In the last four decades, dugong (Dugong dugon) aggregations have been rarely reported from the geographically isolated, vast seascape of the Andaman Islands, India. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, hunting, coastal development, and habitat loss are the major causes of this change in the social system of dugongs in …
In our recent perspective article, we noted that most (approximately 60 percent) terrestrial large carnivore and large herbivore species are now threatened with extinction, and we offered a 13-point declaration designed to promote and guide actions to save these iconic mammalian megafauna (Ripple et al. 2016). Some may worry that …
Functional trait diversity is increasingly used to model future changes in community structure despite a poor understanding of community disassembly's effects on functional diversity. By tracking the functional diversity of the North American large mammal fauna through the End-Pleistocene megafaunal extinction and up to the present, I show that contrary …
Islands are ideal systems to model temporal changes in biodiversity and reveal the influence of humans on natural communities. Although theory predicts biodiversity on islands tends towards an equilibrium value, the recent extinction of large proportions of island biotas complicates testing this model. The well-preserved subfossil record of Caribbean bats—involving …
Urgent action is needed to stop the cheetah – the world’s fastest land animal – becoming extinct, experts have warned. Scientists estimate that only 7,100 of the fleet-footed cats remain in the wild, occupying 9% of the territory they once lived in. Asiatic populations have been hit the hardest, with …
Despite the rapid increase in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in marine mammal research, knowledge of the effects of UAVs on study animals is very limited. We recorded the in-air and in-water noise from two commonly used multi-rotor UAVs, the SwellPro Splashdrone and the DJI Inspire 1 Pro, …
The pangolin, now recognised as the world’s most trafficked mammal, is currently undergoing population collapse across South and Southeast Asia, primarily because of the medicinal value attributed to its meat and scales. This paper explores how scarcity and alterity (otherness) drive the perceived value of these creatures for a range …
In the face of climate change, the life history traits of large terrestrial mammals will prevent them from adapting genetically at a sufficient pace to keep track with changing environments, and habitat fragmentation will preclude them from shifting their distribution range. Predicting how habitat-bound large mammals will respond to environmental …
The pangolin – the world’s most heavily trafficked mammal – might have a new champion: rats that will be trained to sniff out trafficked pangolin parts in shipments heading from Africa to Asia. Ten to 15 African giant pouched rats are being reared in Tanzania to detect pungent pangolin remains …
A novel highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N8 virus, first detected in January 2014 in poultry and wild birds in South Korea, has spread throughout Asia and Europe, and caused outbreaks in Canada and the United States by the end of the year. The spread of H5N8 and the novel …
The number of wild animals living on Earth is set to fall by two-thirds by 2020, according to a new report, part of a mass extinction that is destroying the natural world upon which humanity depends. The analysis, the most comprehensive to date, indicates that animal populations plummeted by 58% …
Accurate counts of animals are critical for prioritizing conservation efforts. Past research, however, suggests that observers on aerial surveys may fail to detect all individuals of the target species present in the survey area. Such errors could bias population estimates low and confound trend estimation. We used two approaches to …
Pretoria — The growth in numbers of the Cape mountain zebra population has enabled the species to move off the most endangered list of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). South Africa's proposal to transfer the Cape mountain zebra (Equus zebra zebra) …
A Spanish wetland home to 2,000 species of wildlife – including around 6 million migratory birds – is on track to join a Unesco world heritage danger list, according to a new report. Doñana is an Andalusian reserve of sand dunes, shallow streams and lagoons, stretching for 540 square kilometres …
Even in degraded forests, wild animals can survive. Selectively-logged forests in Borneo can still be home for the clouded leopard and the civet, the orangutan and the bearded pig. And for small mammals such as squirrels and rodents, population densities could be even higher in no-longer-pristine woodland, according to new …
It is too soon to downgrade the conservation status of China's giant pandas as they still face severe threats, a leading conservationist said, after the International Union for Conservation of Nature took the species off its endangered list. The giant panda has emerged as a success story for conservation in …
The motion was proposed by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), with 18 co-sponsors, and adopted with a majority of IUCN members. Governments and NGOs are pushing to ban the commercial trade in pangolins, the world’s most trafficked mammal. They passed a motion last week at the IUCN World Conservation …
Recent studies have revealed that some mammals possess adaptations that enable them to produce vocal signals with much lower fundamental frequency (F0) and formant frequency spacing (ΔF) than expected for their size. Although these adaptations are assumed to reflect selection pressures for males to lower frequency components and exaggerate body …
The latest update of The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species reports that species like the Giant Panda, Tibetan Antelope, the Bridled Nailtail Wallaby, and the Greater Stick-nest rate have improved in their conservation status thanks to effective conservation efforts. However, over-hunting is wiping out many mammals such as the …
Decades of conservation efforts have led to a rebound in the number of giant pandas The giant panda is no longer an endangered species, following decades of work by conservationists to save it. The official status of the much-loved animal has been changed from "endangered" to "vulnerable" because of a …
Kenya/Tanzania borderland is a critical area for conservation of biodiversity. This study was done to establish the effects of 2007 and 2009 droughts through aerial counts. Findings indicate that large mammal population collapsed, but some species crashed more than others. Total large mammal density declined over three times (207.43%), recovering …
