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	<channel>
		<title>Conservation news</title>
		<atom:link href="https://news.mongabay.com/feed/?location=galapagos&#038;type=post" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/galapagos/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2026 17:41:13 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<url>https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/16160320/cropped-mongabay_icon-32x32.png</url>
	<title>Galapagos environmental news</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/galapagos/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>How much suffering do invasive species cause? Researchers are measuring that</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/how-much-suffering-do-invasive-species-cause-researchers-are-measuring-that/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/how-much-suffering-do-invasive-species-cause-researchers-are-measuring-that/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 May 2026 13:03:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Daniel Shailer]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/28112829/Anoplolepis_gracilipes_458690499-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320237</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Animal Welfare, Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Ecology, Endangered Species, Invasive Species, Monitoring, Research, and Threatened species]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Avian vampire flies (Philornis downsi) were not discovered in the Galápagos Islands for almost three decades after they were thought to have arrived from mainland Ecuador in the 1960s. Even then, the first were found by accident. Birgit Fessl, a landbird ecologist, was surveying for native species on the island of Santa Cruz in 1997 [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Avian vampire flies (Philornis downsi) were not discovered in the Galápagos Islands for almost three decades after they were thought to have arrived from mainland Ecuador in the 1960s. Even then, the first were found by accident. Birgit Fessl, a landbird ecologist, was surveying for native species on the island of Santa Cruz in 1997 when she reached into the branches of a tree to take down the huge, domed nest of a woodpecker finch. Inside was a surprise. “We found one dying chick, another dead one which just looked sucked dry and 20 large maggots full of blood,” said Fessl, who now leads the Charles Darwin Foundation’s Landbird Conservation program. “I was stunned — the first dead baby in my hands. Then I realized it wasn’t an accident: It was everywhere,” she told Mongabay over a WhatsApp call. Across each of the Galapagos’ human-inhabited islands, vampire flies had already wrought havoc, killing some chicks in nests they infiltrated and leaving others maimed for life. “But it went unseen because people didn’t really know what to look for.” Around the world, more than 37,000 invasive species have been introduced to new environments. Many of these cause suffering, from vampire flies maiming finches to yellow crazy ants (Anoplolepis gracilipes) spraying acid at the eyes of shrikes (Laniidae) on Minami-Daitō Island, Japan, and Australian quolls (Dasyurus) bleeding from the nose after eating toxic cane toads (Rhinella marina). But none of these are measured by the current global standard for assessing the impact&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/how-much-suffering-do-invasive-species-cause-researchers-are-measuring-that/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/how-much-suffering-do-invasive-species-cause-researchers-are-measuring-that/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320237</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Inside the fight to save the little-known Galápagos petrel</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/inside-the-fight-to-save-the-little-known-galapagos-petrel/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/inside-the-fight-to-save-the-little-known-galapagos-petrel/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Apr 2026 14:02:27 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/30134940/Image_4_petrel-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318478</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Habitat Degradation, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Invasive Species, Marine, Nature-based climate solutions, Protected Areas, Solutions, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Critically endangered Galápagos petrels spend much of their life at sea, but as they return to breed in the only place they call home, a litany of threats awaits. Over the last 60 years, in particular until the 1980s, the population of the Galápagos petrel (Pterodroma phaeopygia) declined significantly, with only 15,000 individuals remaining today, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Critically endangered Galápagos petrels spend much of their life at sea, but as they return to breed in the only place they call home, a litany of threats awaits. Over the last 60 years, in particular until the 1980s, the population of the Galápagos petrel (Pterodroma phaeopygia) declined significantly, with only 15,000 individuals remaining today, according to the latest IUCN Red List assessment of the species. And although that number could be as high as 20,000 as new colonies are being discovered, pressure from invasive species that prey on the bird and degrade its habitat keeps the petrel on the edge. But decades-long conservation efforts have refined strategies to protect these seabirds, while a new initiative will involve thousands of Galápagos private landowners in securing their fragile nesting grounds. “Even though it&#8217;s an oceanic bird, you don&#8217;t see them that often,” Paola Sangolquí, a marine conservation coordinator with Ecuadorian NGO Jocotoco, told Mongabay in a video interview. The petrels spend most of their time out on the open water, hunting squid and fish. When they return to land, it’s to the upland and remote areas of the Galápagos islands of San Cristóbal, Floreana, Santa Cruz, Isabela and Santiago, where they nest in burrows or natural crevices. These tend to be far from the islands’ human settlements, and because the birds are also largely nocturnal, that makes them even more difficult to spot. “They nest in these foggy, misty areas up in the highlands, surrounded by dense vegetation,” Sangolquí says. “It&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/inside-the-fight-to-save-the-little-known-galapagos-petrel/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/inside-the-fight-to-save-the-little-known-galapagos-petrel/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318478</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Is the Galápagos damselfish extinct?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/is-the-galapagos-damselfish-extinct/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/is-the-galapagos-damselfish-extinct/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Apr 2026 01:06:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/05013742/Galapagos_damselfish-Azurina_eupalama-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316982</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, Pacific Ocean, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Climate Change, El Nino, Endangered Species, Extinction, Fish, Islands, Marine, Marine Animals, and Oceans]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#160; A small, blue-gray fish that once gathered in loose schools along the rocky shores of the Galápagos Islands has become the subject of a more precise question: whether it is already gone. The Galápagos damselfish (Azurina eupalama) has not been recorded since 1983. Before that, it was regularly encountered. Specimens were collected by nearly [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&nbsp; A small, blue-gray fish that once gathered in loose schools along the rocky shores of the Galápagos Islands has become the subject of a more precise question: whether it is already gone. The Galápagos damselfish (Azurina eupalama) has not been recorded since 1983. Before that, it was regularly encountered. Specimens were collected by nearly every major scientific expedition to the islands across the 20th century, and divers could expect to find it at multiple sites. Its disappearance has therefore drawn attention not only for its outcome, but for its abruptness. Azurina eupalama, engraving of type specimen from Heller &#038; Snodgrass (1903). A recent paper by Jack Stein Grove and Benjamin Victor revisits the evidence and concludes that the species is now likely extinct. The paper, published in the Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation, assembles historical records, ecological context, and decades of unsuccessful searches to argue that the absence is no longer plausibly explained by oversight. The timing points to a specific event. The last confirmed sighting came in the aftermath of the 1982–83 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), one of the most intense on record. During such episodes, the cold, nutrient-rich upwelling that sustains the Galápagos marine ecosystem weakens or stops. Warmer, less productive water spreads across the archipelago, reducing plankton availability and disrupting food webs. For a species like the Galápagos damselfish, this would have been consequential. It was an obligate planktivore, dependent on the steady supply of microscopic organisms that thrive under normal upwelling conditions. It&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/is-the-galapagos-damselfish-extinct/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/is-the-galapagos-damselfish-extinct/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316982</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Abandoned tuna-fishing devices pollute the Galápagos Marine Reserve</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/abandoned-tuna-fishing-devices-pollute-the-galapagos-marine-reserve/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/abandoned-tuna-fishing-devices-pollute-the-galapagos-marine-reserve/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Feb 2026 17:35:37 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Marlowe Starling]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/05155327/a.-BANNER-GP01Y49-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313784</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Coral Reefs, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, Pollution, Saltwater Fish, Tuna, Water Pollution, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[SANTA CRUZ, GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS, Ecuador — “Good morning,” Walter Borbor, a social media-famous fisher, says to his followers in a 2022 Instagram video. “What we have here is a plantado.” He points to a large black floating device with a trailing rope that’s wrapped around the tail of a decomposing whale — right in the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[SANTA CRUZ, GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS, Ecuador — “Good morning,” Walter Borbor, a social media-famous fisher, says to his followers in a 2022 Instagram video. “What we have here is a plantado.” He points to a large black floating device with a trailing rope that’s wrapped around the tail of a decomposing whale — right in the middle of the Galápagos Marine Reserve. Plantado is the local name for a fish aggregating device (FAD), a tool industrial tuna fleets commonly deploy to attract numerous tuna they can scoop up all at once. Modern drifting FADs have been used since the 1980s to improve fishing efficiency. Over the past 25 years, they’ve become the primary tuna fishing method, according to a May study in the journal Science. Meanwhile, Ecuador’s tuna fleet grew by roughly half over the same period. Both factors have contributed to more and more abandoned FADs drifting into the Galapagos Marine Reserve from international fleets, sources told Mongabay. Abandoned FADs pose numerous problems. They shed plastic as they break down, damage coral reefs and collide with artisanal fishing boats. Inti Keith, a researcher with the Charles Darwin Foundation, a Galápagos-based science and conservation group, said scientists routinely find sharks, turtles, sea lions, seabirds and other wildlife entangled in the netting — or worse, dead. Now, Galápagos agencies and organizations are banding together to better track and collect these devices. But the root of the issue — their deployment outside the marine reserve — remains a challenge. Yellowtail surgeonfish (Prionurus punctatus)&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/abandoned-tuna-fishing-devices-pollute-the-galapagos-marine-reserve/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/abandoned-tuna-fishing-devices-pollute-the-galapagos-marine-reserve/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313784</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How