topic: Carnivores

topic: Carnivores

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Conservation success leaves Nepal at a loss for dealing with ‘problem tigers’
- Nepal’s success in tiger conservation has come at the cost of rising human-tiger conflict, prompting the government to capture “problem tigers” deemed to pose a threat to human life.
- But the government has no definitive plans for these tigers, of which there are 18 currently in captivity, costing the environment ministry nearly $100,000 a year just to feed.
- Various stakeholders have proposed a range of solutions, from sport hunting that would also generate revenue, to establishing rescue centers, to gifting the tigers to foreign zoos, to even simply culling them.
- The country’s environment minister, criticized for the sport hunting proposal, has spoken out against the prioritization of conservation at the expense of local communities’ increasingly urgent safety concerns.

Dholes latest wild canids likely making comeback in Nepal, study shows
- Dholes and Himalayan wolves were extensively persecuted across rural Nepal for preying on livestock, leading to their decline in the region.
- But recent observations suggest a resurgence of both species, possibly due to the reclaiming of their former territories: Himalayan wolves may have followed yak herders from Tibet, while dholes are believed to be recolonizing areas they had been locally extirpated from.
- Camera trap surveys and literature reviews indicate the recolonization of areas like the Annapurna Conservation Area and the Tinjure–Milke–Jaljale forests by dholes.
- Despite some optimism among conservationists, challenges such as competition with other predators, habitat fragmentation and human-wildlife conflict persist, requiring further studies and monitoring efforts.

Let’s give the wary wolverine some space (commentary)
- Wolverines are extremely solitary animals that purposefully avoid humans, so seeing one in the wild is typically a once-in-a-lifetime encounter.
- This makes planning for their conservation very tricky.
- “Three ways we can best support wolverines into the future are to connect large areas of habitat, close seasonal use areas to create disturbance-free zones, and actively manage their populations,” a new op-ed states.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

In 2023, Nepal’s ‘uncelebrated’ wildlife continued wait for attention
- From hispid hares to otters and a critically endangered lizard, Nepal’s lesser-known wild animals live under the shadow of the iconic tiger.
- Officials and conservation stakeholders are yet to come up with concrete plans to save many of these species even as they face the threat of extinction due to habitat loss and fragmentation.
- Other flora and fauna deserve the government’s attention amid these myriad growing threats, researchers told Mongabay in 2023.

Wolves through the ages: A journey of coexistence, conflict, and conservation
- Wolves are ecologically vital as keystone species, playing a critical role in maintaining the health and balance of ecosystems. Culturally, wolves hold a unique place in the human imagination, revered and mythologized across various cultures for their intelligence, resilience, and spirit of freedom.
- From North America to Eurasia, they are deeply embedded in folklore and tradition, often symbolizing strength and guidance. In many Indigenous communities, wolves have a prominent role in traditional culture, often revered as ancestral figures, spiritual guides, and symbols of the untamed natural world.
- In her new book, “Echo Loba, Loba Echo: Of Wisdom, Wolves, and Women”, Sonja Swift dives into the multifaceted relationship between humans and wolves. From childhood recollections to ecological roles, and from colonial impacts to modern conservation efforts, her work is an exploration of how wolves mirror our own stories, fears, and hopes.
- Swift recently spoke with Mongabay Founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler about the deep-seated symbolism of the wolf and its significant yet often misunderstood place in our world. She also shared insights on how the conservation sector is evolving.

Honey production sweetens snow leopard conservation in Kyrgyzstan
- Kyrgyzstan is one of a dozen countries where snow leopards live, but its population of 300-400 of the big cats living along its highest peaks is stressed by climate change, mining, road construction, and conflict with herders, whose livestock can be tempting prey.
- A new program by two snow leopard conservation NGOs is helping herders diversify away from livestock toward beekeeping, agroecology, ecotourism and handicrafts.
- Participants receive beehives and training, and help with education and research into the local snow leopard population via deployment of many camera traps, which so far suggest that the local populations of leopards and a favorite prey species, ibex, are stable or increasing.
- Half of the honey profits are invested back into the program to improve beekeeping education, purchase supplies, and to fund environmental projects chosen by the participants.

Montana cannot be trusted with grizzly bear & wolf management (commentary)
- The U.S. State of Montana’s legislature has recently proposed a litany of extreme anti-wildlife bills despite widespread and diverse opposition.
- Grizzly bears are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, but Montana lawmakers and Gov. Greg Gianforte are pushing measures that would issue grizzly bear kill permits to ranchers using public lands, for example.
- The state has also opened up unlimited wolf hunting along Yellowstone National Park’s border, despite the fact that those wolves spend 96% of their time in the park.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

For tigers in Nepal, highways are a giant roadblock best avoided
- A new study indicates that the presence of roads, and vehicle traffic, in tiger habitats could take a toll on the big cats’ behavior and long-term fitness and survival.
- A tiger fitted with a GPS collar in Nepal’s Parsa National Park was found to avoid crossing roads by day, but to cross more often during the country’s 2021 COVID-19 lockdown.
- This suggests the animals can adapt quickly when traffic volume eases, pointing to measures that can be taken to mitigate road impacts not just on tigers, but on wildlife in general.
- Researchers say the findings should give planners in Nepal something to consider as they look to double the number of lanes on the East-West Highway that runs through both Parsa and Bardiya national parks.

To restore large carnivore populations, make people wealthier, study finds
- Encouraging sustainable social and economic development is the best way to prevent the extinction of carnivores such as lynx, bears and lions, according to a new study.
- Researchers found that social and economic factors, such as people’s quality of life, were more closely associated with declines of these species than purely environmental features like habitat loss or climate change. As people become wealthier, they are more likely to tolerate large carnivores.
- A key example is western Europe, where populations of grey wolves have increased by 1,800% since the 1960s due to better quality of life for people and slower economic growth on the continent.
- Rapid economic development often comes at the expense of other species, so advanced economies may need to provide financial assistance to help prevent these species from going extinct.

Protecting canids from planet-wide threats offers ecological opportunities
- Five species within the Canidae family are considered endangered. These species, while found far apart in North and South America, Asia and Africa, often share similar threats, including habitat loss, persecution, disease and climate change.
- For some at-risk canid species, loss of prey, particularly due to snaring, is a significant concern that can also exacerbate human-wildlife conflict. Ecosystem-level conservation that protects prey species populations is required to protect canids and other carnivore species, experts say.
- Conservationists and researchers emphasize that canids play important roles in maintaining the habitats in which they live. That makes protecting these predators key to restoring and maintaining functional ecosystems.
- In the face of widespread global biodiversity loss, some canid reintroductions are taking place and proving successful. These rewilding efforts are offering evidence of the importance of canids to healthy ecosystems and to reducing various ecosystem-wide threats, even potentially helping curb climate change.

How bears “make” a forest (commentary)
- The Andean bear, or ukuku, is the only bear that lives in South America and despite being an elusive species, it has deep spiritual and cultural significance for Andean peoples.
- Enrique G. Ortiz of the Andes Amazon Fund writes about the bear and efforts to conserve it in Peru’s Kosñipata valley, including the recent establishment of the Andean Bear Interpretation Center at Wayqecha Biological Station to raise awareness and appreciation of the species.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Southeast Asia’s big cats like their prey rare — as in really elusive
- A new study demonstrates that ungulates like serow are important prey for tigers and clouded leopards living in dense evergreen forests in mainland Southeast Asia.
- Numbers of these big cats are dwindling in the region due to direct killing to supply the illegal wildlife trade and the snaring crisis, which both kills the cats and severely depletes their prey populations.
- The findings go against the popular belief that clouded leopards, which spend a portion of their lives in the tree canopy, prefer to prey on primates, other arboreal species and small deer.
- Carnivore experts say the new insights will help to inform efforts to restore prey populations in the region — a key part of boosting flagging big cat numbers.

In Nepal, endangered tiger kills critically endangered gharial. What does it mean?
- A tiger entered the Kasara gharial breeding center in Chitwan National Park and killed three critically endangered gharials.
- The incident raised concerns that as the tiger population in Nepal increases, the animals could turn to the crocodiles for easy food.
- Conservationists, however, say that is unlikely as tigers have other animals to feed upon.

As tiger numbers in Nepal and India grow, their freedom to roam shrinks
- Nepal is one of the few countries on track to double its tiger population this year from a 2010 baseline.
- But a growing sense of “animal nationalism” threatens to mar this success, with local media playing up the tigers’ travels across the border into India.
- The big cats, which don’t recognize political boundaries, have always roamed a wide range in this region, yet even this behavior is under threat as key corridors are restricted or cut off entirely by infrastructure projects by both countries.
- Conservationists have called for keeping nationalism out of planning and implementation of conservation efforts, for the sake of this iconic species.

Road project threatens to derail Nepal’s conservation gains, study says
- A new study rates the risk that existing and planned roads pose to tigers, wolves and other apex predators around the world.
- In the case of Nepal, the study also identifies sloth bears, wild dogs and clouded leopards as among the animals most at risk.
- The new Postal Highway being built in the nation’s south could impact eight major protected areas in Nepal and five transboundary protected areas in India.
- The threats posed by roads to wildlife include vehicle collisions, habitat fragmentation, and increased poaching pressure.

‘We scientists engage in soft diplomacy’: Q&A with Christine Wilkinson
- Christine Wilkinson is a carnivore ecologist, National Geographic Explorer and postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who uses technology to examine interactions between humans and wildlife in East Africa and California.
- Her work is interdisciplinary, using participatory mapping to include local communities in her work and learn about how peoples’ perceptions about carnivores affects conflicts with them.
- Wilkinson also notes that human-wildlife conflicts areas are rooted in human-human conflict, often based in socioeconomic and sociopolitical contexts as well as histories.
- Wilkinson spoke with Mongabay about why hyenas get such a bad rap, her dream of a solar-powered camera-trap grid, and her work bringing together other African American scientists in mammalogy.

Top 15 species discoveries from 2021 (Photos)
- Science has only just begun to find and describe all of the species on Earth; by some estimates, only 20% have been described.
- This year, Mongabay reported on newly described species from nearly every continent, including an Ecuadoran ant whose name broke the gender binary, an acrobatic North American skunk, an Australian “killer tobacco,” a fuzzy orange bat from West Africa, tiny screech owls from Brazil, and more.
- Though a species may be new to science, that doesn’t mean it has not yet been found and given a name by local and Indigenous communities.

Meet the fishing jaguars that have made this patch of the Pantanal their own
- The big cats here feed mostly on fish and caimans, a small crocodilian, unlike jaguars elsewhere that prey on land mammals.
- The abundance of aquatic and semi-aquatic animals in the Taiamã Ecological Station in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands has enabled jaguars here to thrive in surprising ways, a new study shows.
- Camera trap images and movement data also show that the Taiamã jaguars are highly social, hunting and even playing together, with no territorial disputes despite the area having the highest jaguar density in the world.
- In addition to the abundant food supply, the small variation in water levels at the reserve also contributes to the large jaguar population, since it allows them to live in the area during the wet and dry seasons.

Jaguars in Mexico are growing in number, a promising sign that national conservation strategies are working
- The first surveys to count jaguars in Mexico revealed a 20% increase in the population from 2010 to 2018, up to 4,800 animals.
- Conservation strategies targeted the most urgent threats to jaguars, and prioritized protecting wildlife preserves and natural corridors.
- Mexico’s National Alliance for Jaguar Conservation united the government, people living near protected areas, and the private sector in plans to conserve the iconic species.

Carnivores avoid rush hour by taking to roads at night
- Large carnivores avoid people by steering clear of roads during the day, but they often travel by road at night.
- Avoiding humans is a higher priority than avoiding other carnivore species.
- Humans may also be altering predator-prey relationships by making large carnivores more nocturnal.

Hungry like the maned wolf pup: Clips give rare glimpse of elusive canine
- New camera-trap clips show three maned wolf pups nursing and eating regurgitated food from their mother.
- This is the first time this behavior has been observed and documented in wild maned wolves, experts say.
- Wild maned wolves have recently recolonized Iberá National Park in Argentina, thanks to conservation efforts.

The cat is back: Wild Amur tigers rebound in China, thanks to govt policies
- Camera trap footage taken between 2013 and 2018 revealed that about 55 endangered Amur tigers are now living in northeastern China.
- Experts say the tigers’ reemergence in the region is largely due to Chinese national policies favoring environmental stewardship, including the Natural Forest Protection Project and the establishment of several reserves.
- According to a recent paper, northeastern China could actually support about 310 tigers, including 119 breeding females, if further efforts are taken to minimize human pressures and ecological corridors are established between tiger habitats.
- While tiger numbers are growing in China, the species continues to face threats of poaching, habitat loss and fragmentation, and human-wildlife conflict.

Pepé Le New: Meet the acrobatic spotted skunks of North America
- Researchers analyzed spotted skunk DNA and found that rather than the four skunk species previously recognized by science, there are actually seven.
- Spotted skunks are sometimes called the “acrobats of the skunk world” due to their impressive handstands, which warn predators that a noxious spray is coming their way.
- Among the new species, the Plains spotted skunk is in significant decline, with habitat and prey loss during the spread of industrial agriculture likely to blame.
- Figuring out the different species lineages may inform efforts conservation efforts, one of the study’s authors said: “Once something has a species name, it’s easier to conserve and protect.”

Reckoning with elitism and racism in conservation: Q&A with Colleen Begg
- Long-running concerns about discrimination, colonial legacy, privilege, and power dynamics in conservation have come to the forefront with the recent resurgence of the social justice movement. But will this movement lead to lasting change in the sector?
- South African conservationist Colleen Begg says that meaningful transformation will require dedicated and sustained efforts to drive real change in conservation.
- Begg, who co-founded both the Niassa Carnivore Project in Mozambique and Women for the Environment, Africa, says that conservationists in positions of power need to open themselves to criticism and change, while creating pathways for new leaders and ideas to come forward.
- Begg spoke about these issues and more in a recent conversation with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.

