topic: Bushmeat

topic: Bushmeat

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Incentivizing conservation shows success against wildlife hunting in Cameroon
- Providing farming support to communities living near a wildlife reserve in Cameroon has been shown to lower rates of hunting, according to a three-year study.
- Thirty-five of the 64 hunters enrolled in the study near Dja Faunal Reserve were able to increase their income from fishing or cacao farming, the two main economic activities aside from hunting in the region.
- The participants spent more time working on their farms and less in the forest hunting with guns, an important indicator that they weren’t targeting “animals of conservation importance and primates in particular.”
- While the results of the experiment are promising, experts say it’s not a silver bullet and should be used alongside other solutions, including education, governance, and sustainable natural resource management.

Poverty and plantations: Nigerian reserve struggles against the odds
- Located in southern Nigeria, Oluwa Forest Reserve is supposed to be a bastion for the region’s wildlife – which includes critically endangered Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees.
- But the influx of thousands of settlers into the reserve is coming at the cost of its rainforests, with satellite data and imagery showing ongoing clearing into primary forest.
- Palm oil companies are also establishing industrial plantations in the reserve.
- Conservationists and officials warn that vulnerable wildlife populations may be wiped out if forest loss and bushmeat hunting continues at its current rate.

‘It’s a real mess’: Mining and deforestation threaten unparalleled DRC wildlife haven
- The Okapi Wildlife Reserve in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo protects unique biodiversity, including approximately one-fifth of the global okapi population, the country’s largest forest elephant and chimpanzee populations and 17 primate species, and it safeguards forest access for the Indigenous Mbuti and Efe peoples.
- Deforestation in the reserve is accelerating, according to data from Global Forest Watch.
- Artisanal and semi-industrial mining is a grave threat to the reserve, leading to deforestation and pollution of waterways, particularly in the south of the reserve along the Ituri River and the National Road 4.
- A disagreement over the boundaries of the reserve between park authorities and the mining cadastre complicates law enforcement and requires resolution at the ministerial level.

Study: Wild meat trade from Africa into Belgium a health and conservation risk
- Up to 4 metric tons of wild meat is illegally entering Europe through Brussels’ international airport alone every month, a new study says.
- The source for much of this meat is West and Central Africa, with some of the seized meat found to be from threatened or protected species such as tree pangolins and dwarf crocodiles.
- The study comes more than a decade after the same group of researchers found an estimated 5 metric tons of bushmeat entering via Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris weekly, suggesting enforcement since then hasn’t been effective.
- Experts are calling for better detection of wild meat trafficking and stricter enforcement of penalties against the trade in protected species, as well as more frequent checks of the legal trade to uncover illegal shipments.

In Nepal, Chepang take up the challenge to revive their cultural keystone tree
- In Nepal, the Chepang people have long relied on the chiuri tree (Diploknema butyracea or Indian butter tree) for timber, fuelwood and butter.
- According to folklore, the Chepang tribe, the chiuri tree and bats are all part of a three-pronged system of survival, as each helps the other two; that system — and the chiuri tree — has fallen to the wayside.
- Now, young Chepangs are trying to revive the chiuri tree and market the valuable fruits.

Survival and economics complicate the DRC’s bushmeat and wild animal trade
- Hunting for bushmeat can impact the populations of rare and threatened wildlife in forests around the world.
- In the Democratic Republic of Congo, subsistence hunting is often intertwined with the trade of bushmeat and in some cases live animals to sate the demand from larger markets, which can increase the pressure on wildlife populations.
- The trade of bushmeat provides one of the few sources of income for hunters, porters and traders, as well as a source of protein for families, in the town of Lodja, which sits close to forests that are home to unique species.
- Activists in Lodja and the DRC are working to save live animals from entering the illicit trade of endangered species and encourage alternative sources of income to the commercial trade of wild meat and animals.

Support rangers to protect wildlife & habitats for the future (commentary)
- The average ranger works almost 90 hours a week: over 60% have no access to clean drinking water on patrol or at outpost stations, and over 40% regularly lack overnight shelter when afield.
- Funding can support significant improvements in the working conditions of rangers, enabling them to work more effectively toward reducing the illegal wildlife trade and human-wildlife conflicts.
- The winner of the 2022 Tusk Wildlife Ranger Award shares his thoughts about the situation and how increased support is good for wildlife, people, and habitats in this new op-ed.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Shining a light on Sri Lanka’s little-studied pangolins: Q&A with Priyan Perera
- Sri Lanka’s small population of Indian pangolins has long been threatened by hunting for domestic bushmeat consumption, but conservationists have identified an emerging trend of the animals being captured for trafficking abroad.
- Efforts to protect the species here have failed to take off as a result of poor general awareness about the animal, persistent myths about eating its flesh, and a dearth of scientific studies into Sri Lanka’s pangolins.
- Priyan Perera, a globally recognized expert on the species, says he hopes to change that, starting by first filling in the knowledge gaps about the pangolins and their behavior, while also raising awareness in communities and schools to discourage hunting.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Perera talks about the importance of better understanding Sri Lanka’s Indian pangolins, incidents pointing to the nascent trafficking trend, and how to care for seized or injured pangolins.

Bonobos torn from the wild make their return, with a helping hand
- An NGO in the Democratic Republic of Congo has returned 14 bonobos into the wild — only the second time ever a bonobo group has been reintroduced to their natural habitat.
- Friends of Bonobos runs a bonobo sanctuary in the DRC where bonobos orphaned by illegal poaching are tended to and rehabilitated.
- The nonprofit released the first group of bonobos in the Ekolo ya Bonobo Community Reserve in 2009, and after more than a decade of preparation and several delays, the second batch was safely moved into the reserve in March.
- The Ekolo ya Bonobo Community Reserve was officially designated a protected area in 2019, and Friends of Bonobos plans to seek National Park status for the forest. This effort could help ensure the two groups remain safe in the wild.

Patrols work, but community-based conservation needs a rethink, study shows
- A recent study from Uganda’s Kibale National Park found that nine mammal species, including five monkey species, have grown in abundance over the decades, suggesting that conservation efforts are working.
- Patrolling appears to deter poachers from laying down traps, which often unintentionally ensnare the park’s threatened chimpanzees and other primate species.
- But the prosperity of neighboring communities and a better relationship between park managers and people didn’t translate into a reduction in illegal activities like poaching or firewood removal.
- “In the next 10 years, we need to come up with new ways of community engagement so that conservation plans remain a success,” first author Dipto Sarkar said.

Refuge of endangered ‘African unicorn’ threatened by mining, poaching, deforestation
- Okapi Wildlife Reserve in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) shelters some 470 mammal and bird species, including up to 20% of the world’s remaining endangered okapi (Okapia johnstoni), which are related to giraffes.
- While Okapi Wildlife Reserve has escaped much of the environmental destruction affecting surrounding areas, satellite data show deforestation has been increasing in the reserve in recent years.
- Satellite imagery shows the expansion of what appear to be gold mines in the latter half of 2021.
- Conservationists say illegal mining is attracting more people to the reserve, which in turn increases poaching and deforestation.

Deforestation threatens tree kangaroo habitat in Papua New Guinea
- A proposed conservation area in northwestern Papua New Guinea has experienced a substantial surge in deforestation-related alerts, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland.
- The still-unofficial Torricelli Mountain Range Conservation Area is home to critically endangered tree kangaroo species, along with a host of other biodiversity.
- In May 2021, communities voiced concern about road construction that was approaching the boundaries of the proposed conservation area and that the intended target may have been high-value timber species found within the region’s forests.
- Investment in local communities and the protection of the forests that these communities provide have led to an apparent rise in tree kangaroo populations, but logging and other potentially destructive land uses such as conversion to large-scale agriculture remain threats in the Torricellis and throughout Papua New Guinea.

Biosurveillance of markets and legal wildlife trade needed to curb pandemic risk: Experts
- Almost 90% of the 180 recognized RNA viruses that can harm humans are zoonotic in origin. But disease biosurveillance of the world’s wildlife markets and legal trade is largely absent, putting humanity at significant risk.
- The world needs a decentralized disease biosurveillance system, experts say, that would allow public health professionals and wildlife scientists in remote areas to test for pathogens year-round, at source, with modern mobile technologies in order to help facilitate a rapid response to emerging zoonotic disease outbreaks.
- Though conservation advocates have long argued for an end to the illegal wildlife trade (which does pose zoonotic disease risk), but the legal trade poses a much greater threat to human health, say experts.
- Governments around the world are calling for the World Health Organization to create a pandemic treaty. Wildlife groups are pushing for such an agreement to include greater at-source protections to prevent zoonotic spillover.

Domestic bushmeat consumption an “urgent” threat to migratory mammals, U.N. says
- A recent U.N. report has found that many migratory mammals are in grave danger of being hunted for meat for domestic consumption, which in many cases poses a greater risk to population numbers than international trade.
- There is also strong evidence that wild meat taking and consumption is linked to zoonotic diseases.
- The authors say that while wild meat consumption cannot be eliminated because it is an indispensable source of nutrition and income for rural communities, they call for improved national regulations and international cooperation to safeguard threatened species.

For Malagasy trapped in poverty, threatened lemurs and fossas are fair game
- Half of nearly 700 households surveyed in a recent study in Makira National Park in Madagascar reported eating lemur meat and a quarter had consumed fossa meat.
- The research conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society relied on indirect questioning and revealed unusually high levels of consumption of meat from the fossa, Madagascar’s top predator.
- Hunting pressure combined with shrinking habitats could lead to the local extinction of the indri, a critically endangered species and the largest living lemur, along with three other lemur species in the park.
- WCS’s current research will feed into a “behavior change campaign” to promote alternatives to hunting like poultry and fish farming, and harvesting of edible insects.

Bug bites: Edible insect production ramps up quickly in Madagascar
- In the last two years, two insect farming projects have taken off in Madagascar as a way to provide precious protein while alleviating pressure on lemurs and other wild animals hunted for bushmeat.
- One program, which promotes itself with a deck of playing cards, encourages rainforest residents in the northeast to farm a bacon-flavored native planthopper called sakondry.
- Another program focuses on indoor production of crickets in the capital city, Antananarivo.
- Both projects are on the cusp of expanding to other parts of the country.

Podcast: Lemur love and award-winning plant passion in Madagascar
- We’ve got recordings of indri lemurs and the architect of 11 new protected areas that aim to protect Madagascar’s rich biodiversity of plant life on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast.
- We’re joined by Jeannie Raharimampionana, a Malagasy botanist who has identified 80 priority areas for conservation of plant life in her country and has already turned 11 of those areas into officially decreed protected areas.
- We’re also joined by Valeria Torti, who uses bioacoustics to improve conservation of critically endangered indri lemurs in Madagascar’s Maromizaha forest. She plays for us a number of recordings of the primates’ songs.

Bushmeat hunting: The greatest threat to Africa’s wildlife?
- Protected area managers in many countries across Africa say that bushmeat hunting is the biggest threat they face.
- Bushmeat hunting is a complex issue that is closely linked to development and is influenced by a diverse range of factors that vary from place to place.
- Zoonotic diseases have become an issue of global concern amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with the bushmeat trade seen as a possible source of new infections.
- Despite its perceived threat to African wildlife, there’s not as much research being funded to look into the bushmeat trade as there is for higher-profile threats such as ivory and rhino horn poaching.

The Large-antlered muntjac — Southeast Asia’s mystery deer (Commentary)
- 12 species of muntjac, the so-called barking deer because of its unique auditory calls, are found only in Asia. The Large-antlered muntjac is Critically Endangered with members of its scant, rarely seen population inhabiting the rugged Annamites Range bordering the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Vietnam and Cambodia.
- One of the biggest dangers to muntjacs is snaring, a hunting method used widely across Indochina. No one knows how many tens or hundreds of thousands of snares clutter Southeast Asia. But rangers in one Cambodian national park found 27,714 snares in 2015 alone — 7 snares per square kilometer, or 17.5 per square mile.
- If muntjacs are to be preserved, greater public awareness of their plight is required. On Vietnam’s Dalat Plateau and in Lao’s Nakai–Nam Theun National Protected Area, conservation appears possible, and scientists hope to garner better population density estimates in relation to the snaring threat. Captive breeding may be needed.
- This story is the second in a series by biologist Joel Berger written in conjunction with colleagues in an effort to make seriously endangered animals far better known to the public. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Brazilian Amazon drained of millions of wild animals by criminal networks: Report
- A new 140-page report is shining a bright light on illegal wildlife trafficking in the Brazilian Amazon. The study finds that millions of birds, tropical fish, turtles, and mammals are being plucked from the wild and traded domestically or exported to the U.S, EU, China, the Middle East and elsewhere. Many are endangered.
- This illicit international trade is facilitated by weak laws, weak penalties, inadequate government record keeping, poor law enforcement — as well as widespread corruption, bribery, fraud, forgery, money laundering and smuggling.
- While some animals are seized, and some low-level smugglers are caught, the organizers of this global criminal enterprise are rarely brought to justice.
- The report notes that this trafficking crisis needs urgent action, as the trade not only harms wildlife, but also decimates ecosystems and puts public health at risk. The researchers point out that COVID-19 likely was transmitted to humans by trafficked animals and that addressing the Brazilian Amazon wildlife trade could prevent the next pandemic.

One-two punch of drought, pandemic hits Madagascar’s poor and its wildlife
- Because of the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, for the first time in years poverty is rising in Madagascar, already one of the poorest countries in the world.
- Near Tsimanampesotse National Park in the southwest of the country, the loss of tourists has coincided with a disastrously dry rainy season, and restrictions associated with the pandemic are adding to rural distress; an estimated half a million people will need food aid in the coming months.
- Erratic rainfall patterns and food scarcity don’t just affect humans but also the lemurs living in the park, according to Lemur Love, a nonprofit that works in Tsimanampesotse National Park.
- The hunger crisis created by the drought and compounded by the pandemic could force people to lean even more heavily on nature; to impinge on forests and consume more wild meat to survive.

It’s time to implement solutions that make the bushmeat trade unnecessary (commentary)
- Since the coronavirus emerged, there has been public outcry demanding the closure of wildlife markets that seem likely to have caused the global health crisis.
- So far, though, the highly destructive and ongoing mass trade of wildlife by bushmeat hunters in rural communities has stayed largely outside of the debate.
- There is an opportunity now to address the health and environmental issues the bushmeat trade presents, and to put forward solutions that will relegate it to the history file.
- This article is a commentary and does not necessarily reflect the views of Mongabay.

Young Nigerian researcher goes to bat against forest fires
- The discovery in 2016 of a rare bat never before seen in Nigeria sparked a campaign to protect its habitat from the threat of forest fires, typically started by farmers clearing land or hunters dropping lit cigarettes in the vegetation.
- Through their Small Mammal Conservation Organization (SMACON) and its Zero Fire Campaign, biologists Iroro Tanshi and Benneth Obitte worked with local communities around the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary to end the burning and educate on bat conservation.
- No fires were recorded in the region in the past three years, except for a single incident last month, as the campaign continues to instill “the consciousness of how big a deal this is,” Tanshi says.
- In recognition of her work and dedication, Tanshi was named among the winners of this year’s Future for Nature Foundation’s awards for young conservationists; she says the prize money will go toward protection and further studies of the short-tailed roundleaf bat.