a gecko species defied extinction on a Galápagos island</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/how-a-gecko-species-defied-extinction-on-a-galapagos-island/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/how-a-gecko-species-defied-extinction-on-a-galapagos-island/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Aug 2025 17:04:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/08/08165015/Rabida-Gecko_Credit-Island-Conservation-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=303995</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Herps, Islands, Species recovery, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[On Rábida Island in the Galápagos, where red-tinged beaches meet ancient lava formations, Mares’s leaf-toed gecko (Phyllodactylus maresi) is back. Once thought extinct on this island, a genetically distinct population has survived here against all odds, scientists have now confirmed. For more than a century, despite intensive collecting efforts across the Galápagos, no living specimen [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[On Rábida Island in the Galápagos, where red-tinged beaches meet ancient lava formations, Mares’s leaf-toed gecko (Phyllodactylus maresi) is back. Once thought extinct on this island, a genetically distinct population has survived here against all odds, scientists have now confirmed. For more than a century, despite intensive collecting efforts across the Galápagos, no living specimen of P. maresi had been recorded on Rábida. The only evidence of their historical presence came from ancient subfossil bones dating back 5,700 to 8,540 years. The cause of their downfall? Rats. Invasive brown rats (Rattus norvegicus), most likely brought by pirates or whalers in the 17th or 18th centuries, spread and created an ecological nightmare for native species. These new predators devoured gecko eggs, disrupted nesting sites, and disturbed the island&#8217;s delicate ecosystem balance. Native species either disappeared or retreated to precarious refugia. However, in 2011, conservationists came in for the kill. Galápagos National Park, in partnership with NGOs Island Conservation, the Charles Darwin Foundation and The Raptor Center, launched a precision rodent eradication program targeting every invasive rat on Rábida Island. Teams deployed poisoned bait, specifically for rats, across the island while carefully protecting native wildlife, said Island Conservation. The eradication had to be complete; leaving even a few breeding pairs would allow the rat population to recover within months. Mares’s leaf-toed gecko (Phyllodactylus maresi) made a comeback on Rábida Island after rat eradication. Photo courtesy of Rory Stansbury/IslandConservation With the rats out of the way, the ecological response was swift and dramatic.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/how-a-gecko-species-defied-extinction-on-a-galapagos-island/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/how-a-gecko-species-defied-extinction-on-a-galapagos-island/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-303995</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study finds fast traffic noise is infuriating Galápagos warblers</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/study-finds-fast-traffic-noise-is-infuriating-galapagos-warblers/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/study-finds-fast-traffic-noise-is-infuriating-galapagos-warblers/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 May 2025 20:22:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/20100933/36533464334_6c05f3d407_3k-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=299322</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Environment, Islands, Noise Pollution, Pollution, Research, Roadkill, Roads, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[When Leon Hohl and Alper Yelimlieş landed in the Galápagos in 2022 to volunteer in a decades-old nest survey project, they expected to look for Darwin finches and their babies. But that year turned out to be too dry for the finches to breed, and the two bird enthusiasts weren’t going to sit idle. Since [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[When Leon Hohl and Alper Yelimlieş landed in the Galápagos in 2022 to volunteer in a decades-old nest survey project, they expected to look for Darwin finches and their babies. But that year turned out to be too dry for the finches to breed, and the two bird enthusiasts weren’t going to sit idle. Since they were in the Galápagos — nature’s “evolution laboratory” — they turned their attention to another bird: The Galápagos yellow warbler (Setophaga petechia aureola), a subspecies of the North American yellow warbler with elaborate, complex birdsongs. Hohl and Yelimlieş, both from Austria’s University of Vienna, teamed up with their supervisors to understand how the soaring human numbers on the archipelago’s most populous island of Santa Cruz, and increasing vehicular traffic noise in the soundscape, impact the island’s resident birds. “We were interested in how yellow warblers would respond to noise, depending on how much experience they had with noise,” Çağlar Akçay from Anglia Ruskin University, U.K., one of the supervisors, told Mongabay. “Noise is generally a stressor.” In a study published recently in the journal Animal Behaviour, Akçay and his team examined the behavior of male Galápagos yellow warblers on two islands and found that birds living closer to roads with vehicular traffic were more aggressive than their counterparts living further away. Between January and March of 2022, the researchers conducted a set of experiments in which they played pre-recorded male yellow warbler songs on a speaker and observed the birds’ responses to them. The&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/study-finds-fast-traffic-noise-is-infuriating-galapagos-warblers/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/study-finds-fast-traffic-noise-is-infuriating-galapagos-warblers/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
					<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/20101655/Untitled-design.mp4" length="895990" type="video/mp4" />
					<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-299322</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study finds signs of tuna abundance outside marine protected areas</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/study-finds-signs-of-tuna-abundance-outside-marine-protected-areas/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/study-finds-signs-of-tuna-abundance-outside-marine-protected-areas/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Mar 2025 22:58:29 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Edward Carver]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/03/03212656/3.jpg-768x512-1.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=295235</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Galapagos, Hawaii, Indian Ocean, Kiribati, Mexico, and Pacific Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Environment, Fisheries, Fishing, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, and Tuna]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[There&#8217;s solid evidence that well-enforced marine protected areas (MPAs) that prohibit fishing benefit a wide variety of species within their borders. However, the impact outside their borders is a matter of debate, especially when it comes to highly sought tuna species. Experts differ about how much tuna can “spill over” from an area closed to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[There&#8217;s solid evidence that well-enforced marine protected areas (MPAs) that prohibit fishing benefit a wide variety of species within their borders. However, the impact outside their borders is a matter of debate, especially when it comes to highly sought tuna species. Experts differ about how much tuna can “spill over” from an area closed to industrial fishing and be caught in the sea beyond. Recent research published in the journal Science indicates that large-scale MPAs do generate spillover. The study found that purse seiner fishing vessels catch 12-18% more tuna per unit of effort in the 100 nautical miles (185 kilometers) surrounding large MPAs than they would if the areas hadn’t been closed to fishing. “There&#8217;s some arguments that protected areas are kind of ineffectual compared to other forms of fisheries management,” John Lynham, a marine economist at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa who co-authored the study, told Mongabay. “So, I think we&#8217;re contributing to some of that debate. And then really big picture, I think what we&#8217;ve found certainly provides evidence in favor of one day trying to have large MPAs on the high seas.” The next few years could see an expansion of MPAs not just in national but also in international waters once a 2023 international agreement known as the High Seas Treaty takes effect. The effort is fueled largely by a separate 2022 agreement to scale up MPA coverage to 30% of the oceans’ surface area by 2030 — “30&#215;30,” as it’s known. Fully enacting&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/study-finds-signs-of-tuna-abundance-outside-marine-protected-areas/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-295235</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As Gálapagos ecotourism booms, top naturalist guide urges sustainability</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/as-galapagos-ecotourism-booms-top-naturalist-guide-urges-sustainability/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/as-galapagos-ecotourism-booms-top-naturalist-guide-urges-sustainability/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Jan 2025 18:30:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/01/22174918/Screen-Shot-2025-01-22-at-12.48.07-PM-768x510.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=293260</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Business, Conservation, Deep Sea, Ecosystems, Ecotourism, Environment, Governance, Greenwashing, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Interviews, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Sustainability, and Tourism]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS — Marco Andres Vizcaino Garcia is probably the most qualified naturalist guide a person could hire during their visit to Galápagos National Park and its adjacent marine reserve. Born into a fishing family that’s lived here for generations, he discovered a passion for the unique and fragile ecosystem of the islands at age [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS — Marco Andres Vizcaino Garcia is probably the most qualified naturalist guide a person could hire during their visit to Galápagos National Park and its adjacent marine reserve. Born into a fishing family that’s lived here for generations, he discovered a passion for the unique and fragile ecosystem of the islands at age 15 while working as a volunteer guide at a breeding center for giant tortoises known as “La Galapaguera.” Through interactions with visitors from around the world, he realized the importance of preserving the islands’ unique flora and fauna for future generations. Inspired to pursue his dream job as a naturalist guide, he left the islands in 2007 to study biology at the ESPOL college on the Ecuadorian mainland, thanks to a full academic scholarship. On his return, he set up a travel agency to promote sustainable tourism in 2013. In 2016, he was selected to participate in the government&#8217;s new guide’s course, after which he was recognized with an award for excellence. Today, Vizcaino works as an official naturalist guide based out of San Cristóbal Island, and recently traveled with a Mongabay team observing the islands’ impressive biodiversity. The following interview has been edited lightly for length. Marine iguanas (Amblyrhyncus subcristatus) are endemic to the Galápagos. There are numerous subspecies, and this one on Española Island is called the Christmas iguana, for its striking red and green coloration. Image by Erik Hoffner for Mongabay. Mongabay: How tough is it to get the guide certification? Marco&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/as-galapagos-ecotourism-booms-top-naturalist-guide-urges-sustainability/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-293260</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Droughts could change bird songs, creating new species, says study on Darwin&#8217;s finches</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/droughts-could-change-bird-songs-creating-new-species-says-study-on-darwins-finches/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/droughts-could-change-bird-songs-creating-new-species-says-study-on-darwins-finches/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Nov 