Many ecosystems have changed so radically that it is no longer possible to restore them to what they once were and in other situations it is not appropriate.
Wombat mange is a debilitating disease that can lead to blindness and death.
Eden Hermsen
Wombats are suffering from mange, a deadly skin condition that threatens to wipe out some local populations. Frustratingly little is known about the problem, so we need a national plan to tackle it.
Gorillas in the wild: better than a zoo.
David Newsome
The fortunes of the world’s remaining wild gorillas is linked to prosperity in the places where they live - hence the high price of tourist permits. But with economic development comes economic threats too.
The debate on whether animals should be kept in captivity or not continues to rage on.
Reuters/Muhammad Hamed
Some say that keeping wild animals in captivity is cruel. Others believe they promote conservation and give people a link to nature.
Gamba Grass is altering fire regimes in the Top End, threatening human life and property, natural assets including Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks, and compromising savanna burning programs.
Samantha Setterfield
One of the Australian government’s new research priorities is “environmental change”. But can be hard to know how to tackle such huge and interlinked issues as climate change and species extinctions.
If we brought devils back to the mainland, they could play a similar role to dingoes - keeping foxes and cats under control and potentially boosting the conservation prospects of Australia’s small mammals.
People in the Ruaha landscape lose their livestock as a result of predator attacks.
Amy Dickman
The UK has few endemic and endangered species. Wildlife protection is easier and more important elsewhere.
The killing of Cecil the lion which generated a huge uproar globally presents Zimbabwean an opportune moment to look harder at who benefits from wildlife.
Reuters/Eric Miller
The shooting of Cecil shines light on Zimbabwe’s new elite land politics which excludes the wider population and exposes the racial dimensions of the relationship between wildlife, land and hunting.
We know a lot about what climate change will do, but ‘when’ is a tougher question.
Nick Kim
There’s been a lot of talk about killing feral cats, with the government’s recently announced war on cats, with a goal to kill two million by 2020. But let’s embrace cats as part of Australia’s environment.
The pilot whale hunt is still largely unchanged for hundreds of years.
EileenSanda
Chalk it up as a rare conservation win: humpback whales have bounced back so strongly since the whaling era that there is no longer a need to include them on Australia’s official threatened species list.
Feral cats are thought to be responsible for the decline of many Australian species.
Melissa Jensen
Feral cats are highly adaptable and highly variable, hence we must continue to search for their Achilles Heel and invest in a wide range of control methods.
Bison are roaming free in Germany – so why not Scotland?
Felix Kaestle