<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" >

	<channel>
		<title>Conservation news</title>
		<atom:link href="https://news.mongabay.com/feed/?topic=surveying&#038;type=post" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/surveying/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Mon, 02 Nov 2026 14:46:17 +0000</lastBuildDate>
		<language>en-US</language>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
		<generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.4</generator>

<image>
	<url>https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/16160320/cropped-mongabay_icon-32x32.png</url>
	<title>News on Surveying</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/surveying/</link>
	<width>32</width>
	<height>32</height>
</image> 
				<item>
					<title>Local knowledge guides rediscovery of spinach pipefish, not seen in four decades</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/local-knowledge-guides-rediscovery-of-spinach-pipefish-not-seen-in-four-decades/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/local-knowledge-guides-rediscovery-of-spinach-pipefish-not-seen-in-four-decades/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Aug 2026 17:19:23 +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/20/2026/08/24155007/Spinach_Pipefish_iv_%C2%A9_New_Guinea_Binatang_Research_Center_edit-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=327148</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Melanesia, Oceania, Pacific Islands, and Papua New Guinea]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Biology, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Culture, Environment, Fish, Fishing, Freshwater, Freshwater Fish, Indigenous Peoples, Rediscovered Species, Species, Surveying, Traditional Knowledge, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[By mid-June, Jerrica Agebigo was staring at disappointment. Her nearly two-week-long, exhausting search for a mysterious fish that hasn’t been seen by scientists for nearly four decades was drawing to a close. Her team of researchers had braved Papua New Guinea’s hot, humid summer days, meandering along the Sepik River’s course by boat and canoe [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[By mid-June, Jerrica Agebigo was staring at disappointment. Her nearly two-week-long, exhausting search for a mysterious fish that hasn’t been seen by scientists for nearly four decades was drawing to a close. Her team of researchers had braved Papua New Guinea’s hot, humid summer days, meandering along the Sepik River’s course by boat and canoe — but the spinach pipefish still eluded them. “We had spent days travelling through the Lower Sepik, talking with communities and looking for information about the pipefish,” Agebigo, a researcher at the Papua New Guinea University of Technology and the New Guinea Binatang Research Centre, wrote in an email. “We had almost given up hope.” The spinach pipefish (Microphis spinachioides) is a small, slender pipefish with an elongated snout it uses to capture small prey, reaching maybe 15 centimeters (6 inches) in length. This greenish-brown freshwater creature, a close relative of seahorses and seadragons, is well camouflaged in its only known home here in the Sepik River — the country’s longest waterway — hiding among water lilies and other plants near riverbanks. Just like seahorses, pipefish males carry their embryos in a brood pouch for weeks until the young are born. Much about the spinach pipefish has remained an enigma, because scientists haven’t seen it since 1985. It was last assessed for the IUCN Red List in 2016, and at the time, was classified as data deficient by IUCN, the global conservation authority. The only known museum specimen, on which the taxonomy of the species&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/local-knowledge-guides-rediscovery-of-spinach-pipefish-not-seen-in-four-decades/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/local-knowledge-guides-rediscovery-of-spinach-pipefish-not-seen-in-four-decades/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-327148</doi>				</item>
						<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>‘We’ve got bats’: The community bringing New Zealand’s pekapeka into the spotlight</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/weve-got-bats-the-community-bringing-new-zealands-pekapeka-into-the-spotlight/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/weve-got-bats-the-community-bringing-new-zealands-pekapeka-into-the-spotlight/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 May 2026 18:50:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Isabel Gil]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/19162609/new-zealand-bat-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319727</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[New Zealand and Oceania]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Bats, Biodiversity, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Indigenous Peoples, Mammals, Research, Surveying, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Billy Mclean knew nothing about bats. As a lifelong Kiwi, there was no reason for him to. Unlike in neighboring Australia and other parts of Oceania whose renowned flying foxes grow meter-long wingspans, Aotearoa New Zealand is famous for its birds, not bats. Mclean worked as an arborist in the Franklin area, an agricultural county [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Billy Mclean knew nothing about bats. As a lifelong Kiwi, there was no reason for him to. Unlike in neighboring Australia and other parts of Oceania whose renowned flying foxes grow meter-long wingspans, Aotearoa New Zealand is famous for its birds, not bats. Mclean worked as an arborist in the Franklin area, an agricultural county south of Auckland on the North Island. He said he felt he knew everything about the local forest, until one night 23 years ago. As he headed home from a nighttime walk on his property, a shadow swooped from the arched tree canopy. He ducked — all his years spent in the trees, and he had never seen anything move like it. Mclean said it took a minute to register what he had seen. “As the picture develops, you get that classic crescent-shaped wing,” he told Mongabay by phone. “That’s when I knew. We’ve got bats.” That night sparked a passion for bats that Mclean has been pursuing ever since. After years of being “straight-up ridiculed” for trying to convince his community that these creatures lived in their backyards, many are starting to believe him. Today, he’s an active member with Finding Franklin Bats (FFB), a locally run research project teaching community members how to find, monitor and protect the overlooked bats that live in their backyards. (Left) Billy Mclean assists in weighing a long-tailed bat. (Right) Billy Mclean&#8217;s daughter practices using a radio telemetry set to detect bat calls. Image courtesy of Finding Franklin&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/weve-got-bats-the-community-bringing-new-zealands-pekapeka-into-the-spotlight/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/weve-got-bats-the-community-bringing-new-zealands-pekapeka-into-the-spotlight/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319727</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Statewide survey aims to put California’s fungi on the conservation map</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/statewide-survey-aims-to-put-californias-fungi-on-the-conservation-map/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/statewide-survey-aims-to-put-californias-fungi-on-the-conservation-map/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Dec 2025 13:08:41 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/19121458/Image_2-LAPTOP-7JODAAGR-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311724</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[California, North America, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[carbon, Citizen Science, Climate, Climate Change, Conservation, data, DNA, Drought, Ecology, Ecosystems, Environment, Fires, Forests, Fungi, Nitrogen Cycle, Plants, Soil Carbon, Species, Species Discovery, Surveying, and Trees]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Getting to The Cedars, an ecological preserve in California’s Sonoma county, is a slog. Multiple rivers and creeks must be crossed, and it can be tough going on an often storm-destroyed road. But it’s home to a rich diversity of species found nowhere else on Earth that are uniquely adapted to serpentine soil, composed of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Getting to The Cedars, an ecological preserve in California’s Sonoma county, is a slog. Multiple rivers and creeks must be crossed, and it can be tough going on an often storm-destroyed road. But it’s home to a rich diversity of species found nowhere else on Earth that are uniquely adapted to serpentine soil, composed of decomposed rock and rich in heavy metals. If you’re a fungi collector, it’s well worth the trip. Over the past two years, a dedicated team of mycologists — specialists in the study of fungi — and experienced mushroom collectors have combed California’s forests, rivers and mountains in often remote locations such as this, searching for and collecting fungi. Those making the arduous journey out to The Cedars have identified more than 100 new species, 25 of which are only known from the area. They snapped photos, which were then uploaded with all pertinent data to iNaturalist, a citizen scientist biodiversity database. Collections have been sent to labs where scientists extracted DNA for sequencing. Dried specimens are stored for safe keeping at California State University, East Bay, and the University of California, Los Angeles. This is part of an expansive effort to map the state’s fungal diversity, which has yielded thousands of specimens and is the first of its kind in North America, says Harte Singer, who heads genetic research at the California Fungal Diversity Survey (CA FUNDIS). The CA FUNDIS team collected thousands of fungi species from across California. Many of those collected are undescribed.