In this episode of Mongabay Sessions, Mongabay staff journalist Liz Kimbrough talks with renowned filmmaker Ken Burns, delving into his latest documentary, The American Buffalo. The American Buffalo narrates the…
“Manatees are found where the water is deep. Wherever they are found, water is plentiful. If this precious animal becomes extinct, we will run out of water,” says Eduardo Portilla,…
The meeting took place behind closed doors one September afternoon in San José del Guaviare, the capital of the department of Guaviare, in Colombia’s central-south region. Five men sat around…
Many people have never heard of the güiña, or the tigrillo, or the tirica. Unlike their higher-profile cousins, the jaguar and the puma, these elusive wildcats aren’t well-known. In fact,…
To fully understand animal behavior and conservation, scientists are finding they need to study humans' daily movements and activities. A paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution brings together a…
In February 2021, a period of national mourning was declared in Bolivia after 34 Andean condors were found dead. The images that circulated on social media showed a desolate scene…
Over the past 50 years, lion numbers have decreased by three-quarters. Only 20,000 to 40,000 of these majestic big cats survive in the wild today. A third of lion deaths…
The study of animals has always been a point of curiosity for many scientists across disciplines and has contributed to our understanding of the world. While many scientists in evolutionary…
JAKARTA — Most of the habitat of the Javan hawk-eagle is protected, but threats of forest degradation and isolation loom over the surviving population of Indonesia’s national bird, a new…
Wolves, with their widespread distribution from North America to Eurasia, are ecologically vital as keystone species, playing a critical role in maintaining the health and balance of ecosystems by regulating…
The sand cat is small, elusive and adapted to life in some of Earth’s most inhospitable deserts — that makes it hard to study and conserve, with lots of unknowns about its behaviors and populations across its range.
In 1997, ornithologist Robert S. Ridgely discovered a previously undocumented bird species, the Jocotoco Antpitta (Grallaria ridgelyi), in the tropical montane forests on the Amazonian slope of the Andes in…
There’s near-universal folklore told throughout Brazil of colorful fish that fall from the clouds during the rains to live in newly formed ponds. These stories arose to explain a hard-to-believe…
Eight years ago, a research team from the National Museums of Kenya stumbled upon an unfamiliar frog on the eastern flanks of Mount Kenya. The small green toad has now…
In a new, tersely-worded letter to Congress, President Biden uses a word that – just a few short years ago – was seemingly foreign to the lexicon of most Americans. Threatening…
While Indigenous peoples comprise just 6% of the global population, they manage or have tenure rights over at least 38 million km2 in some 87 countries. In many places Indigenous…
LA CEIBA, Colombia — Nine years ago, Delio de Jesús Suárez Gómez made a pact with wild bees. The arrangement didn’t come easy, given that neither party knew each other…
In 1996, Dutch biologist Marc van Roosmalen first described a small “piggy-like” porcupine near the Madeira River in the Brazilian Amazon. The creature had brown fur, yellow and black quills,…
This story is the first part of a Mongabay series titled “Climate Crisis in Cape Horn” that won the Inter American Press Association Award for Excellence in Journalism in the…
A team of scientists drives across northern Europe under the cloak of darkness in a white van full of carefully caged songbirds. They’re on their way from the Netherlands to…
Imagine you’re leading an expedition in the depths of a forest. You discover a species of frog that piques your interest. Conventional rules of taxonomy dictate that you capture the…
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…
When restoring or replanting vegetation in degraded ecosystems, it may be tempting to let nature run its course, and allow native herbivores to claim their fair share. Yet a new…
The Republic of the Congo is a hotspot for sharks and rays. However, scientists didn’t know how many of these species congregate along the coast until they asked the artisanal…
The Supreme Court in Panama ruled that the contract for the country’s largest copper mine is unconstitutional, requiring it to shut down. Minera Panamá, a subsidiary of the Canadian company…
JAKARTA — Researchers have credited a strong spirit of collaboration for the success of an expedition in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains that uncovered new sightings of a rare egg-laying mammal and…
The Sumatran rhino became a little safer from extinction over the Thanksgiving weekend. On Nov. 25, at around 4 a.m. local time, first-time mother Delilah gave birth to a healthy…
When a glacier melts, all it leaves in its wake is untouched ground. These craggy, lifeless rocks begin to feel sun and rain for the first time in millennia. They…
Citizen scientists are the main “collectors” of all recorded bird data, especially in the United States. More than 600,000 eBird experts and enthusiasts alike report on the colorful plumage and…
The makeshift road tears through the emerald canopy, splintering one of the Amazon’s most pristine corridors of rainforest. Along the edges of the road, running through the heart of the…