The last few surviving Asiatic cheetahs live in Iran, where they stalk the hyper-arid landscape, where temperatures swing from -30°C to 50°C. This is the only place in the world a cheetah, most of which…
The world’s five species of sawfish are the most threatened fishes in the world.
David Wackenfelt
Sawfish are the most endangered group of marine fish in the world, largely thanks to overfishing and habitat loss. Formerly abundant, they have disappeared from many countries’ waters, and in many others…
Already many thousand more toy armadillos, but probably fewer real ones.
Tânia Rêgo/ABr
Charles Darwin ate one on his trip to Brazil. Apparently it tasted more like pork than chicken. My nine-year-old, football-mad, half-Brazilian son could identify one on his World Cup merchandising and…
What’s the best way to give Australia’s mammals a helping hand?
Northern Australia Hub, National Environmental Research Program
Twenty-nine Australian land mammals have become extinct over the last 200 years, and 56 are currently facing extinction. These losses and potential losses represent over a third of the 315 species present…
Bear farming is increasingly regarded as unacceptable in China.
Mu Chen/EPA
Chinese wildlife faces a serious survival crisis, but the tide seems to be turning in support for protecting endangered species there. China’s top legislative body has passed a new “interpretation” of…
Some years ago New Yorker magazine printed a cartoon showing a group of high society ladies enjoying an afternoon cup of tea. One lady turns to her neighbour and says, “I don’t know why I don’t care about…
This month marks the re-opening of the controversial trophy hunt for at-risk grizzly bears in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Scrutiny of this hunt was ramped up last year with new evidence that…
Emus, as depicted after being seen on the 1800-04 Baudin voyage.
Charles-Alexandre Lesueur/F. Lambert/Wikimedia Commons
Environment minister Greg Hunt’s pledge to appoint a threatened species commissioner is a bright spot on an otherwise pretty bleak conservation landscape. Hunt described the “deep challenge” of species…
Not a new idea, as this map from 1885 shows, but no less controversial.
Meyers Konversationslexikons
The Nicaraguan government has granted a concession to a mysterious Chinese company owned by Jing Wang, a little-known Hong-Kong based businessman, to build an inter-oceanic canal. This would provide an…
The rich biodiversity of the UK’s far-flung overseas territories was highlighted recently by a Parliamentary report. Scattered throughout five oceans, these 14 islands account for much of the species biodiversity…
After China, which way will Hong Kong turn?
Vincent Yu
Hong Kong’s Endangered Species Advisory Committee meets today to decide whether to follow China’s lead and destroy its own (33-tonne) stockpile of contraband ivory. This is welcome news, but the destruction…
A ex parrot: one of the few Night Parrots collected in the 1870s in South Australia.
Marie Meister, Museum of Zoology, Strasbourg
The Night Parrot has been called the “world’s most mysterious bird”. First discovered in 1845, it was rarely seen alive for most of the next hundred and seventy years, but it has been rediscovered in 2013…
Leopardus tigrinus can be found in Eastern Amazonia or the dry semi-arid Caatinga.
Project Wild Cats of Brazil
A new species of wild cat in central and north-eastern Brazil has been confirmed, according to a study published today in the journal Current Biology. This recognition formally separates the two known…
Reintroduction programs are key initiatives for re-establishing or re-stocking animal populations, and while some are successful, many, unfortunately, are not. Endangered and critically endangered animals…
Working dawn till dusk to turn $10 billion into dust.
US FWS Mountain Prarie
Confiscated ivory taken from smugglers, traders and tourists by US authorities was crushed to chippings last week, The stockpile of more than six tonnes, amassed since the 1989 international embargo on…