Electronic ears listen to poachers in a key Central American jaguar habitat
- The international NGO Panthera has been using acoustical monitoring systems to support their anti-poaching patrols in Guatemala and Honduras since 2017.
- The acoustical recorders can pick up gunshots, conversations and wildlife sounds, and help rangers plan their patrols to be more effective in combating illegal activities.
- Panthera is particularly concerned about protecting the jaguar, which is threatened by poaching, wildlife trafficking and habitat loss in this region.

Southeast Asian wild pigs confront deadly African swine fever epidemic
- A recent study in the journal Conservation Letters warns that African swine fever, responsible for millions of pig deaths in mainland Asia since 2018, now endangers 11 wild pig species living in Southeast Asia.
- These pig species generally have low populations naturally, and their numbers have dwindled further due to hunting and loss of habitat.
- The authors of the study contend that losing these species could hurt local economies and food security.
- Southeast Asia’s wild pigs are also important ecosystem engineers that till the soil and encourage plant life, and they are prey for critically endangered predators such as the Sumatran tiger and the Javan leopard.

Big cat comeback: Jaguars prowl Argentina’s Iberá Wetlands after 70 years
- Conservationists recently released three jaguars — a mother and two cubs — into Gran Iberá Park in northeastern Argentina’s Corrientes province in an attempt to rewild the local ecosystem.
- Jaguars haven’t been present in the Iberá Wetlands for the past 70 years, after hunting and habitat loss drove them to local extinction.
- The ultimate goal of the jaguar reintroduction program is to reestablish a healthy, genetically diverse population of jaguars in Gran Iberá Park, which has the capacity to hold about 100 jaguars, according to conservationists.

The New Guinea singing dog, once thought extinct, is alive in the wild
- DNA analysis of three wild dogs living at high altitude on New Guinea reveals that they are part of the same population as captive New Guinea singing dogs.
- These findings confirm that New Guinea singing dogs are not extinct in the wild as previously thought.
- New conservation methods are now being considered to protect what some consider to be the world’s rarest wild dog.

Crimefighting NGO tracks Brazil wildlife trade on WhatsApp and Facebook
- A nonprofit, the National Network Combating Wild Animal Trafficking (RENCTAS) was founded in 1999, and since then has won international awards and acclaim for its innovative approach to tracking and combating the global illegal wildlife trade, especially the sourcing of animals in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna biomes.
- The group’s pioneering strategy: use social media to track the sale and movement of animals out of Brazil, and turn over the data to law enforcement. In 1999, it identified nearly 6,000 ads featuring the illegal sale of animals on e-commerce platforms. By 2019, it reported 3.5 million advertisements for the illegal trade on social networks.
- The most trafficked Brazilian animals currently: the double-collared seedeater (Sporophila caerulescens); a small, finch-like songbird with a yellow bill that thrives in the southern Cerrado, and the white-cheeked spider monkey (Ateles marginatus), found across the Amazon basin. Sales of animals have been tracked to 200+ illegal trafficking organizations.
- Tragically, of the millions of Brazilian animals captured, sold, resold, and transported, only an estimated 1 in 10 ever reach Brazilian and foreign consumers alive. The rest, ripped from their homes, starved and abused, die in transit.

Video: Vets hail ‘victory’ as jaguar burned in Pantanal fires returns to wild
- This year, fires in the Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland region, burned through about 4.1 million hectares (10.1 million acres), which constitutes about 28% of the region.
- A 3-year-old jaguar caught in the fires suffered third-degree burns on all four of his paws as he ran across burning peat.
- In September, the jaguar was rescued by a group of veterinarians and delivered to a clinic that helped treat his wounds.
- A month later, rains had extinguished most of the fires, and the jaguar was released in the same spot from which he was rescued.

Spots of hope: Some good news for South Africa’s cheetahs
- Cheetahs have vanished from 90% of their historical range in Africa.
- A metapopulation project in South Africa has almost doubled the population of cheetahs in this project in less than nine years.
- The program works by nurturing several populations of the cat in mostly private game reserves, and swapping cheetahs between these sites to boost the gene pool.
- South Africa is now the only country in the world with a significantly increasing population of wild cheetahs, and has begun translocating the cats beyond its borders.

Howling in the dark: Shining a light on a newly remembered wolf
- The African golden wolf was only recently designated as a species in its own right, after decades of being conflated with the golden jackal.
- The patchy taxonomic record means little is known about the species, including its behavior, range and population, leaving researchers without a baseline for determining its conservation status. But pioneering work in Morocco by Liz Campbell, a researcher at the University of Oxford, is starting to paint a picture of this enigmatic species, seen by local shepherds as a major threat to their livestock.
- Campbell’s surveys and interviews show that this fear appears to be overblown, with far more sheep dying from cold weather or disease than predator attack, and half of the witnessed attacks carried out by feral wild dogs.

Is an African wild dog actually a dog? Candid Animal Cam meets the rare canid
- Every Tuesday, Mongabay brings you a new episode of Candid Animal Cam, our show featuring animals caught on camera traps around the world and hosted by Romi Castagnino, our writer and conservation scientist.

Is Chinese investment driving a sharp increase in jaguar poaching?
- A 200-fold increase in the number of trafficked dead jaguars seized by authorities in Central and South America between 2012 and 2018 has been reported in a new study.
- Researchers suggest the major surge in the trade may be facilitated by Chinese investment networks in Latin America.
- Corruption and low incomes in source countries also are likely a significant factor boosting trafficking.
- Acting on the paper’s findings, initiatives organized by nations, states, municipalities, NGOs, universities and research institutes could help improve collaborative regional efforts to combat the illicit trade.

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.

What is a brown bear? Candid Animal Cam explores the lives of some of the largest bears in the world
- Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This week we’re meeting the second largest terrestrial carnivore on the planet: the brown bear.

What is a short-eared dog? Candid Animal Cam meets one of the most elusive mammals of the Amazon

Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This week we’re meeting one of the most elusive mammals of the Amazon basin: the short-eared dog. The short-eared dog (Atelocynus microtis) can be found in the South American Amazon rainforest region of Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, […]
Coronavirus is a crisis for South Africa’s captive lions, campaigners warn
- Captive lions in South Africa could face starvation or euthanization as tourist revenues disappear amid the COVD-19 pandemic, according to animal welfare groups.
- Conservationists argue that the pandemic illustrates why exploitation of wildlife is risky: in the case of lions, the big cats can carry both tuberculosis and the feline equivalent of HIV.
- Industry representatives say animal rights groups have destabilized the lion-breeding business by misrepresenting it.

Predators disproportionately impacted by human land use changes, study finds
- New research looking at whether particular types of wildlife are more affected than others by habitat loss determined that predators are the most impacted, as was expected — but the study results held some surprises nonetheless.
- Because the loss of plant resources makes it harder for large predators to find sufficient food when land use changes occur within their range, researchers expected to find that these types of animals would be especially affected.
- The analysis showed that predators are indeed more affected by habitat loss than other groups — but that larger carnivores are not threatened with the largest declines. It was small invertebrates that were found to face the worst impacts.

Camera trap study reveals Amazon ocelot’s survival strategies
- Ocelots suffered severe declines in the 1960s and 70s due to hunting, but populations have rebounded since the international fur trade was banned. Now, heavy deforestation and increasing human activity across their range threaten to put this elegant creature back on the endangered list.
- Researchers collected images from hundreds of camera traps set across the Amazon basin and analyzed the effect of different habitat characteristics on the presence of ocelots. Statistical modeling revealed the cat’s preference for dense forests and a dislike of roads and human settlements.
- Experts say ocelots may also be responding to human activity and forest degradation in ways that camera traps cannot easily detect, such as changing how and when they use a particular habitat. The study looked at ocelot behavior in protected and forested habitat, not in degraded landscapes.
- Ocelots are considered ambassador species for their forest ecosystem, and studies like this give support to maintaining protected areas, which are increasingly under threat from agricultural expansion and other human activities.

Snow leopard population overestimated in Nepal? DNA study suggests it may be
- Researchers conducted a large-scale survey of potential snow leopard habitat in Nepal to re-estimate the species’ population density using the non-invasive technique of collecting environmental DNA from scat samples combined with standard genetic analyses.
- This method enabled the researchers to sample a larger, more representative, area than many previous studies, often conducted in prime leopard habitats; they also found that they could obtain reliable DNA from scat samples.
- Previous studies on which conservation policies have been based may have over-estimated the big cat’s population. The researchers say similar studies are needed to more accurately estimate the population of snow leopards in Nepal and 11 other range countries.

‘Landscape of fearlessness’: bushbuck emboldened following top-predator decline in Mozambique
- Bushbuck in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park have become increasingly fearless in their foraging habits, changing from foraging exclusively in woodland areas to braving open floodplains.
- Following years of civil war, populations of large herbivores and carnivores in Gorongosa declined by over 90 percent, with some top predators completely extirpated.
- Researchers from Princeton University conducted experiments using state-of-the-art equipment to establish whether the bushbucks’ use of floodplains for foraging was due to the decline in predation threat.
- Following experimentally simulated predation events, bushbuck significantly increased their use of tree cover, indicating that the reintroduction of top predators would restore a ‘landscape of fear’.

New ancient, giant carnivore described from bones in museum drawer
- From fossils kept in a drawer at Nairobi National Museum for several decades, researchers have described a new species of a giant carnivore that walked the Earth some 22 million years ago.
- The extinct carnivore was larger than any big cat that lives today, with a skull the size of a rhinoceros’s and massive canine teeth, the researchers say.
- The meat-eating mammal has been dubbed Simbakubwa kutokaafrika, or “big lion from Africa” in Swahili.
- Despite the name, the animal wasn’t a big cat or related to one. Instead, it belonged to a now-extinct group of carnivores called hyaenodonts that were once the top predators across Africa.

Can jaguar tourism save Bolivia’s fast dwindling forests?
- Few countries in the tropics have seen trees chopped down as quickly as Bolivia did between 2001 and 2017.
- Within Bolivia, nearly two-thirds of that loss occurred in just a single state—Santa Cruz—as agribusiness activity, namely cattle ranching and soy farming, ramped up.
- This loss has greatly reduced the extent of habitat for some of Bolivia’s best known species, including the largest land predator in the Americas, the jaguar. On top of habitat loss, jaguars in Santa Cruz are both persecuted by landowners who see them as a danger to livestock, and targeted in a lucrative new trade in their parts, including teeth and bones.
- Duston Larsen, the owner of San Miguelito Ranch, is working to reverse that trend by upending the perception that jaguars necessarily need be the enemy of ranchers.

The odor side of otters: Tech reveals species’ adaptations to human activity
- Recent studies of an elusive otter species living in the highly modified mangroves and reclaimed lands on the coast of Goa, India offer new insights into otter behavior that could inform future conservation efforts.
- Researchers have studied these adaptable otters with camera traps, ground GPS surveys, and satellite images; they’re now testing drone photogrammetry to improve the accuracy of their habitat mapping.
- Using data gathered over a period of time, the researchers aim to pinpoint changes in the landscape and, in combination with the behavioral data gathered by the camera traps, understand how otters are reacting to these changes.

Camera traps find rich community of carnivores on Apostle Islands
- Some 160 camera traps deployed across the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior in Wisconsin, U.S., have revealed a diverse community of carnivores, including the American marten, black bear, bobcat, coyote, and gray wolf.
- The camera trap survey provided the first photographic evidence of the American marten in the islands in over 50 years. The marten is listed as endangered in Wisconsin.
- The study also found that islands that were larger or closer to the mainland, or both, held a greater number of carnivore species than islands that were small or more distant — patterns consistent with the concept of island biogeography.
- The movement of the carnivores, either through swimming or via ice bridges formed when parts of the lake freeze, could be under threat from climate change, the researchers warn.

Flashing lights ward off livestock-hunting pumas in northern Chile
- A new paper reports that Foxlights, a brand of portable, intermittently flashing lights, kept pumas away from herds of alpacas and llamas during a recent calving season in northern Chile.
- Herds without the lights nearby lost seven animals during the four-month study period.
- The research used a “crossover” design, in which the herds without the lights at the beginning of the experiment had them installed halfway through, removing the possibility that the herds were protected by their locations and not the lights themselves.

In the belly of the beast: journalist delves into wildlife trafficking
- Rachel Nuwer, who has written for Mongabay, Smithsonian, the New York Times and other publications, published a new book in September, “Poached,” which delves deeply into the global wildlife trafficking epidemic.
- Her book looks into the origins of the wildlife trade, its mechanisms, markets, and solutions. It covers charismatic mammals (elephants, rhinos and tigers), as well as the non-charismatic (pangolins and snakes).
- In this exclusive Mongabay Q&A, the author shares some of her most harrowing moments on the trail of global wildlife traffickers. The scariest thing of all: how accepting people can often be to the slaughter of millions of wild animals, and to the extermination of species, so as to be served a rare meat or a bogus cure.
- Still, Nuwer finds hope in the courageous individuals who fight the trade.

Progress on jaguar conservation in Suriname
- Dr. Mark J. Plotkin is the Co‑Founder & President of the Amazon Conservation Team, which partners with indigenous peoples to conserve forests and wildlife in Suriname, Colombia, and Brazil.
- In this post, Plotkin writes about a recent meeting in Suriname to discuss an emerging threat to jaguars across Latin America: poaching for traditional Chinese medicine.
- He notes that representatives who attended the meeting are now deeply engaged in designing an action plan for jaguar conservation in Suriname.

