topic: Forgotten Species

topic: Forgotten Species

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Track-a-mole: Sniffer dog and eDNA help ‘rediscover’ South African golden mole
- A sniffer dog and environmental DNA analysis enabled researchers to confirm the continued existence of the rare De Winton’s golden mole, not seen by scientists since 1936.
- The habitat near Port Nolloth, South Africa, where the critically endangered mole was found, is currently unprotected and threatened by development and mining.
- De Winton’s moles are one of the of 25 “most wanted” lost species that have been found again by science.

How Brazil is working to save the rare lion tamarins of the Atlantic Forest
- Small, lively and threatened, the golden lion tamarin is a primate species found only in the Atlantic Forest and which today is struggling for space and connectivity inside Brazil’s most deforested and fragmented biome.
- There are four species of lion tamarin (Leontopithecus spp.) in Brazil, but the golden lion tamarin (L. rosalia) was the first to be described and has enjoyed the most fame.
- Golden lion tamarin conservation efforts have been successful, growing the population from a one-time low of 200 animals to more than 2,000 today.
- The other three species — the black lion tamarin, golden-headed lion tamarin, and black-faced lion tamarin — live isolated in fragmented patches of the Atlantic Forest and face a growing risk of extinction.

Scientists on a quest to map worldwide web of fungi beneath our feet
- Interconnected bodies of fungi form vast underground networks through the Earth’s soils, transporting nutrients and water across ecosystems and sequestering vast amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere.
- Experts agree that protecting fungi and focusing conservation efforts belowground could help to mitigate global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, land use change and pollution.
- A new initiative is embarking on the first global effort to document and map the world’s network-forming fungi, using eDNA and machine learning to identify and protect global hotspots of fungal biodiversity.
- Fungi are increasingly viewed as a nature-based solution to manage global carbon budgets, restore degraded ecosystems, remediate contaminated soils and speed the transition toward sustainable agriculture.

‘Profound ignorance’: Microbes, a missing piece in the biodiversity puzzle
- Researchers are certain that human activity has resulted in a decline in plant and animal species. But a huge unknown remains: what impacts have human actions —ranging from climate change, to ocean acidification, deforestation and land use change, nitrogen pollution, and more — had on the Earth’s microbes?
- A new paper poses this significant question, and offers a troubling answer: Science suffers from “profound ignorance” about the ways in which microbial biodiversity is being influenced by rapid environmental changes now happening on our planet.
- Researchers are supremely challenged by the microbial biodiversity question, finding it difficult to even define what a microbe species is, and uncertain how to effectively identify, analyze and track the behaviors of microbes on Earth —microorganisms estimated to be more numerous than stars in the known universe.
- We do know microbes play crucial roles — helping grow our food, aiding in the sequestering and release of soil carbon, curing and causing disease, and more. One thing researchers do agree on: knowing how human activities are influencing the microbial world could be very important to the future of humanity and our planet.

New map shows where the 80% of species we don’t know about may be hiding
- A new study maps out the regions of the world most likely to hold the highest number of species unknown to science.
- The study found that tropical forests in countries like Brazil, Indonesia, Madagascar and Colombia had the highest potential for undescribed species, mostly reptiles and amphibians.
- According to the lead researcher, the main reason for species going undescribed is a lack of funding and taxonomic experts in some parts of the world.
- He added that it’s essential to learn about as many species as possible to protect them, but that undescribed species are currently not taken into account by governing bodies like the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Mystery bird not seen in 172 years makes surprise reappearance in Borneo forest
- The black-browed babbler was recently sighted in Indonesia’s South Kalimantan province, on the island of Borneo, after being lost to science for 172 years.
- There is only one specimen of the species, collected sometime between 1843 and 1848.
- While little is known about the species, researchers are concerned that it might already be threatened with extinction.