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/statewide-survey-aims-to-put-californias-fungi-on-the-conservation-map/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/statewide-survey-aims-to-put-californias-fungi-on-the-conservation-map/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311724</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>California’s grand insect census</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/californias-grand-insect-census/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/californias-grand-insect-census/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Oct 2025 00:20:28 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/10/28235544/desert_20240416_102834-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=308312</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[California, North America, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Biology, Conservation, DNA, Endangered Species, Environment, Green, Insects, Interviews, Invertebrates, Surveying, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[California has a way of exaggerating things—mountains, deserts, and egos. But its insects? They take excess to another level. Somewhere between the redwoods and the Salton Sea live perhaps 60,000, maybe over 100,000 species. Nobody really knows. That’s the problem—and the provocation—behind the California Insect Barcode Initiative, a monumental effort to document them all, one [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[California has a way of exaggerating things—mountains, deserts, and egos. But its insects? They take excess to another level. Somewhere between the redwoods and the Salton Sea live perhaps 60,000, maybe over 100,000 species. Nobody really knows. That’s the problem—and the provocation—behind the California Insect Barcode Initiative, a monumental effort to document them all, one DNA sequence at a time. Austin Baker, a postdoctoral researcher at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, is leading the charge. His brief is almost absurdly ambitious: to collect, sequence, and catalog every insect species in the state. Every fly, ant, and beetle that hums, crawls, or burrows across the Golden State. “You could visit any vegetated area across that state and potentially collect several new (undiscovered and unnamed) insect species,” he says. Insect collection locations across California for the barcoding initiative. Points are colored by the ecoregion where the collection occurred. The task sounds Sisyphean. California’s habitats are diverse—fog-draped coasts, alpine forests, and blistering high deserts. Baker and his colleagues, working under the umbrella of the California All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (CalATBI), are sampling every ecoregion recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency. Each biome gets its turn. “We’ve decided to try to sample every ecoregion within the state using as many collecting techniques as we can,” Baker explains. And not just once. Many insects emerge only for a few fleeting weeks each year, so the team deploys passive traps that can sit in place for months, quietly filling with wings, legs, and data.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/californias-grand-insect-census/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/californias-grand-insect-census/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-308312</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mozambican reserve harbors largest documented breeding population of rare falcon</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/mozambican-reserve-harbors-largest-documented-breeding-population-of-rare-falcon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/mozambican-reserve-harbors-largest-documented-breeding-population-of-rare-falcon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Sep 2025 09:59:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/17093302/d25f31ec-d6f1-4fb4-a754-cf3fe5cd5233-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306111</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Mozambique, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Deforestation, Dry Forests, Environment, Extinction, Forests, Protected Areas, Raptors, Research, Surveying, Trees, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A new study reports that the Niassa Special Reserve, a 4-million-hectare (10-million-acre) wilderness in northern Mozambique, harbors the largest documented breeding population of Taita falcons. A survey that focused on 35 of the reserve’s towering granite inselbergs found 14 pairs of the birds. The study authors estimate the entire reserve could harbor up to 76 [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A new study reports that the Niassa Special Reserve, a 4-million-hectare (10-million-acre) wilderness in northern Mozambique, harbors the largest documented breeding population of Taita falcons. A survey that focused on 35 of the reserve’s towering granite inselbergs found 14 pairs of the birds. The study authors estimate the entire reserve could harbor up to 76 pairs. It&#8217;s an astonishing number for a species whose other known breeding sites host fewer than 10 pairs. Taita falcons (Falco fasciinucha) are stocky birds with russet chests, white throats, and black facial stripes. One of the world’s rarest birds of prey, they survive in isolated, fragmented populations scattered along the eastern side of Africa, from southern Ethiopia to northeastern South Africa. The IUCN estimates their total number at up to 1,000 mature individuals, but this estimate is uncertain due to a scarcity of data from regions north of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. A young Taita falcon, recently fledged from a nest in Blyde River Canyon, South Africa: Falco fasciinucha has been recorded across a wide expanse of East and Southern Africa, but limited systematic surveys means its distribution and population numbers are uncertain. Image courtesy of Anthony van Zyl. Taita falcons hunt small, fast insect-eating birds such as flycatchers, swifts and bee-eaters. Hunting from Niassa’s inselbergs that rise above surrounding woodlands appears to give the raptors an edge over larger peregrine (Falco peregrinus) and lanner falcons (Falco biarmicus), which occupy this same territory in smaller numbers but must fly further in search of grain-eating prey&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/mozambican-reserve-harbors-largest-documented-breeding-population-of-rare-falcon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/mozambican-reserve-harbors-largest-documented-breeding-population-of-rare-falcon/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-306111</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New gecko species findings highlight threats to Cambodia’s limestone hills</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/new-gecko-species-findings-highlight-threats-to-cambodias-limestone-hills/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/new-gecko-species-findings-highlight-threats-to-cambodias-limestone-hills/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Sep 2025 16:38:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Anton L. Delgado]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/04153334/A-Battambang-leaf-toed-gecko-Dixonius-noctivagus.-Image-by-Hun-Seiha-with-Fauna-Flora-Cambodia-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=305417</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Lizards, New Discovery, Protected Areas, Reptiles, Species Discovery, Surveying, Tropical Forests, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Researchers have described three new gecko species in northwestern Cambodia’s limestone hills and are eager to conduct further research, but recent border clashes with Thailand have disrupted their studies. Violent clashes this summer, which killed close to 40 people and displaced nearly 300,000 across the two Southeast Asian nations, cut follow-up field surveys short, researchers [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Researchers have described three new gecko species in northwestern Cambodia’s limestone hills and are eager to conduct further research, but recent border clashes with Thailand have disrupted their studies. Violent clashes this summer, which killed close to 40 people and displaced nearly 300,000 across the two Southeast Asian nations, cut follow-up field surveys short, researchers told Mongabay. The dispute has indefinitely delayed exploration of the landscape, which may host an abundance of creatures yet to be described by science. Pablo Sinovas, Cambodia country director for Fauna &amp; Flora, an international NGO, was leading the surveys in Battambang province near the Thai border in late July when the fighting erupted. He told Mongabay in August that the decision to pull back was taken as a precaution after Thai fighter jets bombed Cambodia. “In Cambodia, systematic exploration [of karst landscapes] has only just begun,” Sinovas said. “We can expect many more [species] discoveries to be made. These findings highlight the extraordinary diversity that can be hidden in karst ecosystems.” When the clash broke out, the research team pivoted to surveying karst towers near where they had found the Kamping Poi bent-toed gecko (Cyrtodactylus kampingpoiensis), Battambang leaf-toed gecko (Dixonius noctivagus) and Khpoh slender gecko (Hemiphyllodactylus khpoh) in 2024. A Kamping Poi bent-toed gecko (Cyrtodactylus kampingpoiensis). Image by Hun Seiha with Fauna &amp; Flora Cambodia. The discoveries of these species, announced in three studies published in 2025, had thrilled these conservationists and made them eager to double down on karst research. “Think of these&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/new-gecko-species-findings-highlight-threats-to-cambodias-limestone-hills/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/new-gecko-species-findings-highlight-threats-to-cambodias-limestone-hills/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-305417</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>After years of silence, Indonesia moves to assess its iconic wildlife</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/after-years-of-silence-indonesia-moves-to-assess-its-iconic-wildlife/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/after-years-of-silence-indonesia-moves-to-assess-its-iconic-wildlife/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 May 2025 16:40:32 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Dyna Rochmyaningsih]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/29072153/javan-gibbon-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=299844</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Indonesia, Java, Kalimantan, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, data, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Governance, Mammals, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Surveying, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Indonesia, one of the most biodiverse nations on Earth, appears to be gearing up to renew official estimates of its remaining wildlife populations, following nearly two decades without official updates on the status of some key species. With a new forestry minister, Raja Juli Antoni, appointed in October 2024 under President Prabowo Subianto, scientists say [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Indonesia, one of the most biodiverse nations on Earth, appears to be gearing up to renew official estimates of its remaining wildlife populations, following nearly two decades without official updates on the status of some key species. With a new forestry minister, Raja Juli Antoni, appointed in October 2024 under President Prabowo Subianto, scientists say they hope the initiatives signal a more open and transparent approach to conservation in the country. A change in tone would be a welcome shift from the previous forestry administration, led by Siti Nurbaya Bakar, whose era was marked with data censorship and a tight grip over conservation organizations. On Jan. 31, dozens of national park managers, heads of provincial conservation offices, NGO workers, and academics across the country joined an online meeting organized by the Ministry of Forestry’s conservation directorate-general. At the meeting, the director-general, Satyawan Pudyatmoko, urged the attendees to “work together” to initiate wildlife population surveys and conduct the latest population and habitat viability analyses (PHVA) for some iconic species. Both efforts, he said, are “the current priorities of Indonesia’s conservation.” “Oftentimes, conservation actions that are not based in science, only common sense, are not effective and wastes of money,” said Satyawan, a conservation scientist himself, who has held his current role since 2023. Population surveys provide the raw data used for PHVA computer modeling, which aims to assess how certain species could survive under multiple scenarios in the future. This information, in turn, is crucial in developing species conservation strategies