Speed trap: Cameras help defuse human-cheetah conflict in Botswana
- Increases in human-wildlife conflict could undermine Botswana’s conservation efforts, with farmers in some areas shooting carnivores preventatively to protect their livestock.
- Camera traps have helped researchers in Botswanan farmland to monitor cheetahs and other elusive or low-density predators without habituating them to human presence, a key feature in areas where farmers believe they will kill livestock.
- Communicating with local farmers and sharing camera-trap data on cheetahs’ territorial behavior and long-distance travel can help show farmers there may be far fewer individuals than they realize — “the cheetah seen today on one farm may be the same one seen [earlier] several farms away.”

Bear-human conflict risks pinpointed amid resurgent bear population
- New research maps out the potential risk “hotspots” for black bear-human conflict based on an analysis of conditions that led to nearly 400 bear deaths between 1997 and 2013.
- The study area covered the Lake Tahoe Basin and the Great Basin Desert in western Nevada.
- The methods used to predict risks based on environmental variables could help wildlife managers identify and mitigate human-carnivore conflict in other parts of the world, the authors write.

Another Cecil? Secrecy surrounds June trophy lion hunt
- A U.S. trophy hunter baited and killed a male lion on June 7th in Umbabat Private Nature Reserve, a part of Greater Kruger National Park, South Africa. Suspicions are that the animal shot was Skye, a beloved lion in the region.
- U.S. citizen Jared Whitworth allegedly paid nearly $80,000 for the hunt. Authorities say the animal killed wasn’t Skye, but have offered no proof. Skye hasn’t been seen since the day Whitworth made his kill, and one of the lion’s cubs was found dead, which often happens when other males take over a pride.
- If the killed lion was Skye, this would be a breach of South African regulations, because the lion was too young to be legally hunted. Authorities also say that if it is confirmed that the lion was baited, that could violate South African laws.
- In response, the U.S. Humane Society and Center for Biological Diversity sent a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asking it to reject importation of the mystery lion’s body. In March, the Trump administration’s USFWS announced a new policy to consider African trophy import permits on a case-by-case basis.

Hunting, fishing causing dramatic decline in Amazon river dolphins
- Both species of Amazon river dolphin appear to be in deep decline, according to a recent study. Boto (Inia geoffrensis) populations fell by 94 percent and Tucuxi (Sotalia fluviatilis) numbers fell by 97 percent in the Mamirauá Reserve in Amazonas state, Brazil between 1994 and 2017, according to researchers.
- Difficult to detect in the Amazon’s murky waters, both species are listed as “Data Deficient” by the IUCN. But researchers maintain that if region-wide surveys were conducted both species would end up being listed as Critically Endangered.
- The team noticed scars from harpoon and machete injuries on the dolphins they caught. Interviews with fishermen confirmed the team’s suspicions: dolphins were being hunted for use as bait. The mammals also get entangled in nets and other fishing gear, are hunted as food, eliminated as pests, and suffer mercury poisoning.
- Researchers believe the passage and enforcement of new conservation laws could save Amazon river dolphins, and halt their plunge toward extinction. But a lack of political will, drastic draconian cuts to the Brazilian environmental ministry budget, and continued illegal dolphin hunting and fishing make action unlikely for now.

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).

Animal trainers are teaching wildlife to conserve themselves
- Positive training helps pets and their owners bond. But animal trainers working to conserve wildlife often have the opposite goal: teaching animals in the wild to avoid human beings — people often being the most dangerous creatures in the jungle.
- Wildlife kept in zoos have been trained with rewards to accept unnatural processes, procedures that previously might have required restraint or even anesthesia: allowing tooth brushing, hoof trimming, injections and blood draws — turning once alien actions into positive experiences for the captive animals.
- Animal trainers decades ago learned to train dolphins without having physical contact with the animals. More recently, a chimpanzee troop in Sierra Leone was taught to scream alarm in unison when poachers approached, alerting nearby rangers to come to the rescue — achieving an 80 percent decrease in poaching.
- Trainers have taught captive bred condors how to be more like wild condors, seeking food within their natural habitat and not congregating in towns. They’ve also taught polar bears to avoid anything associated with humans, preventing the bears from raiding trash cans and significantly decreasing wildlife conflicts.

Sharp-eyed Mongabay readers spot a jaguarundi (commentary)
- Last Monday, in an article about Brazil’s Cerrado, this Mongabay editor mistakenly identified an animal in a photo as a puma (Puma concolor).
- Within hours multiple readers corrected that mistake, properly identifying the animal as a jaguarundi (Herpailurus yagouaroundi).
- Curiosity aroused, this editor went to work learning more about jaguarundis.
- Most interesting find: these small cats of North, Central and South America, were until recently on track to be reintroduced to Texas, but a new president and his plan for a U.S. / Mexico border wall has put those plans in limbo.

Cerrado: appreciation grows for Brazil’s savannah, even as it vanishes
- The Brazilian Cerrado – a vast savannah – once covered two million square kilometers (772,204 square miles), an area bigger than Great Britain, France and Germany combined, stretching to the east and south of the Amazon.
- Long undervalued by scientists and environmental activists, researchers are today realizing that the Cerrado is incredibly biodiverse. The biome supports more than 10,000 plant species, over 900 bird and 300 mammal species.
- The Cerrado’s deep-rooted plants and its soils also sequester huge amounts of carbon, making the region’s preservation key to curbing climate change, and to reducing Brazil’s deforestation and CO2 emissions to help meet its Paris carbon reduction pledge.
- Agribusiness – hampered by Brazilian laws in the Amazon – has moved into the Cerrado in a big way. More than half of the biome’s native vegetation has already disappeared, as soy and cattle production rapidly replace habitat. This series explores the dynamics of change convulsing the region.

Trump to allow elephant and lion trophies on case-by-case basis
- President Obama banned U.S. citizens from bringing home elephant and lion trophies from Zambia and Zimbabwe. In November, 2017, Trump’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reversed that ban until Trump himself overruled the USFWS, pausing the new rule until the president could make a final decision.
- This week, the USFWS said in a memorandum that it will permit U.S. citizens to bring lion and elephant hunting trophies home from Africa – potentially including Zimbabwe and Zambia – on a case-by-case basis.
- Conservationists largely responded negatively to the decision, critiquing it for offering little or no transparency, inviting corruption, and identifying no stated system or criteria for determining how permit selections will be made.
- A variety of lawsuits are ongoing which could still influence the shape of the new rule.

Beyond polar bears: Arctic animals share in vulnerable climate future
- The media has long focused on the impacts of climate change on polar bears. But with Arctic temperatures rising fast (this winter saw the warmest October to February temperatures ever recorded), a wide range of Arctic fauna appears to be at risk, though more studies are needed to determine precise causes, current effects on population, and future projections.
- Diminishing Arctic snow, especially in the spring, may leave wolverines without ideal places to den. Caribou and reindeer populations have been in serious decline due to natural population fluctuation, but scientists don’t know if their numbers will recover under changed climate conditions.
- Lemmings are also being impacted by diminishing snow, often leaving the rodents without cover in spring and autumn. Their decline could impact the predators that prey on them, including Arctic foxes, red foxes, weasels, wolverines, and snowy and short-eared owls.
- Snowy owls have raised concerns because the seabirds they hunt in winter, which congregate around small holes in the Arctic ice, could become more widely dispersed in broader stretches of open water and therefore be harder to prey on. Scientists say more study of Arctic wildlife is urgently needed, but funding and media attention remains sparse.

Epic battle between tiger and sloth bear caught on film
- Footage of a fight between a male tiger and a mother sloth bear in an India wildlife reserve has gone viral on Facebook.
- The video, shot this week in Tadoba National Park, was captured by Akshay Kumar, the chief naturalist at Bamboo Forest Safari Lodge in Maharashtra.
- The video starts with the tiger chasing off a sloth bear that was headed with her cub toward a water body.
- The bear then charges the tiger and the fight ensues.

U.S. court ruling complicates Trump’s elephant and lion policy
- A federal appeals court has found that the Obama administration did not follow proper procedures in 2014 when it banned importing elephant trophies from Zimbabwe. The USFWS failed to seek public comment at the time, among other infractions.
- This new ruling puts the Trump administration decision, made in November, ending the ban and allowing elephant trophy hunting imports, into question.
- Further complicating matters is Trump’s dubbing of the November USFWS decision as a “horror show,” and his putting of the policy on hold awaiting his response. To date, Trump has said nothing further.
- The way things stand now, U.S. hunters can import elephant trophies from South Africa and Namibia. They can import lion body parts from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia. But the legality of importing elephant trophies from Zambia and Zimbabwe remains in limbo.

Trump’s indecision on trophy hunting reignites heated debate
- On November 15, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lifted a ban on the U.S. import of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia. The president put a hold on the order two days later, calling trophy hunting in a tweet a “horror show.” He has yet to make a final determination regarding the USFWS order.
- At the same time, Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke announced the establishment of the International Wildlife Conservation Council. One goal of the body will be to promote with the U.S. public the “economic benefits that result from U.S. citizens traveling abroad to [trophy] hunt.”
- While trophy hunting does provide revenue for land and wildlife conservation in some special cases in Africa, the new U.S. council will likely have its work cut out for it, since many Americans no longer see trophy hunting of endangered species as ethical.
- Conservationists counter pro-trophy hunting advocates by noting that rampant government corruption in nations like Zimbabwe and Zambia make it unlikely that most trophy hunting revenues ever reach the African preserves, local communities or rangers that need the funding.

Carbon sequestration role of savanna soils key to climate goals
- Savannas and grasslands cover a vast area, some 20 percent of the earth’s land surface — from sub-Saharan Africa, to the Cerrado in Brazil, to North America’s heartland. They also offer an enormous and underappreciated capacity for carbon sequestration.
- However, the role of forests in storing carbon has long been emphasized over the role of savannas (and savanna soils) by international climate negotiators, resulting in policies such as REDD+ for preserving and restoring forests, with no such incentives for protecting grasslands.
- Scientists warn that the planting of trees, such as nonnative eucalyptus in Africa and Brazil, could be counterproductive in the long term, potentially contributing to climate change emissions while harming grassland biodiversity and altering ecosystems.
- As participants prepare to meet for the COP23 climate summit in Bonn, Germany next week, grassland scientists are urging that policymakers turn an eye toward savannas, and begin to develop incentives for preserving them and their carbon storing soils. More research is also needed to fully understand the role savannas can play in carbon sequestration.

Is Cambodia’s plan to reintroduce tigers doomed to fail?
- As recently as 1999, Cambodia was home to one of the world’s largest tiger populations. Today the Indochinese tiger is considered functionally extinct in the country.
- Cambodia is now looking to emulate the profitable success of India’s tiger reserves by reintroducing the big cats to its own forests
- Experts say poaching, rampant corruption and weak law enforcement could spell disaster for the endangered animals.

Trump budget undercuts U.S. commitment to global wildlife conservation
- President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget would make extensive cuts to already underfunded programs to combat wildlife trafficking and to aid African and Asian nations in protecting elephants, rhinos, tigers, pangolins and other endangered wildlife.
- Trump’s budget proposes a 32 percent across-the-board cut in U.S. foreign assistance, affecting hundreds of sustainability, health and environmental programs.
- Major cuts would come to the Department of State, USAID, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service programs.
- Congress needs to approve a 2018 budget by December, and no one knows if it will approve the president’s desired deep cuts. However, hostility from the administration and many in the GOP to wildlife programs is unlikely to go away any time soon, with more and larger reductions in years to come.

Dogs, dung, and DNA: mapping multi-species corridors to conserve threatened carnivores
- Researchers enlisted dog sniffing power to locate the scat of five threatened carnivores across an increasingly fragmented Atlantic Forest landscape and identified the animals’ species through genetic analysis.
- The ability to collect and distinguish scat of jaguars, pumas, ocelots, oncillas, and bush dogs enabled the scientists to develop spatial models for species-specific movement corridors that connect the region’s protected areas.
- The researchers combined these species presence models with habitat and human factors to map and propose effective least-cost, multi-species biological corridors.

Canary in the Arctic coal mine: warming harms migrating red knot
- The Arctic is warming faster than any other part of the world, and its ecosystems are changing quickly, with shifts in the timing of insect hatches, plant growth and more.
- Those changes are impacting migratory species that move between the Arctic, the tropics and temperate zones. One such species is the red knot, a shorebird whose Arctic food supply and stored energy have been reduced due to climate change.
- A recent study found that young red knots (Calidris canutus) have shrunk by about 15 percent since 1985. This shrinkage includes a smaller beak which jeopardizes the juvenile birds’ survival as they dig for bivalves.
- Researchers have detected a variety of global warming risks to species as they move from tropical wintering and Arctic summering grounds, and along migratory routes, including shrinking tundra; rising seas; increasingly extreme weather; ocean acidification; and changes to specialized environments, such as temperate stopover havens.

Charcoal and cattle ranching tearing apart the Gran Chaco
- The year-long probe of Paraguay’s charcoal exports by the NGO Earthsight revealed that much of the product was coming from the Chaco, the world’s fastest-disappearing tropical forest.
- Suppliers appear to have reassured international supermarket chains that it was sustainable and that they had certification from international groups such as FSC and PEFC.
- But further digging by Earthsight revealed that the charcoal production methods used may not fit with the intent of certification.
- Several grocery store chains mentioned in the report have said they’ll take a closer look at their supply chains, and the certification body PEFC is reexamining how its own standards are applied.

Ranges for majority of world’s large carnivores have shrunk by more than 20 percent
- The red wolf’s (Canis rufus) global range, in particular, has shrunk almost entirely, with researchers quantifying the loss as 99.7 percent.
- The range for five other species has also decreased by more than 90 percent: Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis, 99 percent), tiger (Panthera tigris, 95 percent), lion (Panthera leo, 94 percent), African wild dog (Lycaon pictus, 93 percent) and cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus, 92 percent).
- Researchers found that proximity to higher densities of rural humans, livestock, and cropland area made the decline of large carnivore ranges far more likely — a finding that would seem to contradict previous research showing that larger-bodied carnivore species are at greater extinction risk due to their need for larger prey and extensive habitat.