On a Philippine volcano, an eruption-proof mouse rules the roost
- In 1991, a massive eruption at Mount Pinatubo decimated natural old-growth forests, likely resulting in the natural local extinction of several species, a study notes.
- But surveys carried out 20 years after the eruption show that the landscape is regenerating and is dominated by a possibly endemic rodent species, Apomys sacobianus.
- Biologists know Ap. sacobianus from a single specimen collected in 1956; previous studies conducted by the team show it may be specific only to Mount Pinatubo.
- The rodent species is a “disturbance specialist,” meaning that unlike other Apomys species that thrive on mountaintops, Ap. sacobianus has adapted to living in the lowlands due to eruptions in the past.

‘Race against time’: Saving the snakes and lizards of Brazil’s Cerrado
- Brazil’s Cerrado is among the world’s most biodiverse savannas, covering two million square kilometers (772,204 square miles), nearly a quarter of the country and half the size of Europe.
- Once thought of as a “wasteland,” scientists have counted 208 snake species, some 80 lizards, 40 worm lizards, seven turtles and four crocodile species — many recently logged in the biome’s grasslands, palm-covered riverscapes, lowland forests and dry plateaus.
- But half of the Cerrado’s natural vegetation has been lost to mechanized agribusiness and ranching, with native plants and wildlife also at risk from climate change, and more frequent and intense fires. Today’s biome is fragmented, with just 3% under strict protection, and another 5% “protected” in farmed, inhabited mixed-use areas
- While researchers agree that there is an urgent need to protect large swathes of remaining savanna, there is also a vital requirement to preserve patches of unique habitat where diverse, niche-specialized reptilians make their homes.

[Photos] Tiny frog, venomous viper among 20 new species described in Bolivia
- An expedition into the cloud forests of the Bolivian Andes has uncovered 20 species new to science including a frog smaller than a coin, a new venomous pit viper, four butterflies, and four orchid species.
- Along with the newly described species, the research team also “rediscovered” four species believed to be extinct, including the devil-eyed frog not seen for 20 years.
- Overall, the expedition in the Zongo Valley near La Paz, Bolivia, uncovered rich diversity and endemism and recorded more than 1,200 plants, 247 insects, 10 amphibians, 10 reptiles, 161 birds, nine small terrestrial mammals, nine large mammals, and 12 species of bats.
- The Zongo Valley contributes drinking water and hydroelectric energy for the cities of La Paz and El Alto and is known to provide important ecosystem services. The report calls for urgent measures for formal conservation of this largely intact ecosystem.

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.

One year on: Insects still in peril as world struggles with global pandemic
- In June 2019, in response to media outcry and alarm over a supposed ongoing global “Insect Apocalypse,” Mongabay published a thorough four-part survey on the state of the world’s insect species and their populations.
- In four, in-depth stories, science writer Jeremy Hance interviewed 24 leading entomologists and other scientists on six continents and working in 12 nations to get their expert views on the rate of insect decline in Europe, the U.S., and especially the tropics, including Latin America, Africa, and Australia.
- Now, 16 months later, Hance reaches out to seven of those scientists to see what’s new. He finds much bad news: butterflies in Ohio declining by 2% per year, 94% of wild bee interactions with native plants lost in New England, and grasshopper abundance falling by 30% in a protected Kansas grassland over 20 years.
- Scientists say such losses aren’t surprising; what’s alarming is our inaction. One researcher concludes: “Real insect conservation would mean conserving large whole ecosystems both from the point source attacks, AND the overall blanket of climate change and six billion more people on the planet than there should be.”

Elephant shrew ‘lost’ to science for 52 years is ‘rediscovered’ in Africa
- After being lost to science for 52 years, the Somali sengi (Elephantulus revoilii), a small mammal related to the elephant, was recently “rediscovered” in Djibouti.
- A research team determined that Somali sengis were abundant in Djibouti and have no immediate threats, which led them to recommend that the IUCN change the species’ conservation status from data deficient to least concern.
- DNA analysis of the Somali sengi showed that the species is closely related to sengis in Morocco and South Africa, suggesting that it should belong to a new genus, Galegeeska, rather than its current genus, Elephantulus.