Will the next coronavirus come from Amazonia? Deforestation and the risk of infectious diseases (commentary)
- Many “new” human diseases originate from pathogens transferred from wild animals, as occurred with the COVID-19 coronavirus. Amazonia contains a vast number of animal species and their associated pathogens with the potential to be transferred to humans.
- Deforestation both brings humans into close proximity to wildlife and is associated with consumption of bushmeat from hunted animals.
- Amazonian deforestation is being promoted by the governments of Brazil and other countries both through actions that encourage clearing and by lack of actions to halt forest loss. The potential for releasing “new” diseases adds one more impact that should make these governments rethink their policies.
- The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

As pangolin trade heats up, Nigeria urged to do more to crack down
- Authorities seized 113 tonnes of pangolin scales originating in Nigeria between 2016 and 2019, more than half of global seizures.
- Enforcement and prosecution of laws against wildlife trafficking remains weak, say experts, who emphasize the need to treat the matter as a transnational crime rather than as a conservation issue.
- Training of Nigerian officials and exchanges with their customs counterparts in destination countries including China and Vietnam are expected to improve intelligence sharing and curb trafficking.

Inside the fight to save the Niger Delta red colobus
- The Niger Delta red colobus (Piliocolobus epieni) is a critically endangered monkey that numbers as few as 500 in the wild, confined to a small patch of marshy forest in Nigeria’s Bayelsa state.
- Conservationists hoping to protect the species’ habitat by establishing it as a national park have been thwarted by the dire security situation in the region, which is home to armed militant groups.
- So they’ve turned to community-based conservation, engaging local residents in efforts to safeguard the forest and take on loggers and bushmeat hunters.

Poaching and the problem with conservation in Africa (commentary)
- Poaching is a complex topic that cannot be solved by myopic, top-down enforcement approaches. Crime syndicates may be fuelling the poaching of elephant and rhino but they are not the source of the problem. Rather than treat the symptoms by spending millions on weapons and anti-poaching forces, which experience has repeatedly shown does not stop poaching, there is a need to understand the underlying causes of the poaching problem if it is to be solved.
- Across Africa, state-led anti-poaching forces, no matter how well funded and equipped, have been unable to curtail the high levels of poaching currently observed.
- Devolving power and benefits to local communities will enable local communities to acquire full responsibility for anti-poaching operations, which they are much better positioned to do than external agencies who do not have the social networks and local knowledge needed to effectively perform oversight functions in the local area. As witnessed in the Luangwa Valley and Namibian conservancies, there is every likelihood that there will be a significant decline in poaching once community conservation is properly implemented.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Habitat loss, climate change make for an uncertain cricket harvest in Uganda
- Bush crickets are an important source of food – and income – in Uganda.
- Loss of forest and wetland habitat, as well as intensified harvesting, may lead to overexploitation.
- Entomologists at Makerere University are studying techniques to farm the insects.

Action plan for red colobus
- Across Africa, red colobus monkeys (Piliocolobus spp.) are threatened by hunting and loss of forest habitat.
- The presence of red colobus monkeys, whose range overlaps with that of three-quarters of other African primates, is a strong indicator of healthy forests.
- The Red Colobus Action Plan aims to strengthen conservation by building capacity, coordinating research, and raising the profile of these leaf-eating monkeys.

Illegal hunting a greater threat to wildlife than forest degradation
- In a recent study, researchers used camera-trapping records to show that illegal hunting may be a bigger threat mammals and ground-dwelling birds than forest degradation in Southeast Asia.
- They chose Borneo and the Annamite Mountains on the Southeast Asian mainland, two rainforest study sites that have similar habitats.
- While widespread logging has degraded many forests in Borneo, the island has faced less hunting.
- By contrast, the Annamites have experienced exceedingly high illegal hunting, but its forests are structurally more intact.

Scientists rediscover mammalian oddity in remote Vietnam
- Last seen in 1990, researchers have found a population of silver-backed chevrotains, a species of mouse-deer, surviving in Vietnam.
- This lost species is threatened by hunting, snaring and habitat destruction, and scientists don’t yet know how many survive.
- Mongabay columnist Jeremy Hance travels to Vietnam to attempt to see the animal himself and learn about its chances for a future.

Bonobo conservation stymied by deforestation, human rights abuses
- The bonobo is a relative of the chimpanzee, and is found only in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) south of the Congo River. They are endangered, with habitat loss and the bushmeat trade their primary threats. The Sankuru Nature Reserve is the DRC’s largest nature reserve that is focused on bonobo conservation. However, deforestation rates have only increased in Sankuru since it was created in 2007. Meanwhile nearby Lomami National Park is experiencing almost no deforestation.
- Researchers attribute the disparity in deforestation rates between Sankuru Nature Reserve and Lomami National Park to the lack of human settlements and clearer managerial strategy in the latter. They claim that Sankuru lacked buy-in from the local communities, and that conflicting land claims made conservation efforts more difficult to achieve.
- However, there may be a dark side to Lomami’s success. Sources claim that the military, which is tasked with protecting DRC’s national parks, have engaged in torture of people suspected of poaching. There are also reports that a community within Lomami was displaced without proper consultation or a suitable alternative location.
- Researchers say that to ensure effective engagement, indigenous forest-dwelling communities should be granted proper security of tenure over their lands, and community-managed forests should be set up and funded around the perimeter of the park.

Legal and illegal trade negatively impacting survival and wellbeing of Africa’s wildlife: Report
- Released last week by the London-based NGO World Animal Protection to coincide with World Animal Day, the report looks at the “Big 5” and “Little 5” most-in-demand species and how trade in those animals impacts their wellbeing and conservation status.
- Between 2011 and 2015, some 1.2 million animal skins from the “Big 5” African wildlife species identified in the report as being most in-demand — the Nile crocodile, the Cape fur seal, Hartmann’s mountain zebra, the African elephant, and the common hippo — were legally sold.
- More than 1.5 million live animals belonging to one of the “Little 5” African species — the ball python, the African grey parrot, the emperor scorpion, the leopard tortoise, and the savannah monitor lizard — were exported for the exotic pet trade between 2011 and 2015, the report finds.

Nigeria finds itself at the heart of the illegal pangolin trade
- Pangolins have long been hunted for food and traditional medicine. They are traded openly in bushmeat markets in Nigeria and neighboring Cameroon.
- Strong demand from Asia has attracted organized criminal syndicates to set up trafficking networks in Nigeria, and the illegal trade in pangolin parts has gone deeper underground.
- Hunters and traders tell Mongabay that the impact of increased trafficking on pangolin populations is becoming clear as they are increasingly difficult to find in the forest.
- Chinese buyers will pay anywhere between $3 and $20 for a pangolin — a relative fortune for local bushmeat traders. Traffickers can then get as much as $250 for the scales from one pangolin in markets in Asia.

Agriculture, mining, hunting push critically endangered gorillas to the brink
- Maiko National Park is one of the most logistically challenging parks in the DRC and one of the most biodiverse. It is one of just two national parks in the world known to contain Grauer’s gorilla, a highly endangered and poorly understood eastern gorilla subspecies, and is also home to the endemic okapi and Congo peafowl, as well as forest elephants, leopards, chimpanzees, and giant pangolins.
- The most major threat to gorillas and other wildlife in Maiko is the bushmeat trade, but this is significantly exacerbated by another threat: artisanal mining. The Second Congo War coincided with a demand spike for a mineral called coltan that forms an essential component of all phones, computers, solar panels, and other electronics.
- Outside of the park, however, there is another threat to wildlife: increasing pressure from rising populations. As villages expand, they require more resources and begin to cut into primary forest to make way for subsistence crops. Satellite imagery show that trees are being cut down near Maiko. As the population expands, such habitat degradation will edge closer to the park itself—bringing even more pressure from the bushmeat trade.
- Villages can be a major threat to wildlife, but they also serve as essential allies to conservation work in the DRC. NGOs working to protect wildlife near Maiko are working closely with local communities to help achieve local buy-in and ensure the long-term sustainable development of the region.

Eat the insects, spare the lemurs
- To solve the twin challenges of malnutrition and biodiversity loss in Madagascar, new efforts are promoting edible insects as a way to take pressure off wildlife that people hunt for meat when food is scarce.
- Insects are widely eaten in Madagascar. They are also incredibly nutritious and one of the “greenest” forms of animal proteins in terms of their land, water and food requirements and their greenhouse gas emissions.
- One program is testing the farming of sakondry, a little-known hopping insect that tastes a lot like bacon. Another is setting up a network of cricket farms.
- Other attempts to reduce reliance on forest protein include improving chicken husbandry in rural areas.

Documentary seeks to tip the scales against illegal pangolin trafficking
- New film aims to raise awareness and strengthen protection and conservation of pangolins.
- Hunting and trafficking of these animals in Africa has sharply intensified to meet demand from Asia in recent years.
- Pangolins have historically been used for traditional medicine, decoration and gift-giving across Africa.

Logging road construction has surged in the Congo Basin since 2003
- Logging road networks have expanded widely in the Congo Basin since 2003, according to a new study.
- The authors calculated that the length of logging roads doubled within concessions and rose by 40 percent outside of concessions in that time period, growing by 87,000 kilometers (54,000 miles).
- Combined with rising deforestation in the region since 2000, the increase in roads is concerning because road building is often followed by a pulse of settlement leading to deforestation, hunting and mining in forest ecosystems.

Primates lose ground to surging commodity production in their habitats
- “Forest risk” commodities, such as beef, palm oil, and fossil fuels, led to a significant proportion of the 1.8 million square kilometers (695,000 square miles) of forest that was cleared between 2001 and 2017 — an area almost the size of Mexico.
- A previous study found that 60 percent of primates face extinction and 75 percent of species’ numbers are declining.
- The authors say that addressing the loss of primate habitat due to the production of commodities is possible, though it will require a global effort to “green” the international trade in these commodities.

Out on a limb: Unlikely collaboration boosts orangutans in Borneo
- Logging and hunting have decimated a population of Bornean orangutans in Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park in Indonesia.
- Help has recently come from a pair of unlikely allies: an animal welfare group and a human health care nonprofit.
- Cross-disciplinary collaboration to meet the needs of ecosystems and humans is becoming an important tool for overcoming seemingly intractable obstacles in conservation.

What is magic without ape parts? Inside the illicit trade devastating Nigeria’s apes
- Beliefs regarding the spiritual powers of apes drive a thriving trade in ape body parts in Nigeria and beyond.
- In many cultures within Nigeria, chimpanzee and gorilla parts are believed to provide protection from evil spirits and curses, or allow communication with ancestors.
- Due to a lack of data, the trade in ape body parts is sometimes viewed as simply a by-product of the much larger trade in bushmeat. Mongabay’s reporting suggests that the body part trade is, in its own right, a complex, well-organized and far more lucrative business.

Altered forests threaten sustainability of subsistence hunting
- In a commentary, two conservation scientists say that changes to the forests of Central and South America may mean that subsistence hunting there is no longer sustainable.
- Habitat loss and commercial hunting have put increasing pressure on species, leading to the loss of both biodiversity and a critical source of protein for these communities.
- The authors suggest that allowing the hunting of only certain species, strengthening parks and reserves, and helping communities find alternative livelihoods and sources of food could help address the problem, though they acknowledge the difficult nature of these solutions.

Conservation groups concerned as WHO recognizes traditional Chinese medicine
- The World Health Organization (WHO) will include traditional Chinese medicine in the revision of its influential International Classification of Diseases for the first time.
- The move concerns wildlife scientists and conservationists who say the WHO’s formal backing of traditional Chinese medicine could legitimize the hunting of wild animals for their parts, which are used in some remedies and treatments.
- The WHO has responded by saying that the inclusion of the practice in the volume doesn’t imply that the organization condones the contravention of international law aimed at protecting species like rhinos and tigers.

The health of penguin chicks points scientists to changes in the ocean
- A recent closure of commercial fishing around South Africa’s Robben Island gave scientists the chance to understand how fluctuations in prey fish populations affect endangered African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) absent pressure from humans.
- The researchers found that the more fish were available, the better the condition of the penguin chicks that rely on their parents for food.
- This link between prey abundance in the sea and the condition of penguin chicks on land could serve as an indicator of changes in the ecosystem.

Public education could curb bushmeat demand in Laos, study finds
- A recent survey of markets in Laos found that the demand for bushmeat in urban areas was likely more than wildlife populations could bear.
- The enforcement of Laos’s laws controlling the wildlife trade appeared to do little to keep vendors from selling bushmeat, but fines did appear to potentially keep consumers from buying bushmeat.
- The researchers also found that consumers could be turned off of buying bushmeat when they learned of specific links between species and diseases.

Massive pangolin seizure in Borneo smuggling operation bust
- A team of police and wildlife officials in the Malaysian state of Sabah seized nearly 30 metric tons (33 tons) of pangolins on Feb. 7.
- The raids on a factory in the state capital, Kota Kinabalu, and a warehouse in a village outside the city revealed a “smuggling syndicate,” which police believe has been operating for seven years.
- Sabah has become a waypoint for the trafficking of scales from pangolins in Africa to Asia.
- In this case, however, a man arrested in the raid told police that he had purchased the pangolins from local hunters in Malaysian Borneo.

To tackle great ape trafficking, follow the money, report says
- Critically endangered great apes in Africa and Asia are hunted to be sold as pets, for bushmeat, or for their body parts.
- A recent study of the financial aspect of the trade in great apes reveals a complex system of multi-layered supply chains, embedded corruption, and soaring profits for those at the very top of these illicit networks.
- Money connected to ape trafficking runs through the global financial system, often across multiple jurisdictions, opening a potential avenue for legal sanctions against traders.

Saving the forests of the Congo Basin: Q&A with author Meindert Brouwer
- Central African Forests Forever, first published in 2017, takes readers to the heart of the continent, introducing them to the people and wildlife of this region.
- Its author, independent communications consultant Meindert Brouwer, says the book also functions as a tool for sharing information about efforts to address poverty and environmental issues in the region.
- Mongabay spoke with Brouwer to learn more about his motivations and the reception of his work in Central Africa.

Community-based conservation offers hope for Amazon’s giant South American turtle
- Rural communities began protecting the threatened giant South American turtle (Podocnemis expansa) along a 1,500-kilometer (932-mile) stretch of the remote Juruá River in Brazil’s Amazonas state back in 1977 – becoming the largest community-based conservation management initiative ever conducted in the Brazilian Amazon.
- A new study shows that these community stewards – who protect turtle nests and receive payment only in food baskets – have had incredible success not only in preserving endangered turtle species, but also in conserving riverine invertebrate and vertebrate species, including migratory birds, large catfish, caiman, river dolphins and manatees.
- Today, the Middle Juruá River community-protected beaches are “true islands of biodiversity, while other unprotected beaches are inhabited by few species. They are empty of life,” say study authors. On the protected beaches, turtle egg predation is a mere 2 percent. On unprotected beaches on the same river, predation rates are as high as 99 percent.
- The study also helps debunk a Brazilian and international policy that proposed the eviction of local traditional communities from newly instituted conservation units because they would be detrimental to conservation goals. Instead, researchers agree, traditional communities should be allowed to keep their homes and recruited as environmental stewards.