2024 15:25:16 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/11/08145235/finch-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=289890</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Birds, Charismatic Animals, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the sunbaked Galápagos Islands, a male finch perches on a branch, hearing what sounds like another bird&#8217;s song. But something&#8217;s not quite right. The song is slower and simpler, like a familiar tune played at the wrong speed. The bird cocks its head, ruffles its feathers, but stays put. It&#8217;s just been fooled by [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the sunbaked Galápagos Islands, a male finch perches on a branch, hearing what sounds like another bird&#8217;s song. But something&#8217;s not quite right. The song is slower and simpler, like a familiar tune played at the wrong speed. The bird cocks its head, ruffles its feathers, but stays put. It&#8217;s just been fooled by a scientific experiment that&#8217;s helping reveal how ecological changes might drive the evolution of new species. A new study published in Science offers insights into how Darwin&#8217;s famous finches evolved into different species. The study used an innovative experiment to understand a fundamental question: how do new species form? While the answer is never simple, this research reveals one way it might happen: through small changes in beaks that lead to changes in song, eventually causing birds to no longer recognize each other as the same species. The research began with fieldwork on the Galápagos Islands in 1999, where lead author Jeff Podos, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has studied these famous birds, specifically Darwin&#8217;s medium ground finch (Geospiza fortis), over many field seasons. https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/11/08153158/Darwins-medium-ground-finch-song.wav Song of the Darwin&#8217;s medium ground finch (Geospiza fortis). Darwin&#8217;s finches helped inspire Darwin&#8217;s theory of evolution by natural selection, as their different beak shapes across different Galápagos islands demonstrated how species could adapt to varied food sources over time. Photo of female Darwin&#8217;s medium ground finch (Geospiza fortis) courtesy of Andrew Hendry. Despite their historic significance, Darwin&#8217;s finches are rather clumsy. “They&#8217;re actually terrible flyers,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/droughts-could-change-bird-songs-creating-new-species-says-study-on-darwins-finches/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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					<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-289890</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How a group in Ecuador protects 10% of the world&#8217;s bird species</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/how-a-group-in-ecuador-protects-10-of-the-worlds-bird-species/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/how-a-group-in-ecuador-protects-10-of-the-worlds-bird-species/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Dec 2023 00:01:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/12/08234145/Petrel-chick_Galapagos_James-Muchmore-2023-header-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=276508</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Andes, Choco Forest, Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Environment, Forests, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Indigenous Peoples, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Private Reserves, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Solutions, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In 1997, ornithologist Robert S. Ridgely discovered a previously undocumented bird species, the Jocotoco Antpitta (Grallaria ridgelyi), in the tropical montane forests on the Amazonian slope of the Andes in southeastern Ecuador. This ground-dwelling bird was immediately recognized as critically endangered due to its very small range and the threats to its habitat, which led [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In 1997, ornithologist Robert S. Ridgely discovered a previously undocumented bird species, the Jocotoco Antpitta (Grallaria ridgelyi), in the tropical montane forests on the Amazonian slope of the Andes in southeastern Ecuador. This ground-dwelling bird was immediately recognized as critically endangered due to its very small range and the threats to its habitat, which led to the establishment of the Jocotoco Foundation in 1998 and the subsequent purchase of land for the creation of the Tapichalaca Reserve. Since then, Jocotoco has established a network of 15 reserves across Ecuador. Each reserve has been selected to protect areas that are globally significant for bird conservation, ranging from the lowlands of the Amazon rainforest to the Galapagos Islands. These reserves safeguard a vast number of regionally endemic and globally threatened plants and animals, including 10% of the world&#8217;s bird species. Jocotoco antpitta (Grallaria ridgelyi). Photo credit: Franco Mendoza Mountain tapir in Tapichalaca reserve. Photo credit: Nicolas Devos Beyond preserving habitats critical for endangered bird species and other wildlife, Jocotoco has integrated ecotourism, community engagement and education, and scientific research and monitoring into its conservation strategy. The organization works closely with local communities to promote conservation awareness and sustainable practices. Additionally, its ecotourism programs generate employment opportunities and revenue for people living around their reserves. Martin Schaefer, Jocotoco&#8217;s head, discussed the group&#8217;s adaptive approach with Mongabay: &#8220;For each species, we analyze its threats, assessing whether Jocotoco can make a difference and to what extent. Then, we determine the best approach. Sometimes, working with&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/how-a-group-in-ecuador-protects-10-of-the-worlds-bird-species/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-276508</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Galápagos waters yield massive deepwater corals in latest biodiversity find</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/galapagos-waters-yield-massive-deepwater-corals-in-latest-biodiversity-find/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/galapagos-waters-yield-massive-deepwater-corals-in-latest-biodiversity-find/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Nov 2023 08:51:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/11/06131726/deep-sea-corals-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=275035</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Pacific Ocean, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Coral Reefs, Deep Sea, Deep Sea Mining, Ecosystems, Environment, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Marine, Marine Conservation, New Discovery, Oceans, Research, Technology, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A team of international researchers recently discovered sprawling cold-water coral reefs in the deep waters around the Galápagos Islands. They found the corals after identifying marine areas with high wave energy and then mapping the seafloor with lasers. On Oct. 5, the team sent a submersible craft hundreds of meters below the surface to find [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A team of international researchers recently discovered sprawling cold-water coral reefs in the deep waters around the Galápagos Islands. They found the corals after identifying marine areas with high wave energy and then mapping the seafloor with lasers. On Oct. 5, the team sent a submersible craft hundreds of meters below the surface to find and document two healthy reefs: one that spanned more than 800 meters (2,600 feet), the length of about eight football fields, and the other 250 m (820 ft) long. Both reefs were found at depths of between 370 and 420 m (1,210 to 1,380 ft). The reefs displayed a diversity of stony coral species, including many in the genus Madrepora. Scientists believe these corals have been forming and supporting marine biodiversity for thousands of years. The reefs are situated within Galápagos Marine Reserve, one of the largest marine protected areas on Earth, spanning 133,000 square kilometers (51,400 square miles). In 2021, the Ecuadorian government announced it would protect an additional 60,000 km2 (23,200 mi2) with the creation of the Hermandad Marine Reserve, which came into effect in 2022. Katleen Robert, a scientist at the Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland, said these deepwater coral reef systems exhibited high diversity, describing each as a “forest or field of flowers.” “When you stop and look in, it&#8217;s full of these organisms, like squat lobsters,” Robert told Mongabay. “We found lots of skates and some sharks, different species of fish. We see other types of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/galapagos-waters-yield-massive-deepwater-corals-in-latest-biodiversity-find/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-275035</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Ecuador to boost protection of Galápagos in biggest debt-for-nature deal ever</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/ecuador-to-boost-protection-of-galapagos-in-biggest-debt-for-nature-deal-ever/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/ecuador-to-boost-protection-of-galapagos-in-biggest-debt-for-nature-deal-ever/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 May 2023 14:35:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/08/14141818/DSC4584-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=268508</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador and Galapagos]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, blue economy, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Economics, Ecosystems, Finance, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Marine, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, and Protected Areas]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[On May 9, Ecuador launched a plan that would effectively wipe out the interest on part of its debt in exchange for its protection of the Galápagos Islands, one of the most biodiverse marine regions in the world. The strategy will allow Ecuador to convert $1.6 billion of its existing commercial debt into a $656 [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[On May 9, Ecuador launched a plan that would effectively wipe out the interest on part of its debt in exchange for its protection of the Galápagos Islands, one of the most biodiverse marine regions in the world. The strategy will allow Ecuador to convert $1.6 billion of its existing commercial debt into a $656 million loan issued as a bond by the global investment bank Credit Suisse. Over the course of 18 years, Ecuador would repay this new loan, and also provide about $18 million each year for the conservation of the waters surrounding the Galápagos Islands. Much of the funding would be focused on managing the newly established Hermandad Reserve and the existing Galápagos Marine Reserve (GMR), as well as sustainable fishing and climate resilience efforts. The plan would also finance an endowment aimed to generate ongoing funding for marine conservation. Such transactions, known as debt-for-nature deals, have been completed in at least 16 other countries, but Ecuador’s deal is the largest to date. In addition to substantially supporting marine conservation efforts, the deal should save Ecuador about $1 billion in borrowing costs. “The world’s biggest ocean-friendly debt swap is coming together in Ecuador to protect its unique natural resources,” Pablo Arosemena Marriott, Ecuador’s minister of economy and finance, said in a statement. “This strategy decreases public debt, boosts fiscal stability, and creates opportunities to address basic needs like healthcare and education.” Reef off Darwin and Wolf Islands, northwest Galápagos. Photo by Greg Asner / DivePhoto.org &nbsp; Jose&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/ecuador-to-boost-protection-of-galapagos-in-biggest-debt-for-nature-deal-ever/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-268508</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Stamping out invasive species has successful track record on islands, study finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/09/stamping-out-invasive-species-has-successful-track-record-on-islands-study-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/09/stamping-out-invasive-species-has-successful-track-record-on-islands-study-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Sep 2022 08:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/09/07071207/Rhinoceros-iguana-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=260025</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Global, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Global Environmental Crisis, Invasive Species, Islands, Predators, Protected Areas, Research, Restoration, Solutions, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Giant tortoises (Chelonoidis spp.) have trundled across the Galápagos Islands for perhaps 3 million years. Over that time, they’ve evolved to survive with little food or water in the islands’ harsh desert environment. But this ability also made the tortoises an excellent source of food for mariners, who often picked up a couple when they [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Giant tortoises (Chelonoidis spp.) have trundled across the Galápagos Islands for perhaps 3 million years. Over that time, they’ve evolved to survive with little food or water in the islands’ harsh desert environment. But this ability also made the tortoises an excellent source of food for mariners, who often picked up a couple when they passed by the Galápagos. The tortoises survived for months at sea until they were needed to feed ships’ crews. This regular cull left these species ill-equipped to weather another related threat. The descendants of the rats, pigs, goats and other alien species human visitors left behind feasted on tortoise eggs and young, squashed their nests and competed with them for food. This led to the extinction of at least one species, the Pinta Island tortoise (Chelonoidis abingdonii). Today, all of the 13 remaining giant tortoise species in the islands, genus Chelonoidis, are threatened with extinction, according to the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. Some of the species are down to just a single individual. In 2019, a scientist found what turned out to be a single individual of the Fernandina Island giant tortoise (C. phantasticus), long thought to be extinct. Many of the others cling to existence only through captive-breeding programs and careful protection of tortoise eggs and young. Pinzon giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger duncanensis), Pinzon Island, Galapagos. The successful eradication of invasive rats is protecting this endemic reptile. Image by Dena Spatz. Egg predation by an invasive predator in Isla Isabel, Mexico. Image&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/09/stamping-out-invasive-species-has-successful-track-record-on-islands-study-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/09/stamping-out-invasive-species-has-successful-track-record-on-islands-study-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-260025</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As animal seed dispersers go the way of the dodo, forest plants are at risk</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/as-animal-seed-dispersers-go-the-way-of-the-dodo-forest-plants-are-at-risk/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/as-animal-seed-dispersers-go-the-way-of-the-dodo-forest-plants-are-at-risk/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Apr 2022 15:16:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/04/28144730/Banner-great-hornbill-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=255264</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Covering the Commons and Planetary Boundaries]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Gabon, Galapagos, Global, Mauritania, and Panama]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Climate Change, Conservation, Deforestation, Ecosystem Services, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Forest Regeneration, Forestry, Forests, Global Environmental Crisis, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Impact Of Climate Change, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Restoration, Seed Dispersal, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Birds, bats, elephants, apes, rodents and many other animal species spread plant seeds throughout the world. But as those animal populations diminish, so do the plants that rely on wildlife to shift their range, especially as climate change worsens.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The few remaining rainforests on Mauritius whisper with the memory of former residents, now ghosts. This once-lush Indian Ocean island remained mostly uninhabited by humans until 1598, when it became a Dutch port of call. By the time the French government took over some 150 years later and imported slaves to start sugar plantations, the ecological damage was already irreparable. The dodo disappeared, and in the years since would become an icon for extinction. Meanwhile, as jungles fell and humans and domestic animals streamed in, tortoises, parrots, pigeons, fruit bats and giant lizards also dwindled and vanished. Other losses on the island were harder to notice: trees and other plants that relied on those vanished animal species to spread their nuts and seeds. Changes in the plant kingdom are not easily perceived because “we&#8217;re just not seeing the trees within the forest,” says Tammy Mildenstein, a wildlife biologist at Iowa’s Cornell College. But the absence of flora also reverberates, further reducing fauna that rely on those plants for food and homes. In some woodlands, jungles, marshes and grasslands, “vegetation is relatively lush, but you hear only silence,” says Evan Fricke, an ecologist at Rice University. It’s a condition sometimes called empty forest syndrome. “If it doesn&#8217;t have birds and mammals, what happens to those forests?” Fricke asks. In a recent study, his team reported that seed-disbursing creatures have “steeply declined” globally. Their findings wave a red flag, highlighting growing concern about the ability of plant communities to reproduce and survive&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/as-animal-seed-dispersers-go-the-way-of-the-dodo-forest-plants-are-at-risk/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/as-animal-seed-dispersers-go-the-way-of-the-dodo-forest-plants-are-at-risk/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-255264</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Ecuador to announce creation of Hermandad Marine Reserve off Galapagos (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/01/ecuador-to-announce-creation-of-hermandad-marine-reserve-off-galapagos-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/01/ecuador-to-announce-creation-of-hermandad-marine-reserve-off-galapagos-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Jan 2022 18:28:07 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[President Guillermo Lasso]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/05/01102852/VSridharan_GujaratWhaleShark_4_Big-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=251716</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Costa Rica, Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Commentary, Conservation, Elasmobranchs, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, Sharks, Whale Sharks, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#8220;Ecuador is proud to announce the creation of the Hermandad Marine Reserve in the coming days,&#8221; the country&#8217;s president declares in an opinion piece shared with Mongabay. His country had initially announced the expansion of the marine reserve encircling the Galápagos Islands in November at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. The following day, the presidents [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&#8220;Ecuador is proud to announce the creation of the Hermandad Marine Reserve in the coming days,&#8221; the country&#8217;s president declares in an opinion piece shared with Mongabay. His country had initially announced the expansion of the marine reserve encircling the Galápagos Islands in November at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. The following day, the presidents of Panama, Colombia and Costa Rica also joined him to announce that their countries intended to create a large marine corridor between the four nations by extending and joining their current marine protected areas. Here&#8217;s President Lasso&#8217;s commentary about this news shared with Mongabay: Stretching up to 60 feet long, whale sharks are the world&#8217;s largest fish. These endangered, gentle giants slowly glide over vast distances throughout the tropics, feeding on some of the ocean&#8217;s tiniest creatures like plankton, krill, and shrimp. Two years ago, scientists tagged a 10-foot juvenile female near the Galapagos and named her Esperanza – the Spanish word for &#8220;hope.&#8221; Over the following eight months, the researchers continuously tracked her travels until they lost her signal, just as her course intersected with a foreign fleet fishing on the border of Ecuador&#8217;s protected waters. There’s no way to be certain about what happened to Esperanza, but her story still serves as a stark reminder that safeguarding marine wildlife solely where it gathers is not enough. Highly migratory species, such as sea turtles, hammer­head sharks, humpback whales, and whale sharks also need protection along the underwater superhighways that they travel along routinely. A&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/01/ecuador-to-announce-creation-of-hermandad-marine-reserve-off-galapagos-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-251716</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New protections announced for Galápagos Islands and beyond at COP26</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/new-protections-announced-for-galapagos-islands-and-beyond-at-cop26/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/new-protections-announced-for-galapagos-islands-and-beyond-at-cop26/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Nov 2021 18:39:55 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/11/03182459/DSC4591-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=248959</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Galapagos, Panama, and Scotland]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Deep Sea, Ecosystems, Fish, Fishing, Global Environmental Crisis, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Marine, Marine Conservation, Marine Mammals, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, Protected Areas, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador will expand the marine reserve encircling the Galápagos Islands, President Guillermo Lasso announced on Nov. 1 at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. The current Galápagos Marine Reserve covers 133,000 square kilometers (51,400 square miles) around its namesake islands, and the extension will protect an additional 60,000 km2 (23,200 mi2). The majority of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador will expand the marine reserve encircling the Galápagos Islands, President Guillermo Lasso announced on Nov. 1 at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. The current Galápagos Marine Reserve covers 133,000 square kilometers (51,400 square miles) around its namesake islands, and the extension will protect an additional 60,000 km2 (23,200 mi2). The majority of the addition will be established across the Cocos Ridge, an underwater mountain range on the northeastern side of the Galápagos Islands that forms an important migration highway known as the Cocos-Galápagos Swimway. In one part of the new reserve, all fishing activity will be banned, while another part will only prohibit longline fishing. “The proposal that I&#8217;m bringing here is a result of five months of negotiations with … the fishing industry and other sectors,” Lasso said at a press conference through a translator. “We made them understand the importance of this marine reserve.” Lasso said the reserve will not only support and strengthen the region’s biodiversity, but will help combat climate change. He added the reserve’s establishment would be a debt swap for conservation, but didn’t provide further details about this. The president has not yet signed the decree for the establishment of the reserve, but experts say they expect this to happen soon. Earlier this year, activists presented a scientific proposal to extend Galápagos Marine Reserve by 445,953 km2 (172,183 mi2) — more than triple its existing size — to then-president Lenín Moreno, but the Ecuadoran government didn’t take any action at that time. Lasso&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/new-protections-announced-for-galapagos-islands-and-beyond-at-cop26/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/new-protections-announced-for-galapagos-islands-and-beyond-at-cop26/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-248959</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>DiCaprio, conservationists launch $43M effort to restore Galápagos