and&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/after-years-of-silence-indonesia-moves-to-assess-its-iconic-wildlife/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/after-years-of-silence-indonesia-moves-to-assess-its-iconic-wildlife/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-299844</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>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/nepal-announces-its-snow-leopard-population-after-first-of-its-kind-assessment/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<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>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/scientists-team-up-for-snapshot-usa-nationwide-mammal-survey/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-297242</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Sri Lanka calls for five-minute surveys to identify crop-raiding animals</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/sri-lanka-calls-for-five-minute-surveys-to-identify-crop-raiding-animals/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/sri-lanka-calls-for-five-minute-surveys-to-identify-crop-raiding-animals/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Mar 2025 10:25:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malaka Rodrigo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Dilrukshi Handunnetti]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/03/11095425/banner-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=295600</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, South Asia, and Sri Lanka]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Deforestation, Environment, Human-wildlife Conflict, Primates, Research, Solutions, Surveying, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — In December 2024,  Sri Lanka’s newly appointed minister of agriculture K. D. Lalkantha told the Parliament that farmers should have the right to take action against crop-raiding wild animals. His comments drew backlash, particularly from environmentalists who termed the minister’s remarks harmful and an invitation to kill wildlife at will. While opinions remain [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — In December 2024,  Sri Lanka’s newly appointed minister of agriculture K. D. Lalkantha told the Parliament that farmers should have the right to take action against crop-raiding wild animals. His comments drew backlash, particularly from environmentalists who termed the minister’s remarks harmful and an invitation to kill wildlife at will. While opinions remain divided on the efficacy of taking such a course of action amidst growing crop raids by wildlife, the long-standing problem needs to be addressed. Amid calls for an urgent solution, the new administration formed a 15-member committee and called for public responses to solving the issue of crop-raiding pests. The first snag the committee ran into is the lack of population data of these wild animals, a key challenge to seeking a solution. Based on the committee’s recommendations, an island-wide citizen-assisted count of crop-raiding animals is set for Mar. 15 at 8 a.m., lasting just five minutes. Due to limited labor, authorities are urging citizens to record sightings of wild animals from their farmlands, home gardens or workplaces within the allotted five minutes. The survey will use the ‘point count’ methodology, chosen after an unpublished pilot study found 8 a.m. to be an active period for many species, explains Lasantha Sandika, director of Sri Lanka’s Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute (HARTI). A 2022 unpublished HARTI study estimates that wild animals caused crop losses of 144,989 metric tons of produce and 93 million coconuts, amounting to 30.2 billion Sri Lankan rupees ($87.5 million). The&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/sri-lanka-calls-for-five-minute-surveys-to-identify-crop-raiding-animals/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/sri-lanka-calls-for-five-minute-surveys-to-identify-crop-raiding-animals/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-295600</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>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/survey-uncovers-wildlife-treasure-in-cambodian-park-but-also-signs-of-threats/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-293135</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Sri Lanka completes first elephant census since 2011 amid uncertainty</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/sri-lanka-completes-first-elephant-census-since-2011-amid-uncertainty/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/sri-lanka-completes-first-elephant-census-since-2011-amid-uncertainty/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Sep 2024 08:40:27 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malaka Rodrigo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Dilrukshi Handunnetti]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/09/12081047/1.-Tusker-Barana-c-Mevan-Piyaseana-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=287321</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, South Asia, and Sri Lanka]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Elephants, Endangered Species, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Surveying, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — This past Aug. 17 would have been just another ordinary day for the elephants of Sri Lanka: feeding, drinking, resting and, for some, raiding nearby farms. But for the staff of the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) and thousands of volunteers, it was the start of a busy weekend as they carried out [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — This past Aug. 17 would have been just another ordinary day for the elephants of Sri Lanka: feeding, drinking, resting and, for some, raiding nearby farms. But for the staff of the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) and thousands of volunteers, it was the start of a busy weekend as they carried out the task of counting the country’s elephants — the first such count in 13 years. Equipped with rations for three days, some volunteers stationed in remote locations climbed makeshift treehouses overlooking watering holes, while others found safer spots where they still had a clear view of the Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). Each participant was given a data sheet to fill out. The DWC employed a method known as “waterhole counting,” which gives a rough gauge of elephant abundance from the number of elephants observed visiting watering holes to drink. “The month of August was chosen for the count as it’s typically the driest month in Sri Lanka, so elephants needing water visit these sources to quench their thirst,” said Chandana Sooriyabandara, director-general of the DWC. The department identified 3,130 such water sources frequented by elephants and deployed nearly 8,000 people to conduct the three-day count starting on Aug. 17, Sooriyabandara told Mongabay. The last day of the count, Aug. 19, coincided with a full moon, allowing the wilderness to be illuminated by moonlight and making it easier to count the elephants. Sri Lanka’s last elephant survey, conducted in 2011, revealed that 55% of the population&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/sri-lanka-completes-first-elephant-census-since-2011-amid-uncertainty/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/sri-lanka-completes-first-elephant-census-since-2011-amid-uncertainty/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-287321</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Cambodia’s largest mangrove forest is ‘teeming with life,’ biodiversity survey finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/cambodias-largest-mangrove-forest-is-teeming-with-life-biodiversity-survey-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/cambodias-largest-mangrove-forest-is-teeming-with-life-biodiversity-survey-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Jul 2024 18:55:25 +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/20/2024/07/30071210/long-tailed-macaque-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=285331</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Coastal Ecosystems, Conservation, Ecosystems, Environment, Forests, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Mangroves, Marine, Marine Conservation, Protected Areas, Surveying, Tropical Forests, Wetlands, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A recent deep-dive biodiversity survey in Cambodia identified hundreds of unique species swimming, flying, crawling and prowling within one of mainland Southeast Asia’s largest mangrove forests. The abundance of animals within the Kingdom’s Pream Krasop Wildlife Sanctuary and Koh Kapik Ramsar site ranged from endangered otters and rare cats to migratory birds and unique bats. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A recent deep-dive biodiversity survey in Cambodia identified hundreds of unique species swimming, flying, crawling and prowling within one of mainland Southeast Asia’s largest mangrove forests. The abundance of animals within the Kingdom’s Pream Krasop Wildlife Sanctuary and Koh Kapik Ramsar site ranged from endangered otters and rare cats to migratory birds and unique bats. The report by Fauna &amp; Flora and the Fishing Cat Ecological Enterprise identified more than 700 unique species, spanning several taxonomic groups, with camera traps and rapid biodiversity surveys. “Often, mangroves are seen as a swampy, dirty place. But this report shows that they are teeming with life,” said Stefanie Rog, co-author of the report. “Mangroves are a vibrant connection between different species that live in this harsh environment. It is a fascinating world of wonder that deserves to be protected.” Mangrove forests form interweaved strips of dense, wooded semi-submerged land on coasts across Southeast Asia. Pream Krasop and Koh Kapik’s extensive range, remote access, coastal tides and variety of microhabitats make this particular forest especially habitable, explained Vanessa Herranz Muñoz, who led several of the surveys and co-authored the report. The ecosystem serves as both a marine and terrestrial habitat. This, Herranz Muñoz says, makes “it tricky when it comes to studying its biodiversity or even protecting it” because environmental laws and management “quite often makes a split between the land and the sea.” While highlighting the mangrove’s abundance of life, the study also paints a sobering picture of what the mangrove forest has&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/cambodias-largest-mangrove-forest-is-teeming-with-life-biodiversity-survey-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/07/cambodias-largest-mangrove-forest-is-teeming-with-life-biodiversity-survey-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-285331</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Sliver of hope as ‘mountain chicken’ frog shows resistance to deadly disease</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/sliver-of-hope-as-mountain-chicken-frog-shows-resistance-to-deadly-disease/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/sliver-of-hope-as-mountain-chicken-frog-shows-resistance-to-deadly-disease/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Oct 2023 19:51:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/10/19192419/16198445189_705875d2ab_k-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=274432</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Caribbean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amphibians, Biodiversity, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Frogs, Global Environmental Crisis, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, Surveying, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The mountain