Bolivia’s former ‘death road’ is now a haven for wildlife
In Bolivia, the infamous “Death Road” has become a haven for life. Once the only route north from La Paz, the narrow and treacherous old road to the Yungas claimed…
Analysis: Pesticides are creating a biodiversity crisis in Europe
Travelling by train from central London, it doesn’t take long before the city gives way to a patchwork of mostly agricultural fields. But one of these fields is special. The…
Photos: Meet the Indonesians on the front lines of human-elephant conflict in Sumatra
COT GIREK, Indonesia — Nestled between a vast palm oil plantation and the Sumatran rainforest is Alue Buloh, a hamlet in Cot Girek village, North Aceh district. To reach it,…
Overlooked and at risk, seagrass is habitat of choice for many small-scale fishers
JAKARTA — Seagrass meadows are the fishing grounds of choice for many households in four Indo-Pacific countries, according to a new study that calls for better-informed management of these often-overlooked…
Study highlights elusive Cameroonian gorillas, and the threats encircling them
Gunshots, grassland and a tiny population of critically endangered gorillas coexisting with nearby human populations in southwestern Cameroon: a new study analyzes a complex set of factors to help understand…
‘Chased from every side’: Sumatran elephants pinned down by forest loss
COT GIREK, Indonesia — Saleh Kadri, a young farmer from Leubok Pusaka village in North Aceh district, was on his way to his plantation when he spotted eight elephants on…
‘Birds are messengers’, says BirdLife’s Patricia Zurita
Next month BirdLife International, a global partnership of 115 organizations working to protect birds and their habitats, will mark its 100th anniversary by holding the BirdLife World Congress in London.…
Bangladesh struggles to protect the last of its last wild elephants
DHAKA, Bangladesh — In the early hours of July 19, a herd of wild elephants came down from the hills to a crop field located in Rangunia, in Bangladesh’s Chattogram…
Saving Sumatran elephants starts with counting them. Indonesia won’t say how many are left
COT GIREK, Indonesia — Junaidi, the leader of an elephant patrol team in this Sumatran village, has a daunting task. The large animals, with their forest habitat destroyed, often enter…
Jumbo task as Malawi moves 263 elephants to restock a degraded national park
LIWONDE NATIONAL PARK, Malawi — Early one July morning, a helicopter with wildlife officials on board flies above the forests of Malawi's Liwonde National Park in search of elephants. Within…
Hundreds of iconic Barbary macaques feared dead in Morocco forest fire
Morocco fire forces evacuation of 15 villages and sparks fears that hundreds of endangered Barbary macaques may have been killed.
Billions rely on wild species for food, energy and more: IPBES report
Some 50,000 wild species provide for many of the world’s people, according to a recent report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). But today, those…
Mongabay’s What-To-Watch list for August 2022
In July, Mongabay covered news about actions taken up by Indigenous communities in Brazil, reforestation efforts in the U.K., waste management in India, and other news from across the world.…
In Japanese waters, a newly described anemone lives on the back of a hermit crab
In deep waters off the coast of Japan, a hermit crab is wearing haute couture. On its shell is the new-to-science anemone species Stylobates calcifer, named after the fire demon…
As roads and railways threaten primates, Brazil is a global hotspot
Brazil should be the country of highest priority for measures to save primates from the threats posed by roads and railway lines, according to a study. It highlighted the Amazon…
Mozambique busts notorious rhino poacher
MAPUTO — Authorities in Mozambique have arrested two men for allegedly attempting to sell rhino horn in the country’s capital, Maputo. Hilario Lole, a spokesperson for the National Criminal Investigation…
Nepal was supposed to double its tiger population since 2010. It tripled it
KATHMANDU — The number of tigers in Nepal has nearly tripled over the past 12 years, officials announced July 29, on the occasion of International Tiger Day. The figure of…
For World Tiger Day, bold new commitments are needed to expand tiger ranges (commentary)
In 2010, in the Lunar Year of the Tiger, the governments of 13 Tiger Range Countries met in St Petersburg, Russia and agreed to work together to double global tiger…
Deforestation intensifies in northern Malaysia’s most important water catchment
Spanning more than 1,600 square kilometers (620 square miles), the Ulu Muda rainforest is one of the last large, continuous tracts of forest in the Malay Peninsula, and provides vital…
Chimps digging wells shows learned behavior that may help amid climate change
There are moments in researchers’ lives when they realize the significance of something they hadn’t paid much thought to in the past. For primatologist Catherine Hobaiter and her team, one…
Shade-grown coffee won’t support all birds, but adding a forest helps: Study
Organic, shade-grown, bird-friendly: coffee comes with a lot of labels these days, certifications that tell the consumer their beans were farmed in a way that supports the people who grow…
Deforestation in Borneo threatens one in four orangutans, study says
JAKARTA — Habitat for up to a quarter of the known population of Bornean orangutans will disappear across the island of Borneo under predicted patterns of deforestation over the next…
Beyond bored apes: Blockchain polarizes wildlife conservation community
How do you raise funds for wildlife conservation in the most 21st century of ways? Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. In the northeastern forests of South Africa, Wild Funds Tomorrow, a…
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…
Stingrays can ‘talk’ when they get riled up, new study suggests
In 2018, marine scientist Joni Pini-Fitzsimmons received an unusual stingray video from a colleague. It showed a mangrove whipray (Urogymnus granulatus) gliding over a reef in the Gili Islands of…
Tigers may avoid extinction, but we must aim higher (commentary)
Having spent 27 years as a wild cat scientist, I have been fortunate to run my fingers through the coarse fur of a 170 kg tiger while wrapping a GPS…
Monarch butterflies are officially endangered
The iconic monarch butterfly has been listed as Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a global authority on the conservation status of species. An endangered listing…
Wildlife ‘rehabbers’ wage herculean fight for a noble cause
Driving down a quiet street in Idaho Falls in the spring of 2021, I hadn’t yet noticed the wide gap between wildlife’s various needs and the slim ranks of wildlife…
White rhino conservation project attempts paradigm shift by including local community
TSHOLOTSHO, Zimbabwe – Two men crouch beside a pile of rhino dung, using their bare hands to break apart the drying lumps to search for the remnants of the animal’s…
Turtle DNA database traces illegal shell trade to poaching hotspots
A hawksbill turtle’s protective shell is in some ways its greatest weakness. Exquisitely patterned and thick enough to sculpt, hawksbill shells are the most popular type of tortoiseshell, a material…