Big mammals flourish as Cerrado park’s savanna comes back
- The study examined a state park in the Brazilian Cerrado, which contains land used in recent decades for eucalyptus plantations, cattle ranching and charcoal production.
- The researchers used camera traps, recording the dry season presence of 18 species of large mammals.
- In a subsequent analysis, they found that the number of large mammals found in the ‘secondary’ savanna was similar to numbers found in untouched regions of the Cerrado.

A spotty revival amid decline for China’s endemic leopards
- The North China leopard (Panthera pardus japonensis) is one of nine leopard subspecies and an endemic to China.
- The cats’ population has shown signs of revival in certain parts of the country in recent years, according to conservation groups
- However, industrial development and infrastructure construction remain major threats to the integrity of the leopards’ habitat and conflicts with people over livestock in their mountainous territories are intense.

Thylacine survey: Are we going to rediscover the ‘moonlight tiger’?
- The thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) was declared extinct in 1936. But anecdotal reports of sightings of the marsupial inspired a recent media frenzy, leading to speculation that some might still be living in the forests of northern Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula.
- A biological survey conducted via camera traps had been planned for the region before news of the reported sightings spread. The aim of the survey is to find out why so many of Australia’s native marsupials – and those of Cape York in particular – are disappearing. They also hope to figure out if there are any as-yet undocumented mammals living there, such as a small, endangered rat-kangaroo called the northern bettong (Bettongia tropica).
- A bettong expert says cattle ranching, invasive animals, and changing fire management regimes may be hurting native mammals in Australia.
- The researchers caution that the possibility of finding evidence of thylacines living in Cape York is vanishingly small. But, if the near-impossible happens and they do manage to document some, they say news of the rediscovery likely won’t be released until protections are enacted.

Controversial policy could spur tiger trade in China
- In China, around 6,000 captive tigers are raised on “farms,” often under inhumane conditions, and their pelts sold for hefty sums in a poorly regulated market upheld through legal loopholes by the Chinese government. Breeding tigers on these farms is legal, but sale of their parts is not — something that may be about to change.
- The State Forestry Administration, tasked with protecting wildlife and overseeing China’s tiger farms, is now deciding whether to commercialize tigers by adding them to a list of legally farmed wildlife, paving the way for tiger parts to be sold to supply a growing Chinese luxury market.
- Long used in Chinese medicine, tiger products are now a status purchase for China’s wealthiest and most powerful. Collectors stockpile tiger bone wine; tiger skins are regularly gifted to seal business deals. Some wealthy Chinese hold “visual feasts” where guests watch a tiger be killed and cooked — then eat it.
- Breeding tigers for trade in their parts contravenes a 2007 decision by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a treaty signed by 183 nations, including China. There is pressure in China and abroad to shut down tiger farms, even as Chinese business interests lobby to expand a lucrative industry.

Climate change driving widespread local extinctions; tropics most at risk
- Climate change forces three fates on species: adapt, flee or die. A new meta-analysis compiled data from 27 studies to see how species distributions have changed over timescales of 10-159 years, and included 976 species. Almost half (47 percent) had seen some local populations disappear along the warming edge of their ranges.
- The tropics were especially vulnerable to climate change-driven local extinctions. The data showed that 55 percent of tropical and subtropical species experienced local extinctions, whereas the figure was only 39 percent for temperate species. Though the tropical data set was not large, this higher tropical risk concurs with past studies.
- Tropical species are at greater risk due to climate change because they live in some of the world’s hottest environments, so are already at the upper limit of known temperature adaptation, are restricted to small areas, particular rare habitats, and narrow temperature ranges, or have poor dispersal ability and slow reproductive rates.
- Scientists see multiple solutions to the problem: beyond the curbing of greenhouse gas emissions, they recommend conserving large core areas of habitat, and preserving strong connectivity between those core areas, so plants and animals can move more freely between them as required as the world warms.

Field Notes: Finding Jacobo; an Andean cat captivates conservationists
- The Andean cat ranges from remote areas of central Peru to the Patagonian steppe. Perfectly adapted to extreme environments, this small feline is threatened by habitat degradation and hunting, but most of all it suffers from anonymity: it’s hard to save an animal that no one ever sees.
- So few of these endangered cats are scattered across such vast landscapes that even most of their advocates have never seen the species they’re trying to protect. But the conservation efforts that could save this cat could also preserve the wild places where Andean cats live.
- When a male Andean cat was found wandering around a soccer field, Andean Cat Alliance members agreed to forego the extraordinary opportunity to study the animal in captivity, and try instead to return “Jacobo” to the wild.
- Andean Cat Alliance coordinators Rocío Palacios and Lilian Villalba orchestrated the multinational volunteer release effort. Conservationists equipped Jacobo with a GPS collar and hope that tracking his travels will reveal new data about this secretive cat, considered a symbol of the Andes.

Camera traps reveal undiscovered leopard population in Javan forest
- Government camera traps spotted three individuals in the Cikepuh Wildlife Reserve, along the southern coast of Indonesia’s main central island of Java.
- The environment ministry says 11 leopards are thought to exist in the sanctuary.
- The Javan leopard is listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN.

The clouded leopard: conserving Asia’s elusive arboreal acrobat
- The clouded leopard is not closely related to the leopard, but has its own genus (Neofelis), separate from the big cats (Panthera). In 2006, the single species of clouded leopard was split in two: Neofelis nebulosa is found on the Asian mainland, while Neofelis diardi, the Sunda clouded leopard, occurs only on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo.
- Another subspecies native to Taiwan (Neofelis nebulosa brachyura) is believed to be extinct, after none were found in a camera trapping survey conducted between 1997 and 2012.
- Originally, researchers found it difficult to breed the animals in captivity, since mates tended to kill each other. A variety of breeding techniques have however allowed zoos around the world to begin mating the animals successfully, to create and maintain a genetically viable captive population.
- Clouded leopards are incredibly elusive, and only with the advent of new technology, including camera traps and radio collars, have scientists been able to begin defining clouded leopard ranges, distribution, populations and threats. Public outreach is also helping build awareness around the plight of these Vulnerable wild cats.

Cheetah populations crash as fastest-animal disappears from 91% of its range
- The world’s wild cheetah population is down to just 7,100 individuals, a decline of more than 90 percent since the turn of the 20th century
- Cheetah have disappeared across 91 percent of their historic range.
- The findings have led the authors to call for the cheetah to be up-listed from from ‘Vulnerable’ to ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List.

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.

Field Notes: Boosting biodiversity by studying human values, gender
- The Bengal tigers in Chitwan National Park are on the increase largely due to the positive conservation values practiced in local communities that actively protect the forests that create a buffer zone around the protected areas where the big cats live.
- However, researchers found that women in these Nepali communities were less likely to value protecting endangered animals than men. Teri Allendorf and her collaborators conducted interviews and found that this gender gap is driven by differences in belief and experience.
- The Nepali women often aren’t included in conservation efforts, and so lack knowledge regarding the value of ecosystems. Similar findings have been seen in other nations: people who understand interrelationships between natural and human communities value protected areas more.
- Surprisingly, this issue also exists in developed countries: If women aren’t included in conservation efforts, then opportunities for success can be missed. Addressing the impact of women’s access to information may be one way to close this conservation gender gap, suggests Allendorf.

Top scientists: Amazon’s Tapajós Dam Complex “a crisis in the making”
- BRAZIL’S GRAND PLAN: Build 40+ dams, new roads and railways at the heart of the Amazon to transport soy from the interior to the coast and foreign markets, turning the Tapajós Basin and its river systems into an industrial waterway, leading to unprecedented deforestation, top researchers say.
- ECOSYSTEM IMPACTS: “The effects would clearly be devastating for the ecology and connectivity of the greater Tapajós Basin,” says William Laurance, of James Cook University, Australia; a leading rainforest ecology scientist. “It is not overstating matters to term this a crisis in the making.”
- HUMAN IMPACTS: The dams would produce “A human rights crisis, driven by the flooding of indigenous territories and forced relocation of indigenous villages… [plus] the loss of fisheries, reduced fertility of fertile floodplains, and polluting of clean water sources,” says Amazon Watch’s Christian Poirier.
- CLIMATE IMPACTS: “The worst-case scenario… over 200,000 square kilometers of deforestation,” says climatologist Carlos Nobre, which would be “very serious” and create “regional climate change.” Tapajós deforestation could even help tip the global scales, as the Amazon ceases being a carbon sink, and becomes a carbon source — with grave consequences for the planet.

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.

Romania announces ban on trophy hunting of bears, wolves and wildcats
- A loophole in the European law allows thousands of Romania’s wild animals to be hunted for sport every year.
- But following protests by environmental groups, the Ministry of Environment announced that it had cancelled an order that would have allowed trophy hunting of about 1,700 wild animals this year.
- Conflict animals can still be hunted, but only the ministry-approved Wildlife Emergency Service – SUAS, a newly created state agency, would be allowed to shoot the animals if necessary.

Field Notes: Mapping condor conservation strategies
- Nearly extinct in the wild in the 1980’s, the California condor is experiencing a recovery thanks to an intense management plan and a partial ban on lead ammunition. Unfortunately for captive condors released to the wild, lead poisoning is still a problem.
- Holly Copeland’s GIS mapping study has shown that condors close to the coast suffer less from lead poisoning than those inland. Mapping also helps locate less risky release sites, and predict locales where birds might be most at risk from lead.
- The mapping study detected increased wild behavior in the condors, meaning they are ranging farther from captive release sites. That is good news, but also means the birds that fly farther inland are being exposed to a greater risk of lead poisoning.
- Copeland hopes that when the comprehensive California ban on lead ammunition takes full effect in 2019, the wild condors will benefit. The researcher is also applying her mapping experiences with condors, to eagles and other raptors in Wyoming.

Field Notes: Wooing wolverines with high-tech lures
- Wolverines range over immense territories in Washington’s Cascade Mountains, living in inaccessible mountainous terrain and deep snow, making population surveys difficult.
- Robert Long and his colleagues worked with a Microsoft engineer to develop a bear-proof, winter-hardened scent dispenser in the hopes of more accurately surveying the animals through the long Cascades winter.
- They succeeded: of the 24 super-tough lure devices left all winter long in the high mountains, wolverines were detected on more than half the camera traps.
- These long-term lure devices reduce the number of human visits needed to monitor the camera traps, allowing human scent to dissipate and increasing the likelihood of recording the reclusive animals. Camera traps are less invasive and require less time, effort and money than capture programs. They’re less stressful for the animals too.

Based on available evidence, non-lethal predator control is more effective than lethal means
- Lethal methods for controlling predators include hunting, destroying litters of young, poisoning, live-trapping followed by killing, and the use of kill traps.
- Non-lethal methods include livestock-guarding animals, a visual deterrent known as “fladry” in addition to other types of deterrents and repellents, enclosures, diversionary feeding, and sterilization.
- But, the authors of the study say, these methods are often selected and deployed without first taking into consideration the experimental evidence of those methods’ effectiveness at curbing predation-related threats or avoiding ecological degradation.

Yosemite as a case study in protected area downsizing and habitat fragmentation
- Legal changes to Yosemite’s boundaries demonstrate that even the U.S.’s national parks are not always safe from protected area downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement — often referred to as PADDD.
- Yosemite National Park was downsized twice and had five additions made between 1905 and 1937, resulting in a nearly 30 percent net reduction in the size of the park.
- Researchers found that PADDD leads to habitat fragmentation, so it’s perhaps good news that the team also found that PADDD is reversible.

Out of sight, out of mind: Asia’s elusive Fishing Cat in trouble
- Fishing cats have a broad but discontinuous range, including wetland areas of mainland Asia (India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and perhaps Malaysia), as well as the islands of Sri Lanka and maybe Java. But these small nocturnal wild cats are rarely seen. Habitat loss has caused a drastic decline, and as few as 3,000 may remain in the wild.
- Fishing cats are prestigious swimmers, love the water, and eat mostly fish, but they also eat just about anything that they can catch, including birds, snakes, frogs, insects, terrestrial mammals such as civets and rodents, along with domestic livestock such as ducks and chickens.
- While primarily wetland species, Fishing cats have recently proven to be quite adaptable, and the animals have been discovered making night time raids on fishponds in the highly urbanized city of Colombo, Sri Lanka, population 650,000+.
- The major block to Fishing cat conservation is that it is almost unknown to the public and to funders. The animals are almost never seen in the wild, but researchers who have spent time with Fishing cats say that this species’ time in the public limelight could be on the verge of occurring.

Field Notes: Scientist seeks long-term stress trends in Africa’s hyenas
- Scientists commonly analyze the stress hormones found in scat to evaluate the impact of environmental disturbances on animal health — looking, for example, at the effect of logging on owls, ecotourism on mountain gorillas, and shipping traffic on right whales.
- One past assumption held that stress hormone levels found in individuals are representative of their species. But findings show that glucocorticoid (GC) stress hormone levels can vary due to factors such as sex, age, and reproductive phase.
- Julia Greenberg is using 20 years of data collected by the Mara Hyena Project to test the limits of fecal GC stress level measurements, and look for long-term patterns. She wanted to know: Could GCs be used to show general stress trends in an animal population to help improve wildlife management planning?
- So far, she has found that individual hyenas, with high fecal GC levels early in life, don’t live as long. On the other hand, she could not correlate early high GC levels with reproductive success later in life.

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.

Protecting the animal that eats lemurs — why it’s important to conserve Madagascar’s largest carnivore
- Despite fosa’s claim to being ‘kings of the jungle,’ they face a difficult future. Deforestation has reduced Madagascar’s primary forest to less than 10 percent, with much of it fragmented and bearing signs of degradation and human intrusion.
- These large-scale reductions in forest not only reduce fosa habitat but also promote increased interaction with humans.
- Fosa are not only likely to be keystone species, but their large home range requirements make them an even greater conservation tool.