‘Not all hope is lost’ as outlook for mountain gorillas brightens
- The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) changed the status of mountain gorillas from Critically Endangered to Endangered today.
- The new assessment cites the subspecies’ growing numbers, now at around 1,000 individuals, and the conservation efforts on its behalf.
- Scientists say that, while this is an important milestone, mountain gorillas’ survival depends on continued conservation.

Int’l protections not stopping pangolin overexploitation in Cameroon
- A recent report indicates that the 2016 listing of pangolins under CITES Appendix I, outlawing their international trade, is not translating into protections for the anteater-like animal at the local level in Central Africa.
- The study used data gathered from an investigation in Cameroon.
- Pangolins are considered the world’s “most illegally traded wild mammal” by the IUCN, and scientific research in 2017 found that between 420,000 and 2.71 million pangolins are hunted from Central African forests each year.

Logging roads drive loss of intact forest in FSC-certified logging concessions
- Logging roads in Central Africa cause greater loss of intact forest landscapes, or IFLs, on certified timber concessions compared to non-certified concessions, an analysis shows.
- Certified timber companies typically build more robust road networks that are more apt to show up on satellite imagery than non-certified companies.
- The findings highlight an apparent contradiction between certification for logging and the protection of IFLs, leading some critics to argue that IFL protection should not be part of the Forest Stewardship Council’s standards.

Hunters are wiping out hornbills in Ghana’s forests
- According to a new study, Ghana is losing hornbill species to “uncontrolled” hunting, mostly for meat, from its forested parks and reserves.
- The researchers found that the five largest species of hornbills in the Bia Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, have disappeared in recent decades.
- The authors of the paper suggest that increased enforcement will help protect threatened hornbills, as well as other wildlife species, in areas under intense pressure from humans.

Venezuela’s hungry hunt wildlife, zoo animals, as economic crisis grows
- Venezuela is suffering a disastrous economic crisis. With inflation expected to hit 13,000 percent in 2018, there has been a collapse of agricultural productivity, commercial transportation and other services, which has resulted in severe food shortages. As people starve, they are increasingly hunting wildlife, and sometimes zoo animals.
- Reports from the nation’s zoos say that animals are emaciated, with keepers sometimes forced to feed one form of wildlife to another, just to keep some animals alive. There have also been reports of mammals and birds being stolen from zoo collections. Zoos have reached out to Venezuelans, seeking donations to help feed their wild animals.
- The economic crisis makes scientific data gathering difficult, but a significant uptick in the harvesting of Guiana dolphin, known locally as tonina, has been observed. The dolphin is protected from commercial trade under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
- The grisly remains of hunted pink flamingos have been found repeatedly on Lake Maracaibo. Also within the estuary, there has also been a rise in the harvesting of sea turtle species, including the vulnerable leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea), and the critically endangered hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata).

Pangolins on the brink as Africa-China trafficking persists unabated
- Pangolins are the most trafficked mammal in the world, with more than a million snatched from the wild in the past decade, according to IUCN estimates. The four Asian species have been hunted nearly to extinction, while the four African species are being poached in record numbers.
- The illegal trade largely goes to China and other East Asian nations, where pangolin meat is an expensive delicacy served to flaunt wealth and influence. Pangolin is also a preferred ingredient in traditional medicine in Asia and Africa. Traditional healers in Sierra Leone use pangolin to treat 59 medical conditions, though there is no evidence of efficacy.
- In 2016, pangolins were given the highest level of protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a multilateral treaty signed by 183 nations. But laws and enforcement in African nations, along illegal trade routes, and in Asia continue to be weak, with conservationists working hard to strengthen them.
- Pangolins don’t thrive in captivity, but the Tikki Hywood Foundation in Zimbabwe and Save Vietnam’s Wildlife have succeeded in rescuing confiscated pangolins and restoring them to the wild. Six U.S. zoos are trying to raise pangolins as part of the controversial Pangolin Consortium project — only 29 of 45 imported individuals remain alive.

More gorillas and chimpanzees living in Central Africa’s forests than thought
- A study led by WCS researchers pulled together wildlife survey data collected between 2003 and 2013 at 59 sites in five countries across western Central Africa.
- They then developed mathematical models to understand where the highest densities of gorillas and chimpanzees are and why, as well as broader trends in the populations.
- They found that more than 361,000 western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and almost 129,000 central chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) inhabit these forests — about 30 percent more gorillas and 10 percent more chimpanzees than previously estimated.
- The team’s analyses also demonstrate that western lowland gorilla numbers are slipping by 2.7 percent a year.

Madagascar: Conservation official arrested for killing 11 endangered lemurs
- Two weeks ago, the bodies of 11 critically endangered lemurs were discovered in the Zahamena Ankeniheny Corridor protected area in eastern Madagascar.
- The lemurs were allegedly killed by one of the local officials charged with protecting them, to the dismay of conservation leaders.
- The alleged poacher was arrested on Feb. 27, and this week the police set out to arrest his suspected accomplices.
- The Madagascar government reacted to the poaching incident at the highest level, including pledges by the prime minister and minister of the environment to crack down on poaching.

Crowdsourcing the fight against poaching, with the help of remote cameras
- A U.S. non-profit and a cadre of volunteers have teamed up with reserves in South Africa and Indonesia to combat wildlife poaching through a series of connected camera traps.
- The group’s monitoring system, wpsWatch, can transmit visual, infrared, and thermal camera images as well as data from radar, motion detectors, and other field devices.
- The volunteers monitor image feeds while rangers sleep and have become an effective part of the team, which has detected roughly 180 intrusions into the reserves, including rhino and bushmeat poachers.

Critically endangered monkeys found in Ghana forest slated for mining
- Researchers were surprised to discover white-naped mangabeys (Cercocebus lunulatus) while reviewing camera trap footage captured in Ghana’s Atewa mountain range.
- The white-naped mangabey has declined by more than 50 percent in less than three decades and is listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN. Habitat loss and hunting are its major threats. The camera trap footage is the first record of the species in eastern Ghana.
- Deposits of bauxite, from which aluminum is produced, underlie Atewa’s forests. The Ghanaian government is reportedly gearing up to develop mining operations and associated infrastructure for bauxite extraction, refinement and export.
- Conservation organizations and other stakeholders are urging the government to cease its plans for mining and more effectively protect Atewa by turning the region into a national park.

U.S. zoos learn how to keep captive pangolins alive, helping wild ones
- The Pangolin Consortium, a partnership between six U.S. zoos and Pangolin Conservation, an NGO, launched a project in 2014 which today houses fifty White-bellied tree pangolins (Phataginus tricuspis).
- Common knowledge says that pangolins are almost impossible to keep alive in captivity, but the consortium has done basic research to boost survival rates, traveling to Africa and working with a company, EnviroFlight, to develop a natural nutritious insect-derived diet for pangolins in captivity.
- While some conservationists are critical of the project, actions by the Pangolin Consortium have resulted in high captive survival rates, and even in the successful breeding of pangolins in captivity.
- The Pangolin Consortium is able to conduct basic research under controlled conditions at zoos on pangolin behavior and health – research that can’t be done in the wild. Zoos can also present pangolins to the public, educating about their endangered status, improving conservation funding.

Zanzibar’s red colobus monkeys much more numerous than thought
- The team logged 4,725 hours over 2 years tracking down more than 4,000 individual Zanzibar red colobus monkeys (Piliocolobus kirkii).
- Protected areas house nearly 70 percent of the monkeys they found, where monkey groups tended to be larger and to have more females than those outside of parks and reserves.
- The team also found that a relatively small number of young monkeys survive to adulthood, and they concluded that the overall population might be declining.

Lemur on the menu: most-endangered primates still served in Madagascar
- Officials in Madagascar’s northeastern Sava region say lemur is served illegally in restaurants.
- One conservationist says people use a code to order lemur meat.
- More than 90 percent of lemur species are threatened, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

As Grauer’s gorillas cling to survival, new population found
- Since 1994, civil war has left over 5 million people dead and wildlife decimated in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Today, heavily armed militia and illegal miners prospect for “conflict minerals” needed for modern electronic devices made and sold in the U.S. and around the globe.
- Hunters have targeted Grauer’s gorillas to feed miners and militias: in just two decades, these great apes have declined by 77 percent. A 2016 survey found only 3,800 Grauer’s gorillas, the world’s largest primates, still hanging on in the most rugged parts of eastern DRC.
- The good news: a bold group of scientists, under the protection of armed rangers, has found 50 previously uncounted Grauer’s gorillas in DRC’s Maiko National Park. And more may exist within the 4,000 square-mile park.
- The bad news: the US House of Representatives voted last month to defund the “Conflict Mineral Rule,” which required US companies to report where conflict minerals, such as coltan used in cell phones and computers, were sourced. The Senate has yet to take action on the legislation.

Liberian park protects Critically Endangered western chimpanzees
- The establishment of Grebo-Krahn National Park in southeastern Liberia was approved by the country’s legislature in August 2017.
- The 961-square-kilometer (371-square-mile) park is home to an estimated 300 western chimpanzees.
- There are about 35,000 Critically Endangered western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) left in the wild, and Liberia is home to 7,000 of them.

Western Chimpanzee numbers declined by more than 80 percent over the past quarter century
- Research published in the American Journal of Primatology earlier this month finds that the overall Western Chimpanzee population declined by six percent annually between 1990 and 2014, a total decline of 80.2 percent.
- The main threats to the Western Chimpanzee are almost all man-made. Habitat loss and fragmentation driven by slash-and-burn agriculture, industrial agriculture (including deforestation for oil palm plantations as well as eucalyptus, rubber, and sugar cane developments), and extractive industries like logging, mining, and oil top the list.
- In response to the finding that the Western Chimpanzee population has dropped so precipitously in less than three decades, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) elevated the subspecies’ status to Critically Endangered on its Red List of Threatened Species.

Amazonian city drags down fish stocks in 1,000-kilometer shadow
- A study of tambaqui, a popular table fish, in the Brazilian Amazon found that fish caught near the city of Manaus are half the size of those upriver.
- Boats that buy the fish have brought the demand into the forest surrounding the city, and with holds full of ice, they’re able to travel further to bring tambaqui back to Manaus’ markets.
- The fishers living in the relatively pristine forest along the Purus River reported that tambaquie are smaller and harder to catch than they were previously, a trend extended 1,000 kilometers from Manaus, the researchers found.

Pangolin hunting skyrockets in Central Africa, driven by international trade
- The study pulled together information on markets, prices and hunting methods for pangolins from research in 14 countries in Africa.
- Pangolins are hunted for their meat in some African countries, and their scales are used in traditional medicine, both locally and in several Asian countries, including China.
- The researchers found that as many as 2.71 million pangolins from three species are killed every year across six Central African countries – at least a 145 percent increase since before 2000.
- They recommend better enforcement of the 2016 CITES ban across the entire supply chain, from Africa to Asia.

African great ape bushmeat crisis intensifies; few solutions in sight
- Gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos are all Critically Endangered or Endangered, and continue to decline toward extinction due to habitat loss and degradation, disease, and illegal hunting.
- Great ape poaching, which supplies growing urban and rural bushmeat markets, is now at crisis levels across Central Africa, and despite conservationists’ efforts, is showing no sign of slowing down.
- Vast networks of logging roads, modern weapons, cell phones, cheap motorized transportation, and high demand for wild meat in urban centers is driving the booming bushmeat market.
- Africa’s great ape sanctuaries rescue some survivors, and active outreach to local communities offer a partial solution. Educational programs for children and adults, teaching the value of great apes, are seen as essential.

‘Crunch time for biodiversity’: Farming, hunting push thousands of species toward extinction
- Eighty percent of threatened animals are losing ground – literally, in the form of habitat loss – to agriculture.
- Up to 50 percent of threatened birds and mammals face extinction at the hands of hunters.
- In a study published in the journal Nature, a team of scientists explores solutions to avoid destroying the habitats of these animals, such as increasing yields in the developed world and minimizing fertilizer use.

Howler monkeys booming in Belize sanctuary 25 years after translocation
- Disease, hurricanes and hunting wiped out the native howler monkeys living in the Cockscomb Basin by the 1970s.
- Between 1992 and 1994, 62 black howler monkeys (Alouatta pigra) were relocated from a nearby reserve.
- After surveying the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary in March and April, scientists figure there are at least 170 howler monkeys – and perhaps many more – living all over the 51,800-hectare (128,000-acre) preserve.

Going viral: How advancements in Ebola disease detection in wild apes can help to prevent dangerous outbreaks
- Research using a non-invasive method of detecting Ebola virus antibodies from wild ape dung has shown that non-human great apes can survive the disease.
- Early detection and disease monitoring in wildlife populations can prevent the transmission of zoonotic diseases such as Ebola from being transmitted to humans.
- A more comprehensive assessment of health threats to wild great apes can help to determine whether the Ebola virus is of primary concern in a given gorilla or chimpanzee population.

Conservation lessons from the bonobos
- Lola ya Bonobo, the world’s first bonobo sanctuary, was founded in 1994 by Claudine Andre, who came to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) at a young age, and who, after a chance meeting with a bonobo at the Kinshasa zoo, dedicated her life to the species. Today, Lola has been recognized worldwide as a model for primate rehabilitation.
- The sanctuary primarily credits “inclusive conservation” for its success, a process by which Lola not only cares for rescued DRC bonobos, but also for nearby human communities — supporting farms, schools and medical facilities. The communities in turn support Lola.
- The bonobos at the sanctuary — often traumatized after being rescued from the great ape trade — spend years in rehabilitation, being served by human foster mothers and other caring Lola staff. When deemed ready, bonobo troupes are returned to the wild Congo.

Cross River superhighway changes course in Nigeria
- The 260-kilometer (162-mile) highway is slated to have six lanes and would have run through the center of Cross River National Park as originally designed.
- The region is a biodiversity hotspot and home to forest elephants, drills, Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees and Cross River gorillas.
- The proposal shifts the route to the west, out of the center of the national park, which garnered praise from the Wildlife Conservation Society.
- The route still appears to cut through forested areas and protected lands.

Women could be a key to great ape conservation in the Congo
- The Bonobo Conservation Initiative (BCI), Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education Center (GRACE), Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), and Coopera are all organizations working with women in and around the Democratic Republic of the Congo to help advance great ape conservation through education, empowerment, healthcare and food security access.
- Some examples: BCI helps fund pilot micro-credit projects for women who want to launch business enterprises, including soap and garment making. GRACE employs women as surrogate mothers for newly orphaned gorillas during an initial 30-day quarantine period.
- GRACE also provides women and their families with bushmeat alternatives by teaching them to care for and breed alternative protein sources. Coopera helps provide alternative food sources through ECOLO-FEMMES, an organization that trains women in livestock breeding and agriculture to reduce great ape hunting in Kahuzi-Biega National Park.
- Coopera, working with Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots, engages young rape victims in tree planting to provide food sources to wild chimpanzees. JGI’s women’s programs in Uganda and Tanzania keep girls in school through peer support, scholarship programs and sanitary supply access. Educated women have smaller families, reducing stress on the environment.