chicken isn’t a chicken at all, but a huge frog three times as heavy as a can of soup and about as long as a large banana. These animals, also known as “chicken frogs” or “giant ditch frogs,” used to be abundant across several Caribbean islands. Locals regularly ate them, and it’s said [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The mountain chicken isn’t a chicken at all, but a huge frog three times as heavy as a can of soup and about as long as a large banana. These animals, also known as “chicken frogs” or “giant ditch frogs,” used to be abundant across several Caribbean islands. Locals regularly ate them, and it’s said that the frogs tasted like chicken, which is likely how the species, Leptodactylus fallax, got its common name. But over the years, the species went extinct on several islands following the introduction of the invasive Indian gray mongoose (Herpestes edwardsii), which only left populations on the islands of Montserrat and Dominica. Then, 20 years ago, an infectious fungal disease known as amphibian chytridiomycosis — a disease responsible for the decline of more than 500 amphibian species and 90 species extinctions in the past 50 years — spread across the Caribbean. The disease first appeared in Dominica in 2002, and within 18 months, it eliminated 85% of the mountain chicken subpopulation. On Montserrat, a similar scenario played out: a subpopulation went from “thousands” to four known individuals within a year. Now, the mountain chicken is believed to be extinct in Montserrat. Researchers recently conducted a survey in Dominica and found 21 mountain chickens living on the island. Image courtesy of ZSL. The fungus affects the skin of the mountain chickens, making it thicker and unable to absorb water and electrolytes. Eventually, the fungus will cause the frogs to go into cardiac arrest, said Andrés Valenzuela-Sánchez, a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/sliver-of-hope-as-mountain-chicken-frog-shows-resistance-to-deadly-disease/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/sliver-of-hope-as-mountain-chicken-frog-shows-resistance-to-deadly-disease/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-274432</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New Tree Tech: Cutting-edge drones give reforestation a helping hand</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/new-tree-tech-cutting-edge-drones-give-reforestation-a-helping-hand/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/new-tree-tech-cutting-edge-drones-give-reforestation-a-helping-hand/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Jul 2023 15:07:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Claire Asher]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/07/06132303/seeds-from-drone-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=270623</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Evolving Conservation and Tech for the Trees]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Australia, Canada, Global, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Afforestation, Artificial Intelligence, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Conservation Technology, Degraded Lands, Drones, Ecosystems, Environment, Fires, Forestry, Forests, Landscape Restoration, Reforestation, Research, Restoration, Seed Dispersal, Solutions, Surveying, Technology, Trees, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Seed-sowing drones and the latest biotechnology could help restore degraded forests at an unprecedented scale — a high-tech nature-based climate solution already at work, and one that shows tremendous promise.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This story is the third article of a four-part Mongabay mini-series exploring the latest technological solutions to support reforestation. Read Part One, Part Two and Part Four. Vast tracts of forest have been cleared by logging, degraded by a range of other human activities, consumed by wildfires, and ravaged by invasive insects. Restoring these forests is crucial to curbing global climate change and bringing wild species back from the brink of extinction. But the scale of the challenge before us is huge and time is short. Although some forests can recover naturally with the right protection and support, others need more intensive help in the form of replanting. This need has spawned heavily promoted tree-planting projects that tackle the challenge manually, sending thousands of volunteers into the field to plant saplings by hand, one by one. While these efforts are inspirational, they’re also labor-intensive and cumbersome to organize, and can’t reach degraded land that’s inaccessible by road or where volunteers are few. More importantly, they can’t achieve reforestation at the planetwide scales or timeframe needed to address the climate and biodiversity crises and meet international reforestation targets. Clearly, whatever methods humanity settles on to restore millions of hectares of lost and degraded forest in the 21st century, it will require a herculean effort. But lacking Hercules, it looks like robots may be up to the job. Restoring hundreds of millions of hectares of lost and degraded forest worldwide is a formidable task, made more difficult by the fact that many&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/new-tree-tech-cutting-edge-drones-give-reforestation-a-helping-hand/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/new-tree-tech-cutting-edge-drones-give-reforestation-a-helping-hand/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-270623</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New Tree Tech: Data-driven reforestation methods match trees to habitats</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/new-tree-tech-data-driven-reforestation-methods-match-trees-to-habitats/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/new-tree-tech-data-driven-reforestation-methods-match-trees-to-habitats/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Jul 2023 11:17:03 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Claire Asher]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/07/05150729/reforestation-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=270583</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Evolving Conservation and Tech for the Trees]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Afforestation, Artificial Intelligence, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Conservation Technology, data, Degraded Lands, Ecosystems, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Landscape Restoration, Reforestation, Research, Restoration, Solutions, Surveying, Technology, Trees, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Complex computer models, aided by artificial intelligence and laboratory testing, can help select the right tree species for the right place, giving reforestation projects a stronger start and better chance of thriving.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This story is the second article of a four-part Mongabay mini-series exploring the latest technological solutions to support reforestation. Read Part One, Part Three and Part Four. Nations aim to restore hundreds of millions of hectares of lost and degraded forest over the coming decade to help meet Paris Agreement carbon emission targets and sequester more carbon as a stopgap as the world transitions away from fossil fuels. This requires repairing degraded ecosystems by helping forests regrow naturally, but also necessitates large-scale tree planting — reforestation carried out on a planetary scale. But the word “reforestation” prompts hard questions: How can massive tree plantings be done effectively? When faced with abandoned cattle pasture or degraded croplands in the Amazon or elsewhere, how do conservationists decide what tree species to seed in which habitat? Which ones will take hold, grow strong, and store carbon for the long haul? Also key: Which trees will thrive now and in a warmer world? For the world’s reforestation ambitions to be realized, careful planning is clearly needed. Reforestation projects that don’t use diverse native species, or that don’t account for local ecology, the evolving climate, and social environment in their plantings can at best waste time and money, and at worst do more harm than good. Reforestation project failures across the globe show that traditional forestry methods aren’t working in the planning of many large-scale restorations. That’s where new tech solutions can help: Complex computer models, aided by artificial intelligence and laboratory testing, can assist&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/new-tree-tech-data-driven-reforestation-methods-match-trees-to-habitats/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/new-tree-tech-data-driven-reforestation-methods-match-trees-to-habitats/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-270583</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New Tree Tech: AI, drones, satellites and sensors give reforestation a boost</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/new-tree-tech-ai-drones-satellites-and-sensors-give-reforestation-a-boost/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/new-tree-tech-ai-drones-satellites-and-sensors-give-reforestation-a-boost/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Jul 2023 14:00:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Claire Asher]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/07/04135550/Mast-Reforestation-139-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=270524</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Evolving Conservation and Tech for the Trees]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Afforestation, Artificial Intelligence, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Conservation Technology, data, Degraded Lands, Drones, Ecosystems, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Landscape Restoration, Reforestation, Remote Sensing, Research, Restoration, Solutions, Surveying, Technology, Trees, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Climate change has generated a rush in tree planting, with many hurried initiatives failing. But high-tech solutions — artificial intelligence, robotics, satellites and sensors — can help tree-planting projects succeed every step of the way.