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…
Namibian community protects its rhinos from poaching but could lose them to mining
A community conservancy in Namibia says it plans to sue the country’s environment minister if he fails to act against a copper mine operating in an area exclusively reserved for…
Restoration turns pastures into wildlife haven in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest
CACHOEIRAS DE MACACU, Brazil — Gesturing across the still, green water reflecting the backdrop of forest-clad mountains, Nicholas Locke told of the time when this flourishing wetland was once a…
Harpy eagle’s return to Costa Rica means rewilding’s time has come (commentary)
Hollow eye sockets glared at me from the dark tropical leaf litter. Not expecting to be watched from below, I rested on my haunches, searching with the image recognition software…
In Kathmandu, when the falcon’s away, pigeons come out to play. And poop
KATHMANDU —They can be seen nesting in tight spaces between buildings, on window panes and rooftops across Kathmandu. Common pigeons (Columba livia) were once a beloved site in this city,…
Cheetah reintroduction in Malawi brings vultures back to the skies
Four species of critically endangered vulture have returned to a park in southern Malawi from which they disappeared more than 20 years ago, and their comeback is credited to the…
Yellowstone’s wolves defied extinction, but face new threats beyond park’s borders
In January 2022, I saw my first wild wolf. Even growing up in Idaho, a wolf sighting is rare, and I had never seen one. But from afar, I watched…
A helping hand for red-footed tortoises making a comeback in Argentina
Red-footed tortoises are so rarely seen in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina that they’re considered to be locally extinct. But now, the species is plodding its way toward a…
Bonobos torn from the wild make their return, with a helping hand
This March, the NGO Friends of Bonobos released 14 bonobos into the wild — only the second time ever a bonobo group has been reintroduced to their natural habitat. Their…
Cambodian project aims to revive flagging fish populations in Tonle Sap Lake
At a young age, Mekong giant catfish look the same as striped river catfish, their regular-size, widely consumed relatives. But as they mature, the giant catfish quickly eclipse their smaller…
Bare-faced curassows return to Argentina’s Iberá after 50-year absence
Biologist Sofía Zalazar wasn’t born yet the last time a bare-faced curassow was seen in the Iberá forests in Argentina. The bird began disappearing from the wild in the 1970s,…
How Andean Condors in Peru saved the California condor from extinction (commentary)
A few years ago, alone on the top of a mountain in Zion National Park, in Utah, USA, I had an almost mystical experience that immediately transported me to the…
Wildlife releases have a mixed record, and climate change complicates things
Today around 350 Mauritius fodies fly around the lowlands of Île Aux Aigrettes, a small island off the coast of Mauritius. Their flourishing flocks belie the predation and habitat destruction…
Thanks to the Yurok Tribe, condors will return to the Pacific Northwest
Next spring, California condors will soar in northern California for the first time in a century. Four young condors will be released in Redwood National and State Parks, reintroducing this…
What the Mauritius kestrel can teach us about wildlife reintroductions
They were once considered the most threatened bird in the world: with just four remaining individuals on the island in 1974, the Mauritius kestrel (Falco punctatus) seemed doomed to extinction.…
African wild dogs return to southern Malawi for the first time in 20 years
Beams of light cut through darkness as people stand by a row of transport crates, preparing to open them. When they pull up the side panels, three dogs with mottled…
Not all rescued animals should be released back to the wild (commentary)
The cage door opens. A monkey takes its first, tentative steps out. There’s a fleeting backwards look, then the animal takes off, back into the wild. Whether you call such…
Conservation actions see Iberian lynx claw back from brink of extinction
It’s midday in summer, the mercury climbing above 40° Celsius (104° Fahrenheit), and nature guide Nuno Roxo is leading us on a hike in Guadiana Valley National Park in Portugal.…
Big cat comeback: Jaguars prowl Argentina’s Iberá Wetlands after 70 years
It’s been 70 years since jaguars left their round, four-toed footprints in the ground of the Iberá Wetlands, a 1.3-million-hectare (3.2-million-acre) tract of swamps, waterways and islands in northeastern Argentina’s…
Hope and peace: Bison return to the Rosebud reservation
The bison circled four times around the holding pen, before the lead animals took them into the 3,400-hectare (8,500-acre) pasture, their new home on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in the…
As predators return to Sweden’s wild, ecotourism looks to change mindsets
GÄSTRIKLAND, Sweden — It’s just past 7 p.m. here in the woods along the eastern coast of Sweden. A handful of people are waiting, some of them for the past…
‘It’s a success’: Pangolins return to a region where they were once extinct
Pangolins have been locally extinct in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province for the last 30 or 40 years, experts say. But now, local conservationists are working to slowly reintroduce these shy,…
Feral horses gallop to the rescue of butterflies in distress
In the Czech Republic, horses have become the knights in shining armor. A study published in the Journal for Nature Conservation suggests that returning feral horses to grasslands in Podyjí…
A lifeline for the last leopards (commentary)
The Arabian Peninsula is home to one of the greatest — yet mostly unrecognized — species resurrection stories in recent times: the Arabian oryx. Left for dead after it disappeared…
Thousands of endangered snails raised in captivity returned to natural habitat in Bermuda
Thousands of captive-bred greater Bermuda land snails are heading home. Due mostly to predation by invasive species of carnivorous snails and flatworms, greater Bermuda land snails (Poecilozonites bermudensis) were driven…
Audio: The sounds of a rare New Zealand bird reintroduced to its native habitat
On today’s episode, we speak with Oliver Metcalf, lead author of a recent study that used bioacoustic recordings and machine learning to track birds in New Zealand after they’d been…
How do you assess if a reintroduced species is thriving? Listen for it
When you’re new to an area, it takes time to settle in. We all want a comfortable place to live, in a safe neighborhood, with convenient access to shops and…
Bringing the tapir back to Borneo
Forty thousand years ago — 28,000 years before the Neolithic Revolution saw hunter-gatherers settle down and farm, 36,000 before the first pyramids took shape, and 39,000 before the Norman conquest…
Restore wolves or slaughter deer to save Japanese forests?
From the peak of Mt. Rausu, a clear view of the Shiretoko Peninsula opens from the Okhotsk Sea on the west to the Pacific Ocean on the east. Below, a…
A ‘perfect policy storm’ cuts puma numbers by almost half near Jackson, Wyoming
Several decades of seemingly unrelated policies, ranging from increases in elk hunting to the reintroduction of wolves, have combined to cut a population of mountain lions in the western United…
