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Obituaries and tributes

Vatsala, Asia’s oldest known elephant, died on July 8th, 2025, aged over 100

She bore no records, only witness. For more than a century, Vatsala stood. Through wars and heatwaves, bureaucracies and monsoons, she moved through India’s forests with a gait that outlasted the institutions around her. She died where she had lived for decades, in the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, after slipping into a forest [Continue reading]

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Mongabay Features

From aquarium to archipelago: Rewilding Indonesia’s lost sharks

For more than 30 years, Mark Erdmann has worked in some of the most remote and biologically rich marine ecosystems on Earth. A marine biologist by training and a conservationist by necessity, Erdmann has made it his mission to protect Indonesia’s reefs and mangroves—places many only dream of diving. Over the course of his career, [Continue reading]

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Mongabay journalism

A rare rewilding offers hope in Congo’s troubled east

In the embattled heart of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where war and wilderness meet, an unheralded act of defiance unfolded late last year. In October 2024, conservationists released four female Grauer’s gorillas—Isangi, Lulingu, Mapendo, and Ndjingala—into the wild, marking the largest reintroduction of eastern gorillas in African history, reports Elodie Toto. The release took [Continue reading]

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Mongabay Features

One woman’s battle for sharks

Shark conservation is not a field for the faint of heart. It pits biology against commerce, sentiment against symbolism, and science against entrenched bureaucracies. Sharks themselves—apex predators honed over hundreds of millions of years—are now among the most imperiled inhabitants of the oceans. Vilified in pop culture, sliced up for their fins, and managed more [Continue reading]

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Random pieces

Ranking the world’s biodiversity

On May 22—the International Day for Biological Diversity—conservationists, scientists, and governments alike reflect on the staggering variety of life on Earth and the urgent need to protect it. Biodiversity, broadly defined, refers to the variety and variability of life at all levels: ecosystems, species, and genetic diversity within species. It underpins everything from food systems [Continue reading]

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The world’s most biodiverse countries

Today, May 22, is the International Day for Biological Diversity. To mark the occasion, here’s a look at the world’s most biodiverse countries and territories, using two approaches: (1) total number of species (2) species richness relative to land or marine area These rankings are always contentious. People are often disappointed or upset when a [Continue reading]

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Mongabay journalism

America is losing its birds—and fast

Since 1970, North America has lost 3 billion birds. The decline hasn’t stopped. Bird populations across the United States are plummeting, according to a new report from the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI) that paints a sobering picture of ecological decline. One in three species—229 in total—are now in urgent need of conservation. Among [Continue reading]

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From mountaintops to coral reefs, the fingerprints of human pressure are everywhere—and they’re devastating

Life on Earth is changing—not just in numbers, but in essence Human activity is reshaping life on Earth in profound and alarming ways. A landmark study published in Nature offers the most comprehensive synthesis to date of how five primary anthropogenic pressures—habitat change, pollution, climate change, resource exploitation, and invasive species—are affecting biodiversity across all [Continue reading]

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Obituaries and tributes

Kanzi, Lexigram pioneer, died March 18th, aged 44

Few apes have done more to unsettle human certainties than Kanzi. He was not the first non-human primate to use symbols to communicate, but he was the first to do so with such fluency, subtlety, and apparent ease that it prompted uncomfortable questions about the supposed uniqueness of human language, culture, and thought. Born in [Continue reading]

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Mongabay journalism Obituaries and tributes

The Turtle Walker: Satish Bhaskar, sea turtle conservationist

For months on end, he would maroon himself on remote islands—no phone, no company, no fanfare. Just a transistor radio, a hammock, and the possibility of seeing a turtle. It was enough. For Satish Bhaskar, the joy lay not in discovery as much as in the quiet act of observing: measuring tracks in the sand, [Continue reading]

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Random pieces

On Manatee Appreciation Day, a reminder of their precarious future

Few creatures better embody the notion of peaceful coexistence than the manatee. Slow-moving and largely indifferent to human affairs, these aquatic herbivores graze on seagrasses and algae in the shallow coastal waters of the Americas and West Africa. Yet despite their unassuming nature, manatees are increasingly at the mercy of human activity. The West Indian [Continue reading]

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Mongabay journalism

Pangolins help biodiversity recover after fires

A forest may burn to the ground, but beneath the ashes, a pangolin is already rebuilding. Pangolins are best known for their misfortune. As the world’s most trafficked mammal, their numbers have been decimated by poaching for scales and meat. But a recent study underscores what is at stake beyond the species itself: pangolins play [Continue reading]

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Mongabay journalism

Efforts to save the vaquita from extinction

The vaquita teeters on the brink of extinction. Here’s how people are trying to save it. Fewer than ten vaquitas, the world’s smallest porpoise, remain in the Gulf of California, their only habitat. Illegal fishing for totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder is prized in China for its purported medicinal value, has decimated the population. [Continue reading]