No safe forest left: 250 captive orphan chimps stuck in sanctuaries
- Cameroon currently has more than 250 rescued chimpanzees living in three chimp wildlife sanctuaries. Attempts to find forests into which to release them — safe from the bushmeat and pet trade, and not already occupied by other chimpanzee populations — have failed so far.
- The intensification of logging, mining and agribusiness, plus new roads into remote areas, along with a growing rural human population, are putting intense pressure on un-conserved forests as well as protected lands.
- Unless habitat loss, poaching and trafficking are controlled in Cameroon, reintroduction of captive chimpanzees may not be achievable. Some conservationists argue, however, that reintroduction of captive animals is needed to enhance genetic resilience in wild populations.
- If current rates of decline are not curbed, primatologists estimate that chimpanzees could be gone from Cameroon’s forests within 15 to 20 years.

Great apes in Asian circus-style shows on rise — so is trafficking
- Asian zoos, circuses and safari parks are mounting large-scale productions with costumed, dancing, roller-skating great apes. Investigations show that nearly all of these trained primates were not bred in captivity, but illegally traded out of Africa and Indonesia, with destinations in China, Thailand and other Asian countries.
- The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) estimates that the illegal trade may have removed as many as 22,218 great apes from the wild between 2005-2011. An estimated 64 percent were chimpanzees, whereas 56 percent of great apes seized by authorities were thought to be orangutans.
- Wild young apes are traumatized by their capture, and many die along the supply chain, or with their final “owners” by whom they are frequently poorly treated. Young great apes trained in captivity become increasingly unmanageable as they age, and many are “retired” to tiny, solitary cages, or simply disappear.
- Trafficking arrests are rare. UNEP recorded just 27 arrests in Africa and Asia between 2005-2011, over which time more than 1,800 cases of illegally trafficked great apes were documented, with many more undetected. Solutions are in the works, but time is running out for the world’s great apes if they are to be conserved.

Illegal bushmeat trade threatens human health and great apes
- Hunting for bushmeat impacts over 500 wild species in Africa, but is particularly harmful to great apes — gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos — whose small, endangered populations struggle to rebound from over-hunting. Along with other major stressors including habitat loss, trafficking and climate change.
- Bushmeat brings humans into close contact with wildlife, creating a prime path for the transmission of diseases like Ebola, as well as new emerging infectious diseases. Disease spread is especially worrisome between humans and closely related African great ape species.
- Bushmeat consumption today is driven by an upscale urban African market, by illegal logging that offers easy access to remote great ape habitat, plus impoverished rural hunters in need of cash livelihoods.
- If the bushmeat problem is to be solved, ineffective enforcement of hunting quotas and inadequate endangered species protections must be addressed. Cultural preferences for bushmeat must also change. Educational programs focused on bushmeat disease risk may be the best way to alter public perceptions.

Audio: WildTech covers the high- and low-tech solutions making conservation more effective
- Sue shares with us some of the most interesting technologies and trends that she sees as having the biggest potential to transform the way we go about conserving Earth’s natural resources and wildlife.
- Also on the program, we feature a live-taped conversation with Jonathan Thompson and Clarisse Hart, two scientists with the Harvard Forest, a long-term ecological research project of Harvard University.
- Guest co-host and Mongabay editor Becky Kessler helps lead a conversation about Thompson and Hart’s work, including a study they released looking at multiple scenarios for the future of Massachusetts’ forests that they say changed the way they approach research altogether.

Ebo forest great apes threatened by stalled Cameroon national park
- Cameroon’s Ebo forest is home to key populations of tool-wielding Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees, along with an unspecified subspecies of gorilla, drills, Preuss’s Red Colobus, forest elephants, and a great deal more biodiversity.
- The forest is vulnerable, unprotected due to a drawn-out fight to secure its status as a national park. Logging and hunting threaten Ebo’s biodiversity. The Cameroonian palm oil company Azur recently began planting a 123,000 hectare plantation on its boundary.
- The Ebo Forest Research Project (EFRP) has been working successfully to change the habits of local people who have long subsisted on the forest’s natural resources — turning hunters into great ape guardians. But without the establishment of the national park and full legal protection and enforcement, everyone’s efforts may be in vain.

Probing rural poachers in Africa: Why do they poach?
- Researchers interviewed 173 self-admitted rural poachers living in the margins of Ruaha National Park in Tanzania to understand why they harvest bushmeat.
- While poverty was a major factor, not all poachers were destitute; a sizeable proportion say they poach to supplement their income.
- How the villagers view their financial status compared to others reflected their poaching activities.
- Conservation strategies should adopt a multidimensional approach to target those who are well-off in addition to the poor, according to the researchers.

“Endangered species to declare?” Europe’s understudied bushmeat trade
- Bushmeat can be purchased in Europe’s capital cities, with the meat of endangered species such as primates and pangolins available. But the scale of the problem is not fully understood as few studies have been undertaken at airports and other points of entry to determine its scope.
- In a Paris airport study, 134 passengers arriving from Africa were searched over a period of 17 days; nine were found to be carrying a total of 188 kilograms (414 pounds) of bushmeat. A more recent study of bushmeat arriving from Africa at two Swiss airports found that one third of meat seized was from threatened CITES species including pangolins, small carnivores and primates.
- Based on what evidence there is of the trade, some appears to be organized for profit, with traffickers transporting suitcases full of bushmeat to sell on the black market. Africans who reside in Europe also sometimes bring back bushmeat from Africa as a “taste of home,” potentially contributing to the risk of spreading diseases that may be found in the meat.
- Researchers are urging that DNA analysis tools be used more widely to learn what species are being transported as bushmeat into Europe, and to bring about more prosecutions of bushmeat traffickers who are dealing in endangered species. But with customs officials already stretched, and bushmeat a low priority, the technology is rarely utilized at present.

Forests provide a nutritional boon to some communities, research shows
- The new study, across 24 countries, shows a wide range in the variability of how communities use forests for food.
- The nutrients provided by wild fruits, vegetables, game and fish are critical to the nutritional health of some communities and should play a role in decisions about land usage.
- Land-use decisions should factor in the importance of forest foods to some communities, say the authors.

The Spirit of the Steppes: Saving Central Asia’s saiga
- The Critically Endangered saiga (Saiga tatarica) once numbered in the millions. This large antelope was perhaps best known for making one of the last of the world’s remaining great mammal migrations — a trek sweeping twice per year across the steppes of Central Asia.
- Saiga populations declined more than 95 percent by 2004, according to the IUCN. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan banned hunting in the 1990s, but the horns of male saiga are highly valued in traditional Chinese medicine, and illegal trafficking is a major threat; if not curtailed the trade could doom the species.
- In the 21st century, international NGOs and regional organizations such as the Saiga Conservation Alliance (SCA) and Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan (ACBK) formed partnerships with Central Asian nations to better conserve the species. And their work was paying off, until 2015.
- That’s when disease killed over 200,000 adult saiga of the Betpak Dala population in Central Kazakhstan. At the end of 2016, the Mongolian herd was hit hard by a new viral infection, with 4,000 saiga carcasses buried so far. But the saiga is reproductively resilient, and could be saved, if the species receives sufficient attention, say conservationists.

Scrapping Nigerian superhighway buffer isn’t enough, say conservation groups
- The superhighway project, intended to stimulate the Cross River state economy, will no longer include a 20-kilometer-wide buffer zone along its 260-kilometer length.
- The NGO Wildlife Conservation Society said minimizing the destruction necessary for the buffer zone was an important step, but that it will still disrupt communities and wildlife.
- Representatives of the Cross River governor, Ben Ayade, told the media that they intended to move forward with the superhighway despite the criticism.

Proposed Trump policy threatens Critically Endangered Grauer’s gorilla
- The largest great ape, Grauer’s gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri) has nearly disappeared in the past two decades. Numbers have plummeted by 77 percent; perhaps 3,800 remain. This animal, dubbed “the forgotten gorilla” because it was so little studied and was absent from most zoos, is in serious danger of extinction.
- Their slaughter was precipitated by the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s bloody civil war and by mining for coltan and tin ore, “conflict minerals” used in cell phones, laptops and other electronics. Gorillas are heavily poached by armed militias, miners, and less often, by refugees: the animals are being eaten nearly to extinction.
- The gorillas could suffer greater harm from warlords and miners if President Trump signs a proposed presidential memorandum leaked to Reuters. It would allow US companies to buy conflict minerals freely without public disclosure, likely increasing mining in the Congo basin — and poaching.
- Trump’s plan would nullify the current US Conflict Mineral Rule, passed with bipartisan support in 2010 and enacted as part of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Dodd Frank Act. Meanwhile, conservationists are hopeful that the Grauer’s gorilla can be saved — but only with a DRC and planet-wide response.

Loving apes celebrated this Valentine’s Day
- The IUCN estimates that as few as 15,000 bonobos remain in the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Bonobos, unlike chimpanzees and humans, live in matriarchal societies and have never been observed killing a member of their own species.
- The California Senate passed a resolution stating that Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14) would also be known as World Bonobo Day beginning in 2017.
- Bushmeat hunting, habitat destruction and the wildlife trade are the greatest threats to the survival of bonobos.

NGO takes action to save great apes in Cameroon’s Lebialem Highlands
- The Lebialem Highlands, in Cameroon’s southwest, is a rugged mountainous and plateaued region still inhabited by the Critically Endangered Cross River gorilla, the Endangered Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee and the Vulnerable African forest elephant.
- While the Cameroon government has taken action by protecting swathes of forest in the region, they admit to being unable to fully protect this habitat from incursions by surrounding communities, who go to the protected lands to farm, harvest bushmeat, hunt, log and mine.
- The Environment and Rural Development Foundation (ERuDeF), an NGO, has stepped in to help protect Highlands conserved areas — including the Tofala Hills Wildlife Sanctuary and the still to be created Mak-Betchou Wildlife Sanctuary.
- Supported by the Rainforest Trust-USA, ERuDeF is also working to improve local village economies and livelihoods in order to take pressure off of wildlife.

Indigenous traditional knowledge revival helps conserve great apes
- Deforestation and hunting continue to put Africa’s great apes at risk. National parks and other top down strategies have met with limited success. Many conservationists are trying alternative strategies, especially harnessing the power of indigenous taboos and other traditional knowledge to motivate local communities to protect great apes.
- In remote parts of Africa, taboos against hunting have long helped conserve gorilla populations. However, those ancient traditions are being weakened by globalization, modernization and Christianity, with anti-hunting taboos and other traditional beliefs being abandoned at a time when they are most needed to conserve great apes.
- Primatologist Denis Ndeloh Etiendem suggests a unique approach to reviving indigenous taboos and traditional beliefs — the creation of videos and films in which these beliefs are presented as a prime reason for conserving wildlife. He also urges that African environmental and general educational curricula focus not on endangered dolphins or whales, but on wildlife found in interior Africa.
- Development specialist Dominique Bikaba emphasizes the importance of moving away from top down federal management, and to local management of community forests by indigenous communities, whose leaders mesh traditional beliefs with modern conservation strategies. Prime examples are successes seen at Burhinyi Community Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

‘Running out of time’: 60 percent of primates sliding toward extinction
- The assessment of 504 primate species found that 60 percent are on track toward extinction, and the numbers of 75 percent are going down.
- Agricultural expansion led to the clearing of primate habitat nearly three times the size of France between 1990 and 2010, impinging on the range of 76 percent of apes and monkeys.
- By region, Madagascar and Southeast Asia have the most species in trouble. Nearly 90 percent of Madagascar’s more than 100 primates are moving toward extinction.
- Primates also face serious threats from hunting, logging and ranching.

Trade in skulls, body parts severely threatens Cameroon’s great apes
- Primatologists in Cameroon have been heartened in recent years by the discoveries of new great ape populations scattered around the country. Unfortunately for these gorillas and chimpanzees, their numbers are being rapidly diminished by deforestation and human exploitation.
- Cameroon’s gorillas and chimps have long fallen victim to the bushmeat trade, but they are now being hunted vigorously to feed a national and international illegal trade in skulls and other body parts which are being exported to Nigeria, other West African coastal states, and especially to the US and China, either as trophies or for use in traditional medicine.
- Great ape trafficking operations in Cameroon are starting to resemble the ivory trade: International trafficking networks are financing hunters, providing them with motorbikes and sophisticated weapons. A spreading network of logging and agribusiness roads and a porous border between Cameroon and Nigeria are further facilitating the trade.
- The seriousness of this poaching hits home when one considers that during a four-month period in 2015, anti-poaching and anti-trafficking squads in Cameroon arrested 22 dealers and seized 16 great ape limbs, 24 gorilla heads and 34 chimpanzee skulls in separate operations around the country. Law enforcement is likely only detecting 10 percent of the trade.

Great apes and greater challenges: Trafficking in Cameroon
- Cameroon is home to four great ape species and sub-species: the Western Lowland gorilla, Cross River gorilla, Central chimpanzee and Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee. Scientists still don’t fully understand these species and the secrets they may hold, especially for medical science, but those secrets will be lost if the animals are not conserved.
- A thriving trade in ape skulls, bushmeat, and live animal trafficking is threatening to wipe out ape populations already stressed by habitat loss and fragmentation. The Last Great Ape Organization (LAGA) is an NGO that is tackling the traffickers behind the African trade, but they are up against widespread government corruption that is hindering their efforts.
- While confiscations of trafficked great apes is important, estimates put the total of traded animals being detected by law enforcement along trafficking routes at a mere 10 percent. That’s why many conservationists argue that trafficking needs to be stopped not at national borders and airports, but nipped in the bud at the source, in the wild.

All I want for Christmas… a wildlife researcher’s holiday wish list
- They are some of the world’s most unique, beautiful (though sometimes, really ugly), little known, but always seriously threatened species. They’re among the many Almost Famous Asian Animals conservationists are trying to save, and which Mongabay has featured in 2016.
- The examples included here are Asia’s urbane fishing cat, Vietnam’s heavily trafficked pangolin, Central Asia’s at risk wild yaks and saiga, and Indonesia’s Painted terrapin. All of these, and many more, could benefit from a holiday financial boost.
- Mostly these creatures need the same things: research and breeding facilities; educational workshops; and really cool, high tech, high ticket, radio collars and tracking devices. These items come with price tags ranging from a few hundred bucks, to thousands, to tens of thousands of dollars.

Home for the holidays: Chimp exits war-torn Iraq, lands in Kenya
- After years of effort, animal welfare advocates have negotiated the freedom of Manno, a trafficked chimpanzee who had been smuggled out of Syria for $15,000 and into a private zoo in Iraqi Kurdistan. At the zoo, Manno suffered severely cramped conditions; he was fed a steady diet consisting mostly of snack foods.
- Freeing the animal involved diplomatic negotiations at the highest level in Iraqi Kurdistan and in Kenya. Manno arrived in Kenya on November 30, and is undergoing a 90-day health quarantine at the Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary.
- The young chimp still must be accepted into the Sanctuary population. This is a slow, possibly multiyear, process, requiring introduction to a foster mother, followed by introduction to female chimps, then other males in the community. Manno’s long acclimation to humans will not allow him to ever return to the wild.
- The chimp’s rescue was facilitated by individuals and organizations including Spencer Seykar, a Canadian high school teacher; Jason Mier, the executive director of Animals Lebanon; Jane Goodall and her institute; Daniel Stiles of the Project to End Great Ape Slavery; Dr. Stephen Ngulu, head wildlife veterinarian at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, the staff of Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary, and others.

