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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/camera-trapping/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 18:49:30 +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>News on Camera Trapping</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/camera-trapping/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Telling one guiña from another: It’s all about the angle</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/telling-one-guina-from-another-its-all-about-the-angle/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/telling-one-guina-from-another-its-all-about-the-angle/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Jun 2026 11:30:52 +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/20/2026/06/29111809/Image_1-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321977</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Argentina, Chile, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Cats, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Monitoring, Research, Small Cats, Species, Surveying, Threatened species, Tracking, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Guiña are small-forest-dwelling felids found in Chile and Argentina that are distinguished only by small, subtle black dots, making it difficult to tell one cat from another. A change in camera trap angle could open the door to a better understanding of their populations, with important conservation implications, a recent study says. Normally, researchers place camera [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Guiña are small-forest-dwelling felids found in Chile and Argentina that are distinguished only by small, subtle black dots, making it difficult to tell one cat from another. A change in camera trap angle could open the door to a better understanding of their populations, with important conservation implications, a recent study says. Normally, researchers place camera traps at ground level to snap pictures of cats as they walk by. But telling one guiña (Leopardus guigna) from another from that angle proved incredibly challenging. “One of the fundamental questions in ecology is always how many individuals are there or what are the densities,” Nicholas Galvez, an associate professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, told Mongabay in an interview. “Sometimes that sounds like a very easy question, but it&#8217;s actually really difficult to answer in the field, especially with a species so small and cryptic.” To solve that problem, Galvez and his team switched their cameras to point downward, in a “zenith” position, attaching them to tree branches and poles in a temperate forest in Chile&#8217;s Reñihué Valley, in northern Patagonia. That switch enabled the scientists to identify 12 individuals based on their unique markings on their backs. The findings were published in the journal Oryx. Ilaria Agostini, a researcher with Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council, said it’s exciting research. “For the first time, it seems feasible to identify individuals in this very subtly marked cat,” she said in a video interview. When using camera traps for her own&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/telling-one-guina-from-another-its-all-about-the-angle/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/telling-one-guina-from-another-its-all-about-the-angle/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321977</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How snow leopards, wolves and leopards share the same Himalayan valley, study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-snow-leopards-wolves-and-leopards-share-the-same-himalayan-valley-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-snow-leopards-wolves-and-leopards-share-the-same-himalayan-valley-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Jun 2026 15:54:22 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/11/10052813/himalayan-wolf-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321933</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia and Nepal]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, Camera Trapping, Cats, Cattle, Charismatic Animals, Climate Change, Conservation, Habitat, Habitat Loss, Leopards, Livestock, Mammals, Snow Leopards, Threatened species, Ungulates, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Three of Asia’s most formidable predators share territory in a remote Nepal valley by eating different prey, according to a new study. Researchers found that diet, not time or space, is what keeps snow leopards (Panthera uncia), common leopards (Panthera pardus), and Himalayan wolves (Canis lupus chanco) from coming into direct conflict. The study, published [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Three of Asia’s most formidable predators share territory in a remote Nepal valley by eating different prey, according to a new study. Researchers found that diet, not time or space, is what keeps snow leopards (Panthera uncia), common leopards (Panthera pardus), and Himalayan wolves (Canis lupus chanco) from coming into direct conflict. The study, published in PLOS One, drew on more than six years of camera-trapping and scat analysis in the Lapchi Valley of the Gaurishankar Conservation Area in Nepal’ s central Himalayas. Researchers set 26 cameras across the landscape over three survey periods between 2018 and 2025 and identified each predator&#8217;s diet by analyzing fecal DNA and examining prey hair under a microscope. Blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur) are an important food source for the snow leopards in Nepal. Photo courtesy of Narayan Koju. Snow leopards, they found, fed mainly on wild ungulates, including blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur), musk deer (Moschus leucogaster), Himalayan tahr (Hemitragus jemlahicus), and Himalayan serow (Capricornis sumatraensis). Blue sheep alone made up nearly half their diet. Himalayan wolves ate a mix of wild prey like blue sheep and musk deer as well as livestock such as goats, horses, and yaks (Bos grunniens). Leopards relied heavily on livestock and animals associated with human settlements, including dogs, though barking deer (Muntiacus muntjak) and goral (Naemorhedus goral) also appeared in their scats. Snow leopards and wolves shared roughly three-quarters of their prey, far more than either shared with leopards. Of the three, snow leopards had the narrowest diet, concentrating&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-snow-leopards-wolves-and-leopards-share-the-same-himalayan-valley-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-snow-leopards-wolves-and-leopards-share-the-same-himalayan-valley-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321933</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Bangladesh, scientists learn what happens after rescued pangolins return to the wild</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-bangladesh-scientists-learn-what-happens-after-rescued-pangolins-return-to-the-wild/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-bangladesh-scientists-learn-what-happens-after-rescued-pangolins-return-to-the-wild/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Jun 2026 02:00:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/05082005/Banner-1_Camera-trap-image-of-one-of-the-radio-tagged-pangolins-released-into-Lawachara-National-Park.-Image-courtesy-of-Creative-Conservation-Alliance-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320632</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Bangladesh, China, Myanmar, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Critically Endangered Species, Illegal Trade, Mammals, Research, Wildlife, Wildlife Rehabilitation, Wildlife Trade, Wildlife Trafficking, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In a forest reserve in northeastern Bangladesh, two Chinese pangolins rescued from trafficking have been given a second chance at life in the wild. As poaching pushes the critically endangered species toward extinction, the releases aim to do more than boost flagging local populations. With the help of tiny radio transmitters, scientists are tracking each [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In a forest reserve in northeastern Bangladesh, two Chinese pangolins rescued from trafficking have been given a second chance at life in the wild. As poaching pushes the critically endangered species toward extinction, the releases aim to do more than boost flagging local populations. With the help of tiny radio transmitters, scientists are tracking each individual to learn about their survival, movements and behavior. Equipped with an armor-plated body, elongated snout and sticky tongue the length of their body, Chinese pangolins (Manis pentadactyla) are beautifully adapted to a life spent grubbing out ant and termite nests and resting in burrows dug into the forest floor. However, like all eight of the world’s known pangolin species, Chinese pangolins are among the most trafficked mammals on Earth. They’re plucked from forests across their range to feed an illegal trade driven by demand in China and Vietnam for pangolin meat, and scales and other body parts used in traditional medicines. While no global population counts exist, the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, classifies the species as critically endangered, due to the combined threats of poaching, habitat loss and deforestation. High poaching rates in China in the late 20th century caused local extinctions, displacing hunting pressure to other parts of the species’ range, which spans from northern India and Nepal, through Bangladesh and northern parts of Southeast Asia to southern China and Taiwan. Yet very little is known about the species in many countries, including Bangladesh, says Shahriar Caesar Rahman, co-founder and CEO&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-bangladesh-scientists-learn-what-happens-after-rescued-pangolins-return-to-the-wild/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-bangladesh-scientists-learn-what-happens-after-rescued-pangolins-return-to-the-wild/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320632</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Most wildlife AI focuses on the ground. This model looks up in the trees</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/most-wildlife-ai-focuses-on-the-ground-this-model-looks-up-in-the-trees/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/most-wildlife-ai-focuses-on-the-ground-this-model-looks-up-in-the-trees/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 May 2026 06:46:16 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhishyant Kidangoor]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhishyantkidangoor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/28053452/Saimiri_sciureus-1_Luc_Viatour-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320225</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Central America, Costa Rica, French Guiana, Latin America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Artificial Intelligence, Birds, Camera Trapping, Conservation, data, Deforestation, Ecosystems, Environment, Forests, Mammals, Primates, Research, Seed Dispersal, Species, Technology, Trees, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[When it comes to decoding camera-trap images, artificial intelligence has become all the rage, especially for terrestrial animals, or those that dwell on the ground. But for more evasive species living high up in trees, the technology is still lacking. A newly developed AI model aims to fill that gap. TropiCam-AI was developed to detect [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[When it comes to decoding camera-trap images, artificial intelligence has become all the rage, especially for terrestrial animals, or those that dwell on the ground. But for more evasive species living high up in trees, the technology is still lacking. A newly developed AI model aims to fill that gap. TropiCam-AI was developed to detect and identify arboreal, or tree-dwelling, species in a part of the world where they abound: the tropical forests of the Americas. Scientists built the model to address the voids that exist in identifying arboreal mammals and birds. “We set up TropiCam-AI with the objective of developing a tool that is specifically meant for neotropical camera-trapping surveys targeting the canopy,” Andrea Zampetti, lead author of the study and Ph.D. candidate in animal biology at the Sapienza University of Rome, told Mongabay in a video interview. Zampetti’s work was done in collaboration with the TROPECOLNET project at the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid, led by Ana Benítez-López. Arboreal species play a key role in ecosystems. They serve as important seed dispersers, with studies finding that primates, small mammals and birds consume up to 90% of plant species in tropical rainforests. However, these are tree-dependent species that, by their very nature, are especially threatened by deforestation, underscoring the need to study, track and monitor them for conservation purposes. A study published earlier this year by Zampetti and colleagues notes that “arboreal camera trapping remains severely underrepresented compared to AI trained on terrestrial images.” AI models for&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/most-wildlife-ai-focuses-on-the-ground-this-model-looks-up-in-the-trees/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/most-wildlife-ai-focuses-on-the-ground-this-model-looks-up-in-the-trees/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320225</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study gathers over 4,000 photos to find Bolivia’s rarest Amazonian dog</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/study-gathers-over-4000-photos-to-find-bolivias-rarest-amazonian-dog/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/study-gathers-over-4000-photos-to-find-bolivias-rarest-amazonian-dog/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 May 2026 15:04:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Iván Paredes Tamayo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/18165630/perro-fantasma-banner-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319657</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Canids, Conservation, Environment, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Mammals, Research, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Images obtained over a two-decade study suggest that a mysterious dog native to the Bolivian Amazon could be more abundant than previously believed.