Saving Borneo’s wild cats and small carnivores
- An international team led by researchers with the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Species Survival Commission (IUCN SSC) has published a “roadmap” for conservation efforts to save Borneo’s wild cats and small carnivores as a special supplement of the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology.
- Sapuan Ahmad, director of Forest Department Sarawak and Controller for Wildlife, said the papers in the supplement have already been helpful as the state reviews its wildlife conservation strategy.
- The Borneo Carnivore Consortium is hoping that these investigations of the plight of Borneo’s wild cats and small carnivores will also serve as a catalyst for more collaborative conservation efforts in the future.

PHOTOS: On a Chinese mountain, an aging anti-poaching hero ponders the future
- Yu Jiahua, a 65-year old villager living on Jiuding Mountain in Sichuan province, was a skilled hunter when he was in his 20s.
- After an influx of outside poachers severely curtailed local wildlife populations, he and his brother began patrolling the mountain, confronting poachers and confiscating their rifles and snares.
- Eventually Yu convinced other villagers to help, establishing an organization that won outside acclaim and financial support.
- Wildlife on the mountain has rebounded, but finances remain thin and patrollers few. As Yu Jiahua ages, it is unclear who will take on his mission.

What is a jaguarundi?
- The jaguarundi is a wild cat that occupies a broad range of habitat in the Americas from the scrublands of the borderlands between the U.S, and Mexico through every major ecoregion of Brazil and into southcentral Argentina.
- The jaguarundi is not very well-known due to their small size and lack of spots or stripes which put a target on the larger more charismatic wild cats.
- The International Union of Conservation for Nature (IUCN) currently classifies the jaguarundi globally as Least Concern, but scientists don’t know whether the population is stable or declining.

Reducing human-wildlife conflict in the blink of a light
- As people settle closer to remaining natural areas, livestock predation by lions and other wild carnivores causes financial loss to often poor herders and farmers.
- Disruptive light systems, invented independently by herders trying reduce nighttime guarding of animals, emulate the movements of a night watchman to dissuade lions, foxes, and other predators from approach penned livestock.
- Users of Lion Lights, invented by 11-year-old Richard Turere, and similar light systems report very high success in deterring would-be predators and can play a role as part of a human-wildlife conflict reduction toolkit.

‘Nobody was expecting this’: range loss puts leopards in big trouble
- Currently, leopards occupy only a quarter of their historic range, less than 17 percent of which is legally protected, researchers found.
- The available habitat for Southeast Asian subspecies of leopards has declined to critically low levels, and the team suggests uplisting the IUCN threat status of North Chinese and Indochinese leopards to “Critically Endangered” and “Endangered” respectively from “Near Threatened”.
- The study also found that most research efforts tend to focus on African and Indian leopards, the two subspecies that have the most remaining range among all leopards.

Laos could be the ‘most important’ home for the elusive Owston’s civet
- From December 2012 to December 2013, biologists set up 39 camera traps in Xe Sap National Protected Area (NPA) located in southeastern Laos.
- Of all animals captured on photographs, Owston’s civet was the most frequently recorded carnivore, making it the first live records of these animals from South Lao PDR, according to study.
- The little-known Owston’s civet, however, has been wiped out from most of its historical range, scientists say, mainly due to poaching.

‘Biogeographical oddity’: New monitor lizard is the only large predator on remote Pacific Island
- Researchers have discovered a new monitor lizard on the remote island of Mussau, which has a turquoise or blue-pigmented tail, and a pale yellow tongue, a trait that it shares with only three other known species of Pacific monitors.
- The lizard is the only known large-sized predator and scavenger on the island, and is separated from its closest relative by several hundreds of kilometers of open sea, study says.
- Researchers have named the lizard Varanus semotus, referring to its isolated existence on Mussau Island.

Aquaculture comes to Lake Victoria, but will it help wild fish?
- Lake Victoria’s commercial fish stocks have plummeted due to overfishing, invasive species, pollution, and changing climatic conditions, among other factors.
- Now fishermen, researchers, and government officials alike are embracing cage aquaculture as a way to boost profits and fish supplies, as well as give the lake’s free-swimming fish a reprieve.
- However, cage fish farming has caused problems elsewhere in the world, in part due to the use of chemicals and the release of waste products, such as dead fish, uneaten feed, and feces.

After Cecil: lion perturbation, conservation, and value to a global society
- Wildtech continues its interview with Professor David Macdonald, director of WildCRU at Oxford University and of the long-term study of Cecil the Lion and his cohorts through the Hwange Lion Project.
- The results of WildCRU research persuaded the Zimbabwean authorities to reduce the annual lion hunt quota from 60 each year to between four and six lions – an order-of-magnitude reduction.
- The worldwide outrage and sorrow around Cecil’s death could represent “a fork in the road as to how global society wants to live alongside nature,” Macdonald says.

Scientists try hair traps to track tropical carnivores
- Since 1990, the use of hair traps has been rapidly expanding in wildlife biology, but mainly in cooler climates.
- By collecting hair samples, scientists can non-invasively collect DNA samples of wild animal populations to learn about genetic diversity and determine their habitat ranges.
- Three past studies successfully used hair traps in the tropics. Two monitored several species of carnivores in Mexico, and one, as yet unpublished, monitored dingoes in Australia.

Tags that protect, as well as track, endangered carnivores
- Modular tracking collars may make updates to tracking electronics more affordable.
- Researchers working with tech designers should define their needs specifically to ensure new devices meet your mission and criteria.
- Consistent communication with local ranchers is paramount when addressing human-wildlife conflict.

Wildlife catastrophe at Amazon dam a warning for future Tapajós dams
- There’s a wealth of evidence from around the world that tropical hydroelectric dams and their gigantic reservoirs do tremendous harm to aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity.
- 43 large dams are planned for the Amazon’s Tapajós River Basin, with hundreds more being considered for the rest of the Amazon. A study of the 30-year-old Balbina dam found that biodiversity plummeted after it was built.
- The challenge in the Amazon, with the recent onslaught of so many new dam projects, is to gather baseline wildlife data, study potential habitat impacts, and find solutions to be included in project designs to protect animals — a near impossibility when governments, like that of Brazil, act in secrecy and largely fail to work with researchers.

U.S. adds lions to endangered species list, makes it harder to import lion trophies
- The new rules will come into effect on January 22, 2016.
- New rules will generally prohibit import of sport hunted trophies of lion subspecies found in west and central Africa, except in some exceptional circumstances.
- Permits for import of sport hunted lion subspecies found in southern and eastern Africa will be allowed only from those range countries which have “management programs that are based on scientifically sound data and are being implemented to address the threats that are facing lions within that country.”

The Maned wolf: Saving South America’s largest canid
- The Maned wolf mostly inhabits Brazil’s Cerrado, a vast grassland threatened by rampant conversion to croplands and often forgotten by conservationists.
- The species may be adapting to its rapidly changing, and increasingly human influenced habitat, but more must be done to protect the savanna — which has suffered far worse agricultural clearing than the Amazon.
- Ingrained cultural beliefs and misconceptions regarding wolf behavior will also need to be challenged and changed to protect populations in the wild — ending retaliatory killings and hunting.

Video: Rare Amur tigress with 3 cubs caught on camera
- Camera trap, set up by the Wildlife Conservation Society, captured footage of rare Amur tigress trailed by her three cubs.
- This video provides a glimmer of hope for these endangered big cats.
- WCS is also working with logging companies in the region to block logging roads around the reserve to protect the tiger populations.

Eden Besieged: Amazonia’s Matchless Wildlife Pillaged by Traffickers
- Jaguars, parrots, spectacled bears, giant river otters, turtles, and thousands of other species, already under pressure from Amazon habitat loss and development, are now threatened by a growing wave of animal trafficking.
- Uncounted numbers of animals, and animal parts, are smuggled into the U.S. annually, with America’s 130 US Fish and Wildlife Service agents overwhelmed by the millions of tons of imported goods entering the nation.
- As rainforests are drained of wildlife by traffickers — sometimes with the aid of indigenous hunters armed with modern weapons — indigenous people are drawn away from their traditional cultures into modern cash economies.

Journey to oblivion: unraveling Latin America’s illegal wildlife trade
- The trafficking of elephants in Africa has gained tremendous media attention. Not so the illegal trade in birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and fish of Central and South America, a problem of epidemic proportion.
- The trafficking routes — out of rainforests and natural habitats, through local markets, to border crossings, airports and seaports, and on to consumers in the U.S., Europe, China and elsewhere — are shrouded in secrecy.
- Latin American trafficking laws are weak and full of loopholes; few traffickers are caught, and when they are, they are often given a slap on the wrist. Stricter laws, enforcement, and penalties are needed, before it is too late.

First-ever video of squirrel rumored to kill and eat deer
- According to local hunters, Borneo’s endemic tufted ground squirrel can kill a deer by dropping down on it from above and tearing out its jugular vein. Once the deer bleeds out, the squirrel proceeds to eat the stomach, heart, and liver, then leaves the rest to rot.
- That rumor, along with research last year showing that the squirrel may have the largest tail compared to body size of any mammal on the planet, has sparked public interest in the species.
- Now a research group has caught the first ever video of this elusive species from a camera-trapping project they hope will eventually reveal the squirrel’s diet.

Africa’s unloved vultures headed for extinction?
- The white-backed (Gyps africanus), Rüppell’s griffon (G. rueppellii) and hooded (Necrosyrtes monachus) vultures are IUCN red-listed as Endangered
- The lappet-faced (Torgos tracheliotos) and white-headed vultures (Trigonoceps occipitalis) are listed as Vulnerable.
- Researchers say that the only way to protect the vultures that remain is to sharply limit the availability of biocides and the acceptability of their use against wildlife.

Jericho, brother of Cecil the lion, killed in Zimbabwe?
- Conservation group says Jericho, the brother of Cecil the lion, was killed on Saturday
- That claim is disputed by a researcher who tracks the lion.
- Cecil’s killing made international headlines because the lion was part of a long-running study by researchers at Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit.

Lions, cheetahs, and wild dogs dwindle in West and Central African protected areas

Africa is famous for its lions and other large carnivores, but populations are dwindling and even vanishing all over the continent. A new study published in mongabay.com’s open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science quantifies the disappearance of the lion (Panthera leo), cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), and wild dog (Lycaon pictus) from 41 protected areas in West and […]
U.S. to remove extinct cougar from Endangered Species Act

Mountain lion in Oregon. Photo by: Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. The U.S. government has declared the Eastern cougar extinct more than 80 years after its a believed a hunter in Maine wiped out the last individual. Scientists still dispute whether the Eastern cougar was a distinct subspecies, but either way officials believe the […]
Lions return to Rwanda

One of the female lions being translocated to Rwanda. Photo by: Matthew Poole. After 15 years, the roar of lions will once again be heard in Rwanda. Today the NGO, African Parks, will begin moving seven lions from South Africa to Rwanda’s Akagera National Park. It was here that Rwanda’s last lions were poisoned by […]
Cat update: lion and African golden cat down, Iberian lynx up

West African lion listed as Critically Endangered Iberian lynx. Photo by: A Rivas. A new update of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has categorized the West African population of lions—which is considered genetically distinct and separate from East and Central African lions—as Critically Endangered. Based largely on a paper in 2014, the […]
Asiatic lion population rises by 27% in five years

Asiatic lion. Photo by: Sumeet Moghe/Creative Commons 3.0. A new survey last month put the number of wild Asiatic lions (Panthera leo persica) at 523 individuals, a rise of 27% from the previous survey in 2010. Once roaming across much of Central and Western Asia, Asiatic lions today are found in only one place: Gir […]
Happy tigers: Siberian population continues to grow

Captive Siberian tiger at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Bronx Zoo. Photo by: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS. The Siberian tiger population continues to rebound, according to the latest numbers from the subspecies’ stronghold in Russia. Ten years ago, conservationists estimated 423-502 Amur tigers in Siberia. But last month, the Russian government and WWF said numbers had […]
Tigers expanding? Conservationists discover big cats in Thai park

Tigers have been documented in Thailand’s Chaloem Ratanakosin National Park for the first time. Photo by: ZSL and Thailand’s Department of National Parks. For the first time conservationists have confirmed Indochinese tigers (Panthera tigris corbetti) in Thailand’s Chaloem Ratanakosin National Park. In January, camera traps used by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Thailand’s […]
Zambia lifts hunting ban on big cats

Lions in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Nine months after Zambia lifted its general trophy hunting ban—including on elephants—the country has now lifted its ban on hunting African lions (Panthera leo) and leopards (Panthera pardus). The Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) lifted the ban after surveying its big cat populations and […]
Australia becomes first country to ban lion trophies

Young lion in Kruger National Park in South Africa. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Last month, Australia became the world’s first country to ban the import or export of lion trophies, often taken from so-called canned hunting where lions are raised solely to be shot by foreign hunters. “These new rules mean that if you […]
King of the jungle returns to Gabon after nearly 20 year absence

Male lion in Kruger National Park, South Africa. Most of the world’s lions are now found in southern and eastern Africa. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. There’s a new cat in town. For the first time since 1996, conservationists have proof of a lion roaming the wilds of the Central African country of Gabon. The […]
Tiger family photo surprises scientists

An Amur tiger father leading a mother and three cubs in Russia. Photo by: WCS, Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve, and Udegeiskaya Legenda National Park. In a frigid Russian forest, a camera trap snapped 21 family photos over two minutes. This wasn’t a usual family, though, this was a tiger family, more specifically an Amur tiger (Panthera […]
Giant panda population rises by nearly 17 percent

Giant panda at the Panda Breeding Centre in the Wolong Panda Reserve. Photo by: © Bernard de Wetter / WWF. One of the most iconic animals on the planet got good news this week. The world’s giant panda population has risen by 268 individuals over the last decade, hitting a total of 1,864 animals, according […]
Photos: Amur leopard population hits at least 65

Camera trap of Amur leopard. The Amur leopard evolved its thick coat to keep warm in the cold, long winters. Photo by: WWF. Most of the world’s big predators are in decline, but there are some happy stories out there. This week, WWF announced that the Amur leopard population has grown to a total of […]
Feds confirm first wolf in the Grand Canyon area shot dead

A photo of 914F just north of the Grand Canyon wearing an inactive collar. The wolf was shot dead on in Utah. Photo courtesy of the Arizona Game and Fish Department. Last fall, tourists to the north rim of the Grand Canyon reported seeing a gray wolf (Canis lupus). The only problem was there had […]
Super-rare carnivore photographed in Yosemite after missing for nearly a century

Sierra Nevada fox caught on camera trap in Yosemite National Park. Photo by: National Park Service. For years, biologists believed the Sierra Nevada fox (Vulpes vulpes necator) was down to a single population of around 20 animals in California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park. But then in 2010, biologists found a small population near Sonora Pass. […]
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 […]
Video: camera trap catches jaguar hunting peccaries

Catching a jaguar on a remote camera trap in the Amazon is a rare, happy sight. But catching a jaguar attempting to ambush a herd of peccaries is quite simply astonishing. “A research assistant, who was coding the videos sent me an email to have a look,” said primatologist, Mark Bowler, a postdoctoral fellow at […]
India’s tiger population up by more than 500 animals in four years

Ocean’s 15: meet the species that have vanished forever from our seas
- In the last 500 years, the oceans have suffered far fewer extinctions than on land&.
- According to a recent study in Science, 15 animals are known to have vanished forever from the oceans while terrestrial ecosystems have seen 514 extinctions.
- The researchers, however, warn that the number of marine extinctions could rise rapidly as the oceans are industrialized.