Traversing Russia’s remote taiga in pursuit of the Blakiston’s fish owl
- The Blakiston’s fish owl is the world’s largest owl, ranging from the eastern woodlands of Hokkaido, Japan, to the Primorye territory in the south of Russia’s Far East.
- The species is endangered, with only 1,500 to 3,700 fish owls remaining in the wild.
- In his new, just published book, Owls of the Eastern Ice, biologist Jonathan Slaght chronicles his experiences and misadventures as an American researcher in Siberia, while also revealing the fish owl’s fascinating secret world.
- To protect the fish owl, Slaght and his Russian colleagues advocate for limiting road access into high biodiversity areas in Siberia.

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

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

The woman building the forest corridors saving Brazil’s black lion tamarin
- The Black Lion Tamarin Conservation program created a series of forest corridors to connect areas with isolated populations of this once critically endangered primate, bringing back to life pars of the Atlantic Forest in the Pontal do Paranapanema region of inland São Paulo state in Brazil.
- Gabriela Rezende, the biologist currently leading the program, was one of the winners of the prestigious Whitley Award for environmental conservation in 2020. The $50,000 prize will fund the continuing efforts to protect the black lion tamarin.
- The plan is to open more corridors and manage the population, moving the animals to accelerate their occupation of the forest and expand the population.
- The project also involves environmental education, professional training and the generation of income for the local population.

Disaster interrupted: How you can help save the insects
- In a new paper, a group of 30 scientists offers suggestions for industry, land managers, governments and individuals to protect insects in the face of a global decline.
- Noting that invertebrates lack the “charisma” of larger species like pandas and elephants, the scientists call for spreading “the message that appreciation and conservation of insects is now essential for our future survival.”
- They suggest a list of actions that individuals can take to help, including planting native plants, going organic and avoiding pesticides, and reducing carbon footprint.
- “As insects are braided into ecosystems, their plight is essentially integrated with more expansive movements such as global biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation and in an alliance with them,” the scientists say.

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

The next great threat to Brazil’s golden lion tamarin: Yellow fever
- Once critically endangered due to extremely high levels of poaching, the golden lion tamarin — a primate endemic to Brazil’s Atlantic Forest — was down to just a few hundred by the 1980s, holding out in forest fragments 80 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro city. Intensive conservation efforts restored that number to 3,700 by 2014.
- But now, yellow fever, transferred from people via mosquitoes, is putting the tamarin’s recovery at risk. In May 2018, the first tamarin death due to yellow fever was recorded in the wild following an outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease across Brazil. An astonishing 32% of the population has disappeared in the year since.
- Dr. Carlos Ruiz, President of the Golden Lion Tamarin Association, told Mongabay that the disease could set back conservation efforts thirty years. However, another Brazilian researcher is pioneering a possible yellow fever vaccine for the primate. The approval application is currently being considered by the Brazilian government.
- While trafficking continues, that risk has been much reduced. Experts today believe that a combination of climate change and deforestation (drastically reducing tamarin habitat) is largely driving the devastating yellow fever epidemic.

Unsung Species: One of Earth’s rarest land mammals clings to a hopeful future (commentary)
- South America’s huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus) is the Western Hemisphere’s most endangered large land mammal, a fleet-footed Patagonian deer. The species once enjoyed broad distribution, but its numbers have been fractured into roughly 100 small disconnected populations, with huemul totals likely less than 1500 individuals.
- Historically, the huemul was diminished by habitat destruction, poachers, livestock competition and alien predators (especially dogs). More recently climate change may be playing a role, hammering Patagonian coastal fisheries, so possibly causing local villagers to increase hunting pressure on the Andean mountain deer.
- The huemul also suffers from being an unsung species. Unlike the polar bear or rhino, it lacks a broad constituency. If it is to be saved, the species requires broad recognition and support beyond the scientific community. This story is the first in a series by biologist Joel Berger in an effort to make such animals far better known.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

EU/Chinese soy consumption linked to species impacts in Brazilian Cerrado: study
- The Brazilian Cerrado, the world’s largest tropical savanna, is a biodiversity hotspot with thousands of unique species and is home to 5 percent of the world’s biodiversity.
- However, half of the Cerrado has already been converted to agriculture; much of it is now growing soy which is exported abroad, particularly to the European Union (EU) and China, primarily as animal feed. But tracing soy-driven biodiversity and species losses to specific commodities traders and importing nations is challenging.
- Now a new groundbreaking study published in the journal PNAS has modeled the biodiversity impacts of site-specific soy production, while also linking specific habitat losses and species losses to nations and traders.
- For example, the research found that the consumption of Brazilian soy by EU countries has been especially detrimental to the giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), which has lost 85 percent of its habitat to soy in the state of Mato Grosso.