Islands</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/05/dicaprio-conservationists-launch-40m-effort-to-restore-galapagos-islands/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/05/dicaprio-conservationists-launch-40m-effort-to-restore-galapagos-islands/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 May 2021 13:44:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/05/16175028/2U6A3172-Paula-with-Floreana-racer-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=242745</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador and Galapagos]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Green, Islands, Marine Conservation, Restoration, Rewilding, Saving Species From Extinction, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A coalition of groups, including a newly formed organization backed by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, have mobilized $43 million for efforts to restore degraded habitats in the Galápagos Islands, an archipelago renowned for its endemic species and central role in scientists&#8217; understanding of ecology and evolution. The Galápagos initiative has three immediate priorities: Helping restore Floreana [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A coalition of groups, including a newly formed organization backed by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, have mobilized $43 million for efforts to restore degraded habitats in the Galápagos Islands, an archipelago renowned for its endemic species and central role in scientists&#8217; understanding of ecology and evolution. The Galápagos initiative has three immediate priorities: Helping restore Floreana Island, one of the islands most degraded by human activities in the Galápagos; increasing the population size of the critically endangered pink iguana on Isabela Island; and strengthening protection of the archipelago&#8217;s marine reserves, which are critical to the local economy yet have been besieged by foreign fishing fleets in recent years. The initiative involves more than 40 partners, ranging from local NGOs to governments to international organizations, leveraging decades of collective experience working across the archipelago. A Floreana Marine Iguana sitting on rocks near the ocean on Floreana Island. Photo credit: Andrew S. Wright Releasing finches with children from the local community on Floreana. Photo credit: Paula A. Castaño/Island Conservation One of the groups leading the effort is Re:wild, an organization that was just formed between Global Wildlife Conservation and Leonardo DiCaprio, who is a founding board member of the new entity. The Galápagos initiative is Re:wild&#8217;s first project under its new brand, but the group plans to scale up its existing global work, putting renewed emphasis on the concept of rewilding, or restoring species and ecosystems to previous levels of abundance and health. &#8220;Rewilding, a positive reframing for nature conservation, involves holistic solutions&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/05/dicaprio-conservationists-launch-40m-effort-to-restore-galapagos-islands/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/05/dicaprio-conservationists-launch-40m-effort-to-restore-galapagos-islands/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-242745</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Activists make the case that bigger is better to protect Galápagos reserve</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/activists-make-the-case-that-bigger-is-better-to-protect-galapagos-reserve/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/activists-make-the-case-that-bigger-is-better-to-protect-galapagos-reserve/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Jan 2021 21:07:30 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/01/29202822/galapagos_4_sh-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=239110</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Pacific Ocean, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Policy, Fish, Fisheries, Global Environmental Crisis, Green, Illegal Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, Overfishing, Science, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Like a thick scarf, the Galápagos Marine Reserve encircles its namesake islands, protecting 133,000 square kilometers (51,400 square miles) of nutrient-rich ocean that supports nearly 3,000 marine species. But the current reserve, which was once the second-largest in the world (now ranked 33rd), is no longer enough to protect the biodiverse waters around the Galápagos [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Like a thick scarf, the Galápagos Marine Reserve encircles its namesake islands, protecting 133,000 square kilometers (51,400 square miles) of nutrient-rich ocean that supports nearly 3,000 marine species. But the current reserve, which was once the second-largest in the world (now ranked 33rd), is no longer enough to protect the biodiverse waters around the Galápagos Islands, according to a coalition of scientists, conservationists, NGOs and members of the public. The solution, they say, is to extend the marine reserve by an extra 445,953 km2 (172,183 mi2) — more than triple the size of the existing marine protected area. On Jan. 20, advocates for the extended marine reserve delivered a petition with more than 32,000 signatures of support to Ecuador’s president, Lenín Moreno, along with a scientific proposal that presents a configuration of the reserve that would maximize protection of the delicate ecosystems while also sustaining Ecuador’s fishing industries. The proposal, which is publicly available in Spanish on the website of the citizen initiative Más Galápagos, argues that the extended marine reserve could help avert the precipitous decline of migratory species, stave off the threat of illegal and unsustainable fishing, and even mitigate the effects of climate change, if properly managed and enforced. A green sea turtle feeds a reef in Galapagos. Image by Cristina Mittermeier / SeaLegacy. César Peñaherrera-Palma, a marine biologist, science coordinator at the NGO MigraMar and one of the proposal’s authors, said he and his colleagues had gathered data from a range of scientific and governmental sources,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/activists-make-the-case-that-bigger-is-better-to-protect-galapagos-reserve/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-239110</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Could China become a partner in Galapagos marine conservation? Yolanda Kakabadse thinks so</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/could-china-become-a-partner-in-galapagos-marine-conservation-yolanda-kakabadse-thinks-so/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/could-china-become-a-partner-in-galapagos-marine-conservation-yolanda-kakabadse-thinks-so/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Nov 2020 10:08:28 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/01/31132839/hammerhead_DSC5535_1320px-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=236647</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Finding Common Ground, Nature conservation Influencers, and Planetary Boundaries]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[China, Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Fishing, Illegal Fishing, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Natural Resources, Overfishing, and Protected Areas]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In August this year, a fleet of around 300 Chinese fishing vessels attracted international attention when they congregated just outside Ecuador&#8217;s territorial waters around the famed Galápagos Islands. Said to be fishing for squid, the fleet&#8217;s checkered past raised concerns about the possibility the ships were actually targeting sharks and other threatened species. While there [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In August this year, a fleet of around 300 Chinese fishing vessels attracted international attention when they congregated just outside Ecuador&#8217;s territorial waters around the famed Galápagos Islands. Said to be fishing for squid, the fleet&#8217;s checkered past raised concerns about the possibility the ships were actually targeting sharks and other threatened species. While there was great outcry over fleet&#8217;s presence so close to a renowned ecological hotspot, the legal options were limited because the activities were occurring in international waters. Accordingly, there was virtually nothing the Ecuadorian navy &#8212; or conservationists &#8212; could do. But Ecuadorian environmental leader Yolanda Kakabadse is trying to come up with a solution. Kakabadse, who served as president of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) from 1996 to 2004 and president of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) from 2010 to 2017, has a two-pronged approach that involves leveraging her experience of navigating the politics at the highest levels of civil society, government, and the private sector. The first part of the plan involves persuading regional governments to protect the migration corridor between the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador and Cocos Island in Costa Rica. But most of that area is open ocean that isn&#8217;t subject to either country&#8217;s control. That&#8217;s where the second part of the plan comes in: convincing the Chinese government that it’s in the country&#8217;s interest to limit fishing in the area. While the proposal may seem audacious, Kakabadse believes now is a unique moment for action. Specifically,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/could-china-become-a-partner-in-galapagos-marine-conservation-yolanda-kakabadse-thinks-so/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/could-china-become-a-partner-in-galapagos-marine-conservation-yolanda-kakabadse-thinks-so/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-236647</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New evidence suggests China’s ‘dark’ vessels poached in Galápagos waters</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/new-evidence-suggests-chinas-dark-vessels-poached-in-galapagos-waters/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/new-evidence-suggests-chinas-dark-vessels-poached-in-galapagos-waters/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Oct 2020 15:23:31 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/10/09151948/180921-OM-SA-Chinese-squid-vessel-being-refuelled-by-Peruvian-tanker-Alorca-_66A9512-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=235696</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Galapagos and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation Technology, data, Ecosystems, Environment, Fishing, Global Environmental Crisis, GPS, Green, Illegal Fishing, Law, Law Enforcement, Marine, Marine Animals, Oceans, Overfishing, Remote Sensing, Satellite Imagery, Squid, Tracking, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In late June, a fleet of about 300 Chinese fishing vessels swarmed around the rich, biodiverse waters of the Galápagos Islands, armed with overhead lights and industrial jigging machines to attract and catch squid. For the next few months, the vessels remained around the edge of the Ecuadoran islands’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), raising concerns [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In late June, a fleet of about 300 Chinese fishing vessels swarmed around the rich, biodiverse waters of the Galápagos Islands, armed with overhead lights and industrial jigging machines to attract and catch squid. For the next few months, the vessels remained around the edge of the Ecuadoran islands’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), raising concerns among conservationists that the fleet would overexploit the squid and capture endangered species such as rays and sharks. Another worry was also hovering: would the vessels enter the EEZ and illegally fish, putting even more pressure on the delicate marine region and violating Ecuador’s sovereignty? A composite data image showing all AIS vessel traces, and the intensity of RF activity as the fleet swarmed along the southern edge of the EEZ boundary of the Galapagos Islands. Image by HawkEye 360. China’s ambassador to Ecuador said the fleet followed international fishing regulations and did not partake in any illegal activity, and Ecuadoran authorities said the fleet did not enter its waters. However, new information released last week by HawkEye 360, a Virginia-based data analytics company, shows that unidentified vessels were indeed present inside the Ecuadoran EEZ at the same time as many Chinese-owned fishing ships were undetectable via their automatic identification system (AIS), a GPS-based system that publicly transmits a vessel’s identity, speed and location. There’s a strong correlation