This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Additional support was provided by Earthsight. When the politician in charge of Indonesia’s Aru Islands signed permits for a vast sugar plantation,…
One of the world’s rarest birds, once thought to be extinct, successfully bred in the wild late last year. The crop of ducklings marks a victory for conservation groups that…
For the critically endangered spoon-billed sandpiper, a tiny shorebird that makes an 8,000-kilometer (5,000-mile) migration each year, wetlands are vital stopover points. To boost the small bird’s population, the Rainforest…
MANILA — A new airport under construction in a key wetland habitat just north of the Philippine capital is poised to impact dozens of migratory bird species, many of them…
This may sound familiar: you’re sitting at home, absorbed in your daily activities, when THUD; a bird crashes into your window. You jump, or at least look up, and feel…
Governments could vastly improve the efficiency of money spent on conservation if they took a hard look at the species they prioritize, according to a recent study. The research probed…
A six-week expedition to three small island groups near Sulawesi, Indonesia has yielded five new songbird species and five new subspecies. The new species and subspecies were described in a…
It looked like a game of parrot poker, but the token exchange counter set up by European researchers at a Spanish zoo was an experiment to determine if African grey…
The camera traps that ecologist Annette Fayet had set up didn’t provide the clues she had hoped to find about puffin diets and nesting behavior. What they did provide, though,…
Gurney’s pitta may be running out of time. The tiny, vibrantly colored bird, first described from the Tanintharyi region of Myanmar in 1875, was thought to have gone extinct when…
DURBAN, South Africa — Another mass vulture poisoning incident has ended the year on a sour note for Wildlife ACT rangers in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal. Soon after…
The discovery of a new-to-science species is always an awe-inspiring bit of news, filling us with hope. This year, researchers introduced us to several such species. Some were the result…
KABALE DISTRICT, Uganda — Ten years ago, grey crowned cranes (Balearica regulorum) had become a rare sight along the highway connecting the Ugandan capital, Kampala, to Rwanda. Across the birds'…
This is our last episode of 2019, so we took a look back at the bioacoustic recordings we featured here on the Mongabay Newscast over the past year and today…
ILOILO, Philippines — A pig growled in pain. I walked up to the enclosure of sharp, rusty metal grill to see a Visayan warty pig (Sus cebifrons), known locally as…
For seabirds, an Arctic Ocean with less sea ice could provide some tantalizing alternatives to the long-haul flights that some undertake each year. In a recent study, ecologist Manon Clairbaux…
They left at five o’clock in the morning and traveled all day, sitting in their dugout canoes called peke-peke under the punishing tropical heat — all to attend a meeting.…
It’s sometimes easy to forget that birds have ears, craftily concealed as they are. Which is why the thunderous passage of airplanes sends ripples of disquiet in their ranks. Now,…
Extinct in its habitat for at least three decades, the Alagoas curassow (Pauxi mitu) is now back in the jungle and facing a test of survival, thanks to the joint efforts of more than a dozen institutions to pull this pheasant-like bird back from the brink.
As the Mojave Desert in California and Nevada becomes hotter and drier, birds need more water to stay cool. Species that can’t get enough water are rapidly declining in this…
Howick, SOUTH AFRICA – The first of at least five new “vulture safe zones” in Southern Africa are about to take off as private landowners and other partners join the…
The school bell rings for recess and as the students prepare to leave their rooms, a screeching bird call blares through the rooms and hallways of Sebaste National High School,…
JAKARTA — Scientists have described a new bird species found only on the Indonesian island of Alor, where a growing human population is already encroaching on the bird’s volcanic habitat.…
If the climate continues to change at its current pace, most emperor penguins could become extinct by the end of this century, a new study predicts. However, if countries meet…
In May of 2015, ten people were arrested and three charged in Yunnan, China. They had killed a Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) and were selling its meat. The panda’s paws…
MONTENEGRO — “You see, they are coming, the visitors are coming,” says Jovana Janjušević as we walk along one of the trails that zig-zag across Ulcinj Salina, a diverse saltwater wetland…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. This month Mongabay and The Gecko Project published “Saving Aru,” an article chronicling how the people of Indonesia’s Aru Islands thwarted a…
COLOMBO — His eye was trained from a young age to observe details, be it about a plant, an animal, or a legal document. Jagath Gunawardena, a veteran lawyer and…
When the male white bellbird sings, it’s not just loud: it’s ear-splittingly loud. In fact, the call of this Amazonian bird is the loudest recorded call among all bird species…
There’s a new species of fruit-eating bird in Borneo that is now known as the Spectacled Flowerpecker. The species wasn’t entirely unknown up until now. Scientists and birdwatchers have spotted…