Where have all the lutungs gone? Mystery monkeys fast disappearing
- Asia boasts 16 species of lutung, in two ranges, one in south central and Southeast Asia (northeast India, southern China, Taiwan, Borneo, Thailand, Java and Bali), and the other at the southern tip of India and on Sri Lanka.
- Lutungs are tree dwellers, threatened by a rapid loss of tropical forests due to oil palm plantations, logging, and human population growth; the animals are also illegally hunted for bushmeat, traditional medicine and the pet trade.
- Like so many Almost Famous species, lutungs suffer from a lack of publicity, research, funding and local concern. Except for a few species, most are protected accidentally, when a forest in which lutungs live is preserved by a government or NGO trying to protect charismatic megafauna.
- Of the 16 lutung species, the IUCN assesses 4 as Vulnerable, 2 as Near Threatened, 7 as Endangered, 2 as Critically Endangered, and one as suffering from insufficient data for a conservation assessment. While surveys are lacking, all lutungs are known to be in decline, some alarmingly.

Hunting stymies rainforest regrowth, says a new study
- The study compared sites with different degrees of hunting pressure, ranging from a national park to timber concessions.
- Areas with fewer large mammals tended to have more rodents, which in turn ate and destroyed more seeds of tree species valuable to the timber industry.
- The findings suggest that regulating hunting on timber concessions may help to encourage the regeneration of economically valuable trees.

Hunted to the brink: Mammals in crisis
- A study pulling together information on threatened land mammals found that hunting for meat and medicine is driving 301 toward extinction.
- The authors raise concerns about food security for humans and ecosystem collapse if we don’t prevent this crisis for mammals.
- Proposed solutions include shoring up international markets for bushmeat and animal body parts, investments in laws and enforcement to protect wildlife, and increased education about the scale of the problem.

What is a binturong?
- The binturong, or bearcat (Arctictis binturong) inhabits a range stretching from northeast India and Bangladesh to the Malay Peninsula, Borneo and the Philippines. It is found more rarely in Nepal, South China, Java, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.
- This tree-dwelling species occupies its own unique genus: it possesses a prehensile tail (like a monkey), purrs and cleans itself like a cat, and has a territory-marking scent that smells exactly like buttered popcorn.
- The binturong is threatened by habitat loss due to logging and agribusiness, especially the oil palm industry. It is also hunted for bushmeat, traditional medicine and the pet trade. A local coffee, made from beans that pass through a binturong’s digestive system, is also valued.
- Binturongs have been little studied and their numbers in the wild are unknown. It is known that they eat prodigious amounts of strangler fig fruit, and that they are important seed spreaders. More study is urgently needed to determine how the species can be conserved.

The Myanmar snub-nosed monkey: discovered and immediately endangered
- Discovered in 2010 and promptly listed as Critically Endangered, the Myanmar snub-nosed monkey lives only in the remote high forests of Northeast Myanmar, and across the border in China’s Gaoligong Mountain Natural Reserve. There are as few as 260-330 left in the wild.
- Hunting, illegal logging and proposed hydropower development, taking place within the context of a simmering civil conflict, threaten to push the species to extinction.
- On the plus side, conservationists have already gone a long way toward winning over local communities, getting them to stop hunting the animals; while the government’s approval of a newly proposed national park offers hope that the Myanmar snub-nosed monkey can be preserved.

Poaching in Africa becomes increasingly militarized
- Due to skyrocketing consumer demand, particularly from Asia, today’s wildlife traffickers have the resources to outfit their henchmen with weaponry and equipment that often outmatches that of the local park rangers.
- The poachers doing the most damage in Africa today are employed by professional trafficking syndicates, and they enjoy a level of support and financial backing unimaginable during earlier poaching crises.
- The poachers’ arsenal includes the expanding use of military-grade equipment like helicopters, machine guns, infrared scopes, and heavy armored vehicles.

IUCN motions to ban the pangolin trade
- The IUCN World Conservation Congress last week passed a motion urging all IUCN members to support the transfer of all eight pangolin species from Appendix II to Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
- The next CITES conference begins in late September.
- The motion was proposed by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), with 18 co-sponsors, and adopted with a majority of IUCN members.

World’s largest gorilla now Critically Endangered
- The change in the eastern lowland gorilla’s conservation status was announced yesterday at the ongoing IUCN World Conservation Congress in Hawaii.
- The revised listing of the Grauer’s gorilla is based on recent surveys by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Fauna & Flora International (FFI), which showed that gorilla numbers in eastern DRC have declined by more than 77 percent in the last 20 years.
- Fewer than 3,800 individuals remain in the wild today, down from 16,900 individuals in 1994.

Unknown, ignored and disappearing: Asia’s Almost Famous Animals
- Asia is home to a vast array of primates and other mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds and fish — all fascinating, all uniquely adapted to their habitats. Many are seriously threatened, but little known by the public.
- One conservation argument says that protecting charismatic species like tigers, rhinos and orangutans and their habitat will also protect lesser known species such as pangolins, langurs and the Malayan tapir. But this is a flawed safety net through which many little known species may fall into oblivion.
- Over the next six months, Mongabay will introduce readers to 20 Almost Famous Asian Animals — a handful of Asia’s little known fauna — in the hope that familiarity will help generate concern and action.
- In this first overview article, we rely as much on pictures as on words to profile some of Asia’s most beautiful, ugly, strange, magnificent and little known animals.

The hidden toll of war: world’s largest ape plummets 77% in 20 years
- Grauer’s gorilla is the largest primate subspecies in the world, and lives only in eastern DRC.
- Mining, war, and poaching for bushmeat has taken a big toll on the gorillas, with recent surveys indicating a 77 percent decline in their numbers since 1995.
- Researchers who conducted the surveys urge raising the subspecies’ IUCN status to Critically Endangered and increasing protection through more effective government management of the embattled region.

‘Exploitation crisis’: Civil war fueling ‘sharp rise’ in poaching and trafficking of South Sudan’s wildlife
- Before the war broke out, South Sudan’s forests and savannah were home to about 2,500 elephants, several hundred giraffe, the endemic Nile Lechwe and white-eared kob, tiang, Mongalla antelope migration, wild dog, chimpanzee, and bongo populations, WCS’s scientists say.
- But ever since the outbreak of the war, there has been an “alarming” expansion of illegal activities across the country.
- Both local and international actors, especially the armed forces, have become involved in ivory poaching and trafficking, commercial bushmeat poaching and trafficking, illegal logging, gold mining, and charcoal production, WCS added.

Even minor forest disturbance can cause great ape population crashes
- Following the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, researchers found that even small-scale habitat disturbance — a few new open patches here and there, and increased hunting — can cause bonobo populations to decrease or disappear, even if nearly all of the forest is left standing.
- Conservation success depends on the cooperation of local people, a trust that is often gained slowly by researchers. But it is also dependent on the larger political and economic landscape, which can shift very rapidly.
- Survival prospects for bonobos and other great apes are dim if global development — industrial agriculture, mineral extraction, logging and other forest disturbances — continues unchecked.

Toxic beetles and poisonous plants: Study reveals how southern Africa’s ‘bushmen’ make deadly poison arrows
- A new study sheds light on how Kalahari’s San peoples source and prepare poison for poison arrows.
- Some communities use toxic beetle larvae, such as those of Diamphidia, as well as plant poisons, such as the juice of Sansevieria aethiopica plants to help reinforce the quality of the poison, researchers have found.
- Knowledge about the toxic component in the poisonous beetles and plants could potentially have medical applications, researchers add.

‘Where Have All the Animals Gone?’ – a journey through Africa and Asia
- Peterson’s book is a witty, humorous, and sometimes gut-wrenching, look into how human presence and consumption is driving the disappearance of wildlife.
- In the book, Peterson joins Karl Ammann, an eccentric award-winning wildlife photographer, on some of his investigations in parts of Africa and Asia.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Peterson talks about how he turned several years of travels and adventures with Ammann into a gripping narrative of wildlife trafficking, bushmeat hunting, vanishing wildlife, and conservation.

Alarming proof of underreported bushmeat crisis in heart of Amazonia
- Native species are at risk of becoming endangered, or even going extinct, as a result of over-hunting due to the prevalence of bushmeat consumption in the pre-frontier Brazilian Amazon.
- Research has shown that many rainforest wildlife species continue to decline due to hunting, and that city-dwellers commonly incorporate these species into their diet.
- Poverty is widespread in the urban cities of the Brazilian Amazon, which likely explains the ongoing consumption of native wildlife.

200,000 of Peru’s primates trafficked for pet trade or bushmeat yearly
- Peru has 71 primate species, 8 of which are endemic — all are at risk from trafficking; hunters often target the most endangered species for the pet trade because, being rare, they earn the biggest profits.
- Hunters typically kill adult primates and eat them, or sell the animals as bushmeat, while simultaneously capturing their young to sell to domestic or international pet trade traffickers.
- Peru is “an archetypal example of a mega-diverse Neotropical country with a thriving illegal wildlife pet trade designed to fulfill demand from domestic consumers, particularly in urban areas,” – Elizabeth F. Daut, College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University.

Vanishing vultures: Africa’s fetish and bushmeat trade is driving its scavengers to extinction
- A study shows that the trade of vulture bodies and parts is the main factor in the birds’ approaching extinction in Africa.
- Many Africans use the birds’ bodies because they believe certain body parts bestow clairvoyant abilities.
- Poachers use powerful pesticides to poison large animals, killing vultures that feed on the tainted carcasses.

Oil roads to ecological ruin: Ecuador’s bushmeat and wildlife trade
- Oil companies build extensive road systems to service drilling operations in Ecuador, and they often offer gifts of vehicles, canoes, outboard motors and guns to indigenous people, enabling hunters to hunt more efficiently to feed the illegal bushmeat trade.
- Studies in Ecuador show that roads create exposure to a market economy, upsetting the equilibrium that exists in indigenous cultures. Hunting becomes a commercial pursuit, and wildlife populations quickly plummet.
- A study of the Maxus road that penetrates Yasuni National Park, found that it resulted in new indigenous settlements along the road and a shift of Waorani hunters from sustainable hunting practices to unsustainable commercial hunting. Both prey and predator wildlife species numbers dropped precipitously near the oil road.

Feline Unseen: The African Golden Cat
- The golden cat is so mysterious it wasn’t photographed in the wild until 2002, and researchers still disagree on its scientific name.
- Some suggest there are 10,000 left in the wilds of Equatorial Africa, but no one really knows.
- The African golden cat is most threatened by habitat loss; its stronghold is in the Congo Basin.

Bushmeat in Tanzania has an unexpected consumer
- Bushmeat trends in northern Tanzania show consumption is tied most strongly with its low cost and ready availability in the region.
- Illegal hunting, for meat or other animal products, is a particular concern in regions with large migratory species.
- Bushmeat and animal products are also frequently consumed by wealthy people and are considered to be symbols of status in certain communities.

Scientists urge greater enforcement of wildlife laws in Africa

Wildlife market in Togo. The world’s largest association of tropical biologists and conservationists is urging African leaders to step up efforts to protect wildlife from poaching. In a resolution released June 30, the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) called for several measures to counter the commercial bushmeat and hunting trade that it says […]
Chinese turtle heist sends rare Philippine species to brink of extinction, international rescue underway

A traumatized turtle on its way to rehab. Photo credit: Dr. Sabine Schoppe, Katala Foundation. On Friday, June 19, Philippine authorities raided a warehouse on the island of Palawan and confiscated more than 4,000 live, illegally harvested rare turtles, only days before they were to be shipped to foreign food and pet markets. “It appears […]
Commercial bushmeat hunters put previously undetected pressure on Central Africa’s large birds

While conducting a bird survey in the Ebo Forest Reserve of Cameroon, Scottish ornithologist Robin Whytock noted two uncommon forest raptors in a camp regularly used by commercial bushmeat hunters. The birds, a crowned eagle (Stephanoaetus coronatus) and a Cassin’s hawk-eagle (Aquila Africana) were notable sightings not only because they are infrequently spotted. Both raptors […]
Expedition in the Congo rediscovers lost primate

Young primatologist takes first photo ever of Bouvier’s red colobus Detail from the world’s first photo of Bouvier’s red colobus (Piliocolobus bouvieri) taken early March 2015 in the Ntokou-Pikounda National Park in the Republic of Congo. The photo shows an adult female with offspring. Photo by: Lieven Devreese. The last time there was a sighting […]
Bushmeat’s dual role: threatened species face off against nutrition and culture

Deforestation, habitat destruction, climate change, and other man-made forces are threatening species around the world. But, often overlooked, overhunting is a rising peril to many animals. On the other hand, bushmeat hunting also helps provide vital protein in rural tropical regions and is an important cultural rite for many indigenous tribes. Thus, there is a […]
Adorbs: scientists capture first photos of African golden cat kittens

Elusive, little-known cats are ‘just unbelievably sneaky’ The African golden cat is arguably the continent’s least known feline, inhabiting dense tropical forests, almost never seen, and, of course, long-upstaged by Africa’s famous felines: lions, cheetahs, and leopards. But a few intrepid scientists are beginning to uncover the long-unknown lives of these wild cats, which are […]
Top 10 Environmental Stories of 2014

The most important environmental and wildlife stories from the last year Also see our Top 10 HAPPY Environmental Stories of 2014 1. The Year of Zero Deforestation Pledges: In 2014, the unimaginable happened: companies representing the majority of palm oil production and trade agreed to stop cutting down rainforests and draining peatlands for new oil […]
Use of mammals still prevalent in Brazil’s Conservation Units

For as long as humans and animals have co-existed, people have utilized them as resources. Animals, and their parts, have been used for a variety of purposes, ranging from basic food to more esoteric practices such as in magical ceremonies or religion. A new study published in mongabay.com‘s open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science has found […]
Will ‘Asia’s unicorn’ survive? Hunting and deforestation continue in Vietnam biosphere reserve PART II

This is the second of a series of two articles examining Western Nghe An Biosphere Reserve, the impetus behind its creation, and the efficacy of its protections. Part 1 can be found here. Encompassing 1.3 million hectares, Western Nghe An Biosphere Reserve the largest such reserve in all of Southeast Asia. It straddles the border […]
How did Ebola Zaïre Get to Guinea?

Is the great ape trade responsible for the current outbreak of Ebola? The vicious Ebola virus outbreak that has already killed more than 800 people this year, in addition to sowing panic, fear and confusion throughout West Africa, was not a strain endemic to the region as initially believed. Instead the University of Edinburgh found […]
Conservation controversy: are bonobos protected in the right ways and in the right places?