between these events, but they don’t necessarily confirm that illegal fishing took place, experts say. However, this new layer of information paints a fuller picture of what&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/new-evidence-suggests-chinas-dark-vessels-poached-in-galapagos-waters/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/new-evidence-suggests-chinas-dark-vessels-poached-in-galapagos-waters/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-235696</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Past illegal activity dogs Chinese fleet that fished squid near Galapagos</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/past-illegal-activity-dogs-chinese-fleet-that-fished-squid-near-galapagos/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/past-illegal-activity-dogs-chinese-fleet-that-fished-squid-near-galapagos/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Sep 2020 05:59:28 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Michelle Carrere]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Maria Angeles Salazar]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/09/23055428/Oyang-75-en-Puerto-Montev-1024x768-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=235080</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Endangered Species, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Illegal Fishing, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, and Overfishing]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[SANTIAGO — In early June, a fleet of around 260 boats from China reached the limits of Ecuador’s exclusive economic zone around the Galápagos Islands to fish for Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas). For months, the fleet skirted this area, drawing outrage among Ecuadorans as well as scientists and conservationists around the world. The fleet remained [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[SANTIAGO — In early June, a fleet of around 260 boats from China reached the limits of Ecuador’s exclusive economic zone around the Galápagos Islands to fish for Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas). For months, the fleet skirted this area, drawing outrage among Ecuadorans as well as scientists and conservationists around the world. The fleet remained in international waters and no ship crossed the country’s maritime limits, according to the Ecuadoran authorities, who detected no illegal actions. However, scientists and fishery analysts say the volume of fishing is so high as to potentially overexploit the squid. Moreover, the boats could be capturing species threatened with extinction. Beyond that, vessels within this fleet have a history of illegal fishing, according to Milko Schvartzman, a marine conservation specialist with the Argentine organization Circle of Environmental Policies, who has studied the fleet for years. Movement of the Chinese fleet outside Ecuador’s exclusive economic zone around the Galápagos Islands. Image courtesy of Global Fishing Watch. Experts say the presence of these ships is not only a problem for Ecuador but for other countries in the region, too. Every year they travel a route that goes from the South Atlantic off Argentina to the South Pacific near the Galápagos, passing through Chile and Peru. According to Schvartzman, at least two boats that have been caught illegally fishing in Argentine waters and were pursued by that country’s navy were fishing south of the Galápagos in August. The route of the Chinese ships Between December and May, in&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/past-illegal-activity-dogs-chinese-fleet-that-fished-squid-near-galapagos/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-235080</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Waters off Galápagos have way more alien species than previously known</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/04/waters-off-galapagos-have-way-more-alien-species-than-previously-known/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/04/waters-off-galapagos-have-way-more-alien-species-than-previously-known/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Apr 2019 07:46:03 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/04/15084018/Amathia-verticillata-720x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=217488</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Pacific Ocean, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Invasive Species, Invertebrates, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Research, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
											<grant>
							<![CDATA[2163-3717]]>
						</grant>
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The waters off the Galápagos Islands have nearly 10 times more alien marine invertebrates than previously recorded, a recent study has found. Located 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) off Ecuador, the Galápagos Islands are home to a unique mix of iconic plants and animals, including giant tortoises, Darwin’s finches, marine iguanas (Amblyrhynchus cristatus), and the Galápagos [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The waters off the Galápagos Islands have nearly 10 times more alien marine invertebrates than previously recorded, a recent study has found. Located 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) off Ecuador, the Galápagos Islands are home to a unique mix of iconic plants and animals, including giant tortoises, Darwin’s finches, marine iguanas (Amblyrhynchus cristatus), and the Galápagos prickly pear (Opuntia echios). But ever since humans first arrived on the islands in the 1500s, the archipelago has seen an influx of more than 1,700 alien species, mostly introduced by humans. While the non-indigenous species on land, such as feral cats, goats and wild blackberry, are relatively well-understood, those in the coastal waters off the islands have largely remained a mystery. To fill this information gap, a team of researchers surveyed the seas around Santa Cruz and Baltra, two of the larger Galápagos islands. They were particularly interested in the fouling communities — organisms that settle and grow on artificial marine structures like docks, piers, hulls and harbors. With tourism, trade and transport traffic increasing in the Galápagos, these fouling communities can shed light on species that may have been introduced from other areas, researchers say. “We know from research in other global regions, such as North America and Australia, that a large fraction of the introduced species present are associated with fouling communities, and especially artificial habitats such as docks, piers, pilings, and walls,” Gregory Ruiz, a marine biologist with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and co-author of the study, told Mongabay. “In&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/04/waters-off-galapagos-have-way-more-alien-species-than-previously-known/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/04/waters-off-galapagos-have-way-more-alien-species-than-previously-known/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-217488</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Corals thrive on remotest islands in the Galápagos</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/corals-thrive-on-remotest-islands-in-the-galapagos/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/corals-thrive-on-remotest-islands-in-the-galapagos/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Jan 2018 17:56:02 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Clare LeDuffGreg Asner]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/01/31210218/galapagos_asner_DSC57751-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=203379</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Reefscape]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Coral Bleaching, Coral Reefs, Ecosystems, Marine, Marine Animals, Oceans, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Galápagos Islands are not widely known for their coral reefs. Most visitors to the islands’ waters seek big charismatic residents like sharks, manta rays, sea lions and whales, or unique creatures like marine iguanas. Dive shops in the Galápagos almost exclusively advertise the opportunity to see these large creatures, while few mention corals. Yet [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Adapted from Bing Maps. The Galápagos Islands are not widely known for their coral reefs. Most visitors to the islands’ waters seek big charismatic residents like sharks, manta rays, sea lions and whales, or unique creatures like marine iguanas. Dive shops in the Galápagos almost exclusively advertise the opportunity to see these large creatures, while few mention corals. Yet the archipelago is home to vibrant reefs, and we commenced the global Reefscape project there. Perhaps so little is mentioned about reefs in the Galápagos today because of a history of coral bleaching across the archipelago. The scientific literature reports ocean temperature spikes of up to 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) during the 1982-83 and 1997-98 El Niño events, and again to a much lesser degree in 2015. El Niño’s hot waters pushed many corals beyond their thermal tolerances, resulting in widespread reef-scale bleaching. Reef off Darwin and Wolf Islands, northwest Galápagos. Photo by Greg Asner / DivePhoto.org. Coral, which is an animal, has a symbiotic relationship with algae. Known as zooxanthellae, these algae live within the coral’s exposed polyp tissues and are a crucially important photosynthetic source of carbon for the host. Bleaching refers to when coral, which has a naturally white underlying structure comprised of calcium carbonate, loses its more colorful symbiotic algae. Bleaching does not necessarily spell death for coral: If the hot-water event passes quickly, the coral will reunite with its algal partner, regain its color and avoid starvation. If, however, ocean warming events are extreme,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/corals-thrive-on-remotest-islands-in-the-galapagos/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/01/corals-thrive-on-remotest-islands-in-the-galapagos/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-203379</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Scientists launch global search for 25 &#8216;lost&#8217; species</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/04/scientists-launch-global-search-for-25-lost-species/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/04/scientists-launch-global-search-for-25-lost-species/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Apr 2017 08:44:30 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/04/19033449/Pink-headed-duck_Philip-Nelson-768x510.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=194854</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Asia, Galapagos, Global, South America, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Forests, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Interviews, Oceans, Plants, Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Unseen for decades in the wild, many species are now feared extinct. Some exist only as museum specimens, others are only known from old drawings or photographs. But some of these missing species may still be out there, lurking in remote, unexplored regions of our planet. And to find them, scientists are embarking on what is believed to be [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Unseen for decades in the wild, many species are now feared extinct. Some exist only as museum specimens, others are only known from old drawings or photographs. But some of these missing species may still be out there, lurking in remote, unexplored regions of our planet. And to find them, scientists are embarking on what is believed to be the largest-ever global quest for our world&#8217;s forgotten animals and plants &#8212; the Search for Lost Species campaign. The Top 25 Lost Species. Poster by Global Wildlife Conservation (click on the image to enlarge). The first phase of the this campaign, launched today by the Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC), will see groups of scientists spreading out across the world in search of &#8220;25 most wanted lost species&#8221;. These include the the tiny bullneck seahorse from Australia that has never been seen in the wild; the Himalayan quail that was last recorded 141 years ago in India; the Wondiwoi tree kangaroo, known only from a single specimen collected in 1928 in Indonesia; the pink-headed duck, once-widespread across India, Bangladesh and Myanmar, but last seen in 1949; and the Fernandina Galápagos tortoise, last seen in 1906 on the Galápagos’s youngest and least-explored island. &#8220;These species include quirky, charismatic animals and plants that also represent tremendous opportunities for conservation,&#8221; Robin Moore, GWC communications director and conservation biologist, said in a statement. &#8220;While we’re not sure how many of our target species we’ll be able to find, for many of these forgotten species this is likely their last chance to&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/04/scientists-launch-global-search-for-25-lost-species/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/04/scientists-launch-global-search-for-25-lost-species/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-194854</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Distinctive sperm whale cultures reveal dramatic population shifts in the Galápagos</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/11/distinctive-sperm-whale-cultures-reveal-dramatic-population-shifts-in-the-galapagos/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/11/distinctive-sperm-whale-cultures-reveal-dramatic-population-shifts-in-the-galapagos/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Nov 2016 14:59:26 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Yasemin Saplakoglu]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Maria Angeles Salazar]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2016/11/23143945/Figure2-768x386.