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This story is the first article of a four-part Mongabay mini-series exploring in-depth the latest technological solutions to support reforestation. Read Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. “Plant a tree!” has become a go-to, nature-based solution and green rallying cry, proclaimed in the mainstream media by climate-conscious celebrities, corporations and influencers eager to promote mega-planting projects. These reforestation efforts often bring out thousands of volunteers — shovels in hand — to abandoned cow pastures and other degraded landscapes to disperse millions of small saplings. Regardless of whether these initiatives are sincere attempts at conservation or cynical greenwashing exercises, tree planting is often portrayed as a silver bullet to mitigate climate change — sometimes allowing polluting industries to continue with business as usual by counting proposed reforestation as carbon offsets. Tree planting is usually marketed for its carbon storage benefits and for mitigating rapidly growing greenhouse gas emissions. But these projects often have other valid and laudable environmental and social goals, such as regulating water cycles and preventing desertification, protecting against soil erosion, restoring biodiversity, and alleviating poverty. The oft-cited goal is to plant a trillion trees by 2050, which global NGO Plant-for-the-Planet says could capture up to a trillion metric tons of CO2. Likewise, the Bonn Challenge, launched in 2011 by global wildlife conservation authority the IUCN, has accrued pledges to restore 210 million hectares (519 million acres) from governments and NGOs. Reforestation in Brazil and many other forest-rich countries has even become key to these countries meeting their&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/new-tree-tech-ai-drones-satellites-and-sensors-give-reforestation-a-boost/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/new-tree-tech-ai-drones-satellites-and-sensors-give-reforestation-a-boost/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-270524</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Where satellites come up short, drones can fill in a picture of our oceans</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/where-satellites-come-up-short-drones-can-fill-in-a-picture-of-our-oceans/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/where-satellites-come-up-short-drones-can-fill-in-a-picture-of-our-oceans/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Apr 2022 15:58:17 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/04/27131335/Drones-catch-a-blindspot-in-oceanography-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=255184</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[North America and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[algae, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Drones, Environment, Marine, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Research, Satellite Imagery, Science, Surveying, Technology, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[How do you keep an eye on the expansive ocean? You could hop on a boat and get really close to the water. You could do it from tens of thousands of kilometers away using satellites that orbit our planet each day. Or you could use a new tool: aerial drones. In fact, drones, which [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[How do you keep an eye on the expansive ocean? You could hop on a boat and get really close to the water. You could do it from tens of thousands of kilometers away using satellites that orbit our planet each day. Or you could use a new tool: aerial drones. In fact, drones, which fly at much lower heights than satellites but higher than sea-based surveys, offer perspectives that can fill in key observational blind spots in the ocean, according to a new review published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. “From a ship, you&#8217;re just moving along and taking one sample after another. So they’re kind of point samples,” said Patrick Gray, the study’s lead author and a Ph.D. student at the Duke University Marine Lab in North Carolina, U.S. Satellites give a different view, but also limited. For example, the smallest thing a satellite can &#8220;see,&#8221; also called its resolution (or pixel size), ranges from a few hundred meters to a kilometer, according to Gray. By contrast, drones can have a resolution that’s as small as few centimeters wide. Drones are already being used to the study the ocean in a variety of ways. Their onboard cameras are being employed to map coastlines. They’re also being used to track whales and dolphins, and to better understand the behavior of seabirds. But there’s one growing use of aerial drones that Gray and his colleagues are particularly interested in: remote sensing. Like satellites, researchers can equip drones with&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/where-satellites-come-up-short-drones-can-fill-in-a-picture-of-our-oceans/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/where-satellites-come-up-short-drones-can-fill-in-a-picture-of-our-oceans/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-255184</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Stronghold for Africa’s rarest falcon discovered in reserve threatened by Mozambique insurgency</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/stronghold-for-africas-rarest-falcon-discovered-in-reserve-threatened-by-mozambique-insurgency/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/stronghold-for-africas-rarest-falcon-discovered-in-reserve-threatened-by-mozambique-insurgency/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Mar 2022 10:52:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/03/24101658/Taita-Falcon-Alan-Kemp-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=254119</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Mozambique]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Protected Areas, Raptors, Research, Surveying, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A team of biologists has discovered a nesting stronghold for Africa’s rarest falcon in the granite domes that tower over Mozambique&#8217;s Niassa Special Reserve. The team surveyed more than 30 of these granite domes, or inselbergs, and spotted Taita falcon (Falco fasciinucha) nests at nearly half of them. Young falcons were found at half those [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A team of biologists has discovered a nesting stronghold for Africa’s rarest falcon in the granite domes that tower over Mozambique&#8217;s Niassa Special Reserve. The team surveyed more than 30 of these granite domes, or inselbergs, and spotted Taita falcon (Falco fasciinucha) nests at nearly half of them. Young falcons were found at half those breeding sites, meaning the parents had successfully raised chicks. Niassa is one of the largest protected areas in Africa. Its 4.2 million hectares (10.4 million acres) include large areas of the open dryland forest known as miombo as well as patches of evergreen montane forest on the inselbergs. There are charismatic mammals including elephants, lions and wild dogs, as well as some 60,000 people in 40-odd villages within the reserve. Taita falcons are small, stocky birds of prey, which dive from their clifftop perches in pursuit of smaller birds. Biologists estimate there are between 500 and 1,000 mature birds across the whole of their range, which stretches patchily from Ethiopia to South Africa. To survey the inselbergs, Christiaan Brink, raptor and large terrestrial bird project manager for the conservation group BirdLife South Africa, and his colleagues rose each day before dawn to take a helicopter ride from their base camp at the headquarters of the Niassa reserve at Mbatamila to a chosen site. Once they landed, the team would train spotting scopes and binoculars on cliff faces while doing their best to ignore the attentions of mopane flies, a small gnat-like species that seeks moisture&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/stronghold-for-africas-rarest-falcon-discovered-in-reserve-threatened-by-mozambique-insurgency/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/stronghold-for-africas-rarest-falcon-discovered-in-reserve-threatened-by-mozambique-insurgency/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-254119</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Latest seismic survey blocked in South Africa court on fishers’ challenge</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/latest-seismic-survey-blocked-in-south-africa-court-on-fishers-challenge/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/latest-seismic-survey-blocked-in-south-africa-court-on-fishers-challenge/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Mar 2022 14:52:51 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Victoria Schneider]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/03/02141918/Fishers_VelddrifSouthAfrica_SATourism_BY2.0-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=253256</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, South Africa, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Coastal Ecosystems, Fisheries, Fossil Fuels, Marine, Marine Conservation, Natural Gas, Oil, and Surveying]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For the second time in just over two months, a South African court has acted to stop a seismic survey for oil and gas off the country’s west coast. On March 1, the Western Cape High Court in Cape Town ruled against Australian geoscience data supplier Searcher after the judge concluded that the company did [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For the second time in just over two months, a South African court has acted to stop a seismic survey for oil and gas off the country’s west coast. On March 1, the Western Cape High Court in Cape Town ruled against Australian geoscience data supplier Searcher after the judge concluded that the company did not adequately consult with local communities before starting seismic testing in January this year. The company also did not have an environmental authorization (EA). The ruling confirms an interim interdict granted in early February. “We are very happy about this judgment and that it so strongly recognizes our rights in terms of the Constitution,” Christian John Adams, a fourth-generation fisher from St. Helena Bay, told Mongabay in an interview. Adams, who is the first applicant in the case, said he was particularly satisfied about the judge’s “strong points relating to our culture and the fact that the company didn’t consult us.” In his ruling, Judge Daniel Thulare noted that the company had not only regarded local fishing communities as unaffected by the prospected seismic activities, but it had also excluded people through the use of language and the choice of media to disseminate information. Describing the mindset of the consultant who led the project at SLR Consulting, the firm hired by Searcher to carry out the environmental assessment, as “worrying,” Thulare pointed out that isiXhosa-speaking people “were simply disregarded,” even though the language is one of the three official languages of Western Cape province. “The&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/latest-seismic-survey-blocked-in-south-africa-court-on-fishers-challenge/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/latest-seismic-survey-blocked-in-south-africa-court-on-fishers-challenge/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-253256</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Court order blocks Shell&#8217;s seismic surveys off South Africa&#8217;s Wild Coast</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/court-order-blocks-shells-seismic-surveys-off-south-africas-wild-coast/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/court-order-blocks-shells-seismic-surveys-off-south-africas-wild-coast/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Dec 2021 05:18:01 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavikavyawahare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/12/31051434/GP1SWOKJ.