Sankuru Nature Reserve draws ire from some conservationists, other protections planned Bonobos (Pan paniscus) are often touted by scientists as a peace-loving great ape species, opting to solve social conflicts through sex rather than aggression. But their only refuge, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is a country torn by war for decades. Amid the […]
Don’t eat or touch bat bushmeat amid worsening Ebola outbreak, UN warns

The world’s worst Ebola outbreak was likely begun by a hunter shooting a fruit bat for their dinner or the market, according to the UN. The outbreak has killed over 660 people in six months to date, and recently spread via plane to Nigeria. The disease is particularly deadly with a mortality rate of around […]
Over a million pangolins slaughtered in the last decade

All pangolins now threatened with extinction, and two considered Critically Endangered The tree pangolin (Manis tricuspis) has been upgraded from Near Threatened to Vulnerable by an IUCN Red List update. Photo by: the African Pangolin Working Group (APWG). One of the world’s most bizarre animal groups is now at risk of complete eradication, according to […]
Setting the stage: theater troupe revives tradition to promote conservation in DRC

Art-form helping establish new park by acting as communication bridge between conservationists, local people Two years ago, environmental artist Roger Peet set off to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to support the new Lomami National Park with bandanas that he designed. This time, Peet is back in Congo to carry out a conservation theater […]
Is there hope for bonobos? Researchers, NGOs, gov’t officials, local communities band together to save iconic ape (Part III)

This is the third part of a series. Part 1 discusses the formation of Sankuru Nature Reserve and the general state of bonobos. Part II discusses the specific threats faced by bonobos and the reserve. Tropical forests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are being cleared at a rapid clip, with nearly six […]
Poaching, fires, farming pervade: protecting bonobos ‘an enormous challenge’ (Part II)

This is the second part of a series, Part 1 of which discusses the formation of Sankuru Nature Reserve and the general state of bonobos. The bonobo (Pan paniscus) is a species of great ape found only in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It has declined precipitously in response to habitat destruction and […]
Surrounded by deforestation, critically endangered gorillas hang on by a thread

Is there hope for Africa’s most threatened ape subspecies? The mountain forests at the Nigeria-Cameroon border are home to one of the rarest and most threatened subspecies of African apes – the Cross River gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli). Today, fewer than 300 individuals survive in the wild. These occur in 14 small, fragmented populations spread […]
On babies and motherhood: how giant armadillos are surprising scientists (photos)

Uncovering the reproductive mysteries of the little-known giant armadillo. Arguably the most important moment in any animal’s life— whether it be a whale, a human, or a mosquito— is the act of giving birth, of bringing a new member of the species into the world. It’s no wonder that biologists treat reproduction— from conception to […]
Is Cameroon becoming the new Indonesia? Palm oil plantations accelerating deforestation

New forestry laws in the works, but may not be enough Oil palm nursery in a Herakles Farm’s concession area. Photo: © Greenpeace/Alex Yallop. The potential for new laws governing the use of forest resources this year in Cameroon promises an opportunity to stem the rapid loss of forest in the biologically diverse country. But […]
A taste for wildlife: what’s driving bushmeat hunting in Tanzania?

New research refutes previous findings Barbed-wire snares, spent shotgun shells, the lingering smell of gunpowder, and strips of curing meat: glimpses from a bushmeat hunt. Bushmeat hunting is the illegal hunting of wildlife for food and income. A newly released study in mongabay.com’s journal Tropical Conservation Science reports regular bushmeat consumption by a large proportion […]
Indonesia’s forests increasingly empty of wildlife

Hornbills are killed in Indonesia for the traditional Chinese medicine market. Tropical rainforests are the most species-rich ecosystems in the world. Each square kilometer has hundreds of tree species, birds and mammals, and countless other creatures. The idea that these forests could be devoid of animal life therefore seems ludicrous. Still the disappearance of birds, […]
Next big idea in forest conservation? Linking public health and environmental degradation

Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation: Q&A with Dr. Chris Golden Members of the MAHERY (Madagascar Health and Environmental Research) team that includes social surveyors, lemur researchers, tenrec researchers, veterinarians and human health professionals. Photo courtesy of: Christopher Golden. Dr. Christopher Golden is an explorer on a mission. As both an epidemiologist and ecologist, he is […]
Small monkeys take over when big primates have been hunted out in the Amazon

The successful end of a monkey hunt by an indigenous tribe in Suriname results in a howler monkey for dinner. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The barbecued leg of a spider monkey might not be your idea of a sumptuous dinner, but to the Matsés or one of the fifteen tribes in voluntary isolation in […]
Over 9,000 primates killed for single bushmeat market in West Africa every year

Over the past 25 years, West Africa’s primates have been put at risk due to an escalating bushmeat trade compounded with forest loss from expanding human populations. In fact, many endemic primates in the Upper Guinea forests of Liberia and Ivory Coast have been pushed to the verge of extinction. To better understand what’s happening, […]
Islamic clerics issue ‘fatwa’ against poaching, declare the illegal wildlife trade ‘haram’

Baby orangutans, like this Sumatran orangutan on its mother’s back, are often kept illegally in Indonesia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Indonesia’s Islamic clerics drew praise from conservation groups last week after the top clerical body in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country issued a fatwa, or religious decree, against poaching and wildlife trafficking. The Indonesian […]
The smoothtooth blacktip shark and four other species rediscovered in markets

Scientific American magazine recently ran an article on the rediscovery of the smoothtooth blacktip shark (Carcharhinus leiodon) in a Kuwaiti fish market. Believed extinct for over 100 years, the smoothtooth had not been seen since the naturalist Wilhelm Hein returned from a trip to Yemen in 1902. With its reappearance, scientists scoured Kuwaiti markets and […]
Madagascar’s most famous lemur facing big threats

The ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta), perhaps the most well-known of Madagascar’s endemic animals, is facing a “very high” risk of extinction in the wild. The Madagascar Section of the IUCN Primate Specialist Group reassessed the Red List status of ring-tailed lemurs and upgraded the species from Near-Threatened (2008) to Endangered (2012). Ring-tailed lemurs are facing […]
Odd porcupine hugely imperiled by hunting, deforestation

The thin-spined porcupine, also known as the bristle-spined rat, is a truly distinct animal: a sort of cross between New World porcupines and spiny rats with genetic research showing it is slightly closer to the former rather than the latter. But the thin-spined porcupine (Chaetomys subspinosus), found only in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, is imperiled by […]
Bonobos: the Congo Basin’s great gardeners

The survival of primary forests depends on many overlapping interactions. Among these interactions include tropical gardeners, like the bonobo (Pan pansicus) in the Congo Basin, according to a new study in the Journal of Tropical Ecology. Bonobos are known as a keystone species, vital to the diversification and existence of their forests. Bonobos, which are […]
28 percent of potential bonobo habitat remains suitable

Only 27.5 percent of potential bonobo habitat is still suitable for the African great ape, according to the most comprehensive study of species’ range yet appearing in Biodiversity Conservation. “Bonobos are only found in lowland rainforest south of the sweeping arch of the Congo River, west of the Lualaba River, and north of the Kasai […]
Orphaned gorillas successfully reintroduced where apes had been hunted to extinction

The reintroduction of captive gorillas to areas where they have been hunted to extinction appears to working, suggesting a possible new front in efforts to save great apes, finds a new study published in the journal Oryx. The study, conducted by researchers at the Aspinall Foundation, looked at long-running reintroduction projects in Gabon and the […]
Honey badgers and more: camera traps reveal wealth of small carnivores in Gabon (photos)

Gabon has lost most of its big meat-eaters including lions, spotted hyenas, and African wild dogs (although it’s still home to a lot of leopards), but a new study focuses on the country’s lesser-known species with an appetite for flesh. For the first time, researchers surveyed Gabon’s small carnivores, including 12 species from the honey […]
Forgotten species: the nearly extinct primate that can be shot on sight

Everyone knows the tiger, the panda, the blue whale, but what about the other five to thirty million species estimated to inhabit our Earth? Many of these marvelous, stunning, and rare species have received little attention from the media, conservation groups, and the public. This series is an attempt to give these ‘forgotten species‘ some […]
Protecting predators in the wildest landscape you’ve never heard of

A Ruaha male lion in his prime. Photo © : Sasja van Vechgel. The Serengeti, the Congo, the Okavango Delta: many of Africa’s great wildernesses are household names, however on a continent that never fails to surprise remain vast wild lands practically unknown to the global public. One of these is the Ruaha landscape: covering […]
Scientists discover new flying mammal in bushmeat market

The bushmeat markets of Lao PDR (Laos) are filled with racks of wild game harvested both legally and illegally from the surrounding landscapes. While these meat markets certainly provide local protein to patrons, for wildlife biologists they offer something more. These bizarre zoological exhibits are a rich source of information about wildlife populations and wildlife […]
Zoos call on governments to take urgent action against illegal wildlife trade (photos)

Warning: some photos may be disturbing or graphic. In a single night in March, a band of heavily-armed, horse-riding poachers slaughtered 89 elephants in southern Chad, thirty of which were pregnant females. The carnage was the worst poaching incident of the year, but even this slaughter paled in comparison to the 650 elephants killed in […]
First ever pangolin conference concludes all eight species in trouble

Demand for scales, meat, and even fetuses of pangolins have pushed all eight species of this unique mammalian order—Pholidota—toward extinction, according to the world’s first ever pangolin conference with the International Union for Conservation of Nature – Species Survival Commission (IUCN-SSC) Pangolin Specialist Group. Meeting in Singapore earlier this month, 40 conservationists from 14 countries […]
Over 16,000 wild mammals and birds sold in Nagaland market, India, annually

A comprehensive survey of the wildlife sold in the markets of Tuensang has resulted in a stunning record of the wildlife trade in the state of Nagaland in northeast India, as reported in a new study published in mongabay.com’s open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science (TCS). Once a week, researchers with the Sálim Ali Centre for […]
Saving the Tenkile: an expedition to protect one of the most endangered animals you’ve never heard of

The tenkile, or the Scott’s tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus scottae) could be a cross between a koala bear and a puppy. With it’s fuzzy dark fur, long tail and snout, and tiny ears, it’s difficult to imagine a more adorable animal. It’s also difficult to imagine that the tenkile is one of the most endangered species […]
Scientists discover new giant mole rat in Africa (photos)

Although the term “giant mole rat” may not immediately inspire love, the mole rats of Africa are a fascinating bunch. They spend practically their entire lives underground building elaborate tunnel systems and feeding on plant stems. This underground lifestyle has led them to evolve small ears, tiny eyes, forward-pointing teeth for digging, and nostrils they […]
Emergency: large number of elephants being poached in the Central African Republic (warning: graphic image)

WWF and the Wildlife Conversation Society (WCS) are issuing an immediate call for action as they report that poachers are killing sizable numbers of forest elephants near the Dzanga-Sangha protected areas in the Central African Republic (CAR). The two large conservation groups have evacuated their staff from the area after a government coup, but local […]
An insidious threat to tropical forests: over-hunting endangers tree species in Asia and Africa

A fruit falls to the floor in a rainforest. It waits. And waits. Inside the fruit is a seed, and like most seeds in tropical forests, this one needs an animal—a good-sized animal—to move it to a new place where it can germinate and grow. But it may be waiting in vain. Hunting and poaching […]
Warlords, sorcery, and wildlife: an environmental artist ventures into the Congo

Roger Peet (in blue shirt) posing with Forest Rangers. Photo courtesy of Roger Peet. Last year, Roger Peet, an American artist, traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to visit one of the world’s most remote and wild forests. Peet spent three months in a region that is largely unknown to the outside world, […]
Jaguars, tapirs, oh my!: Amazon explorer films shocking wildlife bonanza in threatened forest

Watching a new video by Amazon explorer, Paul Rosolie, one feels transported into a hidden world of stalking jaguars, heavyweight tapirs, and daylight-wandering giant armadillos. This is the Amazon as one imagines it as a child: still full of wild things. In just four weeks at a single colpa (or clay lick where mammals and […]
Pity the pangolin: little-known mammal most common victim of the wildlife trade

World Pangolin Day is celebrated this weekend: Saturday, February 16th, 2013 Last year tens-of-thousands of elephants and hundreds of rhinos were butchered to feed the growing appetite of the illegal wildlife trade. This black market, largely centered in East Asia, also devoured tigers, sharks, leopards, turtles, snakes, and hundreds of other animals. Estimated at $19 […]
Photos: Scientists discover tapir bonanza in the Amazon

Camera trap image of tapir in Madidi-Tambopata Landscape. Photo by: WCS. Over 14,000 lowland tapirs (Tapirus terrestris), also known as Brazilian tapirs, roam an Amazonian landscape across Bolivia and Peru, according to new research by scientists with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Using remote camera trapping, thousands of distribution records, and interviews, the researchers estimated […]
Poaching in Serengeti seems worth the risk

Zebras in the Ngorongoro Crater, a part of the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Illegal hunting in Tanzania’s Greater Serengeti Ecosystem (GSE) remains a prevalent activity for local people, despite government regulation and grassroots movements to prevent it. A new paper from mongabay.com’s open-access Tropical Conversation Science examines the factors that drive […]
New inroads made into bushmeat consumption in Tanzania

African buffalo are a common target for bushmeat in Tanzania. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Bushmeat consumption, or “wildlife hunted for human consumption,” poses a significant threat to wildlife conservation all across the globe. But in Eastern Africa—where savannah grasslands flourish and big game roam free within ‘protected’ reserves—one may be forgiven to think that […]
Forests, farming, and sprawl: the struggle over land in an Amazonian metropolis

An interview with Karimeh Moukaddem, a part of our on-going Interviews with Young Scientists series. Typical farmhouse outside of Parauapebas. Photo by: Karimeh Moukaddem. The city of Parauapebas, Brazil is booming: built over the remains of the Amazon rainforest, the metropolis has grown 75-fold in less than 25 years, from 2,000 people upwards of 150,000. […]
Illegal hunting threatens iconic animals across Africa’s great savannas, especially predators

Lion with a snare around its neck. Photo by: Frederike Otten. Courtesy of Panthera. Bushmeat hunting has become a grave concern for species in West and Central Africa, but a new report notes that lesser-known illegal hunting in Africa’s iconic savannas is also decimating some animals. Surprisingly, illegal hunting across eastern and southern Africa is […]
Rarest gorillas lose half their habitat in 20 years

Lowland gorilla in Gabon. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Cross River gorillas and eastern gorillas lost more than half their habitat since the early 1990s due to deforestation, logging, and other human activities, finds a comprehensive new assessment across great apes’ range in West and Central Africa. The study, published in the journal Diversity and […]
New website highlights the plight of the pangolin

The Chinese pangolin has recently been upgraded to Endangered on the IUCN Red List due to relentless poaching. Photo by: Gary Ades/KFBG. Scaly, insect-devouring, nocturnal, and notoriously shy, pangolins are strange mammals who remain unknown to many. But they are facing a major crisis as they are stolen from the wild in East Asia to […]
Bushmeat consumption differs between communities in Tanzania