Judge protects Midwest wolves after 1,599 killed in three years

Future wolf hunting and trapping seasons in the Upper Midwest are on hold after a judge ruled the Obama Administration erred in removing the top predator from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) last month. The ruling came nearly three years after the U.S.Fish and Wildlife Service dropped federal protections for the so-called Great Lakes’ wolf […]
Ocelots live in super densities on Barro Colorado Island

An ocelot in Colombia. Photo by: Brodie Ferguson. By comparing camera trapping findings with genetic samples taken from feces, biologists have determined that the density of ocelots on Barro Colorado Island in Panama is the highest yet recorded. There are over three ocelots per every two square kilometers (0.77 square miles) on the island, according […]
When predators attack, plants grow fewer thorns

An African wild dog scans the bushland for prey. Photo Credit: AT Ford Crisp lines of light begin to play out across the landscape. As the morning light grows, blades of grass take shape and, amongst rocky outcrops, green acacia breaks the yellow and gold of the savannah. Stirring in this early morning atmosphere is […]
Rhino, cheetah win the world’s top camera trap photo contest

Overall winner of the photography categories and Animal Portraits winner: Black rhino, Zambia. Photo by: Will Burrard-Lucas. Two big—and endangered—mammals took 2014’s top prizes in the world’s biggest camera trap photo contest: a black rhino and a Asiatic cheetah. The gorgeous shot of a black rhino at night in Zambia photo won the overall photo […]
Feds: gray wolf may have returned to the Grand Canyon after 70 years

Obama administration proposes to remove wolves from the ESA even as the animals spread to new states A photo of what is believed to be a gray wolf sporting an inactive radio collar in forests just north of the Grand Canyon. Photo courtesy of the Arizona Game and Fish Department. For an update on this […]
Russia and China blamed for blocking Antarctic marine reserve

An Antarctic krill. Photo by: Uwe Kils/Creative Commons 3.0. Another year, another failed attempt to protect a significant chunk of the Ross Sea, which sits off the coast of Antarctica. According to observers, efforts to create the world’s biggest marine protected area to date were shot down by Russia and China during a meeting in […]
Photos: slumbering lions win top photo prize

This photo of slumbering lions has won Michael ‘Nick’ Nichols the much-coveted Wildlife Photographer of the Year Title. Photo by: Michael ‘Nick’ Nichols / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2014. The king of beasts took this year’s top prize in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, which is co-owned by the Natural History Museum […]
Saving Asia’s other endangered cats (photos)

Flat-headed cat and fishing cat require immediate research and conservation attention. It’s no secret that when it comes to the wild cats of Asia—and, really, cats in general—tigers get all the press. In fact, tigers—down to an estimated 3,200 individuals—arguably dominate conservation across Asia. But as magnificent, grand, and endangered as the tigers are, there […]
‘River wolves’ recover in Peruvian park, but still remain threatened inside and out (photos)

A giant river otter with a fish in its mouth. Photo by: Frank Hajek. Lobo de río, or river wolf, is the very evocative Spanish name for one of the Amazon’s most spectacular mammals: the giant river otter (Pteronura brasiliensis). This highly intelligent, deeply social, and simply charming freshwater predator almost vanished entirely due to […]
The only solution for polar bears: ‘stop the rise in CO2 and other greenhouse gases’

Steven Amstrup will be speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 11th, 2014. In 1773, an expedition headed by Constantine John Phipps, the Second Baron Mulgrave, embarked on a dangerous journey North—to see how far they could go before having to turn back. In his report at the end of […]
What makes the jaguar the ultimate survivor? New books highlights mega-predator’s remarkable past and precarious future

An interview with Alan Rabinowitz, author of the new book, An Indomitable Beast: the Journey of the Jaguar Female jaguar (staring into camera) with subadult male offspring moving through an old oil palm plantation in the jaguar corridor of Colombia. Photo by: Esteban Payan, Panthera. For thousands of years the jaguar was a God, then […]
Malayan tiger population plunges to just 250-340 individuals

Malayan tiger. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Malaysia is on the edge of losing its tigers, and the world is one step nearer to losing another tiger subspecies: the Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni). Camera trap surveys from 2010-2013 have estimated that only 250-340 Malayan tigers remain, potentially a halving of the previous estimate of […]
Meet the newest enemy to India’s wildlife

Cars versus leopards: big cats and other animals face decline due to rising traffic. A big cat crosses the Mysore-Mananthavadi Highway as commercial vehicles look on. Photo credit: Vikram Nanjappa. Adapted from a 2010 report on wildlife mortality reduction measures in the Nagarhole Tiger Reserve. WARNING: Graphic photos below. On the front page of the […]
Forgotten species: the exotic squirrel with a super tail

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 […]
Demand for shark fin plunging

Shark fins are usually sliced off the animal while its still alive. Photo by: WildAid/Hilton. Shark fin demand has dropped precipitously in China in just a few years, according to a new report by WildAid. The wildlife NGO has spearheaded a major media campaign, incorporating celebrities like Yao Ming, to raise awareness about the impacts […]
Seeking justice for Corazón: jaguar killings test the conservation movement in Mexico

Female jaguar with radio collar and cub found burned near reserve in Northern Mexico Corazón in 2009. This jaguar, living near the U.S.-Mexican border, was killed and burned in February, sparking calls for conservation reform. Photo courtesy of the Northern Jaguar Project/Naturalia. Eight years ago, a female jaguar cub was caught on film by a […]
Short-eared dog? Uncovering the secrets of one of the Amazon’s most mysterious mammals

Meet Oso: how a ‘pet’ short-eared dog helped scientists shed light on this cryptic carnivore Fifteen years ago, scientists knew next to nothing about one of the Amazon’s most mysterious residents: the short-eared dog (Atelocynus microtis). Although the species was first described in 1883 and is considered the sole representative of the Atelocynus genus, biologists […]
Scientists can now accurately count polar bears…from space

Polar bears are big animals. As the world’s largest land predators, a single male can weigh over a staggering 700 kilograms (about 1,500 pounds). But as impressive as they are, it’s difficult to imagine counting polar bears from space. Still, this is exactly what scientists have done according to a new paper in the open-access […]
Cats’ best friend? A new role for guard dogs in South Africa

Dogs protect livestock from predators, predators from humans The last couple centuries have seen the decline of many large predator species. While there has been a surge of recovery and reintroduction programs to combat this problem, human population growth and limited protected areas have led to increased rates of human-wildlife conflicts in many regions of […]
Stuff of fairy tales: stepping into Europe’s last old-growth forest

On bison, wolves, and woodpeckers: the wonder of Europe’s only lowland virgin forest. Bialowieza Forest at dawn. Old-growth forest is characterized by ancient trees, tall canopies, little undergrowth, and a huge amount of dead wood. Photo by: Lukasz Mazurek/Wild Poland There is almost nothing left of Europe’s famed forests, those that provided for human communities […]
Chinese fishermen get the ultimate phone video: a swimming tiger

Two Chinese fishermen got the catch of their lives…on mobile phone this week. While fishing in the Ussuri River, which acts as a border between Russia and China, the fishermen were approached by a swimming Siberian tiger. These tigers, also known as Amur tigers, are down to around 350-500 animals. At first the brothers thought […]
Camera trap captures first ever video of rarely-seen bird in the Amazon…and much more
- Nocturnal curassow filmed in the wild for the first time: A camera trap program in Ecuador’s embattled Yasuni National Program has struck gold, taking what researchers believe is the first ever film of a wild nocturnal curassow.
- The only member of the genus, Nothocrax, the nocturnal curassow is the smallest curassow, a group of birds in the Cracidae family and distantly related to mound-building birds in Australasia.
- The nocturnal curassow is known for its booming singing at night.

Camera trap catches rare feline attempting to tackle armored prey (VIDEO)

Illustration of the African golden cat. Image by: John Gerrard Keulemans. One of the world’s least known wild cats may have taken on more than it could handle in a recent video released by the Gashaka Biodiversity Project from Nigeria’s biggest national park, Gashaka Gumti. The video, taken by remote camera trap, shows an African […]
Scientists release odd-looking, Critically Endangered crocodiles back into the wild (PHOTOS)

Among the largest and most endangered crocodilians in the world, the gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) is on the verge of extinction today. This harmless fish-eating crocodile has fewer than 200 adult breeding individuals in the wild, their numbers having plummeted rapidly over the past few decades due to destruction of their riverine habitats, entanglement in fishing […]
After 89-year absence a wolf returns to Iowa…and is shot dead

DNA testing has confirmed that an animal shot in February in Iowa’s Buchanan County was in fact a wolf, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. This is the first confirmed gray wolf (Canis lupus) in the U.S. state since 1925. Experts believe the wolf likely traveled south from Wisconsin or Minnesota, the latter […]
Kala: the face of tigers in peril

In 1864, Walter Campbell was an officer in the British Army, stationed in India when he penned these words in his journal: “Never attack a tiger on foot—if you can help it. There are cases in which you must do so. Then face him like a Briton, and kill him if you can; for if […]
Incredible encounter: whales devour European eels in the darkness of the ocean depths

The Critically Endangered European eel makes one of the most astounding migrations in the wild kingdom. After spending most of its life in Europe’s freshwater rivers, the eel embarks on an undersea odyssey, traveling 6,000 kilometers (3,720 miles) to the Sargasso Sea where it will spawn and die. The long-journeying eels larva than make their […]
Endangered tiger killed in Sumatra

A young Sumatran Tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) was shot and killed by a coffee farmer in Jambi Province. With an estimated 400 individuals left in the wild, the species is Critically Endangered, while habitat loss increasingly forces them into populated areas to search for food. The farmer reported that the tiger, a 4-6 month old […]
Predator appreciation: how saving lions, tigers, and polar bears could rescue ourselves

Lioness feeding. Photo by: Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson. In the new book, In Predatory Light: Lions and Tigers and Polar Bears, authors Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Sy Montgomery, and John Houston, and photographers Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson share with us an impassioned and detailed appeal to appreciate three of the world’s biggest predators: lions, […]
Over 2,500 wolves killed in U.S.’s lower 48 since 2011

Hunters and trappers have killed 2,567 gray wolves in the U.S.’s lower 48 states since 2011, according to recent data. Gray wolves (Canis lupus) were protected by the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for nearly 40 years before being stripped of their protection status by a legislative rider in 2011. Last year total wolf populations were […]
Feral crèches: parenting in wild India

The Wildlife Conservation Society-India has been camera trapping wild animals for over 20 years in the Western Ghats. The results reveal the most intimate, fascinating and sometimes comical insights into animal behavior and ecology. These mammals generally become secretive and protective during parenting, and therefore we seldom get to see little ones in the wild. […]
Wonderful Creatures: A nematode drama played out in a millipede’s gut

Nematodes are typically small animals that to the naked eye look very much alike; however, these creatures are fantastically diverse —on a par with the arthropods in terms of species diversity. At face value, nematodes lack the charisma of larger animals, so there are very few biologists who have made it their life’s work to […]
Snow leopards and other mammals caught on camera trap in Uzbekistan (photos)

Scientists knew that snow leopards (Panthera uncia) still survived in the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan, but late last year they captured the first ever photos. Camera traps in the Gissar Nature Reserve took photos of the big cats, along with bear, lynx, ibex, wild boar, and other mammals. The camera trap program was led […]
German government gives tigers $27 million

At a summit in 2010, the world’s 13 tiger range states pledged to double the number of tigers (Panthera tigris) in the wild by 2020. Today, non-tiger state Germany announced its assistance toward that end. Through its KfW Development Bank, the German government has pledged around $27 million (20 million Euro) to a new program […]
86 percent of big animals in the Sahara Desert are extinct or endangered

Bigger than all of Brazil, among the harshest ecosystems on Earth, and largely undeveloped, one would expect that the Sahara desert would be a haven for desert wildlife. One would anticipate that big African animals—which are facing poaching and habitat loss in other parts of the world—would thrive in this vast wilderness. But a new […]
Scientists discover new cat species roaming Brazil

