Earlier this year, U.K. media reported an increase in humpback whale sightings in British and Irish waters.

Between December 2024 and January, The Guardian reported some 17 sightings of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) from the Isles of Scilly in southwest England. Meanwhile, the nonprofit Sussex Dolphin Project reported more than 50 sightings from Sussex in southeast England during the 2024-2025 winter season.

Thea Taylor, managing director at the Sussex Dolphin Project, told the BBC they’re not entirely certain where the whales are coming, but they “believe the humpbacks that pass through the Eastern English Channel are coming from the feeding grounds in the Arctic Circle and travelling South to warmer waters often used for breeding grounds.”

“They would usually travel along the West Coast of the UK, and we do not currently know what causes them to travel down the East Coast,” Taylor said.

Marine biologist Gemma Halstead with the University of Exeter told Mongabay by email: “I believe there’s enough evidence to show that humpback whale visits to the UK and Ireland have increased over the past 20 years.”

A 2019 study reported increased sightings of humpback whales in Scotland during the winters of 2017 and 2018.

Many humpback populations appear to be recovering after a ban on commercial whaling in 1986. But one reason for the recent increase in sightings along the U.K. coasts could be prey availability, Halstead said: “Where the fish go, the whales tend to follow.”

“Humpback whales feed on small schooling fish, which are commonly found along UK and Irish coastlines,” Halstead added. “These waters also offer ideal habitat conditions, especially around the continental shelf edges. We’re also positioned along the natural migration route that humpbacks use to travel between their breeding and feeding grounds, making these waters a convenient stopover.”

Additionally, there’s growing public awareness about the whales, and better ways to report sightings. “This is something we’re mindful of when interpreting the data,” she added.

Halstead said it’s “especially encouraging” to see the increase in humpback observations from those who regularly spend time on the water. “Marine wildlife tour guides, researchers, and other regular seafarers have shared that they are encountering humpbacks more often in their regions. Their local knowledge provides vital context and helps strengthen the patterns we’re seeing in the reported sightings data,” she said.

Halstead is leading a research project with the University of Exeter to understand the presence of humpback whales in U.K. and Irish waters by combining sightings data from the public, wildlife enthusiasts and organizations. “As awareness and sightings grow, so does our opportunity to learn,” she said.

Halstead said that by reporting sightings, through platforms like HappyWhale, people “can contribute valuable data that helps build a clearer picture of this wonderful species’ movements and presence around the UK and Ireland.”

Banner image of a humpback whale breaching in Iceland, by Giles Laurent via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The wetlands of West Bengal in eastern India are one of the country’s best habitats for the fishing cat, a species vulnerable to extinction. But a significant population of these fish-eating, mid-sized wildcats lives outside protected areas, putting them at high risk of road accidents and retaliatory killing, reports contributor Nabarun Guha for Mongabay India.

Indian states often designate an official “state animal,” and for West Bengal it’s the fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus), which can be found prowling near rivers, marshes, lakes and mangroves.

To understand their distribution outside protected areas, researchers recently deployed camera traps across wetland areas of southern West Bengal. They documented the cats at 24 locations, 17 of which weren’t previously known to harbor fishing cats. “And 60% of these locations are adjacent to human settlements where fishes are cultivated in ponds for consumption, while the remaining 40% are near commercial fish cultivation areas known as bherry,” study lead author Samrat Chakraborty, from the University of Calcutta, told Guha.

Living near people can be dangerous. In a previous study, Chakraborty found that West Bengal’s fishing cats are often killed in road accidents. “These incidents have increased because highway networks are separating suitable habitat patches of these cats,” he said.

Chitrak Pramanik, an animal rescuer, said at least 70 fishing cats have died in road accidents in Howrah near Kolkata, West Bengal’s capital, in the last three to four years.

The fishing cat is also a victim of its name. In Bengali, it’s called baghrol for it’s tiger-like stripes. “As a result, many people associate them with tigers or misidentify them as tiger cubs. They start targeting fishing cats, thinking they are a threat, when actually there is no documented case of fishing cats attacking any adult or minor human,” Chakraborty said.

To counter this problem, conservationists and authorities have conducted campaigns to rename baghrol to mechobiral, meaning fish-eating cat. “Now, I see people are using the word baghrol less while verbally communicating as well as in social media. The change in name has also brought down the retaliatory killing of fishing cats,” Chakraborty said.

Even with the name change, the cats remain competitors for fishermen, who sometimes try to kill them, Chakraborty said. “When fish is not available, these cats enter localities and kill ducks and poultry, thus inviting the wrath of their owners.”

Awareness programs are trying to inform communities about the cats’ protected status in India, the legal consequences of killing them, and their ecological importance.

Much of the fishing cat’s wetland habitats lie outside protected areas, which are rapidly being developed, environmentalist Joydip Kundu told Guha. “The biggest challenge for the protection of our state animals is restoring their habitat, which we need to do on a war footing.”