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[It has a fox-like snout, webbed toes and a thick tail. It’s called the short-eared dog (Atelocynus microtis), but also the ghost dog (perro fantasma in Spanish) in Bolivia, and the Amazonian dog. It’s one of the world’s least-known canids and one of the least frequently sighted carnivores in Latin America. Now, though, a study conducted over the course of more than two decades — from 2001 to 2024 — in Bolivia has revealed more than 4,600 camera-trap images that show how it lives, the places it inhabits, and why this species is so dependent on South America’s forests remaining intact to survive. The research underscores that the ghost dog is very much an Amazonian species, and in particular a forest one. In Bolivia, it can be spotted in the country’s continuous Amazonian forests, in the northern portion of the department of La Paz, but also in the department of Pando, in northern and northeastern Beni, and in the far north and northeast of Santa Cruz. It’s also found in the pre-Amazonian forests of the Andes mountain range, also called piedmont forests, at elevations up to 750 meters (2,460 feet). Robert Wallace, a British biologist from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Bolivia and a co-author of the new study, said the team conducted a systematic review of published and unpublished distribution records of the species in Bolivia. Throughout the 23 years, they also carried out 34 intensive camera-trap surveys in the lowland areas of the Greater Madidi-Tambopata Landscape (in&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/study-gathers-over-4000-photos-to-find-bolivias-rarest-amazonian-dog/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/study-gathers-over-4000-photos-to-find-bolivias-rarest-amazonian-dog/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319657</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Rare, high-altitude jaguar sighting in Honduras raises hope for conservation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/rare-high-altitude-jaguar-sighting-in-honduras-raises-hope-for-conservation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/rare-high-altitude-jaguar-sighting-in-honduras-raises-hope-for-conservation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Apr 2026 18:44:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/27151446/IMG_0172-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318205</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Central America, Honduras, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Cats, Conservation, Environment, Jaguars, Mammals, Predators, Research, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[High in the Sierra del Merendón mountains in Honduras, a jaguar has been photographed at 2,200 meters, or about 7,200 feet — an unusually lofty elevation for a species that usually sticks to lowland forests and wetlands. Jaguars (Panthera onca) are typically found below 1,000 m (3,300 ft), making high-elevation sightings so unusual that scientists [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[High in the Sierra del Merendón mountains in Honduras, a jaguar has been photographed at 2,200 meters, or about 7,200 feet — an unusually lofty elevation for a species that usually sticks to lowland forests and wetlands. Jaguars (Panthera onca) are typically found below 1,000 m (3,300 ft), making high-elevation sightings so unusual that scientists have coined a term for the big cats spotted here: cloud jaguars. Seeing jaguars at this elevation is very rare, said Allison Devlin, who directs the jaguar program for U.S.-based wildcat conservation NGO Panthera. “The fact that they&#8217;re able to travel through these high elevation areas also shows how resilient they are.” The jaguar, a healthy-looking young male, was photographed by camera traps on Feb. 6 this year — almost 10 years to the day, and in the same location, where camera traps captured the first recorded glimpse of an elusive cloud jaguar in the Sierra del Merendón. The mountains form an important corridor between Honduras and Guatemala, linking the jaguar’s historical range, which spans 18 countries across the Americas, running from Mexico to Argentina. As apex predators, jaguars play a key role in the ecosystem by keeping prey populations healthy and balanced, and in helping prevent zoonotic diseases that jump between species and can infect humans. But like all wild cats, they face multiple threats. Once-intact forests are being felled to make way for human settlements, plantations, ranches, mines and other developments. Climate change is also taking a toll: Forest fires are scorching wetlands&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/rare-high-altitude-jaguar-sighting-in-honduras-raises-hope-for-conservation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318205</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Plenty of biodiversity data, but too few conservation answers</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/plenty-of-biodiversity-data-but-too-few-conservation-answers/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/plenty-of-biodiversity-data-but-too-few-conservation-answers/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Mar 2026 13:52:13 +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/20/2026/03/25112058/car_6969z-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316240</guid>

					
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Camera Trapping, Conservation, Conservation Technology, DNA, Environment, Monitoring, Remote Sensing, Satellite Imagery, Technology, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#160; For decades, conservation has depended on a deceptively simple act: counting. Scientists tally birds along migration routes, measure forest cover from satellites, or track wildlife populations through camera traps. These numbers underpin the decisions that shape environmental policy, from protected-area planning to international biodiversity targets. Yet the system that produces them is changing quickly, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&nbsp; For decades, conservation has depended on a deceptively simple act: counting. Scientists tally birds along migration routes, measure forest cover from satellites, or track wildlife populations through camera traps. These numbers underpin the decisions that shape environmental policy, from protected-area planning to international biodiversity targets. Yet the system that produces them is changing quickly, and not always coherently. A recent PNAS perspective led by William Sutherland and dozens of collaborators argues that biodiversity measurement is entering a pivotal moment. The tools used to monitor nature have expanded dramatically, while demand for reliable data has grown across governments, businesses and international agreements. The authors argue that making use of this expanding stream of biodiversity data will require changes not only in technology but also in how evidence is organized, shared, and interpreted. Nine changes needed to deliver a radical transformation in biodiversity measurement. Adapted from Sutherland et al (2026) The scale of data collection alone illustrates the shift. Global biodiversity databases now incorporate millions of observations from citizen scientists, museum collections, environmental DNA sampling and automated sensors. The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), for example, adds hundreds of millions of species records each year, drawn from sources as varied as birdwatching apps and environmental impact assessments. In principle, this abundance opens new possibilities. Environmental DNA allows researchers to detect species from traces left in soil or water. Acoustic sensors can record entire soundscapes, with machine-learning systems identifying species calls automatically. Remote sensing tracks deforestation and habitat change in near real&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/plenty-of-biodiversity-data-but-too-few-conservation-answers/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/plenty-of-biodiversity-data-but-too-few-conservation-answers/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316240</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Thailand, old camera-trap photos shed new light on Asian tapirs</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/in-thailand-old-camera-trap-photos-shed-new-light-on-asian-tapirs/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/in-thailand-old-camera-trap-photos-shed-new-light-on-asian-tapirs/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Feb 2026 23:06:36 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/23130817/a.-%C2%A9Royle-Safaris-Malayan-tapir-1-e1771852183468-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=314643</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Southeast Asia, and Thailand]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Environment, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Mammals, Research, Snares, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Researchers in Thailand have used archived camera-trapping data to identify a stronghold for Asian tapirs in the Khlong Saeng–Khao Sok Forest Complex, a lush network of protected areas in the country’s southern Surat Thani province. The new study, led by Wyatt Petersen, a biologist at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi in Thailand, and published [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Researchers in Thailand have used archived camera-trapping data to identify a stronghold for Asian tapirs in the Khlong Saeng–Khao Sok Forest Complex, a lush network of protected areas in the country’s southern Surat Thani province. The new study, led by Wyatt Petersen, a biologist at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi in Thailand, and published in the journal Mammalian Biology, shows how camera-trap “bycatch” data — images of nontarget species — can be used to monitor tapirs (Tapirus indicus). To date, tapirs have mostly been surveyed using visual transects, in which researchers walk along a predefined path through the forest and count any tapirs they can spot along the way. The Asian tapir, sometimes also called the Malayan tapir, is the largest of the world’s four tapir species and the only one found outside Latin America. It ranges from southern Myanmar and Thailand to Sumatra and is considered endangered, with fewer than 2,500 mature individuals remaining, according to the latest assessment conducted in 2014 for the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. Boldly black-and-white patterned adult tapirs can weigh up to 350 kilograms (772 pounds), whereas the more discrete brown coats of calves are flecked with white, perfectly camouflaging them against the dappled light of the forest floor. As nocturnal understory specialists, they have stubbornly thick hides to protect them against scrubby thorns, and a protruding prehensile snout for gathering foliage and fruits that doubles as a “snorkel” while rummaging underwater for aquatic plants. Although Asian tapirs are preyed