Seventy southern white rhinos have successfully completed a journey from South Africa to Rwanda’s Akagera National Park. It’s the first international translocation from Platinum Rhino, a massive captive breeding operation…
CAPE TOWN — Siphe Mlawuli stands next to her e-bike outside a popular fast-food outlet in Table Bay, a Cape Town suburb. The sun has just set, giving the sky…
Earlier this year, the vulture conservation organization Vulpro hailed the return of Cape vultures to a farm in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, near Mountain Zebra National Park. That marked…
JOHANNESBURG — South Africa is a hub for the international pet trade, with thousands of animals exported each year. Many of these are exotic birds and mammals like parrots and…
As apex predators, lions (Panthera leo) roam the African savanna, and occasionally even the rainforests, as the only social big cats. A small, isolated population of Asiatic lions (Panthera leo…
A nasty wind rips across Cornell’s Kop one afternoon in October 2024, driving professor emeritus Timm Hoffman and his team to abandon the hilly study site a few clicks west…
CAPE TOWN — South Africa’s False Bay was once known as a global hotspot for great white sharks. But within the span of a few years, between 2015 and 2019,…
LANGEBAAN LAGOON, South Africa — Deon Warnick’s three chest freezers stood silently in his living room, lids open. Without any fish to keep frozen, he was using them as cupboard…
Sometimes words fall hopelessly short. This might explain the silences between the two botanists as their vehicle crunches over a gravelly Richtersveld moonscape, a desert that straddles the South African…
NAIROBI — Cheetahs are known to be selective in their feeding habits — “clean eaters” that only go after the prime parts of their kill, such as the liver. But…
Groundbreaking research in the late 1990s showed that Arctic-dwelling bowhead whales could live more than 150 or even 200 years — longer than any other mammal. New research, inspired by…
In July 2022, Anton Mzimba, the head ranger at Timbavati Private Nature Reserve in South Africa, was killed outside his home by two men, allegedly in connection with his rhino…
NIEUWOUDTVILLE, South Africa — It is the devil’s breath, this wind, blowing dry and mercilessly across a plain left threadbare by decades of overgrazing. With this wind at their backs,…
Between 2018 and 2020, users of Facebook groups in Brazil shared more than 2,000 records of wildlife poaching, amounting to 4,658 dead animals: everything from pacas and armadillos to capybaras…
Populations of the black-footed cat, a little-known feline in Southern Africa, have been declining for the last half a million years and exhibit very high degrees of inbreeding. This could…
CAPE TOWN — The sharp pop of an air gun echoes through the forested flanks of Constantia as volunteers herd a raiding troop of baboons away from the affluent Cape…
Why did the serval go to the petrochemical complex? For the refinery rodents, of course. These swift and slender wildcats that call the marshes and reedbeds of sub-Saharan Africa home…
High rates of inbreeding among hooded vultures in Ghana and South Africa spell trouble for their future, according to a newly published study. The study found that despite wide differences…
Simon Espley attended the pioneer stage of a brave and visionary project to translocate 2,000 farmed rhinos into the wild — 12% of the wild white rhino population. This is his story.
MPONDOLAND, South Africa — The day the prospectors came, so did the storm. It was 2007, and clouds barreled toward the coast, driven by a wind that churned up dust…
Inhabited termite mounds along the Buffels River in Namaqualand, South Africa, are an astounding 34,000 years old, according to a new study. Termites are a diverse group of insects that…
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…
What’s on the menu tonight? For one of the world’s largest species of monkeys, it’s likely to be antelope poop. This was among the findings from a study in which…
Seven grassroots environmental activists were awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize on April 29. Known as the “Green Nobel Prize,” the Goldman Prize honors activists from the six continental regions. This year’s winners…
The diminutive Karoo dwarf tortoise (Chersobius boulengeri) may play an outsized role as gardener in its arid South African habitat. Researchers gathered droppings of the miniature species — this endangered…
Scientists have uncovered gold in the dunes of South Africa's northwest coast: the De Winton's golden mole, a species not seen by scientists since 1936. Like moles in general, De…
Planting trees is widely recognized as a climate-change solution. But what if those trees go up in flames? Converting the grasslands of African savannas into new forests poses a fire…
In 2023, Mongabay is officially expanding its coverage of environmental and conservation news in Africa by launching a news bureau dedicated to producing our renowned and award-winning brand of journalism…
CAPE TOWN — The endangered African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) could be extinct in the wild in just over a decade. To protect the bird’s food supply and slow its population…
On Sept. 4, African Parks, a multinational nonprofit conservation organization, announced that it had purchased Platinum Rhino, John Hume’s controversial intensive rhino breeding operation, and intended to rewild the more…
STEENBERG’S COVE, South Africa — For more than 40 years, the sea has been Anthony Stofberg’s livelihood. Stofberg, 62, is a fisherman, just like his father, his grandfather and his…
MAKHASANENI, South Africa — In a village in the rolling hills of grassland, woodlands and scattered homesteads in South Africa’s picturesque KwaZulu-Natal province, a broil between traditional leaders and community…