As a family, cats are some of the most well-studied animals on Earth, but that doesn’t mean these adept carnivores don’t continue to surprise us. Scientists have announced today the stunning discovery of a new species of cat, long-confused with another. Looking at the molecular data of small cats in Brazil, researchers found that the […]
Camera traps reveal Amur leopards are breeding in China (photos)

Good news today about one of the world’s rarest mammals: camera traps in China’s Wangqing Nature Reserve have captured the first proof of breeding Amur leopards in the country, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). The photos show a mother Amur leopard with two cubs. A recent survey by WWF-Russia estimated the total wild […]
World’s most cryptic feline photographed in logging concession

The bay cat is arguably the world’s least-known member of the cat family (Felidae). Although first described by scientists in 1874, no photo existed of a living specimen until 1998 and a wild cat in its rainforest habitat wasn’t photographed until five years later. Given this, scientists with Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Imperial […]
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 […]
Samburu’s lions: how the big cats could make a comeback in Kenya

Shivani Bhalla will be speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 12th, 2013. In 2009 conservationists estimated that less than 2,000 lions survive in Kenya, a drop of 26 percent in just seven years. In addition, the East Africa country continues to hemorrhage lions: around a hundred a year. Poaching, […]
Lions rising: community conservation making a difference for Africa’s kings in Mozambique

Colleen Begg will be speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 12th, 2013. Everyone knows that tigers, pandas, and blue whales are threatened with extinction—but lions!? Researchers were shocked to recently discover that lion populations have fallen precipitously: down to around 30,000 animals across the African continent. While 30,000 may […]
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 […]
Featured video: ‘this is day one for the olinguito’

Last month scientists unveiled a remarkable discovery: a new mammal in the order Carnivora (even though it mostly lives off fruits) in the Andean cloud forests. This was the first new mammal from that order in the Western Hemisphere since the 1970s. The olinguito had long been mistaken for its closest relatives, olingos—small tree-dwelling mammals […]
Featured video: how tigers could save human civilization

In the video below, John Vaillant, author of the The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, tells an audience at TEDxYYC about the similarities between tigers and human beings. Given these similarities—big mammals, apex predator, highly adaptable, intelligent, and stunningly “superior”—John Vaillant asks an illuminating question: what can we learn from the tiger? […]
Meet the BABY olinguito

Since its announcement on Thursday, the olinguito—the world’s newest mammal—has taken the world by storm. Hundreds of articles have been written about the new species, while its cuddly appearance has already been made the subject of cartoons. Now, conservationists have released the first photos of a baby olinguito. The new photos come from La Mesenia […]
Scientists discover teddy bear-like mammal hiding out in Andean cloud forests (photos)

Teddy bear-like carnivorous creature discovered in South America (photos) While the olinguito looks like a wild, tree-climbing teddy bear with a cat’s tail, it’s actually the world’s newest mammalian carnivore. The remarkable discovery—the first mammal carnivore uncovered in the Western Hemisphere since the 1970s—was found in the lush cloud forests of the Andes, a biodiverse […]
Last disease-free Tasmanian devils imperiled by mine

The federal environment minister, Mark Butler, has given the go-ahead to a controversial mine that the courts halted amid concerns it could drastically affect the last stronghold of the Tasmanian devil. Butler said he had granted approval to Shree Minerals to proceed with its iron ore mine at Nelson Bay River in the north-west of […]
Balkan lynx conservation unifies neighboring countries

They still call the Balkans “the Powder Keg of Europe.” For good reason too: bloody ethnic and religious conflicts in the past decades have left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced. As recently as 2001, the army in Macedonia was fighting with ethnic Albanians, many of them from Kosovo. However, in the past seven […]
Nepal’s tigers on the rebound

Nearly two hundred tigers roam the lowland forests of Nepal, according to a new survey. This is a 63 percent increase in the country’s tiger population since 2009, and rare good news for global efforts to save the tiger from extinction. The survey counted 198 Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) across five parks and three […]
Cheetah don’t overheat during hunts

Study finds that contrary to popular opinion, cheetah don’t overheat during hunts. But their body temperature rises after successful hunts due to stress that another predator may seize their prey. In a 4,500 hectare cheetah rehabilitation camp in the middle of Namibia, researchers observe the large, spotted carnivores as they readjust to wild life. This […]
Scientists: lions need funding not fences

Fences are not the answer to the decline in Africa’s lions, according to a new paper in Ecology Letters. The new research directly counters an earlier controversial study that argued keeping lions fenced-in would be cheaper and more effective in saving the big cats. African lion (Panthera leo) populations across the continent have fallen dramatically: […]
5 men rescued, 1 killed, after 5-day Sumatran tiger standoff

Five men were finally rescued on Monday after spending five days trapped in a tree by a group of Sumatran tigers. A team of around 30 people rescued the men after several tiger tamers were able to lure the animals away using chants and mantras. The men were attacked inside Aceh’s Gunung Leuser National Park […]
Sumatran tiger density lower than previously thought

The critically endangered Sumatran tiger may be even rarer than previously thought, reports a study published in the journal Oryx. Researchers from Virginia Tech and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) used camera traps to estimate population density in previously unsurveyed areas, including peatlands. They found that tiger density may be only half what was estimated […]
Conserving top predators results in less CO2 in the air

What does a wolf in Yellowstone National Park have in common with an ambush spider on a meadow in Connecticut? Both are predators and thus eat herbivores, such as elk (in the case of wolves) and grasshoppers (in the case of spiders). Elk and grasshoppers also have more in common than you probably imagine: they […]
Tibetan monks partner with conservationists to protect the snow leopard

The 2013 Zoos and Aquariums: Committing to Conservation (ZACC) conference runs from July 8th—July 12th in Des Moines, Iowa, hosted by the Blank Park Zoo. Ahead of the event, Mongabay.com is running a series of Q&As with presenters. For more interviews, please see our ZACC feed. Snow leopard. Photo by: Steve Winter/National Geographic. Tibetan monks […]
Monitor lizards vanishing to international trade in pets and skins

Illegally traded lizards (left to right): black tree monitor (Varanus beccarii), Reisinger’s tree monitor (Varanus reisingeri), emerald monitor (Varanus prasinus), and the blue-spotted tree monitor (Varanus macraei). Photo courtesy of Jessica Lyons. The world’s monitor lizards remind us that the world was once ruled by reptiles: this genus (Varanus) includes the world’s biggest lizards, such […]
Three new species of carnivorous snails discovered in endangered habitat in Thailand (photos)

Scientists from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok and the Natural History Museum, London recently discovered three new species of carnivorous snails in northern Thailand. However, the celebration of these discoveries is tainted by the fact that the new snails are already threatened with extinction due to the destruction of their limestone habitat. The new snail species named […]
Scientists capture one of the world’s rarest big cats on film (photos)

Less than a hundred kilometers from the bustling metropolis of Jakarta, scientists have captured incredible photos of one of the world’s most endangered big cats: the Javan leopard (Panthera pardus melas). Taken by a research project in Gunung Halimun-Salak National Park, the photos show the magnificent animal relaxing in dense primary rainforest. Scientists believe that […]
Could the Tasmanian tiger be hiding out in New Guinea?

Many people still believe the Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) survives in the wilds of Tasmania, even though the species was declared extinct over eighty years ago. Sightings and reports of the elusive carnivorous marsupial, which was the top predator on the island, pop-up almost as frequently as those of Bigfoot in North America, but to […]
Crazy cat numbers: unusually high jaguar densities discovered in the Amazon rainforest

Jaguars (Panthera onca) are the biggest cat in the Americas and the only member of the Panthera genus in the New World; an animal most people recognize, the jaguar is also the third largest cat in the world with an intoxicatingly dangerous beauty. The feline ranges from the harsh deserts of southern Arizona to the […]
Endangered primates and cats may be hiding out in swamps and mangrove forests

What happens to animals when their forest is cut down? If they can, they migrate to different forests. But in an age when forests are falling far and fast, many species may have to shift to entirely different environments. A new paper in Folia Primatologica theorizes that some 60 primate species and 20 wild cat […]
13 year search for Taiwan’s top predator comes up empty-handed

After 13 years of searching for the Formosan clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa brachyura), once hopeful scientists say they believe the cat is likely extinct. For more than a decade scientists set up over 1,500 camera traps and scent traps in the mountains of Taiwan where they believed the cat may still be hiding out, only […]
Obama Administration to propose stripping protection from all gray wolves

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is proposing to end protection for all gray wolves (Canis lupus) in the lower 48 states, save for a small population of Mexican wolves in New Mexico, reports the Los Angeles Times. The proposal comes two years after wolves were removed from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in […]
Bizarre, little-known carnivore sold as illegal pet in Indonesian markets (photo)

Few people have ever heard of the Javan ferret-badger, but that hasn’t stopped this animal—little-known even to scientists—from being sold in open markets in Jakarta according to a new paper in Small Carnivore Conservation. The Javan ferret-badger (Melogale orientalis) is one of five species in the ferret-badger family, which are smaller than proper badgers with […]
Lions for sale: big game hunting combines with lion bone trade to threaten endangered cats

Koos Hermanus would rather not give names to the lions he breeds. So here, behind a 2.4-meter high electric fence, is 1R, a three-and-a-half-year-old male, who consumes 5kg of meat a day and weighs almost 200kg. It will only leave its enclosure once it has been “booked”‘ by a hunter, most of whom are from […]
Civet poop coffee may be threatening wild species

Popularization of the world’s strangest coffee may be imperiling a a suite of small mammals in Indonesia, according to a new study in Small Carnivore Conservation. The coffee, known as kopi luwak (kopi for coffee and luwak for the civet), is made from whole coffee beans that have passed through the guts of the animal […]
Amur leopard population rises to 50 animals, but at risk from tigers, poachers

In the remote Russian far east, amid pine forests and long winters, a great cat may be beginning to make a recovery. A new survey estimates that the Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) population has risen to as many as 50 individuals. While this may not sound like much, it’s a far cry from a […]
Male lions require dense vegetation for successful ambush hunting

Female lion with wildebeest kill in Tanzania. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. For a long time male lions were derided as the lazy ones in the pride, depending on females for the bulk of hunting and not pulling their weight. Much of this was based on field observations—female lions hunt cooperatively, often in open savannah, […]
Forgotten lions: shedding light on the fate of lions in unprotected areas

Male lion in Zambia. Photo by: Stuart Pimm. African lions (Panthera leo) living outside of protected areas like national parks or reserves also happen to be studied much less than those residing within protected areas, to the detriment of lion conservation initiatives. In response to this trend, a group of researchers surveyed an understudied, unprotected […]
Conservationists: ban the wild cheetah pet trade

A group of prominent wildlife conservation groups have joined an alliance of African states in calling on CITES to ban the trade in wild cheetah for the pet trade. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Zoological Society of London (ZSL), and Endangered Wildlife Trust have joined delegates from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda in demanding action. CITES […]
The end of wild Africa?: lions may need fences to survive

Lions hang out by a fence in Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Photo by: Luke Hunter. In order for dwindling lion populations to survive in Africa, large-scale fencing projects may be required according to new research in Ecology Letters. Recent estimates have put lion populations down to 15,000-35,000, a massive drop from a population that […]
Chinese government creating secret demand for tiger trade alleges NGO (warning: graphic images)

Tiger bodies in freezer in Guilin Tiger Bear Farm. Photo by: Belinda Wright/WPSI. The number of tigers being captive bred in China for consumption exceed those surviving in the wild—across 13 countries—by over a third, according to a new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). The report, Hidden in Plain Sight, alleges that while […]
Asiatic cheetahs: on the road to extinction?

New road projects imperils Critically Endangered cheetah subspecies Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) are unique among large cats. They have a highly specialized body, a mild temperament, and are the fastest living animals on land. Acinonyx jubatus venaticus, the Asiatic subspecies, is unique among cheetahs and the only member of five currently living subspecies to occur outside […]
Tigers gobble up 49 percent of India’s wildlife conservation funds, more imperiled species get nothing

Bengal tiger in Rantgambhore National Park. Photo by: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen. Nearly half of India’s wildlife budget goes to one species: the tiger, reports a recent article in Live Mint. India has devoted around $63 million to wildlife conservation for 2013-2013, of which Project Tiger receives $31 million. The Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) is […]
Catching Borneo’s mysterious wild cats on film

Marbled cat. Photo courtesy of: Jyrki Hokkanen. In my childhood’s biology books from the 50’s, the Australian marsupial tiger Thylacine is classified rare but alive. Today we know that the last thylacine died in a Tasmanian zoo 7th September, 1936, after a century of intensive hunting encouraged by bounties. The local government had finally introduced […]
Animal picture of the day: the world’s biggest cat

An eighteenth-month-old Amur tiger, named Botzman, was recently moved from a zoo in Moscow to Zoological Society of London (ZSL) Whipsnade Zoo. Photo courtesy of ZSL Whipsnade Zoo. The Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), also known as the Siberian tiger, is the world’s biggest cat. An adult male weighs on average about 390 pounds (176 […]
Over 1,500 wolves killed in the contiguous U.S. since hunting legalized

Wolf in Yellowstone National Park. Photo courtesy of Yellowstone National Park. Hunters and trappers have killed approximately 1,530 wolves over the last 18 months in the contiguous U.S., which excludes Alaska. After being protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for 38 years, gray wolves (Canis lupus) were stripped of their protected states in 2011 […]
U.S. proposes to list wolverine under Endangered Species Act

Wolverine in the snow. Photo by: Bigstock. Arguably one of the toughest animals on Earth, the wolverine (Gulo gulo) may soon find itself protected under the U.S.’s Endangered Species Act (ESA) as climate change melts away its preferred habitat. Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced it was proposing to place the […]
Geneticists discover distinct lion group in squalid conditions

Behind bars and waiting for science: the power of genetic testing for the Addis Fifteen. Male and female Addis lions in the Addis Ababa Lion Zoo. Photo courtesy of: Klaus Eulenberger. They languished behind bars in squalid conditions, their very survival in jeopardy. Outside, an international team of advocates strove to bring worldwide attention to […]
Man drove Tasmanian Tiger to extinction in Australia