on&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/in-thailand-old-camera-trap-photos-shed-new-light-on-asian-tapirs/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-314643</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Tech alone won’t stop poaching, but it’s changing how rangers work</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/tech-alone-wont-stop-poaching-but-its-changing-how-rangers-work/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/tech-alone-wont-stop-poaching-but-its-changing-how-rangers-work/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Dec 2025 00:06:15 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Daniella Garcia Almeida]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/18235740/GG_2022_0073-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311687</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Southern Africa, and Zambia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Artificial Intelligence, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Environment, Green, Remote Sensing, Technology, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[As anti-poaching techniques have improved over the years, poachers have increasingly used technology to evade detection by patrols and park rangers. Now, conservationists are rising to the challenge of the resulting technological arms race with innovations of their own. Over the past few years, researchers and conservationists have worked to develop new technology to detect [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[As anti-poaching techniques have improved over the years, poachers have increasingly used technology to evade detection by patrols and park rangers. Now, conservationists are rising to the challenge of the resulting technological arms race with innovations of their own. Over the past few years, researchers and conservationists have worked to develop new technology to detect and track poaching, including mobile apps, sensors, and AI. In an effort to determine which devices, strategies, and technologies are most effective, researchers assessed a suite of new developments that have been deployed or hold promise, in a recent study published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. “There&#8217;s all these tools out there to try and push back against something that is increasingly well financed, increasingly organized and difficult to combat,” said study co-author Drew Cronin, a conservation biologist at the North Carolina Zoo. Leopard sitting in a tree on the Mara North Conservancy in Kenya&#8217;s Maasai Mara. Photo Credit: Maria Meinen. The researchers found that mobile devices and apps are especially cost-effective for documenting poaching and for mapping the location of wildlife. Many useful apps have been developed, including WildScan, which contains a library of photos and descriptions of protected species that can help law enforcement and transport workers identify illegal wildlife trafficking. Acoustic sensors are already frequently deployed to non-invasively detect and monitor the presence of animals. This technology has gotten better and less expensive in recent years, making it an effective way to monitor vast areas for sounds like gunshots and chainsaws&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/tech-alone-wont-stop-poaching-but-its-changing-how-rangers-work/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/tech-alone-wont-stop-poaching-but-its-changing-how-rangers-work/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311687</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Peru, community-led camera trapping boosts conservation and ecotourism</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-peru-community-led-camera-trapping-boosts-conservation-and-ecotourism/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-peru-community-led-camera-trapping-boosts-conservation-and-ecotourism/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Dec 2025 20:55:22 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Astrid Arellano]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/16152944/Macoy-Zapata-13-cover2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311474</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Latin America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Animals, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Ecotourism, Forests, Wetlands, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Tingana Conservation Concession sits in the center of a unique wetland in the Alto Mayo Basin, the highest swamp in Peru with Amazonian characteristics. In its flooded forest, native moriche palms (Mauritia flexuosa, known in Peru as aguaje) and renaco trees (Ficus trigona) resist the pressure of rice crops, which are expanding around the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Tingana Conservation Concession sits in the center of a unique wetland in the Alto Mayo Basin, the highest swamp in Peru with Amazonian characteristics. In its flooded forest, native moriche palms (Mauritia flexuosa, known in Peru as aguaje) and renaco trees (Ficus trigona) resist the pressure of rice crops, which are expanding around the protected area. An association of local families has been working to transform and protect the reserve’s habitat. In 2023, they began using camera traps to monitor its biodiversity “The cameras are our eyes in the forest,” says Julio César Tello, head of research at the Association for the Conservation of Alto Mayo Aguajales and Renacales (Adecaram), the community organization that has managed the area since 2004. “They are eyes that warn us and give us information.” Adecaram members install camera traps to monitor biodiversity in the Tingana Conservation Concession. Image courtesy of Macoy Zapata. Adecaram, in collaboration with Conservation International Peru, has installed eight camera traps so far, which have recorded the presence of 66 species over the past two years. These include wildcats like the jaguarundi (Herpailurus yagouaroundi) and margay (Leopardus wiedii), neotropical otter (Lontra longicaudis), capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) and razor-billed curassow (Mitu tuberosum), a bird once was thought locally extinct. Dino Cabrera, the Adecaram project director, told Mongabay Latam the images have broadened scientific knowledge of the area, as well as raised awareness among local communities and tourists about the importance of preserving and protecting the habitat. “Within the many activities we carry&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-peru-community-led-camera-trapping-boosts-conservation-and-ecotourism/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311474</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Hope for tigers grows as Thailand safeguards a key link in their habitat</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/hope-for-tigers-grows-as-thailand-safeguards-a-key-link-in-their-habitat/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/hope-for-tigers-grows-as-thailand-safeguards-a-key-link-in-their-habitat/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Dec 2025 16:14:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gloria Dickie]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/15160553/SWT001F_KSR_LTM54_a_2025-07-07_19-00_b-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311364</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Southeast Asia, and Thailand]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Camera Trapping, Cats, Conservation, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Habitat, Habitat Loss, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Hunting, Mammals, Poaching, Tigers, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KANCHANABURI, Thailand — Following the path of the tiger isn’t easy. Yet the three rangers, clad in camouflage, move lithely through the steep bamboo thicket, tracking the muddy hoofprints of a sambar deer. Out of the snagging vines, they emerge on a forested ridgeline overlooking a landscape that swells and shrinks in watercolor hues of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KANCHANABURI, Thailand — Following the path of the tiger isn’t easy. Yet the three rangers, clad in camouflage, move lithely through the steep bamboo thicket, tracking the muddy hoofprints of a sambar deer. Out of the snagging vines, they emerge on a forested ridgeline overlooking a landscape that swells and shrinks in watercolor hues of indigo. A breeze rustles the stone oak trees as the sound of grasshoppers pierces the silence. It’s easy to imagine the tiger slinking confidently across this terrain, the master of its Thai kingdom. Another 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) down the ridge, the rangers stop in a small clearing. Members of Panthera, a wildcat conservation NGO, pull out a toolkit to check two camera traps. It was here, in early 2024, that a camera picked up a female Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti) moving through this protected corridor known as Si Sawat. She had never been detected in any other protected area. Maybe, they say, the tiger will have returned in the past three months. But the camera’s memory card reveals only smaller species: a leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) and an Asian golden cat (Catopuma temminckii), as well as a porcupine (Hystrix brachyura) and a pig-tailed macaque (Macaca leonina). Still, the team is in good spirits. Hopefully, they say, the tiger has taken up residency to the south, in Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary. After all, this swath of forest is too small to support a large tiger population — maybe four, at best. Yet as a corridor,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/hope-for-tigers-grows-as-thailand-safeguards-a-key-link-in-their-habitat/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311364</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Reforestation and wild pig decline spark surge in miniature deer in Singapore</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/reforestation-and-wild-pig-decline-spark-surge-in-miniature-deer-in-singapore/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/reforestation-and-wild-pig-decline-spark-surge-in-miniature-deer-in-singapore/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Dec 2025 18:02:52 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/08175216/Banner_GMD-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=310790</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Singapore, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Diseases, Ecosystems, Environment, Forest Recovery, Forests, Green, Islands, Mammals, Reforestation, Research, Restoration, Ungulates, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Rabbit-sized, nocturnal and elusive, the greater mouse-deer hadn’t been seen in Singapore for more than 80 years. Researchers long presumed it was locally extinct. In 2008, however, researchers confirmed sightings of the pint-sized ungulates, Tragulus napu, on Pulau Ubin, a 10-square-kilometer (4-square-mile) island in the Johor Strait that separates Singapore’s main island from Peninsular Malaysia [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Rabbit-sized, nocturnal and elusive, the greater mouse-deer hadn’t been seen in Singapore for more than 80 years. Researchers long presumed it was locally extinct. In 2008, however, researchers confirmed sightings of the pint-sized ungulates, Tragulus napu, on Pulau Ubin, a 10-square-kilometer (4-square-mile) island in the Johor Strait that separates Singapore’s main island from Peninsular Malaysia to the north. The team quickly set up a monitoring program to learn more about the small population. They expected to see numbers slowly recover as new suitable habitats became available thanks to ongoing forest restoration programs on the island. But the scale of what they recorded over the next 15 years astonished them. “I had to perform the analyses multiple times and check my data to be sure there was no mistake,” Marcus Chua, curator of mammals at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum at the National University of Singapore, told Mongabay. In a new study published in Biological Conservation, Chua and his colleagues document a fivefold increase in the population density of greater mouse-deer on Pulau Ubin between 2009 and 2024. By 2024, the mouse-deer population density was three times higher than previously recorded anywhere in the species’ range. While the rehabilitation of forest habitats will have given the mouse-deer an initial boost, the researchers conclude the most dramatic surge was triggered by the outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) in 2023. The virus, which is infectious and deadly to wild and domestic pigs, wiped out more than 98% of Singapore’s