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=191166</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Galapagos and Pacific Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Mammals, Marine, Marine Animals, Oceans, Whales, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Sperm whales wander great expanses of the sea, locking their culture between their lips and carrying it with them wherever they go. Their distinctive vocal traits allowed researchers to identify sperm whale cultures by their dialects, or “codas”—a rhythm of vocal clicks unique to each clan. Now, this approach has revealed surprising movements of sperm [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Sperm whales wander great expanses of the sea, locking their culture between their lips and carrying it with them wherever they go. Their distinctive vocal traits allowed researchers to identify sperm whale cultures by their dialects, or “codas”—a rhythm of vocal clicks unique to each clan. Now, this approach has revealed surprising movements of sperm whale groups across ocean basins. In a study published in Royal Society Open Science, scientists showed they could track each clan’s codas to discover shifts in their populations. This technique revealed that in just three decades, the seas near the Galápagos Islands experienced a complete cultural turnover of sperm whales. Sperm whale in the Dominica. Photo Courtesy of The Dominica Sperm Whale Project Between 1985 and 2014, study coauthor Dr. Shane Gero, a postdoctoral marine biologist at Aarhus University in Denmark, and his team recorded Galápagos sperm whale codas using underwater microphones. They identified individual whales by photographing their tails, which are distinguishable by natural crevices and bite marks. A whale clan is composed of thousands of members that speak the same dialect. For the first 14 years of the study, clans that marine scientists called Regular and Plus-One lived in the Galápagos. Scientists recorded the consistent rhythm of clicks that are signatures of the Regular clan and the slight pause before the final click, a vocal tic distinctive to members of the Plus-One clan. But the whale numbers began to decline, and by the early 2000s the species had left the area. &nbsp; https://mongabay-images.s3.amazonaws.com/16/SoundFile2PlusOnecoda.mp3&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2016/11/distinctive-sperm-whale-cultures-reveal-dramatic-population-shifts-in-the-galapagos/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
					<enclosure url="https://mongabay-images.s3.amazonaws.com/16/SoundFile2PlusOnecoda.mp3" length="125408" type="audio/mpeg" />
<enclosure url="https://mongabay-images.s3.amazonaws.com/16/SoundFile1RegularCodas6R.mp3" length="113997" type="audio/mpeg" />
					<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-191166</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Scientists have just discovered the first endemic bird species to go extinct on the Galápagos Islands</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/08/scientists-have-just-discovered-the-first-endemic-bird-species-to-go-extinct-on-the-galapagos-islands/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/08/scientists-have-just-discovered-the-first-endemic-bird-species-to-go-extinct-on-the-galapagos-islands/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Aug 2016 20:22:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mike Gaworecki]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mike Gaworecki]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2016/08/02173254/A-Gala%CC%81pagos-Vermilion-Flycatcher-on-Isabela-Island-Gala%CC%81pagos_%C2%A9-Alvaro-Jaramillo-2-495x330.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=188790</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, Pacific Ocean, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Environment, Extinction, Global Environmental Crisis, Species Discovery, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Scientists say their research shows that two subspecies of songbirds found only on the Galápagos Islands should be elevated to full species status. There’s one big caveat, however: One of the two newly minted species may already be extinct. The researchers used molecular data from samples of museum specimens housed at the California Academy of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Scientists say their research shows that two subspecies of songbirds found only on the Galápagos Islands should be elevated to full species status. There’s one big caveat, however: One of the two newly minted species may already be extinct. The researchers used molecular data from samples of museum specimens housed at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco to sequence the DNA and piece together an evolutionary history of two subspecies of Vermilion Flycatcher. Their findings were published in May in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. The two subspecies were found to be so genetically distinct that the researchers elevated them to full species status and gave them the names Pyrocephalus nanus and Pyrocephalus dubius. Pyrocephalus nanus is found throughout most of the Galápagos, the researchers said, while Pyrocephalus dubius is found only on the island of San Cristóbal — or, at least, it was. The species, commonly known as the San Cristóbal Vermilion Flycatcher, hasn’t been seen since 1987. “The population of dubius is presumed to be extinct, and thus would represent the first documented extinction of a Galápagos-endemic bird species,” the authors of the study write. A young male Galápagos Vermilion Flycatcher on Isabela Island, Galápagos. This species of Vermilion Flycatcher is not extinct, unlike its close relative, the San Cristóbal Island Vermilion Flycatcher. Photo credit: © Alvaro Jaramillo. “A species of bird that may be extinct in the Galápagos is a big deal,” Jack Dumbacher, curator of ornithology and mammalogy at the California Academy of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2016/08/scientists-have-just-discovered-the-first-endemic-bird-species-to-go-extinct-on-the-galapagos-islands/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-188790</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Want to end illegal fishing? Make all ships trackable, say researchers</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/03/want-to-end-illegal-fishing-make-all-ships-trackable-say-researchers/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/03/want-to-end-illegal-fishing-make-all-ships-trackable-say-researchers/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Mar 2016 11:42:50 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2016/03/01221309/skytruth-gfw-russian_trawler-520x293.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Global, Kiribati, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Cetaceans, Conservation, data, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Policy, Illegal Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, Overfishing, Protected Areas, Remote Sensing, Satellite Imagery, Technology, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Governments have been establishing enormous marine protected areas (MPAs) spanning hundreds of thousands of square kilometers where fishing is restricted. And the United Nations last June began work developing an international treaty to manage biodiversity on the high seas, the vast stretches of ocean subject to no nation’s law. But how will we enforce paper protections [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Governments have been establishing enormous marine protected areas (MPAs) spanning hundreds of thousands of square kilometers where fishing is restricted. And the United Nations last June began work developing an international treaty to manage biodiversity on the high seas, the vast stretches of ocean subject to no nation’s law. But how will we enforce paper protections over areas far too big and remote to patrol by boat or plane? Make vessels, especially fishing vessels, trackable by satellite and the resulting data publicly available, says a group of researchers writing today in the journal Science. Then law enforcement will be able to see in real time which vessels are in a given area and intercept any that appear to be involved in illegal fishing or other activities. Each year, illegal fishers are estimated to net up to 26 million tons of seafood worth up to $23.5 billion annually, according to a 2009 study. Illegal fishing undermines conservation efforts and is associated with slave labor and human trafficking. The world’s oceangoing vessels are already part way there. Many carry automatic identification systems (AIS) — devices that transmit data about the vessel’s identity, position, and course that is intended to prevent collisions. Until recently transmission occurred via VHF radio, but recently satellites have begun picking up the job, transmitting mass AIS data to anyone interested in reviewing it, anywhere on the globe. Image based on satellite data shows the track of a Russian trawler off Namibia. Image courtesy of SkyTruth and Global Fishing Watch. Groups&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2016/03/want-to-end-illegal-fishing-make-all-ships-trackable-say-researchers/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-183123</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Linking environmental and animal movement data sets: how the Movebank Env-DATA System helps to explain snowy owl foraging behavior</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/08/linking-environmental-and-animal-movement-data-sets-how-the-movebank-env-data-system-helps-to-explain-snowy-owl-foraging-behavior/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/08/linking-environmental-and-animal-movement-data-sets-how-the-movebank-env-data-system-helps-to-explain-snowy-owl-foraging-behavior/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Aug 2015 08:22:48 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Katie Taylor]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sue Palminteri]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2015/08/03164342/Snowy-owl-takes-flight_JimCumming-RedBubble_reverse-e1440700622271-520x218.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Arctic and Galapagos]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Analysis, Animals, Birds, Climate Change, and Monitoring]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Researchers used this free online platform to better understand effects of climate and other environmental data on animal movements and predator-prey interactions.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Have you ever wondered how small-bodied Arctic mammals, like lemmings, survive in the harsh winter environment? Could climate change actually help lemming survival by creating a slightly warmer environment and reducing the snow pack that may slow their movements? In fact, as Jean-François Therrien and colleagues learned by combining data on snow cover with the movements and behavior of snowy owls&#8211; which prey upon lemmings – the lemmings actually depend on snow and the frigid climate to survive. Survival in the snow For their study, Therrien and colleagues (2015) hypothesized that environmental conditions would affect snowy owl pre-breeding behavior and movements – in particular, the amount of time spent searching for food and the distance they moved to find a breeding site.  