This is a summary of “Conserving fishing cats outside protected areas” by Nabarun Guha for Mongabay India.

Banner image of a fishing cat by Kelinahandbasket via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives, and story summaries.

Few apes have done more to unsettle human certainties than Kanzi the bonobo. He wasn’t the first nonhuman 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 captivity in 1980 and raised by researchers, Kanzi absorbed lexigrams — abstract symbols representing words — not by instruction, but by observation, as his adoptive mother failed to learn them. It was Kanzi, lingering on the periphery of the lesson, who cracked the code.

He went on to master more than 300 symbols, understand thousands of spoken English words, and string ideas together to make novel expressions. In one famous episode, startled by a beaver, he combined “water” and “gorilla” to convey alarm. Studies suggested his comprehension rivaled that of a 2-year-old human child. He also made and used stone tools, mimicking early human ancestors, and later turned his curiosity toward Pac-Man and Minecraft. Unlike his wild cousins in the Congo Basin, Kanzi’s rainforest was a research center in Iowa. But in his own way, he explored.

Though he could not speak, anatomical constraints being what they are, he revealed the lie at the heart of anthropocentrism. He was no mirror of humanity — bonobos are their own species, with their own minds — but his life narrowed the gulf we draw between “us” and “them.” There was no hoax, no anthropomorphic trickery: Kanzi was simply, quietly, brilliant.

He died suddenly at 44, after a normal morning spent foraging, chasing his nephew, and grooming. He had been treated for heart disease, though necropsy results are pending. He is survived by the bonobo family he helped raise, and by a legacy that challenges the idea of what it means to be an animal — human or otherwise.

Editor’s note: Read Mongabay’s story on Kanzi “Famous bonobo Kanzi, known for smarts & gaming, dies at age 44” by Kristine Sabillo.

Banner image of Kanzi ©️Ape Initiative.

A village on Nepal’s border with India has found a way to reduce conflicts with wild Asian elephants in recent years: By switching their crops from rice and maize, which elephants love to eat, to tea and lemon, the farmers of Bahundangi are now seeing fewer elephants devouring their harvest, Mongabay contributor Deepak Adhikari reported in January.

This change in crops, combined with a shift in community attitudes toward elephants, and government policies like better access to compensation, has meant the villagers now live more peacefully with wild Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) than a decade ago. The last human fatality recorded there was in 2015.

In the past, elephants would roam the entire 900-kilometer (560-mile) east-west corridor of Nepal’s southern plains, eating food from the rich flood plains of the Koshi, Gandaki and Karnali rivers. However, with people migrating to the area and roads and infrastructure being constructed, the corridor became increasingly fragmented.

Bahundangi, which lies in the corridor, used to frequently see houses and fields trampled by the elephants, with the conflict resulting in the deaths of 20 elephants between 2012 and 2022.

Adhikari reported that villagers would attempt to chase away elephants, but this only served to further agitate the animals and led to them attacking people.

Shankar Luitel, a local conservationist, told Adhikari that an electric fence built by the government in 2015 with support from the World Bank had helped reduce crop damage, but the elephants still found ways to circumvent it.

In 2009, Nepal’s government launched a policy through which villagers were able to get compensation from losses and damage to property caused by wildlife. Local official Arjun Karki said the move helped ease resentment against elephants. However, many farmers had difficulty with the process, prompting Luitel to step in and help fill out forms, especially for illiterate residents.

But the game changer was the introduction of elephant-resistant farming to the village, Adhikari reported. Karki led efforts to encourage farmers to shift away from rice and maize and instead plant crops that elephants don’t eat: tea, bay leaf and lemons.

“It was hard at first,” farmer Diwakar Neupane told Mongabay. “But now I have a stable income, and I no longer worry about elephants eating my crops.” The shift not only helped the farmers diversify their income sources but also addressed farming challenges such as water shortages and labor scarcity.

Karki said the farmers have also started beekeeping, since bees are a natural repellent for elephants. “We are encouraging farmers to cultivate mustard, which attracts bees and supports beekeeping initiatives,” Karki said, adding that the mustard also provides additional income.

Additionally, community volunteers now patrol the area to guide elephants away from the village, so that residents stay safe.

This is a summary of “How a Nepali border village learned to live with migratory wild elephants” by Deepak Adhikari.

Banner image of elephant statues in Bahundangi, Nepal. Image by Deepak Adhikari.

Microplastics are a growing ecological and human health crisis: Scientist have found the tiny plastic particles everywhere they’ve looked for them, including human placentas and brains. In a new documentary, Plastic People, filmmakers Rick Smith and Peter Raymont delve into the plastic pollution that contaminates people from before birth and can bring about early death. Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough spoke with Smith and Raymont about making the film and solutions to the growing crisis.