wild&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/reforestation-and-wild-pig-decline-spark-surge-in-miniature-deer-in-singapore/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-310790</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Ecuador’s Yasuní, cameras reveal the wild neighbors visitors rarely see</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-ecuadors-yasuni-cameras-reveal-the-wild-neighbors-visitors-rarely-see/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-ecuadors-yasuni-cameras-reveal-the-wild-neighbors-visitors-rarely-see/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Dec 2025 10:28:24 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ana Cristina Alvarado]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/02102105/jaguar-portada-enhanced-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=310427</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Indigenous Peoples, Technology, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador’s northern Amazon is home to some of the most biodiverse areas on the planet, including Yasuní National Park. But visitors are rarely able to see iconic large mammals like deer, lowland tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) or the mythic jaguar (Panthera onca). In the middle of the dense jungle, the only tangible evidence of these creatures [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador’s northern Amazon is home to some of the most biodiverse areas on the planet, including Yasuní National Park. But visitors are rarely able to see iconic large mammals like deer, lowland tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) or the mythic jaguar (Panthera onca). In the middle of the dense jungle, the only tangible evidence of these creatures is usually their tracks. However, the Sani Lodge, a community-run ecotourism venture in Yasuní, is deploying camera traps to document wildcats, rodents, primates and other mammals that share the same paths as humans — and are closer than they seem. “The footage shows that the animals are watching and listening to us,” says Javier Hualinga, a naturalist guide and former manager of the Sani Isla Kichwa community tourism project, which sits inside the national park and south of Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. Covering 31,000 hectares (76,000 acres), the Sani Lodge is owned and run by the Indigenous Kichwa community. Even for Hualinga — who uses his honed senses to find monkeys 40 meters (130 feet) up in the trees, amphibians camouflaged between leaves, and insects disguised as branches — locating a wildcat is like looking for a needle in a haystack. For this reason, the camera-trap project is an opportunity to show clients the wildlife they help to preserve with their visit. Wildcats like pumas often approach and investigate the camera traps. Image courtesy of fStop Foundation. Sani Lodge, which opened in 2002, has become a buffer against oil exploitation, the advance of the agricultural frontier,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-ecuadors-yasuni-cameras-reveal-the-wild-neighbors-visitors-rarely-see/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-310427</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Asian golden cat range expands, but declines continue amid rising threats</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/asian-golden-cat-range-expands-but-declines-continue-amid-rising-threats/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/asian-golden-cat-range-expands-but-declines-continue-amid-rising-threats/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Nov 2025 15:45:14 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/07124346/Image_2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=309032</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Almost Famous Animals]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Animals, Camera Trapping, Cats, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Forest Fragmentation, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Predators, Research, Small Cats, Snares, Species, Tropical Deforestation, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A single camera trap image of an Asian golden cat, photographed in Nepal&#8217;s Jajarkot district, has expanded this felid species’ range westward by nearly 400 kilometers (248 miles). Out of nearly 60,000 camera trap images snapped in 2024 in the district, this elusive cat showed itself just once. It’s likely, says Badri Baral, program coordinator [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A single camera trap image of an Asian golden cat, photographed in Nepal&#8217;s Jajarkot district, has expanded this felid species’ range westward by nearly 400 kilometers (248 miles). Out of nearly 60,000 camera trap images snapped in 2024 in the district, this elusive cat showed itself just once. It’s likely, says Badri Baral, program coordinator with Nature Conservation Initiative Nepal, that more Asian golden cats could be found between Jajarkot and the Gaurishankar Conservation Area, an area until recently believed to mark the felid’s farthest westward distribution. This positive news about the elusive wildcat, which dwells in forests across South and Southeast Asia, comes at nearly the same time as bad news, as its IUCN status went from near threatened to vulnerable. A single camera trap image of an Asian golden cat from Jajarkot, has extended its range by nearly 400 kilometers westward in Nepal. Image courtesy of Badri Baral/NCI-Nepal. Researchers say the Asian golden cat (Catopuma temminckii) was likely once abundant across its range. That’s not the case today, with numbers thinned and populations lost due to an excess of threats including deforestation, snaring, and retaliatory killings. Those risks, along with more accurate occurrence and population data featured in IUCN’s 2023 species assessment, are behind the revised threat status. The shift to vulnerable “represents a genuine concern,” says Thomas Gray, Tiger Landscape and Recovery Lead with the WWF Tigers Alive Initiative, who was part of the assessment team. The new IUCN listing also highlights the challenges of assigning a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/asian-golden-cat-range-expands-but-declines-continue-amid-rising-threats/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/asian-golden-cat-range-expands-but-declines-continue-amid-rising-threats/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-309032</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Counting kings: How annual lion surveys reveal the health of Africa’s protected areas (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/counting-kings-how-annual-lion-surveys-reveal-the-health-of-africas-protected-areas/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/counting-kings-how-annual-lion-surveys-reveal-the-health-of-africas-protected-areas/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Sep 2025 02:45:27 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jon Ayers]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/29020659/south_africa_kruger_0297z-25-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306701</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Carnivores, Cats, Commentary, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Conservation Technology, Environment, Green, Lions, Mammals, Predators, Solutions, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[On a dawn drive through a savannah reserve in Zambia, a ranger slows the truck and points to a faint trail in the dust. It is not the spoor of an antelope or a stray cow. It is the print of a lioness moving with her cubs toward a waterhole. In another era, such sightings [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[On a dawn drive through a savannah reserve in Zambia, a ranger slows the truck and points to a faint trail in the dust. It is not the spoor of an antelope or a stray cow. It is the print of a lioness moving with her cubs toward a waterhole. In another era, such sightings were a matter of pride and anecdote. Today, they are data points. Each paw print, each camera image, and each confirmed pride member feeds into a growing network of annual lion surveys across sub-Saharan Africa. Those surveys are telling managers and funders something that budgets and patrol logs cannot: whether protected areas are holding their ground or slipping. Lions are more than charismatic megafauna. They are architects of ecosystem dynamics in the savannah food web, shaping the balance of species and the landscapes they inhabit. One apex predator can influence hundreds of plant and animal species by shaping grazing pressure, predator competition, and the movement of prey. When lions vanish, the balance frays. Herbivores boom or crash, vegetation shifts, and even fire regimes change. Reintroductions rarely restore the original equilibrium. In ecological terms, the “king” is a keystone. Lions in South Africa. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler That makes lions a uniquely revealing indicator of management effectiveness. Unlike rare endemics confined to a single park, lions occur naturally in a number of Africa’s large protected areas. Unlike elephants, whose numbers can mask habitat degradation, lions decline quickly when prey is overhunted or corridors are severed.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/counting-kings-how-annual-lion-surveys-reveal-the-health-of-africas-protected-areas/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/counting-kings-how-annual-lion-surveys-reveal-the-health-of-africas-protected-areas/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-306701</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Turning camera traps into real-time sentinels: Interview with Conservation X Lab’s Dante Wasmuht</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/turning-camera-traps-into-real-time-sentinels-interview-with-conservation-x-labs-dante-wasmuht/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/turning-camera-traps-into-real-time-sentinels-interview-with-conservation-x-labs-dante-wasmuht/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Sep 2025 12:04:27 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhishyant Kidangoor]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhishyantkidangoor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/25114621/camera-trap-puma-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306567</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global and New Zealand]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Artificial Intelligence, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Conservation, Conservation Technology, data, Environment, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Monitoring, NGOs, Research, Technology, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Camera traps are ubiquitous in conservation. They’re deployed to monitor biodiversity, study animal behavior, observe habitats over long periods of time, and enforce effective conservation action on the ground. However, they have an inherent shortcoming that’s especially prominent in remote locations like dense forests and cut-off islands. “They&#8217;re largely passive. People put them out and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Camera traps are ubiquitous in conservation. They’re deployed to monitor biodiversity, study animal behavior, observe habitats over long periods of time, and enforce effective conservation action on the ground. However, they have an inherent shortcoming that’s especially prominent in remote locations like dense forests and cut-off islands. “They&#8217;re largely passive. People put them out and then half a year later, or a year later, they go and collect this,” Dante Wasmuht, head of artificial intelligence at the nonprofit Conservation X Labs, tells Mongabay in a video interview. “From the moment something happens in that area until a human knows about it, a lot of time can pass.” To address this issue and encourage early intervention, Conservation X Labs has developed an AI-powered tool that can be attached to camera traps to provide real-time updates on what’s happening in the forests. “It’s as if that camera is connected to a small computer which is the Sentinel,” Wasmuht says. “Whenever the camera trap takes a picture, the Sentinel knows and transfers the image onto its inner computer chip and can run all those AI models completely locally right there in the field.” The Sentinel has been deployed in various countries to track invasive species, monitor wildlife poaching, and keep an eye on threatened animals. In New Zealand, more than 80 Sentinel devices have been used to monitor invasive species on remote islands. On Ulva Island, for example, the device played a critical role in detecting invasive rats that were wreaking havoc on&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/turning-camera-traps-into-real-time-sentinels-interview-with-conservation-x-labs-dante-wasmuht/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/turning-camera-traps-into-real-time-sentinels-interview-with-conservation-x-labs-dante-wasmuht/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-306567</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Saving polar bears and beluga whales: Interview with Alysa McCall</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/saving-polar-bears-and-beluga-whales-interview-with-alysa-mccall/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/saving-polar-bears-and-beluga-whales-interview-with-alysa-mccall/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Jul 2025 11:44:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhishyant Kidangoor]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhishyantkidangoor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/24100407/beluga-whale-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=303115</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Arctic Ocean, Canada, and North America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Conservation, Conservation Technology, data, Endangered Species, Environment, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Mammals, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Marine Mammals, Oceans, Polar Bears, Research, Technology, Whales, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Before pivoting her focus to the Arctic, Alysa McCall worked extensively in the grassland ecosystem. There, the interventions required for ecosystem restoration and wildlife protection were much less complicated. You could introduce more water in case of a scarcity. Or put up a fence to protect animals. The Arctic, however, was a whole other ballgame. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Before pivoting her focus to the Arctic, Alysa McCall worked extensively in the grassland ecosystem. There, the interventions required for ecosystem restoration and wildlife protection were much less complicated. You could introduce more water in case of a scarcity. Or put up a fence to protect animals. The Arctic, however, was a whole other ballgame. “We can&#8217;t grow more ice. We can&#8217;t put a fence up,” McCall, director of conservation outreach and staff scientist at the nonprofit Polar Bears International, told Mongabay in a video interview. “The conservation approaches, management and planning are just so different.” Since then, McCall has worked with her colleagues to study and protect the Arctic and its native species, such as polar bears (Ursus maritimus) and beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas). One of the organization’s long-running projects, called Beluga Cam, uses boats in the Churchill River in Hudson Bay, Canada, to gather footage of the annual migration of about 57,000 beluga whales. The initiative is part of a larger citizen science project that brings people from around the world to help researchers identify belugas from the visuals and make observations about them. This year, the project got an upgrade with the use of a new boat that houses the cameras and other equipment during the course of the migration season. Beluga whales as captured on the Beluga Cam in 2025. Image courtesy of Kieran Mclver. “We have also been able to, over time, actually identify individuals,” McCall said. “To see that whale come year after year&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/saving-polar-bears-and-beluga-whales-interview-with-alysa-mccall/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/saving-polar-bears-and-beluga-whales-interview-with-alysa-mccall/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-303115</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In rare triumph, camera traps snap endangered wildcats in Pakistan</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/in-rare-triumph-camera-traps-snap-endangered-wildcats-in-pakistan/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/in-rare-triumph-camera-traps-snap-endangered-wildcats-in-pakistan/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Jul 2025 17:46:11 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/21133948/Image_1-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=302882</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Pakistan, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Cats, Conservation, Deserts, Ecology, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Mining, Research, Small Cats, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Conservationists snapped images of two small wildcat species in Pakistan earlier this year: an Asiatic caracal (Caracal caracal schimitzi) and a sand cat (Felis margarita) — both which are incredibly rare in the country. Information on both cats in Pakistan is limited, with the sand cat presumed possibly extinct there, according to the IUCN, the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Conservationists snapped images of two small wildcat species in Pakistan earlier this year: an Asiatic caracal (Caracal caracal schimitzi) and a sand cat (Felis margarita) — both which are incredibly rare in the country. Information on both cats in Pakistan is limited, with the sand cat presumed possibly extinct there, according to the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. The camera-trap image of the caracal is “very rare visual evidence of the once widespread but now rapidly declining species,” says Zafeer Ahmed Shaikh, director of the Indus Fishing Cat Project. That image — the first camera-trap record of a caracal in Pakistan, according to Shaikh — came from Kirthar National Park, where the Indus Fishing Cat Project, an NGO, has had cameras set for around four years. The team decided to extend its camera trapping after earlier reports of a caracal crossing a road in broad daylight in the area in January this year. The NGO’s local partners, Qalandar Burfat, Zohaib Ahmed and Ramzan Burfat, set up the trap near a watering hole inside the national park. “There was only one singular video of this male cat from about 400 videos at this particular camera station across a two-week-long period,” Shaikh says. Unfortunately, another sighting included one juvenile cat killed in the national park by local people. These images offer firm evidence that caracals are still present in Pakistan, says Jim Sanderson, founder and director of the Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation. “But, as with most places, we have no&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/in-rare-triumph-camera-traps-snap-endangered-wildcats-in-pakistan/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/in-rare-triumph-camera-traps-snap-endangered-wildcats-in-pakistan/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
					<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/21135505/Image_2_video-2.mp4" length="0" type="video/mp4" />
					<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-302882</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Endangered Andean cat is imperiled by climate change and its solutions</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/endangered-andean-cat-is-imperiled-by-climate-change-and-its-solutions/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/endangered-andean-cat-is-imperiled-by-climate-change-and-its-solutions/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Jul 2025 14:58:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/10042617/Image_1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=302156</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Almost Famous Animals]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Andes, Argentina, Atlantic Forest, Bolivia, Chile, Latin America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Cats, Climate Change, Conservation, DNA, Endangered Species, Environment, Extreme Weather, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Hunting, Lithium, Mammals, Mining, Monitoring, Mountains, Natural Resources, Research, Small Cats, Species, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Many conservationists dedicated to protecting the endangered Andean cat have never seen one in the wild, with the species known to science by just a few photos until the late 1990s. And it took Juan Reppucci, leader of the Andean Cat Alliance’s In the Field 24/7 program, nine years to spot one of these elusive [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Many conservationists dedicated to protecting the endangered Andean cat have never seen one in the wild, with the species known to science by just a few photos until the late 1990s. And it took Juan Reppucci, leader of the Andean Cat Alliance’s In the Field 24/7 program, nine years to spot one of these elusive cats in its natural habitat. The Andean cat (Leopardus jacobita) is one of South America’s most endangered small cat species, roaming the high Andes of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru. About the size of a domestic cat, it resembles a miniature snow leopard. Thick fur and an elongated tail make it well adapted to the harsh alpine environment it calls home and for chasing its favorite prey — vizcacha, a rabbit-resembling rodent — across rocky landscapes. Reppucci’s sighting happened on a very “weird” day, he recalls. While out looking for a radio collar that had fallen from a Pampas cat (L. colocolo) in Jujuy province, Argentina, the researcher’s dog Monty (an ever-present companion and guide on field trips) got spooked by a herd of llamas and went missing. Juan Reppucci and his dog Monty, who acts as both field trip companion and guide for AGA research teams. “If it&#8217;s dark, I follow the dog because he knows the way,” Reppucci says. Image courtesy of AGA. Reppucci walked for hours searching for both the collar and Monty. Eventually he reached a cliff edge and paused to catch his breath. “I was super tired, because I was&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/endangered-andean-cat-is-imperiled-by-climate-change-and-its-solutions/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/endangered-andean-cat-is-imperiled-by-climate-change-and-its-solutions/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-302156</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>First elephant sighting in 6 years sparks hope for species’ return to a Senegal park</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/first-elephant-sighting-in-6-years-sparks-hope-for-species-return-to-a-senegal-park/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/first-elephant-sighting-in-6-years-sparks-hope-for-species-return-to-a-senegal-park/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jun 2025 18:42:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/17113547/glen-michaelsen-4ehsTwKFULI-unsplash-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=300900</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Senegal, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Conservation, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Mammals, Protected Areas, Restoration, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For the first time in six years, an elephant was seen in Senegal’s Niokolo-Koba National Park. Grainy black-and-white footage shows Ousmane, a bull 35 to 40 years old named after a park ranger, in the forest at night, stopping to look at the camera trap that recorded his presence. Ousmane hadn’t been seen since 2019. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For the first time in six years, an elephant was seen in Senegal’s Niokolo-Koba National Park. Grainy black-and-white footage shows Ousmane, a bull 35 to 40 years old named after a park ranger, in the forest at night, stopping to look at the camera trap that recorded his presence. Ousmane hadn’t been seen since 2019. At the time, just five to 10 elephants remained out of the hundreds that once roamed there. With no recorded sightings for years, conservationists questioned whether any were left there. “[This video] reignited hope that elephants are in the park,” said Philipp Henschel, regional director for West Africa and Central Africa for the conservation nonprofit Panthera, which installed the cameras in Niokolo-Koba National Park in partnership with Senegal’s National Parks Directorate. “He might not be the last elephant currently alive in this ecosystem.” Henschel added that Ousmane is a hybrid, his ancestry a mix of critically endangered African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) and savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana). https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/17113910/Ousmane.mp4.mp4 Ousmane, the bull elephant that was captured by the camera trap in Niokolo-Koba National Park recently. Video courtesy of Panthera &amp; Senegal’s National Parks Directorate (DPN) Elephants’ demise across the region, and the continent, began during the colonial era. Intensive poaching for ivory, combined with disappearing habitat, decimated West African herds. Niokolo-Koba’s elephants were hit hard, dwindling from a few hundred in the 1960s to fewer than 10. Other wildlife numbers also declined so dramatically that UNESCO added Niokolo-Koba to the World Heritage in Danger List. But&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/first-elephant-sighting-in-6-years-sparks-hope-for-species-return-to-a-senegal-park/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/first-elephant-sighting-in-6-years-sparks-hope-for-species-return-to-a-senegal-park/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