African Buffalo is a target for hunters in Tanzania. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Bushmeat consumption depends on the make-up of individual communities, according to a new study in the open access journal Tropical Conservation Science. By interviewing indigenous groups and refugees living near two protected areas in western Tanzania, researchers found that consumption rates […]
Over 80 species targeted by hunters in Brazil’s northeast

A new survey of hunting in Brazil’s northeastern state of Paraíba, finds that hunters target, often illegally over 80 species for food, the pet trade, medicine, leather, fur, and ornaments. Over half of the species, mainly birds and mammals, are targeted for food, according to the research published in mongabay.com’s open access journal Tropical Conservation […]
Remarkable new monkey discovered in remote Congo rainforest

Close up of new species: lesula (Cercopithecus lomamiensis). This is a captive adult male. Photo courtesy of Hart et al. In a massive, wildlife-rich, and largely unexplored rainforest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), researchers have made an astounding discovery: a new monkey species, known to locals as the ‘lesula’. The new primate, […]
Turning gorilla poachers into conservationists in the Congo [warning: graphic photos]

African slender-snouted crocodile caught by hunters. Photo courtesy of ESI. Although founded only four years ago, Endangered Species International-Congo, has ambitious plans to protect dwindling Western gorilla populations and aid local people in the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville). The organization, an offshoot of Endangered Species International (ESI), has been spending the last few years […]
Pictures of the day: pangolins saved in Thailand from poachers

A rescued Sunda pangolin. Photo by: FREELAND Foundation. Earlier this summer, 110 Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica) were rescued by Thai customs officials from poachers in a pickup truck. While the driver of the vehicle escaped, a passenger was arrested, but released after paying a fine of $75,000, reports the NGO FREELAND Foundation. Pangolins are eaten […]
Gang raids remote national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The only herd of zebra in the DRC is found in Upemba National Park. After decades of poaching the herd is only about 20 strong. Photo by: Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS). Mai mai rebels, likely linked to poachers, raided the headquarters of the remote Upemba National Park last weekend, reports the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) […]
Half of tropical forest parks losing biodiversity

Jaguar in Brazil. A new study finds that apex predators, like the jaguar, are some of the most sensitive to environmental degradation both inside and outside tropical forest parks. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Governments have set up protected areas, in part, to act as reservoirs for our Earth’s stunning biodiversity; no where is this […]
Poaching in the Serengeti linked to poverty, high legal hunting prices

Lion with kill in the Serengeti ecosystem. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In the effort to protect the Serengeti—arguably Africa’s most famous ecosystem—one of the major problems is the bushmeat trade. Population growth, little available protein, poverty, and a long-standing history of hunting has led many communities to poach wildlife within Serengeti National Park. Interviewing […]
Endangered fruit bats, and many other species, on the menu in the Philippines

Pteropus vampyrus hanging in tree in Sierra Madre Natural Park, Philippines. Photo by: Bigstock. Bushmeat hunting is well-known to be decimating animal populations in Africa, but has been little studied much of Southeast Asia. However, a new paper in mongabay.com’s open access journal Tropical Conservation Science shines light on the size and scale of bushmeat […]
Congolese experts needed to protect Congo Basin rainforests

Professor Baboko teaching a geography class at the Djolu Technical College of Rural Development. Photo courtesy of: Ingrid Schulze. This summer, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is expected to approve a new higher education strategy which the country has developed with the World Bank and other international donors. The shape of this educational reform […]
Saving Indonesia’s monkey with a heart-shaped bottom

Social ties are incredibly important for all primate species, forming close affiliations for support. Photo © Andew Walmsley Wildlife Photography North Sulawesi is one of the world’s most beautiful places. Verdant forests and stunning coral reefs, combined with high levels of species endemism, make it a top biodiversity hotspot. But pressure on the region’s natural […]
App designed to fight wildlife crime in Cambodia

Wild birds and fish on sale in open-air market in Laos. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Conservation NGO Wildlife Alliance has launched a new iPhone app that not only teaches users about Cambodian wildlife but also gives them information on how to help the group fight pervasive wildlife crime in the country. The app includes […]
Scientists say massive palm oil plantation will “cut the heart out” of Cameroon’s rainforest

Aerial photographs of Talangaye oil palm nursery in Nguti subdivision of Herakles Farms planned oil palm plantation. Photographs taken in February 2012. Photographer wishes to remain anonymous. Eleven top scientists have slammed a proposed palm oil plantation in a Cameroonian rainforest surrounded by five protected areas. In an open letter, the researchers allege that Herakles […]
Without data, fate of great apes unknown

Improving the evidence base for African great ape conservation: An interview with Sandra Tranquilli. Silverback gorilla in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Our closest nonhuman relatives, the great apes, are in mortal danger. Every one of the six great ape species is endangered, and without more effective conservation measures, they […]
Tourism for biodiversity in Tambopata

Map, Bahuaja Sonene National Park, Grasshopper Mimicking a Wasp. Photo by: David Johnston. Research and exploration in the Neotropics are extraordinary, life-changing experiences. In the past two decades, a new generation of collaborative projects has emerged throughout Central and South America to provide access to tropical biodiversity. Scientists, local naturalists, guides, students and travelers now […]
Innovative conservation: wild silk, endangered species, and poverty in Madagascar

Moth larvae munching on a host plant. Photo by: Tom Corcoran. For anyone who works in conservation in Madagascar, confronting the complex difficulties of widespread poverty is a part of the job. But with the wealth of Madagascar’s wildlife rapidly diminishing— such as lemurs, miniature chameleons, and hedgehog-looking tenrecs found no-where else in the world—the […]
Majority of protected tropical forests “empty” due to hunting

WARNING: Graphic photos below. Hunter in the Colombian rainforest. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Protected areas in the world’s tropical rainforests are absolutely essential, but one cannot simply set up a new refuge and believe the work is done, according to a new paper in Bioscience. Unsustainable hunting and poaching is decimating tropical forest species […]
Camera traps snap first ever photo of Myanmar snub-nosed monkey

Close-up from world’s first photo of a living Myanmar snub-nosed monkey. Photo by: FFI/BANCA/PRCF. In 2010 researchers described a new species of primate that reportedly sneezes when it rains. Unfortunately, the new species was only known from a carcass killed by a local hunter. Now, however, remote camera traps have taken the first ever photo […]
Cultural shifts in Madagascar drive lemur-killing

The indri lemur is one of the most commonly hunted for bushmeat, though it is listed as Endangered. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler . Conservationists have often found that some cultural norms, religious beliefs, and taboos play a role in holding back traditional peoples from overusing their environment. Examples of such beliefs include days wherein […]
Bushmeat trade driving illegal hunting in Zimbabwe park

Bushmeat hunting is one of the major threats to mammals in sub-Saharan Africa. Although widely discussed and recognized as an issues in Central and West Africa, a new study in mongabay.com’s open access journal Tropical Conservation Science describes a pattern of bushmeat hunting that is also occurring in southern Africa. Interviewing 114 locals living adjacent […]
Forgoing bushmeat hunting has health toll in Madagascar, says study

Conservationists shouldn’t overlook the detrimental health impacts of shifting local populations away from subsistence bushmeat hunting, says a new study. The paper, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looked at the nutritional benefits of bushmeat consumption in the Makira Protected Areas in northern Madagascar. It found that wildlife is an important source […]
Giant rat plays big ecological role in dispersing seeds

Kivu giant pouched rat caught on camera trap eating a seed of Carapa grandiflora. Photo by: Aisha Nyiramana. Rats are rarely thought of as heroes. In fact, in many parts of the world they are despised, while in others they serve largely as food. But, scientists are now discovering that many tropical forest rodents, including […]
Forest elephant populations cut in half in protected area

A forest elephant in Gabon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler . Warfare and poaching have decimated forest elephant populations across their range with even elephants in remote protected areas cut down finds a new study in PLoS ONE. Surveying forest elephant populations in the Okapi Faunal Reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo, researchers have […]
Unsung heroes: the life of a wildlife ranger in the Congo

Bunda Bokitsi. Photo by: Zoological Society of Milwaukee (ZSM). The effort to save wildlife from destruction worldwide has many heroes. Some receive accolades for their work, but others live in obscurity, doing good—sometimes even dangerous—work everyday with little recognition. These are not scientists or big-name conservationists, but wildlife rangers, NGO staff members, and low level […]
Vietnamese rhino goes extinct

Camera trap catches one of the world’s last Vietnamese rhinos before its extinction. Photo courtesy of WWF. In 2009 poachers shot and killed the world’s last Vietnamese rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus), a subspecies of the Javan rhino, confirms a report from International Rhino Foundation (IRF) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The Vietnamese […]
Illuminating Africa’s most obscure cat

An interview with Laila Bahaa-el-din, a part of our on-going Interviews with Young Scientists series. African golden cat in Precious Woods Gabon logging concession. Photo by: Laila Bahaa-el-din/Panthera. Africa is known as the continent of big cats: cheetahs, leopards, and of course, the king of them all, lions. Even servals and caracals are relatively well-known […]
Gorilla poachers brutally murder forest ranger

Female western lowland gorilla with infant in captivity. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Forest ranger, Zomedel Pierre Achille, was brutally murdered by gorilla poachers near Lobéké National Park in Cameroon, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Achille and another ranger, Jean Fils Mamendji, attempted to take poachers into custody after discovering the […]
Cute animal picture of the day: baby hippo takes first swim

A baby common hippo named Hula takes its first swim at the Zoological Society of London’s Whipsnade Zoo. Photo courtesy of ZSL. Common hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius) survive throughout sub-Saharan Africa, though they once roamed as far as Egypt along the Nile River. Not usually thought of as an endangered species, hippos are in fact listed […]
Leopards losing out to bushmeat hunters in competition for prey

WARNING: Graphic photos after the article. Leopard caught on camera trap in Gabon. Photo by: Philipp Henschel/Panthera. According to a surprising new study in the Journal of Zoology, bushmeat hunting is imperiling jungle-dwelling leopards (Panthera pardus) in Africa, even though hunters aren’t targeting the elusive big cats themselves. Instead, by hunting many of the leopard’s […]
Over 80 percent of urban Congolese eat bushmeat

Bushmeat is one of the major threats to wildlife in parts of Africa: large and medium-sized animals are vanishing from regions in a trend dubbed by biologists the ’empty forest syndrome’. A number of popularly consumed species are also threatened with global extinction. A new study in mongabay.com’s open access journal Tropical Conservation Science surveyed […]
Photos: the top ten new species discovered in 2010
- If we had to characterize our understanding of life on Earth as either ignorant or knowledgeable, the former would be most correct.
- In 250 years of rigorous taxonomic work researchers have cataloged nearly two million species, however scientists estimate the total number of species on Earth is at least five million and perhaps up to a hundred million.
- This means every year thousands of new species are discovered by researchers, and from these thousands, the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University selects ten especially notable new species.

Cambodia’s wildlife pioneer: saving species and places in Southeast Asia’s last forest
- Suwanna Gauntlett has dedicated her life to protecting rainforests and wildlife in some of the world’s most hostile and rugged environments and has set the trend of a new generation of direct action conservationists.
- She has designed, implemented, and supported bold, front-line conservation programs to save endangered wildlife populations from the brink of extinction.
- When she first arrived in Cambodia in the late 1990s, its forests were silent.

Dari Kamboja ke Kalifornia: 10 hutan yang paling terancam di dunia

Keterangan pers dari Conservation International awalnya memasukkan Selandia Baru sebagai negara dengan hutan paling terancam kedua di dunia, padahal sebenarnya posisi itu diduduki oleh hutan di Kaledonia Baru Hutan-hutan di Asia-Pasifik adalah yang paling terancam, termasuk 5 dari 10 hutan paling terancam di dunia. Populasi yang sedang tumbuh, pertanian yang sedang berkembang, komoditi seperti minyak […]
Bushmeat trade pushing species to the edge in Tanzania

Udzungwa red colobus. Photo: (c) Photo by Thomas Struhsaker. Hunters are decimating species in the Udzungwa Scarp Forest Reserve, a part of the Eastern Arc Mountains in Southern Tanzania, according to a new report compiled by international and Tanzanian conservationists. Incorporating three research projects, the report finds that bushmeat hunting in conjunction with forest degradation […]
From Cambodia to California: the world’s top 10 most threatened forests

The press release from Conservation International originally listed New Zealand as possessing the world’s 2nd most threatened forests when in fact it is New Caledonia’s forests. Asia-Pacific forests are the most endangered, including 5 of the top 10 threatened forests. Growing populations, expanding agriculture, commodities such as palm oil and paper, logging, urban sprawl, mining, […]
Africa’s vanishing wild: mammal populations cut in half

An interview with Ian Craigie. The big mammals for which Africa is so famous are vanishing in staggering numbers. According to a study published last year: Africa’s large mammal populations have dropped by 59% in just 40 years. But what is even more alarming was that the study only looked at mammal populations residing in […]
Wildlife crime goes largely unpunished in Indonesia

Erik Meijaard is forest director for People and Nature Consulting International in Bali. This editorial originally appeared December 26, 2010 in the Jakarta Globe. It has been posted here with the permission of the author and the Jakarta Globe. Orangutan in Central Kalimantan. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Indonesia is famed for its wildlife diversity. […]
Red pandas may be threatened by small-scale trade

Two studies investigated the scale and potential threat of continued trade in red pandas and found that while reports are low, the occurrence of isolated incidents may be enough to threaten species survival. The red panda, Ailurus fulgens, is a cat-sized, arboreal mammal which lives in temperate forests in the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. […]
New population of Critically Endangered monkey discovered

Classified as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List, listed among the Top 25 Most Endangered primates in the world, and rated number 71 on the EDGE’s list of world’s most endangered and unique mammals, the yellow-tailed woolly monkey needed some good news—and this week it got it. The conservation organization, Neotropical Primate Conservation (NPC), […]
African apes threatened by rising temperatures

Most people wish each day had more than 24 hours. But as the planet heats up, that limited number of hours might push endangered African apes even closer to extinction by making their current habitats unsuitable for their lifestyle, according to a controversial study published on 23 July in the Journal of Biogeography. Researchers from […]
Bushmeat hunting alters forest structure in Africa

According to the first study of its kind in Africa, bushmeat hunting impacts African rainforests by wiping-out large mammals and birds—such as forest elephants, primates, and hornbills—that are critical for dispersing certain tree species. The study, published in Biotropica, found that heavy bushmeat hunting in the Central African Republic changes the structure of forest species […]
Picture: new monkey discovered in Myanmar

New primate is on the edge of extinction. With no photos yet of a living Myanmar snub-nosed monkey, this image was reconstructed using Photoshop, based on a Yunnan snub-nosed monkey and the carcass of the newly discovered species, the Myanmar snub-nosed monkey. Image by: Dr. Thomas Geissmann. Hunters’ reports have led scientists to discover a […]
The $1M bed: why Madagascar’s rainforests are being destroyed

Consumer demand for rosewood furniture and musical instruments is driving illegal logging in Madagascar’s national parks, endangering wildlife and undermining local community livelihoods, according to a new report from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Global Witness. The report, based on more than a year of investigations, shows that Madagascar’s valuable hardwoods—including ebony, pallisander, and […]
1000 rare tortoises poached each week in Madagascar

One thousand endangered tortoises are being illegally collected each week in southern Madagascar, reports WWF. The trade, driven by international demand for the endemic radiated tortoise (Astrochelys radiata) and the spider tortoise (Pyxis arachnoids) as well as local consumption, is driving the slow-to-reproduce species toward extinction in the wild. Additionally, tortoise trafficking poses a risk […]
Threatened on all sides: how to save the Serengeti

Tanzania’s plan to build a road through the Serengeti has raised the hackles of environmentalists, conservationists, tourists, and wildlife-lovers worldwide, yet the proposed road is only the most recent in a wide variety of threats to the Serengeti ecosystem. A new study in mongabay.com’s open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science looks at the wide variety of […]
Financial crisis pummels wildlife and people in the Congo rainforest

Spreading over three central African nations—Cameroon, Central African Republic, and Republic of Congo—the Sangha tri-national landscape is home to a variety of actors: over 150,000 Bantu people and nearly 20,000 pygmies; endangered species including forest elephants and gorillas; and, not least, the Congo rainforest ecosystem itself, which here remains largely intact. Given its interplay of […]
Apakah Perlindungan Karbon Sama Dengan Perlindungan Keragaman Hayati?