The climate crisis and the pain of losing what we love (commentary)
- World leaders came to the UN last week to decisively tackle climate change again. “This is not a negotiation summit because we don’t negotiate with nature. This is a Climate Action Summit!” declared the UN Secretary-General. But again, global leaders failed and committed to carbon cuts that fall far short of curbing catastrophe.
- In doing so, our leaders committed us to an escalating global environmental crisis that is already unleashing vast changes across Earth’s ecosystems — with many sweeping alterations charted by our scientists, but many other local shifts and absences only noted by those who observe and cherish wild things.
- The loss of familiar weather patterns, plants and animals (from monarchs to native bees) and an invasion of opportunistic living things (Japanese knotweed to Asian longhorned ticks) can foster feelings of vertigo — of being a stranger in a strange land — emotions, so personal and rubbing so raw, they can be hard to describe.
- So I’ve tried to express my own feelings for one place, Vermont, my home, that is today seeing rapid change. At the end of this piece, Mongabay invites you to tally your own natural losses. We’ll share your responses in a later story. This post is a commentary. Views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Mongabay investigative series helps confirm global insect decline
- In a newly published four-part series, Mongabay takes a deep dive into the science behind the so-called “Insect Apocalypse,” recently reported in the mainstream media.
- To create the series, Mongabay interviewed 24 entomologists and other scientists on six continents and working in 12 nations, producing what is possibly the most in-depth reporting published to date by any news media outlet on the looming insect abundance crisis.
- While major peer-reviewed studies are few (with evidence resting primarily so far on findings in Germany and Puerto Rico), there is near consensus among the two dozen researchers surveyed: Insects are likely in serious global decline.
- The series is in four parts: an introduction and critical review of existing peer-reviewed data; a look at temperate insect declines; a survey of tropical declines; and solutions to the problem. Researchers agree: Conserving insects — imperative to preserving the world’s ecosystem services — is vital to humanity.

The Great Insect Dying: How to save insects and ourselves
- The entomologists interviewed for this Mongabay series agreed on three major causes for the ongoing and escalating collapse of global insect populations: habitat loss (especially due to agribusiness expansion), climate change and pesticide use. Some added a fourth cause: human overpopulation.
- Solutions to these problems exist, most agreed, but political commitment, major institutional funding and a large-scale vision are lacking. To combat habitat loss, researchers urge preservation of biodiversity hotspots such as primary rainforest, regeneration of damaged ecosystems, and nature-friendly agriculture.
- Combatting climate change, scientists agree, requires deep carbon emission cuts along with the establishment of secure, very large conserved areas and corridors encompassing a wide variety of temperate and tropical ecosystems, sometimes designed with preserving specific insect populations in mind.
- Pesticide use solutions include bans of some toxins and pesticide seed coatings, the education of farmers by scientists rather than by pesticide companies, and importantly, a rethinking of agribusiness practices. The Netherlands’ Delta Plan for Biodiversity Recovery includes some of these elements.

The Great Insect Dying: The tropics in trouble and some hope
- Insect species are most diverse in the tropics, but are largely unresearched, with many species not described by science. But entomologists believe abundance is being impacted by climate change, habitat destruction and the introduction of industrial agribusiness with its heavy pesticide use.
- A 2018 repeat of a 1976 study in Puerto Rico, which measured the total biomass of a rainforest’s arthropods, found that in the intervening decades populations collapsed. Sticky traps caught up to 60-fold fewer insects than 37 years prior, while ground netting caught 8 times fewer insects than in 1976.
- The same researchers also looked at insect abundance in a tropical forest in Western Mexico. There, biomass abundance fell eightfold in sticky traps from 1981 to 2014. Researchers from Southeast Asia, Australia, Oceania and Africa all expressed concern to Mongabay over possible insect abundance declines.
- In response to feared tropical declines, new insect surveys are being launched, including the Arthropod Initiative and Global Malaise Trap Program. But all of these new initiatives suffer the same dire problem: a dearth of funding and lack of interest from foundations, conservation groups and governments.