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=251352</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and South Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Coastal Ecosystems, Fisheries, Fossil Fuels, Marine, Marine Conservation, Natural Gas, Oil, Surveying, and Whales]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A South African court has ordered oil giant Shell to suspend plans for seismic blasting along the country’s Wild Coast, in a decision hailed by environmentalists. The Dutch oil giant is prospecting off the coast of Eastern Cape province for viable oil and gas reserves below the seabed. &#8220;The case is not just about Shell [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A South African court has ordered oil giant Shell to suspend plans for seismic blasting along the country’s Wild Coast, in a decision hailed by environmentalists. The Dutch oil giant is prospecting off the coast of Eastern Cape province for viable oil and gas reserves below the seabed. &#8220;The case is not just about Shell — it is about both protecting human rights and animal rights which are both enshrined in the constitution,&#8221; Nonhle Mbuthuma, founder of the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC), said in a statement in response to the Dec. 28 ruling. The ACC traces its origins to a movement to fight titanium mining in South Africa&#8217;s Pondoland region. Conservation organizations are up in arms because of the potential impact on whale breeding grounds in the region. During the austral winter between July and December, southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) and humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) migrate into South Africa&#8217;s waters to give birth. Seismic surveys use soundwaves to map the terrain beneath the seafloor for pockets of oil or gas. Shell says dozens of such surveys have been done in South Africa with no known significant impacts. Two applications were filed in South African courts by environmental groups, Indigenous rights groups, and tourism and fishing associations to halt the surveys. On Dec. 3, the court dismissed one of the applications, effectively allowing the seismic survey to proceed and sparking concern that the blasting would start before year-end. A protest against Shell&#8217;s seismic blasting plans in South Africa. Image courtesy of Greenpeace. The current&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/court-order-blocks-shells-seismic-surveys-off-south-africas-wild-coast/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/court-order-blocks-shells-seismic-surveys-off-south-africas-wild-coast/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-251352</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Camera trap study shows conservation efforts ‘are working’ on Costa Rica&#8217;s Osa Peninsula: Video</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/massive-camera-trap-study-shows-conservation-efforts-are-working-on-costa-ricas-osa-peninsula/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/massive-camera-trap-study-shows-conservation-efforts-are-working-on-costa-ricas-osa-peninsula/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Dec 2021 22:51:54 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/12/13192925/Osa_jaguar-Folder-Camera-Trap-pic-11-768x506.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=250544</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Central America, Costa Rica, and Latin America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Camera Trapping, cameras, Citizen Science, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Mammals, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Sensors, Surveying, Technology, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Forests, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[After she collected a set of camera traps from the ridgeline above Corcovado National Park, conservation biologist Eleanor Flatt said that scientists, staff, and tourists all huddled around her computer at the Punta Marenco Lodge to see what images were captured. Camera traps, remote cameras triggered by motion, can be set off by something as [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[After she collected a set of camera traps from the ridgeline above Corcovado National Park, conservation biologist Eleanor Flatt said that scientists, staff, and tourists all huddled around her computer at the Punta Marenco Lodge to see what images were captured. Camera traps, remote cameras triggered by motion, can be set off by something as mundane as a leaf blowing in the wind. So, as blurry shots of bushes, fronds, and regularly seen animals appeared, she says, many lost interest — until a puma flashed across the screen. “Everyone came running back,” Flatt said. “They couldn’t believe it.” Camera traps installed by the local guides of Punta Marenco Lodge caught a puma (Puma concolor) traveling on a steep ridge in a  wildlife refuge on the edge of Corcovado National Park. Image courtesy of Osa Camera Trap Network. “We all know that rainforest animals can be super secretive and often never seen,” Andy Whitworth, director of the NGO Osa Conservation told Mongabay in a 2018 interview about the camera trap project, “especially some of the most charismatic species, like the cats, and weird and wonderful nocturnal beasts, like the hog-nosed skunk.” That’s why scientists launched the largest camera trap study in Central America to date. They wanted to learn how human disturbance affects where animals live and how they’re grouped on the Osa Peninsula (a spit of land on Costa Rica’s Pacific side about one-and-a-half times as big as Los Angeles, California). The Osa Peninsula is noted as an oasis of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/massive-camera-trap-study-shows-conservation-efforts-are-working-on-costa-ricas-osa-peninsula/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/12/massive-camera-trap-study-shows-conservation-efforts-are-working-on-costa-ricas-osa-peninsula/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-250544</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>DNA assessment confirms Gabon as last stronghold of forest elephants</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/dna-assessment-confirms-gabon-as-last-stronghold-of-forest-elephants/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/dna-assessment-confirms-gabon-as-last-stronghold-of-forest-elephants/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Nov 2021 19:40:34 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/11/19153913/0I3A5062-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=249682</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Gabon and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Charismatic Animals, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, DNA, Elephants, Genetics, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, Species, Surveying, Tracking, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A new study has found that the small nation of Gabon is the “last stronghold” for the critically endangered African forest elephant. Researchers reached this conclusion after conducting a DNA-based population assessment of forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) across Gabon, which involved extracting genetic material from fresh elephant dung. The results, published Nov. 18 in Global Ecology [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A new study has found that the small nation of Gabon is the “last stronghold” for the critically endangered African forest elephant. Researchers reached this conclusion after conducting a DNA-based population assessment of forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) across Gabon, which involved extracting genetic material from fresh elephant dung. The results, published Nov. 18 in Global Ecology and Conservation, suggest there are more than 95,000 forest elephants present throughout the country, which represents about 60-70% of the species’ global population. “Gabon has definitely experienced some poaching … particularly in the border area with Cameroon in the northeast of the country,” study co-author Emma Stokes, regional director for Central Africa at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), told Mongabay in a phone interview. “I guess we were quietly confident that the population status of elephants in the rest of the country was reasonably good. But I would say this [survey result] was definitely as good as we could have hoped for.” Researchers from WCS and Gabon’s National Park Agency (ANPN) conducted this survey over a period of three years, collecting dung samples and then analyzing each sample’s DNA. “You get kind of a unique genetic print from that — like a unique fingerprint — from that dung pile,” Stokes said. “And then if you sample lots of dung piles, you start to be able to see differences between those genetic fingerprints and you can identify which are the same individuals and which are different individuals.” In March 2021, the IUCN declared that African forest elephants (Loxodonta&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/dna-assessment-confirms-gabon-as-last-stronghold-of-forest-elephants/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/dna-assessment-confirms-gabon-as-last-stronghold-of-forest-elephants/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-249682</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>An owl not seen in over a century makes a brief return — then vanishes again</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/05/an-owl-not-seen-in-over-a-century-makes-a-brief-return-then-vanishes-again/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/05/an-owl-not-seen-in-over-a-century-makes-a-brief-return-then-vanishes-again/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 May 2021 22:53:28 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Romi Castagnino]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Romi Castagnino]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/05/13000233/bornean-rajah-scops-ow_banner-768x456.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=242594</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Borneo, Malaysia, Sabah, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Climate Change, Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Monitoring, Montane Forests, Owls, Protected Areas, Rediscovered Species, Research, Surveying, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Bornean subspecies of the Rajah scops-owl (Otus brookii) was first described from the montane forests of the Malaysian state of Sabah in 1892. Since then, however, its whereabouts have been a mystery. It was not until 2016 that a group of researchers documented the first sighting of a live individual in more than a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Bornean subspecies of the Rajah scops-owl (Otus brookii) was first described from the montane forests of the Malaysian state of Sabah in 1892. Since then, however, its whereabouts have been a mystery. It was not until 2016 that a group of researchers documented the first sighting of a live individual in more than a century, and due to its rarity, scientists believe it could be its own species. The findings were reported April 28 in The Wilson Journal of Ornithology. That May 4, 2016, rediscovery of the Bornean Rajah scops-owl (O. b. brookii) was part of a 10-year study of avian life-history evolution on Mount Kinabalu in Borneo. The project, led by Thomas E. Martin, a wildlife biologist with the Montana Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Montana, required intensively searching for nests and gathering ecological information about birds. After seven years of working up to 10 hours per day, six days a week, the team accidentally came across O. b. brookii. The rediscovery of O. b. brookii took place in the montane forests of Mount Kinabalu at an elevation of 1,650 meters (5,400 feet). Image by Oscark via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Andy Boyce, an avian ecologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s (SCBI) Conservation Ecology Center, happened to be working at a lab in Kinabalu National Park when he was notified by technician Keegan Tranquillo about the sighting of a bird that differed in appearance from the more common mountain scops-owl (O. spilocephalus luciae).