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Random pieces

Facts about whales for World Whale Day

  February 16th is World Whale Day. One little-known but interesting fact about whales is that some species have been found to store carbon in their bodies for over a century, making them natural climate allies.  How does that work? When whales die and sink to the ocean floor, their massive bodies trap carbon that [Continue reading]

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Facts about pangolins for World Pangolin Day

February 15th is World Pangolin Day Among the world’s lesser-known mammals, few are as peculiar or as imperiled as the pangolin. Scaly yet soft-footed, reclusive yet trafficked in vast numbers, pangolins embody paradoxes. On World Pangolin Day, here are a few facts about these creatures that warrant more attention than they receive. 💪 The only [Continue reading]

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Random pieces

Today is World Bonobo Day.

February 14th is known for love and affection—but not only among humans. It is also World Bonobo Day, a celebration of one of our closest relatives, the endangered bonobo (Pan paniscus). These apes have long been associated with cooperation and social harmony, a reputation that aligns fittingly with Valentine’s Day. Yet, recent research paints a [Continue reading]

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Mongabay journalism

Moo Deng, a baby pygmy hippo, became an internet sensation—but will her fame help save her species?

Moo Deng, a baby pygmy hippo, became an internet sensation—but will her fame help save her species? Jeremy Hance explored that question in a recent piece on Mongabay News. Moo Deng became TikTok famous overnight. Millions watched videos of her antics: gnawing on a keeper’s boots, chasing water from a hose, and snoozing in a [Continue reading]

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Mongabay journalism

Moo Deng may be famous, but fame alone does not ensure survival.

Moo Deng, a baby pygmy hippo, became an internet sensation—but will fame help save her species? Jeremy Hance explored that question in a recent piece published on Mongabay. Moo Deng became TikTok-famous overnight. Millions watched videos of her antics: gnawing on a keeper’s boots, chasing water from a hose, and snoozing in a way only [Continue reading]

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International Zebra Day

Today is International Zebra Day With their iconic black-and-white stripes, zebras are widely recognized, yet they are often underestimated beyond their striking appearance. Members of the horse family, zebras possess exceptional hearing and eyesight, can sprint up to 70 km/h (43 mph), and deliver kicks powerful enough to deter apex predators. Their distinctive stripes, however, [Continue reading]

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For every kilogram of wild land mammal, there are over 50 kilograms of humans and their domesticated counterparts

Today is Wildlife Conservation Day Nature documentaries and conservation campaigns paint an image of Earth teeming with wildlife, but the numbers tell a different story. A February 2023 study, published in PNAS, quantified the biomass of the world’s mammals and revealed an ecosystem heavily dominated by humanity and its livestock. A few striking figures from [Continue reading]

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International Jaguar Day

Today is International Jaguar Day 🐆 International Jaguar Day is dedicated to a predator whose presence shapes forests, rivers, and plains from northern Mexico to Argentina. The jaguar, Panthera onca, is a creature of paradox: elusive yet emblematic, ferocious yet vulnerable. As the Americas’ largest big cat, its muscular frame and distinctive rosette-patterned coat symbolize [Continue reading]

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Mongabay journalism

The wisdom of the elders: Why the oldest animals matter

In the twilight of their lives, the world’s oldest creatures carry the weight of wisdom, experience, and resilience.  Yet, these elders—fish that spawn in abundance, coral that shelters marine life, or elephants that guide their herds—are vanishing.  The causes are disturbingly familiar: overfishing, habitat destruction, trophy hunting, and climate change.  A new review led by [Continue reading]

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Obituaries and tributes

The extinction of the Slender-billed Curlew: How can we expect other nations to safeguard their species when we have failed our own?

The slender-billed curlew, Numenius tenuirostris, slipped from the world in the way of rare things: gradually, quietly, and irretrievably. Once it coursed over the steppes of Siberia and wintered along Mediterranean shores, its migratory path a delicate thread connecting continents. Its last confirmed sighting, in Morocco in 1995, marked the end of a lineage and [Continue reading]

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How bird calls differ between species

Birdsong has long captivated scientists and poets alike, but the evolutionary and ecological forces that shape its dazzling diversity remain incompletely understood. A recent study led by H S Sathya Chandra Sagar sheds light on these mysteries, leveraging a dataset of over 140,000 recordings from 8,450 species—nearly 80% of the world’s avian diversity. The findings, [Continue reading]

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Obituaries and tributes

An obituary for the vaquita

I prepare obituary sketches for high-profile conservation figures and species-on-the-brink in advance, to be held until they’re needed to be developed into full obituaries. The following is one I hope to never publish, though as of today, fewer than ten vaquitas—gentle porpoises no larger than a child—are believed to remain in the wild. 🐬🐬🐬🐬🐬🐬 The [Continue reading]