The Great Insect Dying: Vanishing act in Europe and North America
- Though arthropods make up most of the species on Earth, and much of the planet’s biomass, they are significantly understudied compared to mammals, plants, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish. Lack of baseline data makes insect abundance decline difficult to assess.
- Insects in the temperate EU and U.S. are the world’s best studied, so it is here that scientists expect to detect precipitous declines first. A groundbreaking study published in October 2017 found that flying insects in 63 protected areas in Germany had declined by 75 percent in just 25 years.
- The UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme has a 43-year butterfly record, and over that time two-thirds of the nations’ species have decreased. Another recent paper found an 84 percent decline in butterflies in the Netherlands from 1890 to 2017. Still, EU researchers say far more data points are needed.
- Neither the U.S. or Canada have conducted an in-depth study similar to that in Germany. But entomologists agree that major abundance declines are likely underway, and many are planning studies to detect population drops. Contributors to decline are climate change, pesticides and ecosystem destruction.

The Great Insect Dying: A global look at a deepening crisis
- Recent studies from Germany and Puerto Rico, and a global meta-study, all point to a serious, dramatic decline in insect abundance. Plummeting insect populations could deeply impact ecosystems and human civilization, as these tiny creatures form the base of the food chain, pollinate, dispose of waste, and enliven soils.
- However, limited baseline data makes it difficult for scientists to say with certainty just how deep the crisis may be, though anecdotal evidence is strong. To that end, Mongabay is launching a four-part series — likely the most in-depth, nuanced look at insect decline yet published by any media outlet.
- Mongabay interviewed 24 entomologists and researchers on six continents working in over a dozen nations to determine what we know regarding the “great insect dying,” including an overview article, and an in-depth story looking at temperate insects in the U.S. and the European Union — the best studied for their abundance.
- We also utilize Mongabay’s position as a leader in tropical reporting to focus solely on insect declines in the tropics and subtropics, where lack of baseline data is causing scientists to rush to create new, urgently needed survey study projects. The final story looks at what we can do to curb and reverse the loss of insect abundance.

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.

Dress like a polar bear: learning to love muskoxen at 15 below zero
- Enduring subzero temperatures that make your face freeze, dressing as a bear, and getting chased by an angry male muskox, are all in a day’s work for biologist Joel Berger. His experiences and scientific insights are featured in a new book that focuses on the lives and survival strategies of muskoxen and other cold-adapted animals.
- The autobiographical book, “Extreme Conservation: Life at the Edge of the World,” profiles Berger’s studies of inhospitable ecosystems, ranging from the high latitudes above the Arctic Circle, to the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau.
- Mongabay contributor Gloria Dickie interviews Berger to see what makes a human want to live and work in some of the Earth’s most brutal environments. The quick answer: to see how barely studied Northern and alpine large mammals — especially muskoxen — are adapting, or not adapting, to a rapidly warming world.
- Berger’s findings regarding instinctual and learned behavior, evolution and survival in a globally warmed world turn out to be revelatory not only to cold-adapted animals, but also relevant to wildlife species around the globe — and to the scientists who want to conserve them.

Underwater tech unlocks the secrets of The Bahamas’ Exuma Sound
- Scientists in The Bahamas plunged 800 meters (2,624 feet) into the Exuma Sound in manned submersibles for two separate expeditions, carried out in April and August this year.
- Using high-tech cameras, lights and sensors, researchers mapped the underwater terrain, collected samples and obtained footage of rare and undocumented deep-sea species.
- The team hope their research will further conservation efforts in the area, specifically the creation of new marine protected areas that include deep-water habitats.