&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/05/an-owl-not-seen-in-over-a-century-makes-a-brief-return-then-vanishes-again/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/05/an-owl-not-seen-in-over-a-century-makes-a-brief-return-then-vanishes-again/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-242594</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Eye in the Sky: Tech makes satellite imagery increasingly attractive for wildlife surveys</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/02/eye-in-the-sky-tech-makes-satellite-imagery-increasingly-attractive-for-wildlife-surveys/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/02/eye-in-the-sky-tech-makes-satellite-imagery-increasingly-attractive-for-wildlife-surveys/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Feb 2021 08:11:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jim Tan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/02/01075318/94479265_819ea6199f_k-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=239133</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Surveying, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[High-resolution satellite imagery, modern digital cameras and drones have opened up new possibilities for surveying remote wildlife populations. But the huge volume of data created presents its own unique challenge for researchers; could recent advances in machine learning technology provide the answer? In a recent paper in Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, an interdisciplinary [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[High-resolution satellite imagery, modern digital cameras and drones have opened up new possibilities for surveying remote wildlife populations. But the huge volume of data created presents its own unique challenge for researchers; could recent advances in machine learning technology provide the answer? In a recent paper in Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, an interdisciplinary team of zoologists and computer scientists from the University of Oxford and the University of Bath used machine learning to identify African elephants in high-resolution satellite images from Addo Elephant Park in South Africa and the Masai Mara in Kenya. “Elephant surveys and censuses are the bedrock of status reporting of elephant populations,” says Ben Okita-Ouma, co-chair of the IUCN-SSC African Elephant Specialist Group and director of policy and planning at Save the Elephants, a Nairobi-based NGO. “Understanding population status helps in addressing contemporary management and conservation needs of not only the animals but their habitats too.” Researchers have been exploring ways to survey animals through satellite imagery for 20 years. So far, efforts have mainly focussed on marine environments where a simple backdrop makes it easier to identify species such as whales. Some studies have looked for other useful information in satellite imagery such as measuring guano stains as a way to estimate the size of penguin colonies. In most studies to date, human observers have manually sifted through satellite images to identify animals, creating a natural limit on how much data can be processed. Researchers have used machine learning to identify African elephants&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/02/eye-in-the-sky-tech-makes-satellite-imagery-increasingly-attractive-for-wildlife-surveys/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/02/eye-in-the-sky-tech-makes-satellite-imagery-increasingly-attractive-for-wildlife-surveys/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-239133</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Sexual harassment rife in Vietnam’s conservation sector, survey reveals</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/sexual-harassment-rife-in-vietnams-conservation-sector-survey-reveals/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/sexual-harassment-rife-in-vietnams-conservation-sector-survey-reveals/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Nov 2020 17:14:02 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Michael Tatarski]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Genevieve Belmaker]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/01/15061811/IMG_2174_edit-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=237175</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Southeast Asia and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Ex-situ Conservation, Forests, Gender, Human Rights, Rainforests, Surveying, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Forests, Wildlife, and Women In Science]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam &#8211; Five out of six people working in the conservation sector in Vietnam say that they have directly experienced some form of sexual harassment in their work environment. This is just one striking finding of a new report by WildAct, a Hanoi-based conservation organization that surveyed 114 wildlife conservationists, environmentalists [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam &#8211; Five out of six people working in the conservation sector in Vietnam say that they have directly experienced some form of sexual harassment in their work environment. This is just one striking finding of a new report by WildAct, a Hanoi-based conservation organization that surveyed 114 wildlife conservationists, environmentalists and government officers working in Vietnam. “Many of the students in the wildlife conservation university course that we run are female, and one day one of our best students called us late at night really confused and upset,” said Trang Nguyen, WildAct’s founder. “She said that she had gotten the opportunity to go into the forest to conduct field work for the first time, and she had been sexually harassed by the senior forest rangers.” The student said that she was considering quitting conservation altogether, or at the very least requesting to only do desk work moving forward. “This triggered something in me, as it had happened to me before as well, and at that time I thought I’d brush it aside because I’m a conservationist and it’s more important for me to focus on animals and other issues,” Nguyen said. Now, Nguyen and the team at WildAct decided something needed to be done. They sent a survey in which respondents could share their experiences with sexual harassment to NGOs, INGOs and government agencies working in the sector. “We received a lot of pushback,” Nguyen recalled. “People would reply saying that this isn’t real, there’s&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/sexual-harassment-rife-in-vietnams-conservation-sector-survey-reveals/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/sexual-harassment-rife-in-vietnams-conservation-sector-survey-reveals/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-237175</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Sharks nearby? A bottle of seawater can hold the answer, study says</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/sharks-nearby-a-bottle-of-seawater-can-hold-the-answer-study-says/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/sharks-nearby-a-bottle-of-seawater-can-hold-the-answer-study-says/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Aug 2020 14:32:31 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/08/21150107/shark-545834_1920-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=234092</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Florida and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Technology, DNA, Ecosystems, Elasmobranchs, Environment, Fish, Green, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Saltwater Fish, Science, shark finning, Sharks, Surveying, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Two liters of seawater, or about half a gallon. That’s all that’s needed to detect the presence of sharks in the ocean, according to a new study. A group of researchers from Florida International University (FIU), New College of Florida and Havenworth Coastal Conservation recently teamed up to develop a new method of detecting the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Two liters of seawater, or about half a gallon. That’s all that’s needed to detect the presence of sharks in the ocean, according to a new study. A group of researchers from Florida International University (FIU), New College of Florida and Havenworth Coastal Conservation recently teamed up to develop a new method of detecting the presence of blacktip sharks (Carcharhinus limbatus) in Terra Ceia Bay, a semi-enclosed bay on the west coast of Florida. While many scientists rely on gill nets or longlines to conduct shark surveys, these researchers tested water samples for sharks’ environmental DNA, or eDNA. Like all animals, including humans, sharks constantly shed DNA in bits of skin, mucus, blood and even poop, and these fragments of genetic material can provide vital clues to a shark’s whereabouts. Blacktip sharks in the Maldives (a different species than the one in the study). Image by David P. Robinson / Coral Reef Image Bank “We detect whatever the animals leave in the environment,” lead author Bautisse Postaire, a postdoctoral researcher at FIU, told Mongabay. “You could detect everything, basically, except actual fresh tissue.” When Postaire and his colleagues embarked on this study two years ago, he said he was initially doubtful it would yield accurate results. “We were skeptical about how sensitive the method would be in detecting the temporal pattern of increases and decreases of blacktip shark abundance in the bay over the seasons,&#8221; Postaire said. &#8220;So, we were actually a little bit surprised that it worked this well,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/sharks-nearby-a-bottle-of-seawater-can-hold-the-answer-study-says/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/sharks-nearby-a-bottle-of-seawater-can-hold-the-answer-study-says/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-234092</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Ornithologists discover more rare hornbills than thought on Philippine island</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/ornithologists-discover-more-rare-hornbills-than-thought-on-philippine-island/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/ornithologists-discover-more-rare-hornbills-than-thought-on-philippine-island/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Jul 2020 03:20:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Leilani Chavez]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Leilani]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/07/27220309/VTH-male-by-S.-Kieron-Tan-in-Balinsasayao-Twin-Lakes-Natural-Park-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=233050</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Philippines, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birding, Birds, Conservation, Crime, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Forest Regeneration, Forests, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Logging, Rainforests, Surveying, Wildlife, Wildlife Corridors, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MANILA — As a rare species of endemic hornbills disappeared from island after island in the Philippines, ornithologists pinned their hopes on Negros: a little-surveyed island in the center of the Philippine archipelago, whose remaining forest areas could potentially hide a population never before seen or recorded by experts. This year, their speculations were confirmed: [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MANILA — As a rare species of endemic hornbills disappeared from island after island in the Philippines, ornithologists pinned their hopes on Negros: a little-surveyed island in the center of the Philippine archipelago, whose remaining forest areas could potentially hide a population never before seen or recorded by experts. This year, their speculations were confirmed: a recent study led by leading Filipino ornithologist Lisa Paguntalan proved that thousands of Visayan tarictic hornbills (Penelopides panini) thrive in three protected areas on Negros. A 2000 survey by the IUCN estimated that Negros and neighboring Panay Island had a combined tarictic hornbill population of 1,800. But this new study puts the tarictic population of Negros alone at 3,584. “The last population estimate of the Visayan Tarictic hornbill was way back in the year 2000 for Panay,” Paguntalan tells Mongabay. “This is the first time that a population estimate for Negros was conducted. We also have for the first time, population estimated for each PA [protected area] in Negros.” Philippine hornbills are among the most threatened birds in the world. Of the 11 recognized hornbill species in the Philippines, nine are threatened by habitat loss, which heightens competition between mature birds for nesting trees; and hunting for sport and poaching for the illegal wildlife trade. The Visayan tarictic hornbill is classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List, while the Philippines’ environment department has bumped it up to critically endangered on the national red list. Endemic to a handful of islands scattered around the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/ornithologists-discover-more-rare-hornbills-than-thought-on-philippine-island/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/ornithologists-discover-more-rare-hornbills-than-thought-on-philippine-island/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
