We know that introduced predators such as foxes and cats are one of the greatest threats to Australia’s wildlife, but what is the best way to control them? Many Australian ecologists argue dingoes are…
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Wildlife conservation – Analysis and Comment
“Biodiversity offsetting” – protecting animals and plants in one area to make up for negative impacts in another – is increasingly used by companies such as mining firms, as a way to boost their corporate…
What lives in Brazil and looks like a football? Brazil’s official World Cup mascot. The three-banded armadillo is a mammal native to Brazil’s dry tropical forests, and rolls into a ball when threatened…
More than a century after it was “lost”, the New Guinea big-eared bat has been discovered by Queensland researchers working in Papua New Guinea’s forests. The critically endangered bat was thought to be…
A genetic modification that creates male-only populations could give us a new weapon against invasive fish such as carp that plague our waterways. “Daughterless technology”, which works by removing females…
What to do, when two of Britain’s most loved animals run up against each other? In a study recently published in the journal PLOS One, we found that the numbers of hedgehogs living in suburban areas in…
The high seas cover about 50% of Earth’s surface and host a major share of the world’s biodiversity, but remain largely ungoverned. With increasing threats to open ocean ecosystems, now more than ever…
The number of endangered bird species is rising and even with our best intentions, there isn’t enough money to save them all – so how do we decide which species we should let go? A new approach has been…
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…
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…
Rewilding is considered one of the crazier ideas in contemporary conservation. The idea of resurrecting woolly mammoths and setting them loose in Siberia and the American Great Plains or lions roaming…
Much to my excitement, my PhD research was recently published in PLOS ONE. I was studying African forest elephants that live in the dense forests of Central and West Africa to learn more about this understudied…
Earlier this month, a Senate inquiry paved the way for the Parliament to give Environment Minister Greg Hunt legal immunity against future legal challenges to his decisions on mining projects. If it passes…
One of the most common justifications for Western Australia’s shark cull is the longstanding use of baited hooks - or drum lines - in regions such as Queensland. Two key questions need answering. First…
Contrary to the film of DreamWorks’ imagining, Madagascar is not ruled by King Julien and his colony of lemurs. In fact the status of the lemurs on the island – the only place on earth that they exist…
Addressing the conference on illegal wildlife trafficking in London, Prince Charles said it “broke new ground”, while Prince William said it represented an “unprecedented gathering” that has “never before…
The reaction to the euthanasia of Marius the giraffe at Copenhagen Zoo has highlighted cultural differences in attitudes to animals and death between the UK and Denmark. I first visited the Copenhagen…
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…
China is the most recent nation to destroy its ivory stockpile. It is the world’s largest market for illegal ivory, and the move is welcome news for threatened elephant populations. Ivory represents a…
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…
With current concerns focusing, quite rightly, on controlling carbon emissions, it is easy to lose sight of the need for continued conservation efforts. In fact our recent study published in the Proceedings…
Europe, the world’s most industrialised and intensively managed continent, is going wild. During the past three decades it has witnessed conservation successes with the most unexpected species: Europe…
On the face of it the British royal family’s commitment to wildlife conservation is unmistakable. Perhaps the most well-known work is that of Prince Charles, who in May co-hosted a meeting on illegal wildlife…
Researchers in Aberdeen and the RSPB have set up a project that enables Scottish birds to write their own blogs. Readers will be able to track the daily lives of red kites as they travel around the Scottish…
There’s no doubt the slow loris is a cuddly cutie from central casting. It is an animal that could easily have been dreamed up in the studios of the Disney Corporation of the 1950s and I’m afraid that…