Online citizen science data platforms help scientists predict species ranges
- Researchers paired museum collection information for two species of spiders, dating back several decades, with more recent information from online citizen science databases and compared them to climate data to find areas with conditions suitable for each species.
- They developed maps of predicted geographic distributions for each species and, despite limited data, their findings suggest ranges of both species have shifted northward over time.
- The researchers highlight the importance of citizen science data in generating long-term data sets on species distributions.

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

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.

Muskox and other Arctic mammals are feeling the heat of climate change
- Past studies have looked at Arctic climate change impacts on wildlife primarily among marine animals and with polar bears, but there is little data on most terrestrial mammals.
- Now, As part of a broader attempt to develop an ecological baseline for Arctic wildlife, researchers have focused on muskoxen, the least studied mammal in North America.
- According to a new study, increasingly common extreme weather events – such as rain-on-snow and extremely dry winter conditions occurring in Russia and Alaska during muskox gestation – result in smaller head size among muskox young. Smaller animals generally have poor survivorship rates.
- Scientists say that, with the Arctic warming twice as fast as the world average, new studies are urgently needed on cold climate mammals including muskoxen, reindeer and caribou, to determine how rapidly escalating climate change up North is impacting wildlife, habitats and ecosystems.

Booming legal Amazon wildlife trade documented in new report
- Wildlife trade attention has recently focused on Africa. But a new report spotlights the brisk legal international trade in plants and animals from eight Amazon nations. The report did not look at the illegal trade, whose scope is largely unknown.
- The US$128 million industry exports 14 million animals and plants annually, plus one million kilograms by weight, including caiman and peccary skins for the fashion industry, live turtles and parrots for the pet trade, and arapaima for the food industry.
- The report authors note that such trade, conducted properly, can have benefits for national economies, for livelihoods, and even for wildlife — animals bred in captivity, for example, can provide scientists with vital data for sustaining wild populations.
- The report strongly emphasizes the need for monitoring, regulating and enforcing sustainable harvest levels of wild animals and plants if the legal trade is to continue to thrive, and if Amazonian forests and rivers are not to be emptied of their wildlife.

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.

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

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.

Resurrected Jeypore ground gecko faces second death sentence
- In India — a land that’s home to the regal tiger, the majestic elephant and the flamboyant peacock — gaining the Endangered Species spotlight can be difficult. Equally challenging in a land with 1.3 billion mouths to feed, is the conservation of habitat that is vital to threatened species.
- The Jeypore ground gecko (Geckoella jeyporensis) was first noted in India’s Eastern Ghats in 1877, then not seen again and presumed extinct. Rediscovered by scientists in 2010, it exists in just two known areas covering a mere 20 square kilometers (7.7 square miles) of degraded habitat threatened by development.
- Conservationists are working with the public and private sectors, and with local communities, urging the creation of “gecko reserves” to protect G. jeyporensis as well as the golden gecko (Calodactylodes aureus). But whether these little reptiles will inspire enough public enthusiasm is anyone’s guess.

Bright lights, big city, tiny frog: Romer’s tree frog survives Hong Kong
- Discovered in the 1950s, Romer’s tree frog has so far been declared extinct, rediscovered, immediately declared Critically Endangered, been seriously threatened by an international airport, and become the focus of one of the first ever successful, wholesale population relocation projects conducted for an amphibian.
- At just 1.5 to 2.5 centimeters (0.6 to 1 inch) in length, this little brown frog lives at just a few locations within the sprawl of Hong Kong Island, as well as on a few outlying islands. It lives in moist forest leaf litter on the forest floor, and depends on temporary fish-free pools of water for breeding.
- When Hong Kong planned a major new international airport within the shrinking habitat of the Romer’s tree frog, scientists responded quickly, studying the animal’s lifestyle, eating and breeding habits; they then instituted a captive breeding program at the Melbourne Zoo, and launched a restoration program. It worked.
- While some restoration site populations have since failed, others continue to thrive. And with new protections now in place, scientists hold out some hope that Romer’s tree frog may be a Hong Kong resident for many years to come.

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