					<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/07/27220616/XC69005-Visayan-Hornbill-Penelopides-panini.mp3" length="1126927" type="audio/mpeg" />
					<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-233050</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>An armada of turtles, caught on drone cam, flocks to the Great Barrier Reef</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/an-armada-of-turtles-caught-on-drone-cam-flocks-to-the-great-barrier-reef/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/an-armada-of-turtles-caught-on-drone-cam-flocks-to-the-great-barrier-reef/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Jun 2020 08:52:14 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/06/12070349/Raine-Island-turtle-aggregation.-Must-credit-Great-Barrier-Reef-Foundation-and-Queensland-Government-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=231380</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Australia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Marine, Marine Animals, Oceans, Population, Restoration, Sea Turtles, Surveying, and Turtles]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[From high above, the blue sea looks like it’s speckled with tiny white dots. But a closer look reveals more: each dot is actually a sea turtle swimming toward the shore of a coral cay. There are thousands of them. Over the course of the nesting season, about 64,000 landed on the beach. In December [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[From high above, the blue sea looks like it’s speckled with tiny white dots. But a closer look reveals more: each dot is actually a sea turtle swimming toward the shore of a coral cay. There are thousands of them. Over the course of the nesting season, about 64,000 landed on the beach. In December 2019, researchers working with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s Raine Island Recovery Project captured this video as a way of counting the number of green turtles (Chelonia mydas) swimming ashore to nest on Raine Island, located on the outer edges of the Great Barrier Reef. Raine Island is the world’s largest rookery for green turtles, according to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. In previous years, researchers surveyed the green turtle population by painting white stripes on their shells with non-toxic paint while the turtles nested in the sand, then manually counted them offshore. “From a small boat, we then counted painted and non-painted turtles, but eyes are attracted much more to a turtle with a bright white stripe than an unpainted turtle, resulting in biased counts and reduced accuracy,” Andrew Dunstan, from the Queensland state government’s Department of Environment and Science (DES), said in a statement. An aerial view of green turtles near Raine Island. Image by Christian Miller The use of a drone, or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), proved much more effective. Researchers were able to analyze each frame of the video, and accurately count the number of painted and non-painted turtles. The team&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/an-armada-of-turtles-caught-on-drone-cam-flocks-to-the-great-barrier-reef/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/an-armada-of-turtles-caught-on-drone-cam-flocks-to-the-great-barrier-reef/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-231380</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Number of monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico down by more than half</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/03/number-of-monarch-butterflies-wintering-in-mexico-down-by-more-than-half/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/03/number-of-monarch-butterflies-wintering-in-mexico-down-by-more-than-half/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Mar 2020 13:50:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mike Gaworecki]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/03/20133941/monarchs_1210px-768x451.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=228123</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Mexico and North America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Butterflies, Conservation, Environment, Insects, Surveying, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The number of monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico is down by more than half this year, according to new survey results. The National Commission of Protected Natural Areas of Mexico, together with WWF-Mexico, local communities, and other partners, conducts a survey every year to document the extent of forest habitat covered by monarch butterflies that [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The number of monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico is down by more than half this year, according to new survey results. The National Commission of Protected Natural Areas of Mexico, together with WWF-Mexico, local communities, and other partners, conducts a survey every year to document the extent of forest habitat covered by monarch butterflies that migrate from the US and Canada. The area of forest inhabited by monarchs in Mexican forests is used as a proxy for estimating the monarch butterfly population. The survey found that the area of forest occupied by monarch butterflies during the 2019-2020 winter season was just 7 acres (2.83 hectares), a 53% decrease from the 2018-2019 season, when monarchs covered 15 acres (6.05 hectares) of forest. In a statement, Jorge Rickards, the managing director of WWF-Mexico, said that the decline in the monarch butterfly population wintering in Mexico is not necessarily a cause for alarm, but added that “we must remain vigilant and not allow it to become a trend in the coming years. Conservation is a long-term job.” Monarch butterfly roost, Sierra Chincua, Mexico. Photo © WWF-US &#8211; Clay Bolt. WWF reports that when migrating monarchs arrived in Southern Texas in March and April 2019, they were met with lower temperatures than normal, which impeded the growth of eggs and larvae. That meant that there were fewer butterflies to produce succeeding generations of monarchs, causing a smaller population to occupy a smaller area of Mexico’s forests. &#8220;The latest forest report indicates the hibernation habitat&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/03/number-of-monarch-butterflies-wintering-in-mexico-down-by-more-than-half/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/03/number-of-monarch-butterflies-wintering-in-mexico-down-by-more-than-half/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-228123</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Key cetacean site in Philippines sees drop in dolphin, whale sightings</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/key-cetacean-site-in-philippines-sees-drop-in-dolphin-whale-sightings/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/key-cetacean-site-in-philippines-sees-drop-in-dolphin-whale-sightings/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Jan 2020 06:00:26 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Leilani Chavez]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Leilani]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/01/31041421/4-Three-spinners_TAquino-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=226760</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Philippines, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Animals, Charismatic Animals, Dolphins, Ecosystems, Global Environmental Crisis, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Illegal Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Mammals, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, Protected Areas, Surveying, and Whales]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MANILA — Sightings of dolphins and whales in a Philippine strait long considered an important waterway for the marine mammals have plummeted over the past two decades, with human activity in the area a likely factor, researchers say. The latest survey of the Tañon Strait, a 161-kilometer (100-mile) narrow body of water between the central [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MANILA — Sightings of dolphins and whales in a Philippine strait long considered an important waterway for the marine mammals have plummeted over the past two decades, with human activity in the area a likely factor, researchers say. The latest survey of the Tañon Strait, a 161-kilometer (100-mile) narrow body of water between the central Philippine islands of Negros and Cebu, was carried out last year. It found fewer cetaceans, in smaller groups, than surveys conducted in the area since 1999. Despite the downward trend, a new dolphin species was observed in the area for the first time, highlighting the need for more measures to protect the seascape. Researchers tallied a new low of just 15 sightings or encounters with six species of dolphins and whales — significantly lower compared to the first comprehensive study done in the marine corridor 20 years earlier. The survey team recorded sightings of the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), gray&#8217;s spinner dolphin (Stenella longirostris), dwarf spinner dolphin (S. l. roseiventris), pantropical spotted dolphin (S. attenuata), Risso&#8217;s dolphin (Grampus griseus), and dwarf sperm whale (Kogia sima). A pair of dwarf spinner dolphin (Stenella longirostris roseiventris) was spotted for the first time in Tañon Strait. The strait is only the second site in the country that has recorded the presence of this species. Image by Teri Aquino The Tañon Strait is one of the largest marine protected areas in the Philippines and has been a favorite migratory route for at least 11 of the 27 cetacean species found in the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/key-cetacean-site-in-philippines-sees-drop-in-dolphin-whale-sightings/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/key-cetacean-site-in-philippines-sees-drop-in-dolphin-whale-sightings/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-226760</doi>				</item>
			</channel>
</rss>