Kenapa keragaman hayati penting bagi penyimpanan karbon Perlindungan hutan karena nilai karbonnya melalui skema Emisi yang Berkurang dari Penggundulan Hutan dan Degradasi (REDD) telah meningkat di tahun-tahun terakhir ini. Skema-skema ini berkonsentrasi pada pelestarian tutupan hutan, dan karenanya memiliki potensi besar atas konservasi keragaman hayati alami. Beberapa inisiatif (REDD) telah secara spesifik memasukkan perlindungan keragaman […]
Into the Congo: saving bonobos means aiding left-behind communities, an interview with Gay Reinartz

Gay Reinartz will be speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 3rd, 2010. Unlike every other of the world’s great apes—the gorilla, chimpanzee, and orangutan—saving the bonobo means focusing conservation efforts on a single nation, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While such a fact would seem to simplify conservation, […]
New ape species uncovered in Asia

Discovering a species unknown to science is a highlight of any biologist’s career, but imagine discovering a new ape? Researchers with the German Primate Center (DPZ) announced today the discovery of a new species of ape in the gibbon family, dubbed the northern buffed-cheeked gibbon (Nomascus annamensis), according to the AFP. The new species was […]
How the overlooked peccary engineers the Amazon, an interview with Harald Beck

When people think of the Amazon rainforest, they likely think of roaring jaguars, jumping monkeys, marching ants, and squeezing anacondas. The humble peccary would hardly be among the first animals to cross their mind, if they even know such pig-like animals exists! Yet new research on the peccary is proving just how vital these species […]
Scientists warn little known gibbons face immediate extinction

It’s not easy to be a gibbon: although one of the most acrobatic, fast, and marvelously loud of the world’s primates, the gibbon remains largely unknown to the global public and far less studied than the world’s more ‘popular’ apes. This lack of public awareness, scientific knowledge, and, thereby, conservation funding combined with threats from […]
Is carbon protection the same as biodiversity protection?

Why biodiversity matters for carbon storage Protection of forests for their carbon value through Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) schemes has been increasing in recent years. These schemes concentrate on preserving forest cover, and thus have great potential for the conservation of natural biodiversity. Some (REDD+) initiatives already specifically take biodiversity protection into […]
Crackdown on illegal wildlife trade in Vietnam

A sweep of restaurants in Vietnam’s Lam Dong Province turned up hundreds of pounds of illegal wildlife products, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). More than 100 officers from the Lam Dong Forest Protection Department confiscated over 850 pounds of wildlife including meat, animal parts, and skins during raids conducted last week in Da Lat […]
Dapatkah Biochar Selamatkan Dunia?

Sebuah wawancara dengan Laurens Rademakers dari Biochar Fund. Biochar – penggunaan arang yang diproduksi dari membakar biomassa untuk pertanian – mungkin merupakan saru dari revolusi lingkungan dan sosial yang terpenting di abad ini. Praktek yang sepertinya sederhana ini – sebuah teknologi yang kembali ke ribuan tahun yang lalu – memiliki potensi untuk membantu mengurangi sebagian […]
Could biochar save the world?

An interview with Laurens Rademakers of Biochar Fund. Biochar—the agricultural application of charcoal produced from burning biomass—may be one of this century’s most important social and environmental revolutions. This seemingly humble practice—a technology that goes back thousands of years—has the potential to help mitigate a number of entrenched global problems: desperate hunger, lack of soil […]
Hunting threatens the other Amazon: where harpy eagles are common and jaguars easy to spot, an interview with Paul Rosolie

If you have been fortunate enough to visit the Amazon or any other great rainforest, you’ve probably been wowed by the multitude and diversity of life. However, you also likely quickly realized that the deep jungle is not quite what you may have imagined when you were a child: you don’t watch as jaguars wrestle […]
Logging crisis pushes Madagascar’s forests on to UNESCO’s Danger List

UNESCO’s World Heritage committee has added Madagascar’s unique tropical forests to its Danger List of threatened ecosystems. The move comes following a drawn-out illegal logging crisis that has seen loggers and traders infiltrating the island-nation’s national parks for rosewood. Bushmeat hunting of lemurs and other rare species also accompanied the crisis. “In adding this site […]
If Madagascar’s biodiversity is to be saved, international community must step up

The international community’s boycott of environmental aid to Madagascar is imperiling the island’s unique and endangered wildlife, according to a new report commissioned by the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Bureau of Africa. International aid to the desperately poor nation slowed to a trickle after a government coup last year, including a halt on […]
Cina Sita Sekitar 2.000 Trenggiling yang Diperdagangkan Ilegal

Memasuki sebuah kapal pengangkut parang pagi-pagi di tanggal 6 Juni, pegawai bea cukai menemukan 2.090 trenggiling beku dan 92 bungkus sisik trenggiling, seberat 3.960 pound. Dijalankan oleh lima orang Cina dan satu Malaysia, kapal tersebut sedang menunggu instruksi melalui telepon satelit untuk bertemu dengan kapal lain untuk transfer kargo ilegal saat masih di laut. “Penggunaan […]
China seizes over 2,000 illegally trafficked pangolins

Boarding a suspect fishing vessel in the early morning of June 6th, Chinese customs officials discovered 2,090 frozen pangolins and 92 cases of pangolin scales, weighing an astounding 3,960 pounds. Manned by five Chinese and one Malaysian national, the boat was awaiting instructions via satellite phone as to where to meet another ship to transfer […]
12,000 Critically Endangered antelopes found dead

The Ural population of the Critically Endangered saiga, a curious-looking Asian antelope, has been decimated by an unknown assailant. 12,000 saigas, mostly females and their calves, were found dead in western Kazakhstan reports the Saiga Conservation Alliance. Researchers are currently investigating the cause of the deaths. However, they have linked the mass mortality to a […]
Long-distance seed dispersal and hunting, an interview with Kimberly Holbrook

The fourth in an interview series with participants in the 5th Frugivore and Seed Dispersal International Symposium. Scientists are just beginning to uncover the complex relationship between healthy biodiverse tropical forests and seed dispersers—species that spread seeds from a parent tree to other parts of the forest including birds, rodents, primates, and even elephants. By […]
Protected areas vital for saving elephants, chimps, and gorillas in the Congo

In a landscape-wide study in the Congo, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) found that core protected areas and strong anti-poaching efforts are necessary to maintain viable populations of forest elephants, western lowland gorillas, and chimpanzees—all of which are threatened with extinction. Evaluating various land-uses in the Republic of Congo’s Ndoki-Likouala Conservation Landscape—including a national park, […]
Farming snails to save the world’s rarest gorillas

In a place of poverty and hunger, how do you save a species on the edge of extinction? A difficult question that conservationists have long-been working to tackle, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has come up with a new plan to protect the world’s most endangered gorilla, the Cross River gorilla, from poachers by providing […]
Once common tortoise from Madagascar will be ‘extinct in 20 years’

The radiated tortoise, once common throughout Madagascar, faces extinction within the next 20 years due to poaching for its meat and the illegal pet trade, according to biologists with the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Returning from field surveys in southern Madagascar’s spiny forest, they found regions without a single […]
Population density corresponds with forest loss in the Congo Basin

Africa’s greatest rainforest ecosystem, the Congo Basin, has undergone significant deforestation and degradation during the past century. A new study in the open access journal Tropical Conservation Science examined whether or not there was a connection between population density and forest loss. Since the 1980s the Congo rainforest has had the highest rate of deforestation […]
Wildlife Management Areas in Africa require changes to become sustainable

Wildlife Management Areas in Africa were created to serve a dual purpose. By granting local communities usage rights over wildlife in designated areas, African countries hoped both to allow communities to benefit from their wildlife while taking an active part in conservation. A new paper in published in the open access journal Tropical Conservation Science […]
Guerrillas could drive gorillas toward extinction in Congo, warns UN

Gorillas may disappear across much of the Congo Basin by the mid 2020s unless action is taken to protect against poaching and habitat destruction, warns a new report issued by United Nations and INTERPOL. The Last Stand of the Gorilla – Environmental Crime and Conflict in the Congo Basin — released at the CITES meeting […]
Environmental groups call on Delmas to cancel shipment of illegally logged wood from Madagascar

Pressure is building on the French shipping company Delmas to cancel large shipments of rosewood, which was illegally logged in Madagascar during the nation’s recent coup. Today two environmental groups, Global Witness and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) called on Delmas to cancel the shipment, which is currently being loaded onto the Delmas operated ship […]
Thousands of tons of illegal timber in Madagascar readied for export

As the President of France, Nicholas Sarkozy, argues in Paris that more funding is needed to stop deforestation and mitigate climate change, a shipment of illegal rosewood is being readied for export in Madagascar by a French company with the tacit approval of the French government. The shipment of some 4,000-5,000 tons of rosewood will […]
Secrets of the Amazon: giant anacondas and floating forests, an interview with Paul Rosolie

Paul Rosolie leads volunteer expeditions into the Peruvian rainforest with an aim towards education and grassroots conservation. Mongabay.com’s eighth in its series of interviews with ‘Young Scientists’. At twenty-two Paul Rosolie has seen more adventure than many of us will in our lifetime. First visiting the Amazon at eighteen, Rosolie has explored strange jungle ecosystems, […]
How to end Madagascar’s logging crisis

In the aftermath of a military coup last March, Madagascar’s rainforests have been pillaged for precious hardwoods, including rosewood and ebony. Tens of thousands of hectares have been affected, including some of the island’s most biologically diverse national parks: Marojejy, Masoala, and Makira. Illegal logging has also spurred the rise of a commercial bushmeat trade. […]
Stopping wildlife trafficking in Congo

An interview with Naftali Honig, director of Projet d’Appui à l’Application de la Loi sur la Faune in Republic of Congo. The bushmeat trade in the Congo basin has been widely publicized but poorly addressed. While fines and sentences exist for wildlife trafficking, they have traditionally been poorly enforced due to corruption, poor governance, and […]
Shipment of questionable Madagascar rosewood canceled after international outcry

A planned shipment of rosewood that had been illegally logged from Madagascar’a rainforest parks has been canceled following international outcry, report sources in Madagascar. The shipment, which would have been transported by Delmas, a French shipping company, had been scheduled for December 21st or 22nd out of the port of Vohemar. Several sources in northeastern […]
World’s rarest gorilla caught on film

The first ever professional footage of the world’s rarest gorilla, the Cross River gorilla ( Gorilla gorilla diehli), has been shot deep in the forested mountains of Cameroon. The only other existing footage of this Critically Endangered subspecies was taken from far away by a field researcher in 2005. After weeks of effort, the Hamburg-based […]
Pygmy hippo shot and killed in…Australia

Hippo survived for 5 years in the Australian outback. Hunters going after pigs in Australia’s Northwest Territories got a big surprise when they shot an animal they mistook for a pig, only to find out it was a pygmy hippopotamus, reports the Northwest Territory News. There is only one problem: pygmy hippos are native to […]
Hunting across Southeast Asia weakens forests’ survival, An interview with Richard Corlett

Seventh in a series of interviews with participants at the 2009 Association of Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) conference. A large flying fox eats a fruit ingesting its seeds. Flying over the tropical forests it eventually deposits the seeds at the base of another tree far from the first. One of these seeds takes root, […]
Kenya’s pain, part two: decades of wildlife decline exacerbated by drought
- Not many years ago if you were planning a trip to Africa to see wildlife, Kenya would be near the top of the list, if not number one.
- Then violent riots in late 2007 and early 2008 leaving a thousand dead tarnished the country’s image abroad.
- When calm and stability returned, Kenya was again open for tourism, and it’s true that most travelers were quick to forget: articles earlier this year announced that even with the global economic crisis Kenya was expecting tourism growth.
- However, a new disaster may not be so quickly overcome.

After declining 95% in 15 years, Saiga antelope begins to rebound with help from conservationists

An interview with Elena Bykova, founder of the Saiga Conservation Alliance In a decline on par with that suffered by the American bison in the Nineteenth Century, in the 1990s the saiga antelope of the Central Asian steppe plummeted from over one million individuals to 50,000, dropping a staggering 95 percent in a decade and […]
Oil road transforms indigenous nomadic hunters into commercial poachers in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Oil company in Ecuador transforms indigenous community into commercial poachers, threatening wildlife in a protected area The documentary Crude opened this weekend in New York, while the film shows the direct impact of the oil industry on indigenous groups a new study proves that the presence of oil companies can have subtler, but still major […]
Could DNA barcodes help fight the commercial wildlife trade? [warning: graphic image]

Illegal wildlife traders around the world may have a new enemy: DNA barcodes. These short genetic sequences could aid police and customs officials around the world in tracking the origin of confiscated bushmeat and other wildlife products. A new study in Conservation Genetics uncovered short barcodes of DNA for 25 mammals and reptile species that […]
Critically-endangered turtle seen in the wild for the first time by scientists

Scientists have stumbled on the Arakan forest turtle for the first time in the wild, according to a report by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). One of the world’s rarest turtles, the Arakan forest turtle was thought to be extinct for 86 years, before being discovered in an Asian food market in 1994. It has […]
Last chance to save a ‘singular beauty’ of Asia: the shy soala

Only discovered in 1992, the reclusive and beautiful saola Pseudoryx nghetinhensis may soon vanish from the Earth, if rapid action isn’t taken to save one of Asia’s most enigmatic and rare mammals. Listed as Critically Endangered, the species has experienced a sharp decline since its discovery due largely to poaching. “The animal’s prominent white facial […]
World’s largest bat threatened with extinction due to legal hunting

Gorillas orphaned by bushmeat trade set free on island

The Africa’s Eden. Video showing release of gorillas on the island. Related articles More than 300 gorillas butchered each year in the Republic of Congo (03/27/2009) During 2008 and early 2009, Endangered Species International (ESI) conducted monitoring activities using undercover methods at key markets in the city of Pointe Noire, the second biggest city in […]

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