					<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/17113910/Ousmane.mp4.mp4" length="3816152" type="video/mp4" />
					<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-300900</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Scientists rediscover a Mexican rabbit they hadn’t seen in 120 years</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/scientists-rediscover-a-mexican-rabbit-they-hadnt-seen-in-120-years/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/scientists-rediscover-a-mexican-rabbit-they-hadnt-seen-in-120-years/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 May 2025 19:51:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Astrid Arellano]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/23115111/RCNX0025-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=299558</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Latin America, Mexico, and North America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Mammals, Rediscovered Species, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Footage captured in 2024 of a small rabbit hopping about in front of a camera trap had scientists baffled. The juvenile, with gray-brown fur and a black tail, didn’t resemble any known species in the Sierra Madre del Sur, in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero. Biologist Fernando Ruiz-Gutiérrez anxiously searched his records and consulted [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Footage captured in 2024 of a small rabbit hopping about in front of a camera trap had scientists baffled. The juvenile, with gray-brown fur and a black tail, didn’t resemble any known species in the Sierra Madre del Sur, in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero. Biologist Fernando Ruiz-Gutiérrez anxiously searched his records and consulted with colleagues to confirm his hypothesis. A few kilometers away, ecologist José Alberto Almazán-Catalán had the answer: having captured an adult specimen years earlier and conducted a series of studies, he now had irrefutable proof that the Omiltemi cottontail rabbit (Sylvilagus insonus), believed to be extinct for the past 120 years, was still alive. The last time scientists knowingly encountered the Omiltemi cottontail was in 1904, when U.S. naturalist Edward William Nelson described it for the first time. Habitat loss, poaching and subsistence hunting have been the biggest threats to the species throughout its existence, which is why it took more than a century to rediscover the elusive rabbit, hidden in the forest. “It was very exciting to pin down an animal that we not only believed to be extinct but that also has an almost mythical quality, because the furs we have in Mexico are not as precise as we would like since they were not taken by a mammalogist but donated by campesinos [small-scale farmers],” says Almazán-Catalán, president of the Institute for the Management and Conservation of Biodiversity (INMACOB), a Mexican NGO. “We really weren’t sure this rabbit existed. It could’ve been an&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/scientists-rediscover-a-mexican-rabbit-they-hadnt-seen-in-120-years/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/scientists-rediscover-a-mexican-rabbit-they-hadnt-seen-in-120-years/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-299558</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Cameroon’s forgotten forests, gorillas and chimps hang on</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/in-cameroons-forgotten-forests-gorillas-and-chimps-hang-on/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/in-cameroons-forgotten-forests-gorillas-and-chimps-hang-on/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 May 2025 18:33:33 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/07080723/Gorilla-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=298718</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Cameroon, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Apes, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Chimpanzees, Conservation, Endangered Species, Forest Fragmentation, Forests, Fragmentation, Gorillas, Great Apes, Mammals, Primates, Protected Areas, Research, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss the ecological significance of Mbalmayo Forest Reserve in southern Cameroon, one of several degraded forest patches scattered across the country. Located on the outskirts of the town of Mbalmayo, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the country’s capital, Yaoundé, the reserve appears to be too close to human [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss the ecological significance of Mbalmayo Forest Reserve in southern Cameroon, one of several degraded forest patches scattered across the country. Located on the outskirts of the town of Mbalmayo, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the country’s capital, Yaoundé, the reserve appears to be too close to human habitation to harbor a wealth of biodiversity — or at least that’s what scientists thought. But when wildlife conservationist Jean Christian Mey Boudoug visited Mbalmayo to pursue fieldwork for his Ph.D. in the late 2010s, he was surprised to see parts of the forest still intact and flourishing. Although his research showed the reserve had lost nearly 30% of its forests to banana and cacao plantations by 2018, when he looked closer, he discovered what many trained eyes had missed. “We found some evidence of what seemed to be chimps or gorilla,” Boudoug told Mongabay, referring to nests he found in the forest. Since the 1960s, just one primate species, the northern talapoin (Miopithecus ogouensis), was known to inhabit Mbalmayo Forest Reserve. Other species found in the area include duikers (Cephalophus spp.), African civets (Civettictis civetta), African palm civets (Nandinia binotata) and other small mammals. There were no photos or videos of other primates. So Boudoug bought a few trail cameras off the internet with his own money and installed them in the reserve. When community members living around Zamakoe Forest Reserve, another similarly degraded forest patch just north of Mbalmayo, told him about chimpanzee&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/in-cameroons-forgotten-forests-gorillas-and-chimps-hang-on/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/in-cameroons-forgotten-forests-gorillas-and-chimps-hang-on/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-298718</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study reveals untold, and unprotected, wildlife wealth of Nepal’s Madhesh province</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/study-reveals-untold-and-unprotected-wildlife-wealth-of-nepals-madhesh-province/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/study-reveals-untold-and-unprotected-wildlife-wealth-of-nepals-madhesh-province/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 May 2025 14:11:49 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/07/23094449/Wild_boar_at_Parsa_Wildlife_Reserve-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=298540</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Big Cats, Biodiversity, Birds, Camera Trapping, Cats, Conservation, Ecosystems, Farming, Fish, Freshwater, Mammals, Rodents, and Tigers]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — The most extensive biodiversity survey yet of Nepal’s little-studied Madhesh province has revealed a wealth of wildlife facing threats from infrastructure development — and with virtually no protected areas to safeguard them. The vertebrate survey was led by Hari Sharma, a zoology professor at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, between 2022 and 2024. Sharma [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — The most extensive biodiversity survey yet of Nepal’s little-studied Madhesh province has revealed a wealth of wildlife facing threats from infrastructure development — and with virtually no protected areas to safeguard them. The vertebrate survey was led by Hari Sharma, a zoology professor at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, between 2022 and 2024. Sharma and his team used camera traps, mist nets and direct field observations to identify 163 fish, 24 amphibian, 578 bird and 90 mammal species, including the iconic tigers (Panthera tigris) and the Asian elephants (Eliphas maximus). “Our study is a first in many ways,” Sharma said. “This is the first time that such an extensive study has been carried out in Madhesh.” It’s also the first by Tribhuvan’s zoology department funded by the university’s newly established national priority research program. Madhesh is home to communities dependent on agriculture. Image by Abhaya Raj Joshi. Madhesh province is located in Nepal’s southeastern Indo-Gangetic plains region, on the border with India, and is the agricultural heartland of the country. It accounts for just 6.6% of the country’s total land area, but 17.75% of its arable land. It also has the largest area of irrigated land as a proportion of total area, at 28.68%. For conservationists, however, the province has long been overlooked in terms of biodiversity conservation and research-related activities. This was evident in the findings from Sharma’s team, which recorded the presence of nine fish species never documented before in the province. This includes the culturally significant&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/study-reveals-untold-and-unprotected-wildlife-wealth-of-nepals-madhesh-province/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-298540</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Nepal announces its snow leopard population after first-of-its-kind assessment</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/nepal-announces-its-snow-leopard-population-after-first-of-its-kind-assessment/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/nepal-announces-its-snow-leopard-population-after-first-of-its-kind-assessment/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Apr 2025 12:40:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/04/23104302/%C2%A9-Rocky-Prajapati-DNPWC-WWF-Nepal-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=298045</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Cats, Conservation, data, Ecology, Environment, Genetics, Mammals, Mountains, Snow Leopards, Surveying, Technology, Top Predators, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Following decades of speculation, skepticism and lack of consensus, Nepal’s government has announced the country’s first-ever consolidated national estimate of snow leopards (Panther uncia): 397 individuals. The figure, which translates to 1.56 individuals per 100 square kilometers (38.6 square miles), was reported by an expert committee following months of work which involved aggregating [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Following decades of speculation, skepticism and lack of consensus, Nepal’s government has announced the country’s first-ever consolidated national estimate of snow leopards (Panther uncia): 397 individuals. The figure, which translates to 1.56 individuals per 100 square kilometers (38.6 square miles), was reported by an expert committee following months of work which involved aggregating results from multiple studies carried out in different parts of the country adopting different methods across various periods of time. “This national estimate is a historic step in Nepal’s conservation journey,” said Ramchandra Kandel, director-general at the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC). It not only provides us with a clearer picture of snow leopard populations but also informs future conservation strategies,” he added. A snow leopard photographed in Nepal. Image courtesy of WWF. This estimate and its report are the Himalayan country’s contribution to the Population Assessment of the World’s Snow Leopards (PAWS), an initiative launched under the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Program (GSLEP) in 2019 to support the 12 range countries to produce a robust estimate of the cat’s population status. The result, based on data on snow leopard distribution and population density collected between 2015 and 2024, also has global implications. “Although Nepal has the second smallest snow leopard habitat of only around 2% of the global land area considered