Snowy owls (Bubo scandiacus) spend their summer breeding months in the Arctic, where their main source of prey is lemmings (the genera Lemmus &amp; Dicrostonyx). As a result, owl reproduction depends primarily on lemming abundance. Snowy owl hunting a lemming. Photo credit: Borèal, Wikimedia Commons Lemmings in the Arctic form the basis of the food chain for their predators. Without lemmings, populations of arctic foxes and snowy owls would decrease dramatically (Kerr &amp; Packer 1998). Therrien et al. (2015) predicted that snowy owls, due to their dependence on lemming prey, choose habitats where snow cover and depth are lower than average. The researchers used environmental data available in Movebank – a free online platform that enables researchers to archive and share their animal tracking data with other researchers&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/08/linking-environmental-and-animal-movement-data-sets-how-the-movebank-env-data-system-helps-to-explain-snowy-owl-foraging-behavior/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-66952</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>&#8216;Lazy&#8217; sea lion sons rely on mothers&#8217; milk while diligent daughters learn to hunt</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/04/lazy-sea-lion-sons-rely-on-mothers-milk-while-diligent-daughters-learn-to-hunt/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/04/lazy-sea-lion-sons-rely-on-mothers-milk-while-diligent-daughters-learn-to-hunt/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Apr 2015 14:45:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Nicholas Weiler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2015/04/lazy-sea-lion-sons-rely-on-mothers-milk-while-diligent-daughters-learn-to-hunt/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Galapagos, Latin America, Pacific Ocean, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Animals, Environment, and Green]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A Galápagos sea lion pup feeds. Male and female pups differ in how independently they forage for their own food, a new study shows. Credit: Peter Wilton / Wikimedia Commons Young male Galápagos sea lions (Zalophus wollebaeki) have it made. They grow plump on milk from their mothers for their first two years and barely [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A Galápagos sea lion pup feeds. Male and female pups differ in how independently they forage for their own food, a new study shows. Credit: Peter Wilton / Wikimedia Commons Young male Galápagos sea lions (Zalophus wollebaeki) have it made. They grow plump on milk from their mothers for their first two years and barely lift a flipper to hunt, new research from the Galápagos Islands shows. By comparison, young females are much more independent, providing many of their own calories by hunting at sea long before their mothers wean them. The results raise questions about the evolutionary costs for mothers of rearing such lazy sons. Galapágos sea lion pups are a big investment. They rely on their mothers&#8217; milk for two to three years, said ecologist and study senior author Fritz Trillmich of Bielefeld University in Germany. &#8220;Some suckle until they are six or seven years old&#8221; and have pups of their own, he told Mongabay.com. &#8220;It&#8217;s a very strange system.&#8221; These boomerang pups can even edge out their own younger siblings at their mother&#8217;s teat in years when seafood is scarce. Having a son is particularly challenging. Male Galápagos sea lions outweigh females from birth. A growing boy needs extra calories from somewhere, and for decades marine biologists have assumed that sea lion mothers simply have to feed their sons more. But young sea lions also begin to forage for some of their own meals once they are about a year old. Trillmich hypothesized that young males might&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/04/lazy-sea-lion-sons-rely-on-mothers-milk-while-diligent-daughters-learn-to-hunt/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-23897</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Blue-footed boobies on the decline, plummeting sardine stocks may be to blame</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/08/blue-footed-boobies-on-the-decline-plummeting-sardine-stocks-may-be-to-blame/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/08/blue-footed-boobies-on-the-decline-plummeting-sardine-stocks-may-be-to-blame/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Aug 2014 16:40:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Paul Sutherland]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2014/08/blue-footed-boobies-on-the-decline-plummeting-sardine-stocks-may-be-to-blame/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Pacific Ocean, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Birds, Environment, Fish, Green, Oceans, Overfishing, and Population]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Reasons for Galapagos sardine decline not known, scientists suspect overfishing or natural cycle The iconic blue-footed booby (Sula nebouxii) of the Galapagos Islands has suffered a population decline of 50 percent in less than 20 years, according to research conducted by biologists from Wake Forest University. The study, which appeared in the journal Avian Conservation [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Reasons for Galapagos sardine decline not known, scientists suspect overfishing or natural cycle The iconic blue-footed booby (Sula nebouxii) of the Galapagos Islands has suffered a population decline of 50 percent in less than 20 years, according to research conducted by biologists from Wake Forest University. The study, which appeared in the journal Avian Conservation and Ecology, suggests the unexplained disappearance of sardines from the birds’ diet is the primary reason for drop in numbers. Professor Dave Anderson, lead investigator of the study, said that the approximate population of 6,423 boobies in 2012 is less than a third of the population recorded in the 1960s. Despite their population drop, blue-footed boobies (Sula nebouxii) are still listed as Least Concern by the IUCN. Photo by Hans Stieglitz. “It is alarming,” Anderson said. “There has been a drastic change from the 1980s and 1990s, when young blue-foots were common throughout the archipelago. Until 1997 there were literally thousands of boobies at breeding colonies and hundreds of nests full of hatching chicks. Then, suddenly, the boobies weren’t there.” Relatively few booby pairs bred from 2011 to 2013, and almost no juvenile birds were observed during the study. Researchers suspect a lack of sardines, a highly nutritious and previously easy-to-find food source, is the reason the booby population has plummeted. Previous studies conducted at booby colonies show successful breeding occurs only when the birds had a diet consisting almost entirely of sardines. But over the course of the Galapagos study, sardines dropped to less&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2014/08/blue-footed-boobies-on-the-decline-plummeting-sardine-stocks-may-be-to-blame/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-24839</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>&#8216;Hope springs eternal&#8217;: the anniversary of the death of Lonesome George</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/06/hope-springs-eternal-the-anniversary-of-the-death-of-lonesome-george/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/06/hope-springs-eternal-the-anniversary-of-the-death-of-lonesome-george/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Jun 2014 16:19:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2014/06/hope-springs-eternal-the-anniversary-of-the-death-of-lonesome-george/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Pacific Ocean, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Environment, Extinction, Green, Habitat Loss, Reptiles, and Turtles]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Conservation efforts succeed with Galapagos tortoise, half of all turtle species worldwide remain threatened Today marks the two-year anniversary of the death of Lonesome George, the world’s last Pinta Island tortoise. The occasion calls attention to the declines of many turtle and tortoise species, which together form one of the most swiftly disappearing groups of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[Conservation efforts succeed with Galapagos tortoise, half of all turtle species worldwide remain threatened Today marks the two-year anniversary of the death of Lonesome George, the world’s last Pinta Island tortoise. The occasion calls attention to the declines of many turtle and tortoise species, which together form one of the most swiftly disappearing groups of animals on the planet. Since he was discovered in 1972, Lonesome George had always been the last of his kind. Pinta Island tortoises (Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii), a subspecies of Galapagos tortoises, were wiped out when goats were introduced to the island and decimated their food supply. To ensure his survival, Lonesome George was transferred to a research facility on another island. For much of his life, Lonesome George was considered the rarest creature in the world. Photo by Mike Weston. There, he was housed with two females of another subspecies in the hopes of continuing at least part of the legacy of the Pinta Island tortoise. However, no Lonesome George Juniors ever came of their time together. Researchers even offered a reward of $10,000 to anyone who found a viable mate, to no avail. “An attempt was made to have him mate with a close relative but he seemed uninterested,” Eric Goode, founder of the Turtle Conservancy, told mongabay.com. Turtles and tortoises are an ancient line of animals that stretches back more than 200 million years, to before the appearance of lizards, snakes, crocodiles, and even dinosaurs. As a group, they have survived multiple mass&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2014/06/hope-springs-eternal-the-anniversary-of-the-death-of-lonesome-george/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-25038</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Galapagos sea lions threatened by human exposure</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2013/07/galapagos-sea-lions-threatened-by-human-exposure/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2013/07/galapagos-sea-lions-threatened-by-human-exposure/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Jul 2013 21:07:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hannah Lindstrom]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Tiffany Roufs]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2013/07/galapagos-sea-lions-threatened-by-human-exposure/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador and Galapagos]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Environment, Green, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Mammals, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A recent study conducted by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) on endangered Galapagos sea lions (Zalophus wollebaeki) has revealed that the animals are more susceptible to starvation as a result of their exposure to humans. Over a span of more than 18 months, conservationists tagged and monitored the behavior and physiology of two groups [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A recent study conducted by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) on endangered Galapagos sea lions (Zalophus wollebaeki) has revealed that the animals are more susceptible to starvation as a result of their exposure to humans. Over a span of more than 18 months, conservationists tagged and monitored the behavior and physiology of two groups of 60 Galapagos sea lions, one in San Cristobal, which is inhabited by humans, and one in Santa Fe, where there are no humans, dogs, cats, mice, or rats. The study has shown that exposure to human influences such as pets and pollution can impair the animal’s level of immunity, making them less able to hunt and more likely to go hungry when food is scarce. “The immune systems of San Cristobel sea lions were more active, perhaps indicating a threat of infectious disease, which could mean human activity is increasing the chance of potentially dangerous diseases emerging in the Galapagos sea lion,” said ZSL’s Paddy Brock. “A tell-tale sign of an unhealthy sea lion is a thinner than normal layer of blubber, which is what we saw in the sea lions on San Cristobal. This was all the more notable, as we didn’t notice these patterns in sea lions on Santa Fe, where they live without the presence of people or pets.” Galapagos sea lion and a pup. Photo credit: ZSL_Paddy Brock. People continue to import pets regularly to the Galapagos in spite of laws put in place to protect the unique wildlife of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2013/07/galapagos-sea-lions-threatened-by-human-exposure/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-26651</doi>				</item>
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