The film follows journalist Ziya Tong as she learns the latest science on microplastics and examines the microplastic pollution in her own body.

“The question isn’t, ‘do we have microplastics in us?’” Smith told Kimbrough. “The question is, ‘how much?’ And the question isn’t where in the human body microplastics exist. The question is, ‘where doesn’t it exist?’ We haven’t actually found a human organ without measurable microplastic levels yet.”

Microplastic exposure has been linked to myriad health problems, including organ dysfunction, obesity, cognitive impairment, fertility issues, endocrine disruption, and serious diseases including cancer.

The world currently produces roughly 400 million metric tons of plastic annually, expected to triple in the next 15 years under the current trajectory.

The international community has already met five times to tackle the growing plastic problem, and will meet again in August 2025 to develop a legally binding instrument to tackle the crisis. With the recent U.S. shift toward fossil fuels, a meaningful movement on plastic seems more challenging than ever, but Smith said it doesn’t have to be.

“The solution here is not rocket science,” Smith told Mongabay. “We know what we need to do. We need to eliminate the unnecessary use of plastic, and we need to ban the most toxic formulations of plastic.”

Smith said the average coffee cup lid can be made of rigid polypropylene or polystyrene. Research suggests polystyrene is more carcinogenic and “to your average consumer, they’re indistinguishable,” he said. “So why on Earth wouldn’t we move immediately to ban the most carcinogenic types of plastic?”

Many countries are already addressing the issue. “Rwanda and the Philippines have made incredible progress in cleaning up plastic pollution and protecting their populations. Little, tiny, rural municipalities, major cities all over the world [are] making big progress,” Smith said.

The filmmakers told Kimbrough that one of their goals with the movie is to shift the conversation on plastic from just talking about it as an environmental problem to recognizing that plastic is also a serious threat to human health.

“I bet you that we’re going to see an increasing number of Americans and people around the world paying attention to this, because, all of a sudden, it’s affecting their lives in the here and now — their chances of succumbing to cancer, dementia, hurting their kids,” Smith said.

Read the full interview by Liz Kimbrough here.

Banner image from the documentary Plastic People: The Hidden Crisis of Microplastics, courtesy of White Pine Pictures.

Intense flooding submerged usually dry areas of Queensland state in eastern Australia during the last week of March, forcing many people to evacuate and leave their livestock behind.

David Crisafulli, the Queensland premier, called the floods “unprecedented” as several places in western Queensland recorded the worst floods in the last 50 years, CNN reported. Some of the affected areas are normally very dry, including the Munga-Thirri-Simpson Desert, a vast arid region known for its sand dunes.

The rains started on March 23 as an inland low pressure area pulled monsoon rain from the tropical north of Australia into the arid landscape of southern Queensland, The Guardian reported. Cyclone Dianne, which reached Queensland from the west a few days later, further intensified the rains.

With rainfall reaching 600 millimeters (24 inches) over the last week of March, almost double the yearly average of some towns, record-breaking flood levels were reported in central Queensland’s Stonehenge, Jundah and Windorah areas. ABC news called it “the biggest flood in living memory for many people across outback Queensland,” exceeding the infamous 1974 flooding in the region.

In many towns, people were rescued using helicopters.

“We flew over a lot of water. We were just amazed how much water is around our place where we have never seen water before,” resident Ann-Maree Lloyd, evacuated by air from their home in the town of Yaraka, told ABC.

The agriculture industry is also facing significant losses. Crisafulli said more than 140,000 livestock, including cattle, sheep, goats and horses, were reported missing or dead, The Guardian reported on April 2. “This number will continue to rise,” he added. Images online show animals stuck in floods or mud.

Crisafulli said recovery may take years. For the agricultural industry, it means rebuilding some 4,700 kilometers (2,900 miles) of private roads and 3,500 km (2,200 mi) of fencing.

“Not only economically, but psychosocially — we’re already getting reports of landholders that are struggling mentally with the prospect of what they know is to come,” Tony Rayner, mayor of the affected Longreach region, told The Guardian.

Environmental geography professor Steve Turton wrote in The Conversation that some meteorologists have dubbed the recent rains a pseudo-monsoon, “because the normal Australian monsoon doesn’t reach this far south — the torrential rains of the monsoonal wet season tend to fall closer to the northern coasts.”

He added most of the rainwater dumped in the dry areas will now flow slowly through channels on the ground until it fills up Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, usually a massive, salty, dry depression in the northern region of South Australia state, covering an area of more than 9,000 km2 (3,500 mi2).

“When Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre fills, it creates an extraordinary spectacle,” Turton wrote. Millions of brine shrimp hatch from eggs in the waters, which draw fish carried in the floodwaters, which in turn attract many waterbirds, he added.

Banner image floodwaters moving through Queensland by Bureau of Meteorology via Facebook.