suitable for snow leopards, it is home to nearly 10%, the fourth largest population,” said Ghana Shyam Gurung, Nepal representative of WWF. Unlike tigers (Panthera tigris), the other&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/nepal-announces-its-snow-leopard-population-after-first-of-its-kind-assessment/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-298045</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Scientists team up for Snapshot USA nationwide mammal survey</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/scientists-team-up-for-snapshot-usa-nationwide-mammal-survey/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/scientists-team-up-for-snapshot-usa-nationwide-mammal-survey/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Apr 2025 10:54:13 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhishyant Kidangoor]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhishyantkidangoor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/04/09103313/Photo3-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=297242</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[North America and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Conservation, Conservation Technology, data, Environment, Forests, Mammals, Science, Surveying, Technology, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Javier Monzon has been deploying camera traps for close to two decades. He likens retrieving the equipment and the data to opening a present. “You just don’t know what’s inside until you look,” Monzon, associate professor of biology at Pepperdine University in California, told Mongabay in a video interview. In 2023, Monzon had an opportunity [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Javier Monzon has been deploying camera traps for close to two decades. He likens retrieving the equipment and the data to opening a present. “You just don’t know what’s inside until you look,” Monzon, associate professor of biology at Pepperdine University in California, told Mongabay in a video interview. In 2023, Monzon had an opportunity to be part of a wide-scale camera-trap project, and there was no thinking twice. That year, he led a team that deployed 13 camera traps throughout their university campus in Malibu. Over the course of 45 days, the team gathered more than 22,000 individual images, totaling 147 gigabytes, from a shrubland habitat. Monzon’s work is part of an annual initiative that aims to collate a data set of camera-trap images of mammal populations from across the U.S. Launched by the Smithsonian Institution and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in 2019, the Snapshot USA project has received data from universities, Native American reservations, and nonprofit organizations, among others, who have volunteered to deploy camera traps for two months every year. “It takes the pulse of the nation’s wildlife using a standardized protocol,” Monzon said. Earlier this year, the team that runs the project published the data collected over the past five years, which includes more than 800,000 captures of mammals from about 10.5 million raw images gathered from across the country. “Over time, we can use the data set to look at trends in species diversity, species abundance, and all other kinds of different&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/scientists-team-up-for-snapshot-usa-nationwide-mammal-survey/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-297242</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mammals, birds in Vietnam’s rare coastal forests revealed by camera traps</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/mammals-birds-in-vietnams-rare-coastal-forests-revealed-by-camera-traps/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/mammals-birds-in-vietnams-rare-coastal-forests-revealed-by-camera-traps/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Feb 2025 01:30:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/02/12141207/Banner-2-scaled-e1739369808158-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=294282</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Southeast Asia, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Camera Trapping, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Dry Forests, Ecology, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Green, Hunting, Mammals, Poaching, Rainforests, Research, Snares, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In 2019, scientists rediscovered a species of miniature deer long lost to science within the dry coastal forests of southern Vietnam’s Nui Chua National Park. A victim of snaring, the silver-backed chevrotain (Tragulus versicolor) hadn’t been seen by scientists in the wild for nearly 30 years. Its unearthing via a camera-trapping study sparked a conservation [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In 2019, scientists rediscovered a species of miniature deer long lost to science within the dry coastal forests of southern Vietnam’s Nui Chua National Park. A victim of snaring, the silver-backed chevrotain (Tragulus versicolor) hadn’t been seen by scientists in the wild for nearly 30 years. Its unearthing via a camera-trapping study sparked a conservation focus on the reserve, contributing to its 2022 designation as a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. Although the resighting was a feat in itself, the scientists were captivated by the diversity of other species turning up in their images. “This inspired us to look beyond the species level and investigate the ground-dwelling mammal and bird community in Nui Chua,” An Nguyen, a member of the deer survey team and Ph.D. student at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany, said in a statement. Nguyen and his colleagues from Germany, the U.S. and Vietnam embarked on a four-year study of the reserve, setting up 145 camera traps between 2018 and 2022 across a range of habitats ascending from Nui Chua’s coastal dry forests, through semi-dry forests and into its highest-elevation broadleaf wet rainforests. Nui Chua National Park spans roughly 22,500 hectares (55,600 acres) of coastal mountains in southeast Vietnam’s Ninh Thuan province, within a region known as the Greater Annamites due to its proximity to the Annamite Mountain Range that extends like a spine from southern Vietnam northward along its western border with Cambodia and Laos. Due to the reserve’s unique climatic conditions, it’s&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/mammals-birds-in-vietnams-rare-coastal-forests-revealed-by-camera-traps/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-294282</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Survey uncovers ‘wildlife treasure’ in Cambodian park — but also signs of threats</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/survey-uncovers-wildlife-treasure-in-cambodian-park-but-also-signs-of-threats/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/survey-uncovers-wildlife-treasure-in-cambodian-park-but-also-signs-of-threats/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Jan 2025 21:02:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Anton L. Delgado]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/01/20104904/A-Trimeresurus-cardamomesis-photographed-in-Cambodia_s-Samlout-Multiple-Use-Area.-Image-courtesy-of-Jeremy-Holden-with-Fauna-Flora_-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=293135</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, cameras, Climate Change, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, New Discovery, Plants, Poaching, Protected Areas, Species Discovery, Surveying, Tropical Forests, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The first biodiversity survey ever conducted in one of northwestern Cambodia’s last forest frontiers has found potentially new-to-science species and recorded direct threats to what conservationists call a “small but precious” ecosystem. Spanning roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) of the Cambodian-Thai border, the 60,000-hectare (148,300-acre) Samlout Multiple Use Area is part of the greater Cardamom [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The first biodiversity survey ever conducted in one of northwestern Cambodia’s last forest frontiers has found potentially new-to-science species and recorded direct threats to what conservationists call a “small but precious” ecosystem. Spanning roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) of the Cambodian-Thai border, the 60,000-hectare (148,300-acre) Samlout Multiple Use Area is part of the greater Cardamom Mountain Range and straddles the provinces of Battambang and Pailin. Samlout was one of the three first multiple-use areas declared in Cambodia more than 30 years ago. This designation indicates that the management of the protected area is meant to conserve natural resources, while also developing economic activities. Since then, however, the kingdom’s northwest has experienced deforestation at a rate matching a national, decades-long trend of forest loss. Munichan Kung, country director of the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation, told Mongabay that people had previously thought “Samlout was too small, too remote and too degraded. They didn’t believe there was such a treasure of wildlife inside the area.” The Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation — started by U.S. actress Angelina Jolie and named after her adopted son from Cambodia — has funded projects in Samlout for more than two decades. The foundation commissioned the NGO Fauna &amp; Flora to lead surveys on bats, plants, reptiles, amphibians, insects, birds and mammals. The results of the survey found a plethora of wildlife, including more than 140 bird species, nearly 30 mammal species, close to 15 distinct bat species, and 50 types of orchids. These findings set new Cambodia country records, as&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/survey-uncovers-wildlife-treasure-in-cambodian-park-but-also-signs-of-threats/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-293135</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Camera traps reveal little-known Sumatran tiger forests need better protection</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/camera-traps-reveal-little-known-sumatran-tiger-forests-need-better-protection/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/camera-traps-reveal-little-known-sumatran-tiger-forests-need-better-protection/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Nov 2024 02:58:44 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2015/11/03132319/animals_02493-495x330.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=290342</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Cats, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Critically Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Law Enforcement, Mammals, Poaching, Predators, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Research, Tigers, Top Predators, Wildlife, Wildlife Rangers, Wildlife Trade, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Camera-trap surveys have documented a sizeable but struggling population of Sumatran tigers clinging on in unprotected forests in Indonesia’s Aceh province. The study is the most robust evidence to date of the presence of the critically endangered big cats in the Ulu Masen Ecosystem, a little-studied landscape adjoining Sumatra’s better-known and relatively well-protected Leuser Ecosystem. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Camera-trap surveys have documented a sizeable but struggling population of Sumatran tigers clinging on in unprotected forests in Indonesia’s Aceh province. The study is the most robust evidence to date of the presence of the critically endangered big cats in the Ulu Masen Ecosystem, a little-studied landscape adjoining Sumatra’s better-known and relatively well-protected Leuser Ecosystem. Spanning 9,500 square kilometers (nearly 3,700 square miles) of rugged and mountainous terrain at the northwestern tip of the island of Sumatra, the majority of Ulu Masen falls outside Indonesia’s network of protected areas. As such, the biodiverse landscape is rarely considered within national conservation policy and budgeting. However, Ulu Masen is straining under development pressure, illegal logging and poaching, and in dire need of conservation attention. In addition to Sumatran tigers (Panthera tigris sumatrae), it’s also home to a host of other rare and threatened species. Critically endangered Sumatran elephants (Elephas maximus sumatranus) and Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica) have been recorded in the landscape, alongside other key forest carnivores such as Sunda clouded leopards (Neofelis diardi), marbled cats (Pardofelis marmorata) and dholes (Cuon alpinus), and more than 300 species of birds. To assess the tiger population, the study team led by Joe Figel, science adviser at the Leuser International Foundation, installed camera traps at 52 locations across Ulu Masen’s vast landscape. Between 2020 and 2022, they amassed 6,732 nights’ worth of recordings, ultimately photographing a total of 11 individual tigers, all of them adults. They published their findings in Scientific Reports. One of eight&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/camera-traps-reveal-little-known-sumatran-tiger-forests-need-better-protection/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-290342</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New brown bear ‘stronghold’ in Nepal redraws species’ range map</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/new-brown-bear-stronghold-in-nepal-redraws-species-range-map/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/new-brown-bear-stronghold-in-nepal-redraws-species-range-map/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Oct 2024 16:30:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/10/26082129/Tibetan-brown-bear-6-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=289510</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Animals, Bears, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, cameras, Conservation, DNA, Genetics, Mammals, Mountains, and Protected Areas]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Researchers have discovered brown bears in a part of Nepal not previously known to host the species, prompting a call to protect this area as a bear “stronghold.” The finding, based on camera-trap images, also expands the known range of the brown bear (Ursus arctos) in Asia. It could also mark out the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Researchers have discovered brown bears in a part of Nepal not previously known to host the species, prompting a call to protect this area as a bear “stronghold.” The finding, based on camera-trap images, also expands the known range of the brown bear (Ursus arctos) in Asia. It could also mark out the Limi Valley, in northwestern Nepal, as a “contact zone” between two subspecies of this apex predator, the researchers write in a newly published study. “The bears weren’t the species we primarily set up the camera traps for,” study lead author Naresh Kusi, from the Himalayan Wolves Project, told Mongabay. As part of their research, Kusi and his project team have since 2021 run a network of 61 camera traps across an area in the Limi Valley that’s half the size of London. Since then, they’ve recorded images of species never before confirmed outside Nepal’s protected areas, such as the steppe polecat (Mustela eversmanii), Pallas’s cat (Otocolobus manul) and Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx). A brown bear image from a camera trap in Limi valley in western Nepal. Image courtesy of Naresh Kusi This time around, it’s the brown bear — a species found throughout the Northern Hemisphere, but which is so vanishingly rare in Nepal, at an estimated 20 individuals, that it’s considered critically endangered here. Yet Kusi’s team managed to capture dozens of independent images of brown bears in their camera-trapping surveys. “Although we didn’t estimate the size of the population in Limi Valley, based&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/new-brown-bear-stronghold-in-nepal-redraws-species-range-map/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-289510</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As Nepal counts its snow leopards, even the best estimate is still a guess</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/as-nepal-counts-its-snow-leopards-even-the-best-estimate-is-still-a-guess/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/as-nepal-counts-its-snow-leopards-even-the-best-estimate-is-still-a-guess/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Oct 2024 13:24:06 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/10/30130800/WWF-Nepal-Sanjog-Rai-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=289442</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Cats, Conservation, Conservation Technology, DNA, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Mountains, Population, Snow Leopards, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Scientists and government officials have embarked on the uphill task of coming up with a number, or even just a range, for the population of snow leopards in the Himalayan country. To do so, they’re having to rely on several fragmented studies carried out during different periods of time in different landscapes across [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Scientists and government officials have embarked on the uphill task of coming up with a number, or even just a range, for the population of snow leopards in the Himalayan country. To do so, they’re having to rely on several fragmented studies carried out during different periods of time in different landscapes across the country. The undertaking is Nepal’s commitment to the Population Assessment of the World&#8217;s Snow Leopards program, or PAWS. The program was adopted in 2019 by 12 countries that host populations of snow leopards (Panthera uncia) and is part of the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Program (GSLEP). &#8220;Previous snow leopard population studies in Nepal as well as many other countries often faced limitations due to sampling bias, with smaller, high-density areas leading to inflated population estimates,” said Rinzin Phunjok Lama, a snow leopard researcher who’s on the newly formed government committee to conduct the count. Because the range countries hadn’t agreed on a standardized approach, it became challenging to compare and aggregate data across regions before PAWS was rolled out. In the context of Nepal, pioneering telemetry work by researcher Rodney Jackson and his team in the late 1980s and early ’90s form the bedrock of population estimates within the country. They first estimated the snow leopard population in Nepal to be around 150-300 in 1979 and later revised the number up to 350-500 individuals based on a computerized habitat suitability model. In 2009, researchers from WWF and the Department of National Parks&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/as-nepal-counts-its-snow-leopards-even-the-best-estimate-is-still-a-guess/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-289442</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Local reps should lead Nepal’s conservation education: Interview with Anil Adhikari</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/local-reps-should-lead-nepals-conservation-education-interview-with-anil-adhikari/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/local-reps-should-lead-nepals-conservation-education-interview-with-anil-adhikari/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Oct 2024 02:40:27 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/10/29022845/Students-of-Mustang-after-setting-up-Camera-trap-in-Mustang-2023-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=289328</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Education, Environment, Mammals, Pandas, and Snow Leopards]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — When discussing conservation in Nepal — home to iconic species such as the Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris), snow leopard (Panthera uncia) and red panda (Ailurus fulgens) —awareness-raising among local communities often takes center stage. Many conservation projects conduct awareness programs through media including documentaries, books and pamphlets focusing on adults. However, journalist [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — When discussing conservation in Nepal — home to iconic species such as the Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris), snow leopard (Panthera uncia) and red panda (Ailurus fulgens) —awareness-raising among local communities often takes center stage. Many conservation projects conduct awareness programs through media including documentaries, books and pamphlets focusing on adults. However, journalist and writer Anil Adhikari takes a different approach, engaging with school children. For Adhikari, who was working as a freelance environmental journalist, it all began in 2003 with a writing contract from WWF Nepal to produce a play book for school-based environmental clubs. The book, now in its fourth edition, has provided valuable lessons to students about different aspects of the environment they live in and the role they can play in saving it. Over the past two decades, his conservation efforts have transcended species boundaries. He played a pivotal role in the Red Panda Network’s publication of two books now used in more than two dozen schools in eastern Nepal, supporting the protection of this endangered species. Similarly, his work is used by schools in snow leopard habitats to teach students about coexistence with the big cat. Storyteller Anil Adhukari interacts with children at a school in Nepal. Image courtesy of Anil Adhikari. Adhikari, who is also one of the editors of The Snow Leopard Magazine, says his experience has taught him the power of visuals when it comes to reaching out to schoolchildren. That’s why his books incorporate colorful illustrations and photos, making&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/local-reps-should-lead-nepals-conservation-education-interview-with-anil-adhikari/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-289328</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Thai tiger numbers swell as prey populations stabilize in western forests</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/thai-tiger-numbers-swell-as-prey-populations-stabilize-in-western-forests/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/thai-tiger-numbers-swell-as-prey-populations-stabilize-in-western-forests/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jul 2024 03:12:44 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/07/17024949/Banner_HKT-130-Male-on-20-Jan-2007-time-7.50-at-Huai-Kha-Khaeng-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=284437</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Southeast Asia, and Thailand]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Cats, Cattle, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Endangered Species, Forests, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Law Enforcement, Mammals, Poaching, Predators, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Research, Restoration, Tigers, Top Predators, Wildlife, Wildlife Rangers, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The tiger population density in a series of protected areas in western Thailand has more than doubled over the past two decades, according to new survey data. Thailand is the final stronghold of the Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti), the subspecies having been extirpated from neighboring Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam over the past decade due [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The tiger population density in a series of protected areas in western Thailand has more than doubled over the past two decades, according to new survey data. Thailand is the final stronghold of the Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti), the subspecies having been extirpated from neighboring Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam over the past decade due to poaching, habitat loss and indiscriminate snaring. Persistent markets for tiger skins, bones and other body parts used in traditional medicines in China and Vietnam drive poaching and illegal trade, which present the main threat to the big cats. Fewer than 200 tigers are thought to remain in Thailand’s national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, only a handful of which are sufficiently undisturbed and well-protected to preserve breeding tigers.  The most important of these protected areas for tigers is the Huai Kha Khaeng Thung Yai (HKK-TY) UNESCO World Heritage Site, which comprises three distinct reserves out of the 17 that make up Thailand’s Western Forest Complex (WEFCOM). Together, these three reserves — Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, Thungyai Naresuan West and Thungyai Naresuan East — account for more than a third of the entire WEFCOM landscape. Now, a new study published in Global Ecology and Conservation documents a steady recovery of tigers within the HKK-TY reserves since camera trap surveys began in 2007. The most recent year of surveys, which concluded in November 2023, photographed 94 individual tigers, up from 75 individuals in the previous year, and from fewer than 40 in 2007. A family of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/thai-tiger-numbers-swell-as-prey-populations-stabilize-in-western-forests/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-284437</doi>				</item>
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