Top camera trapping stories of 2018
Everyone loves camera trap photos. Remotely installed cameras triggered by motion or heat of a passing person or animal, have helped research projects document the occurrence of species or describe…
10 ways conservation tech shifted into auto in 2018
You can now speak into your mobile phone and have it produce written text. Then have Google translate your words into Japanese, or Hindi. In two seconds. These examples of…
Savanna fires, a boon to grazers, cast rhinos into a ‘food desert’
When it comes to protecting the critically endangered black rhinoceros, the focus tends to be on preventing the animals from being poached. But insidious threats like fire could be affecting…
Forest report points to opportunity for recovery
When it released its “State of the World’s Forests 2018” report in July, the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) seemed to have taken to heart that old corporate PR…
Absent for decades, zebras reintroduced to park in southern Tanzania
A herd of zebra now roams the southern highlands of Tanzania for the first time since the 1960s. Staff from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and its partners released 24…
Illegal wildlife trade’s ‘dirty money’ targeted by big banks
LONDON — A broad alliance of 30 global banks and financial institutions have pledged to stop wildlife trafficking by pressuring the pocketbooks of criminal syndicates. Tracking the flow of “dirty…
‘Better and better’: Thermal cameras turn up the heat on poachers
Nearly 2 million animals, mostly wildebeest and zebra, migrate roughly 800 kilometers (500 miles) each year between Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and Maasai Mara National Reserve across the border…
Species recognition shifts into auto with neural networks
People love camera traps. Placed in the middle of a forest or savanna, their motion sensors trigger a photo when an animal or person passes by. They allow us to…
This tiny camera aims to catch poachers — before they kill
If it wasn’t for the hidden camera, the poachers might have escaped undetected. A few minutes past midnight on Jan. 19, a camera positioned at an obscure location inside the…
Tanzania’s Maasai losing ground to tourism in the name of conservation, investigation finds
The government of Tanzania is casting aside Maasai communities to make way for lucrative high-end safari tourism and hunting, says the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank, in a report…
East Africa’s Albertine Rift needs protection now, scientists say
The equatorial ecosystems of the Albertine Rift are packed with plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth. Formed as tectonic plates in eastern Africa have slowly pulled away from…
The ups and downs of marine protected areas: Examining the evidence
In 1962, at the First World Conference of National Parks in Seattle, U.S., Carleton Ray, a marine biologist at the University of Virginia, pleaded the cause of setting aside “unmolested”…
Zanzibar’s red colobus monkeys much more numerous than thought
Zanzibar is home to many more individuals of an endemic monkey species than biologists previously believed, according to a recent study. “Scientists have known about the Zanzibar red colobus monkey…
Tanzania used as case study for quickly and cheaply identifying wildlife corridors in need of conservation
As local wildlife populations around the world are increasingly forced to rely on reserves hemmed in by agricultural land, urban areas, and other human developments, it’s more crucial than ever…
Jane Goodall interview: ‘The most important thing is sharing good news’
This week’s podcast featured a discussion between Mongabay’s founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler and Jane Goodall, the world’s most recognizable conservationist and one of this media outlet’s esteemed advisory…
Does community-based forest management work in the tropics?
Piles of wood lie in an open area behind the main office of the Arabari Reserve Forest in West Bengal, India. Long logs and cut planks of sal trees (Shorea…
Black rhinos in Tanzania now monitored via sensors implanted directly in their horns
In a first for the species, several black rhinos in Tanzania’s Mkomazi National Park have had small, networked sensors embedded directly in their horns in order to allow park rangers…
Identifying the world’s top biodiversity investment returns
We’ve all been there: you’re driving along a road lined with trees, when all of a sudden a squirrel or some such animal runs out in front of your vehicle.…
Leading ivory trade investigator slain in Tanzania
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania - One of Africa’s top ivory trade investigators has been shot dead by gunmen in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Wayne Lotter was the co-founder and President…
First ever photos of wild lion nursing leopard cub
Last Tuesday, a guest at Ndutu Lodge in Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Conservation Area observed something unusual: a five-year-old wild lioness nicknamed Nosikitok was nursing a leopard cub estimated to be only a few weeks old. Lions have…
The Chinese town at the epicenter of the global illegal ivory trade
When China announced at the end of 2016 that it would close its domestic ivory market within a year, the news was hailed as a “game changer” for African elephants,…
Creating corridors: researchers use GPS telemetry data to map elephants’ movements
Researchers compared historical elephant movement corridors to current corridors from GPS data to determine the impact of human encroachment on elephants’ movement patterns in northern Tanzania.
When it comes to rhino conservation, Asia and Africa can learn a lot from each other
On June 14, a routine scanning of baggage at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo Airport revealed a grim contraband. A Vietnamese citizen’s suitcase contained 28.7 kilograms (63.3 pounds) of poached rhino horns…
Women could be a key to great ape conservation in the Congo
Ongoing violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has taken a heavy toll on the country’s women, with sexual violence there gaining the DRC a label as the…
In Tanzania, a surge in sesame farming poses threat to natural forest
NANJIRINJI A, Tanzania – Patches of scorched earth line the road on the 100-mile drive from the town of Kilwa Masoko to Nanjirinji A village in southeastern Tanzania. A few…
Probing rural poachers in Africa: Why do they poach?
A new study published in Conservation and Society probes self-admitted poachers living around Ruaha National Park in Tanzania on the reasons — both objective and subjective — that drive them…
Notorious elephant poacher, ‘The Devil’, sentenced to 12 years in jail
On March 3, a Tanzanian court sentenced one of the country's most wanted elephant poachers to 12 years in prison. Boniface Matthew Mariango, nicknamed "The Devil" by law enforcement officials…
Newly discovered Tanzanian frog already facing extinction
You don’t have to travel far to discover a new species – just head to the natural history museum. At least that’s how Chris Barratt, a doctoral student at the…
African bush babies gain a new genus
Galagos have a reputation among scientists for being one of the more mysterious primates, in large part because they're so tough to study. Endearingly known as bush babies, they stick…
It’s World Pangolin Day!
It's time to celebrate World Pangolin Day -- again. Today, February 18, is dedicated to the armor-clad mammals that resemble giant pine cones. Some might know them as scaly anteaters that eat, well…