Tasmanian Tigers at Beaumaris Zoo, Hobart c 1918. Courtesy of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Man, not disease, drove the Tasmanian Tiger to extinction, according to a new study published in the Journal of Animal Ecology. The Tasmanian Tiger or thylacine was a marsupial carnivore unique to the Australian island Tasmania that was last […]
Claim of human and tiger ‘coexistence’ lacks perspective

The tiger is a globally endangered top predator occupying only 7% of its historic range and only 3000-3500 individuals are believed to be left in wild. Picture © Kalyan Varma. Nepal’s Chitwan National Park was the site of a study, published in September 2012 by Carter and others, which concluded that, tigers coexist with humans […]
Living beside a tiger reserve: scientists study compensation for human-wildlife conflict in India

Bengal tiger in Kanha Tiger Reserve. Photo by: Kalyan Varma. During an average year, 87% of households surrounding Kanha Tiger Reserve in Central India report experiencing some kind of conflict with wild animals, according to a new paper in the open-access journal PLOS One. Co-existence with protected, free-roaming wildlife can be a challenge when living […]
Three developing nations move to ban hunting to protect vanishing wildlife

African savannah elephants on the Chobe River in Botswana. From 2014 on, hunting will no longer be allowed in Botswana’s public lands. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. Three developing countries have recently toughened hunting regulations believing the changes will better protect vanishing species. Botswana has announced it will ban trophy hunting on public lands beginning in […]
In the kingdom of the black panther

A black panther (in this case a leopard) caught on camera trap in the Kenyir Wildlife Corridor. Photo courtesy of Rimba. The black panther has a mythical aura: Rudyard Kipling chose the animal for one of his heroes in The Jungle Book, in the 1970s it became the symbol of an African-American socialist party, while […]
Saving the Arabian leopard, the world’s smallest leopard

The 3rd Annual New York Wildlife Conservation Film Festival (WFCC.org) runs from January 30 – February 2, 2013. Ahead of the event, Mongabay.com is running a series of Q&As with filmmakers and presenters. For more interviews, please see our WCFF feed. Sharjah, a captive Arabian leopard at the Sharjah Wildlife Centre in the UAE. Photo […]
An avalanche of decline: snow leopard populations are plummeting

Snow leopard in the Toronto Zoo. Photo by: John Vetterli. The trading of big cat pelts is nothing new, but recent demand for snow leopard pelts and taxidermy mounts has added a new commodity to the illegal trade in wildlife products, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). Traditionally, the market for large cat products […]
Rare jungle cat filmed for only the second time
A biologist on vacation in Malaysian Borneo caught one of the world’s rarest cats on video for only the second time, reports the BBC. Jyrki Hokkanen, a Finnish biologist, in August filmed a wild Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi) in Danum Valley, an area of protected rainforest in Sabah. He was on a night walk […]
Lion population falls 68 percent in 50 years

Female lion with wildebeest kill in Tanzania. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. African lions, one of the most iconic species on the planet, are in rapid decline. According to a new study in Biodiversity Conservation, the African lion (Panthera leo leo) population has dropped from around 100,000 animals just fifty years ago to as few […]
Africa’s great savannahs may be more endangered than the world’s rainforests

Grasslands in Kenya’s Masai Mara. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Few of the world’s ecosystems are more iconic than Africa’s sprawling savannahs home to elephants, giraffes, rhinos, and the undisputed king of the animal kingdom: lions. This wild realm, where megafauna still roam in abundance, has inspired everyone from Ernest Hemingway to Karen Blixen, and […]
New Guinea singing dog photographed in the wild for the first time

Cropped close-up of New Guinea singing dog. This is arguably the first time the dingo-like canine has been photographed in the wild. Photo by: Tom Hewitt. A rarely seen canine has been photographed in the wild, likely for the first time. Tom Hewitt, director of Adventure Alternative Borneo, photographed the New Guinea singing dog during […]
Wolves, mole rats, and nyala: the struggle to conserve Ethiopia’s highlands

Gaysay Grasslands in Bale Mountains National Park. Photo courtesy of the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS). There is a place in the world where wolves live almost entirely off mountain rodents, lions dwell in forests, and freshwater rolls downstream to 12 million people, but the place—Ethiopia’s Bale Mountains National Park—remains imperiled by a lack of legal […]
Controversial wolf hunt moves to the Midwest, 196 wolves killed to date

Many top predators worldwide remain hated and feared. Photo courtesy of the National Park Service. The hugely controversial wolf hunt in the U.S. has spread from the western U.S. (Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming) to the Midwest (Minnesota and Wisconsin) this year. Although the wolf hunt is less than a month old in the region—and only […]
Conservationists turn camera traps on tiger poachers

Camera trap catches intruders in Lazovsky Nature Reserve. Photo courtesy of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). Remote camera traps, which take photos or video when a sensor is triggered, have been increasingly used to document rare and shy wildlife, but now conservationists are taking the technology one step further: detecting poachers. Already, camera traps […]
Picture of the day: cheetah cubs wrestle Halloween pumpkins

Zookeepers at the Zoological Society of London’s Whipsnade Zoo gave pumpkins to six five-month old cheetah cubs and watched them run wild. Photo courtesy of ZSL Whipsnade Zoo. The fastest land animal in the world, cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) can exceed 110 kilometers per hour (70 miles per hour) in short bursts. This speed allows them […]
Leopard poaching is a bigger problem in India than previously believed

Leopard skin. © TRAFFIC. A recent study conducted by wildlife trade monitoring group TRAFFIC uncovered unnerving statistics about the illegal trade of leopards (Panthera pardus) in India: at least four leopards have been poached every week for the past decade in the country. The study, entitled Illuminating the Blind Spot: A study on illegal trade […]
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 […]
After seven year search, scientists film cryptic predator in Minas Gerais

Still from camera trap video. Bush dog on left side. Photo courtesy of WWF Brasil. South America’s rare and little-known bush dog (Speothos venaticus) looks like a miniature dachshund who went bad: leaner, meaner, and not one to cuddle on your lap, the bush dog is found in 11 South American countries, but scientists believe […]
Photos: emperor penguins take first place in renowned wildlife photo contest

This was the image Paul had been so hoping to get: a sunlit mass of emperor penguins charging upwards, leaving in their wake a crisscross of bubble trails. The location was near the emperor colony at the edge of the frozen area of the Ross Sea, Antarctica. It was into the only likely exit hole […]
Picture of the day: the maned lioness

A maned lioness in Botswanna’s Okavango Delta. Photo by: Deon de Villers. The title is not a typo. Sometimes lioness grow manes as rich and large as males, and there appears to be larger proportion of such ‘maned lionesses’ in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Luke Hunter, head of the cat NGO Panthera, told National Geographic News […]
Photos: new mammal menagerie uncovered in remote Peruvian cloud forest

Possible new species of night monkey in the Aotus genus. Photo by: Alexander Pari. Every year scientists describe around 18,000 new species, but mammals make up less than half a percent of those. Yet mammal surprises remain: deep in the remote Peruvian Andes, scientists have made an incredible discovery: a rich cloud forest and alpine […]
Cute animal picture of the day: caracal kitten in Yemen

Close-up of a caracal kitten in Yemen taken by camera trap. Photo by: the Foundation for the Protection of the Arabian Leopard. The first ever research project on the caracal (Caracal caracal) in Yemen has taken an astounding photo of a mother caracal and her kitten in the Hawf Protected Area. Conducted by largely local […]
Jaguar conservation gets a boost in North and Central America

First camera trap photo of a jaguar taken by Panthera in a deforested area of Costa Rica’s Barbilla-Destierro SubCorridor. Photo by: Panthera. Jaguar conservation has received a huge boost in the past few months both in Latin America and in the U.S. An historic agreement singed between the world’s leading wild cat conservation organization Panthera […]
Cute animal picture of the day: tiger triplets

The Siberian tiger triplets were born to parents, Katharina and Sasha. Photo by: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS. Last month, the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Bronx Zoo saw the arrival of three Siberian tiger cubs (Panthera tigris altaica). Also known as Amur tigers, they are the world’s largest cats with adult males weighing up to 318 kilograms […]
Arachnopocalypse: with birds away, the spiders play in Guam

The accidental introduction of the brown tree snake on Guam has resulted in a loss of birds and a subsequent explosion of spiders. Photo by: Isaac Chellman. The island of Guam is drowning in spiders. New research in the open-access journal PLOS ONE has found that in the wet season, Guam’s arachnid population booms to […]
Rare birds abound in Brazil’s Acre state

The Brazilian state of Acre has had little attention by bird-lovers and bird scientists, though it lies deep in the Amazonian rainforest. Now a new survey in mongabay.com’s open access journal Tropical Conservation Science by ornithologist, John J. DeLuca, works to build a better picture of rare birds in this largely-neglected region. The work is […]
Buffer zones key to survival of maned wolf

Maned wolf at Beardsley Zoo. Photo by: Sage Ross. Known for its abnormally long lanky legs, its reddish-orange coat, and its omnivorous diet, the maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus) is one of the more beautiful and bizarre predators of South America. However its stronghold, the Brazilian Cerrado, is vanishing rapidly to industrialized agriculture and urban development. […]
Local knowledge matches scientific data on wildlife abundances

Zebra in Zimbabwe. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. How far can scientists trust local knowledge when it comes to ecosystems? This is a question that is undergoing heavy debate in scientific circles. A new study in mongabay.com’s open access journal Tropical Conservation Science contributes to the debate by finding that basic local knowledge of animal abundance […]
Tiger and cubs filmed near proposed dam in Thailand
A tigress and two cubs have been filmed by remote camera trap in a forest under threat by a $400 million dam in Thailand. To be built on the Mae Wong River, the dam imperils two Thai protected areas, Mae Wong National Park and Huay Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, according to the World Wide Fund […]
Tigers and humans can coexist, says study

Humans and tigers can coexist in the same area with minimal conflict, finds a new study that raises hopes for big cat conservation. The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by an international team of scientists, used camera traps to examine tiger density in and around Chitwan National […]
King of the jungle: lions discovered in rainforests

Female lion peers through the thick foliage of a montane rainforest in Ethiopia. Photo by: Bruno D’Amicis/NABU. Calling the African lion (Panthera leo) the ‘king of the jungle’ is usually a misnomer, as the species is almost always found in savannah or dry forests, but recent photos by the Germany-based Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union […]
Cute animal pictures of the day: lynx triplets

Eurasian lynx triplets were recently born at the Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) Whipsnade Zoo. Photo by: ZSL Whipsnade Zoo. With a massive range, spanning from scattered populations in Western Europe to Eastern Siberia, the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is a highly successful mid-sized predator. Listed as Least Concern by the IUCN Red List, the […]
Animal picture of the day: leopard with giant prey

BPL-223 with the carcass of gaur calf, an animal that may be twice the size of the leopard. Photo by: Vinay S. Kumar. Click to enlarge. It’s true: a leopard cannot change its spots—even after eight years! Using a computer program that looks at leopard spot patterns, researchers were able to identify the above leopard, […]
First snow leopards collared in Afghanistan as species faces rising threat from climate change

The research team conducts a dental exam of a snow leopard prior to its release. Photo by: Anthony Simms/WCS. Scientists have captured and collared two snow leopards (Panthera uncia), arguably one of the world’s most elusive predators, in Afghanistan for the first time. Undertaken by researchers with Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Afghani vets, the […]
First video footage of wild snow leopard cubs in their den in Mongolia

Field Scientist Mattia Colombo carefully prepares to place a cub back into its den. Courtesy of Panthera Panthera, a wild cat conservation group, and the Snow Leopard Trust have released the first footage of snow leopards with their mothers in their dens in Mongolia. The videos, released July 12, show a female with two cubs […]
Cute animal picture of the day: spotted hyena cub

Spotted hyena cub (sex not yet determined) born at Colchester Zoo. Photo courtesy of Colchester Zoo. Spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) are found across sub-Saharan Africa. Adept hunters, hyenas can also survive by scavenging and opportunism. They form the largest packs of any carnivore, which are run by matriarchs. Although, they resemble dogs, the hyena is […]
Marijuana farms poisoning carnivorous fishers in California, finds study

An illegal pesticide used by marijuana growers to kill rodents is poisoning weasel-like fishers in California, reports a new study published in the journal PLoS ONE. Researchers with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the Integral Ecology Research Center, the University of California Davis, and other institutions conducted necropsies on 58 fishers in northwestern California and […]
Animal picture of the day: Sunda clouded leopard in Borneo

A Sunda clouded leopard caught on camera trap. The Sunda clouded leopard was only recently declared a distinct species from its mainland Asian relative. See close-up below. Photo by: Sabah Wildlife Department. The Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi) is the largest wild cat in Borneo and is classified as Endangered by the IUCN Red list […]
Animal picture of the day: rare image of Asiatic cheetah and cubs

A rare image of a mother Iranian cheetah and its three cubs. Photo by: Javad Shokouhi/Yazd DOE-CACP. The Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus), also known as the Iranian cheetah, is one the world’s rarest cat subspecies with somewhere between 70-110 individuals left. No surprisingly it is considered Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List. “This […]
‘Time pollution’: loss of predators pushes nocturnal fish to take advantage of the day

Large-eyed nocturnal fish, such as this moontail bullseye, are highly specialized for operating in the dark. Part of the reason they may have adapted to nighttime living was to avoid predators that are active during the day. Photo by: J. Huang. Nocturnal fish—which sport big eyes for improved night vision—are taking back the day in […]
Nearly 50 tigers die in India in last six months

Bengal tiger in Rantgambhore National Park. Photo by: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen. Since January 1st, 48 Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) have been found dead in India, which has the world’s largest population of tigers. According to India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), 19 of those deaths have been confirmed to be at the hands of […]

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