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All in Conservation
A new species of gliding gecko has been uncovered in northern India. The Mizoram parachute gecko (Gekko mizoramensis), named after the Indian state where it was found, is one of 14 gecko species known to glide between the treetops.
In Los Angeles, a robust population of an invasive species – the red-crowned parrot – is thriving. For once, the aliens are not a threat to native species; in fact, the LA parrots might end up saving their cousins in the wild, where these birds are threatened.
The northern snakehead, an invasive fish from Asia that has been eating its way through the Eastern Seaboard since it first appeared in Maryland two decades ago, was spotted for the first time in Louisiana this week.
The Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota has announced that their red-wolf pair, brought together only last October, have whelped a litter – four boys and two girls.
The decades-long endeavor to save the bearded vulture population in eastern Spain has hit a speedbump: the planned construction of a large wind farm. The Foundation for the Conservation of Bearded Vultures has put its project on pause while it assesses the impacts of the proposed farm.
Molecular biologists have discovered that thousands of air-quality monitoring stations around the world have been recording more than just air pollution and dust, they are also collecting biodiversity data. Their findings are published in Current Biology.
Last month a popular stretch of a Waikiki beach was closed to visitors while a newborn monk seal was nursing. The pup has now weaned, so authorities relocated the six-week-old pup and mom to a more secluded spot.
The Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C. has announced the arrival of three meerkat pups, born to parents Sadie and Frankie.
In 2020 the project to reintroduce Tasmanian devils to the Australia mainland – after a 3000-year absence – included a female named Adventurous Lisa. This week the little devil did her part for the cause when she gave birth to three joeys.
Orcas – killer whales – are attacking small boats off the Iberian coast in Europe. There's been at least three apparently coordinated (!) attacks in recent weeks, and scientists believe the aggressive behavior is being taught to, or at least copied by, other pods.
The future looks shaky for the lesser prairie-chicken, whose federal protections under the Endangered Species Act are under siege. Last week the House Committee on Natural Resources voted to use the Congressional Review Act to reverse the lesser prairie-chicken's listing under the ESA — the first step toward stripping the species of federal protection.
The eastern hellbender, the largest salamander in North America, faces various threats to its existence. One threat turns out to be the eastern hellbender itself, as researchers have observed an increase in cannibalism in the species.
Nzou was only two years old when her family was slaughtered by ivory poachers in Zimbabwe. Rescuers tried to reintroduce Nzou to other elephants, but she never fit in. “Her need for a family never faded,” intones Natalie Portman, narrating National Geographic’s new series, Secrets of the Elephants, “So she took matters into her own hands …”
How do you keep elephants and humans apart? In Africa it’s an urgent problem, as human populations grow and encroach on elephants’ wild habitat. Now conservationists are trying out a novel form of deterrence: “technologically generated bee sounds.”
Scientists have discovered that the great Pacific garbage patch, the 620,000-square-mile vortex of trash in the ocean, is rife with thriving communities of sea creatures, most of them more naturally at home on the coasts.
Australia has a few million too many cats: feral cats, which kill an estimated two billion animals annually; and outdoor house cats, which whack some 83 million native reptiles and 80 million native birds every year. To address the latter carnage, many municipal councils are imposing nighttime curfews on the furry murderers.
Due to climate change and related factors, a dozen or two bird species have expanded their ranges into New York City. Among them: The black vulture, a grim looking fellow with a five-foot wingspan who, in the old days, never strayed this far north.
Researchers from the University of Western Australia and Japan have plumbed the depths – five miles of depth – to spot and film the deepest fish ever seen. Using a remotely operated submersible in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench not far from Japan, the scientists spied a snailfish at a record-breaking 27,349 feet deep. The species is unknown, but it likely belongs to the genus Pseudoliparis.
Cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar has been dead for thirty years but at least part of his legacy lives on in the form of voracious hippopotamuses, which the Colombian government now has to deal with.
A young female osprey made a shocking transatlantic journey from Scotland to Barbados recently, becoming the first UK osprey ever observed in the Americas. The intrepid bird had been tagged last summer in Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park in Renfrewshire.
