have introduced a new standard for efforts to protect the red panda, in the hope of translating successful initiatives in the country’s east to threatened…
In Nepal, officials defend detusking to reduce human-elephant conflict
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…
Hunting takes its toll on Himalaya’s blue sheep, favored prey of snow leopards
KATHMANDU — The Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve in western Nepal is known for its pristine high-altitude grasslands, and buzzes with helicopter traffic every October and November, at the onset of winter.…
In Nepal, a turtle that rose from the dead makes another grand entrance
KATHMANDU — In 2002, the black softshell turtle was declared extinct in the wild — not a difficult assessment to make, given that, back then, the only known population of…
Ahead of polls, Nepal’s political parties, voters take heed of climate impacts
SINDHUPALCHOWK — When Batuli Tamang goes to cast her vote during Nepal’s general elections, scheduled for Nov. 20, she will have only one thing in mind, she says: saving her…
Nepal’s wild yaks ‘need more conservation than research’: Q&A with Naresh Kusi
KATHMANDU – Wild yaks (Bos mutus) are believed to have once roamed the regions north of Nepal’s Himalayas. The iconic large bovine, considered the ancestor of the domesticated yak (Bos…
Another winter of discontent as Kathmandu braces for deadly air pollution
KATHMANDU — From early to mid-October, as Nepali Hindus celebrated the festivals of Dashain and Tihar, the skies over the Kathmandu Valley stayed a clear blue. To the north lay…
