In 2012, researchers in Sri Lanka tracked the movements of a dozen “problem elephants” that had been translocated into protected areas due to conflict with humans. Their findings were worrying:…
Mozambique's 15-year civil war changed the face of its national parks, which underwent rampant poaching of big mammals, including elephants. It did much more. It changed the face of female…
In April 2021, authorities in the Philippines made a notable discovery. On a beachfront property on Sitio Green Island in Palawan province, they found shell after shell of giant clams,…
Before the clearing and excavators and bulldozers, before plans to build a gold mine and oil palm plantations, the Jemaluang and Tenggaroh forest reserves in Johor, Malaysia, were wildlife-rich jungles…
In recent years, new and emerging technologies have revolutionized conservation work. At the forefront of this transformation is EarthRanger, a protected-area management software that was developed by Vulcan Inc. in…
Every few years, stretches of Borneo’s towering dipterocarp trees fruit in a synchronized pulse. In those months, the air is rich with brown, winged fruit, which fall and spin to…
Ordinarily at this time of year, I would have just returned from fieldwork in Sri Lanka, where I have spent more than 14 years studying wild Asian elephants. Summer is…
Today we’re looking at Indigenous-led projects and the latest research informing conservation of elephants, the largest land animal in existence and one of the world’s most widely recognized and beloved…
HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka — The first time Mahinda Samarawickrama, a farmer in Hambantota district, southern Sri Lanka, was attacked by an elephant, he’d gone down to the village reservoir at…
Malaysian scientists and activists have called on road planners in the Bornean state of Sabah to reconsider a 13-kilometer (8-mile) stretch of the Pan Borneo Highway that will cut through…
In an undisturbed ecosystem, elephants move across the landscape in response to the availability of food and water and the type of habitat or competition. But according to a continent-wide…
Elephants are always the prime attraction. In zoos, circuses, and safaris, elephants are the number one draw. They make an impression with their playfulness and intelligence, their docile nature despite…
Wild elephants are awe-inspiring — even if they’re trying to kill you, as I discovered in 2004. At the time I was studying how poachers and loggers threaten native mammals…
One of the world's most infamous ivory traffickers will remain in prison in Tanzania after an appeal judge sent her case back to a lower court. The high court accepted…
Once known as the world’s elephant killing fields, Tanzania appears to have halted the worst ivory poaching within its borders, making more than 2,300 arrests of poachers and traffickers over…
Today we take a look at the growing world of bioacoustics research and listen to a number of recordings of wildlife, from owls, lemurs, and elephants to seals, right whales,…
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) contains the bulk of Africa’s humid rainforest. But forests that were once dense, impenetrable and continuous are increasingly fractured by deforestation. New satellite…
MANILA — When COVID-19 emerged in early 2020 in Southeast Asia, its governments took rapid containment actions: lockdowns, travel restrictions and trade suspensions, alerting the public about the virus. The…
Two of the Democratic Republic of Congo's most prolific wildlife traders have been handed jail terms this year, in a rare spell of conservation wins for Congolese law enforcement. Salomon…
A horrifying video surfaced last week showing National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre struggling to kill an African savanna elephant in Botswana. LaPierre’s pursuit of a trophy, documented (though never…
Covering a vast peninsula that juts out into the Gulf of Thailand on Cambodia’s southern coast, Botum Sakor is one of the largest national parks in the country and known…
COLOMBO — He may have had short tusks, but at nearly 3 meters (10 feet) tall, Revatha was the dominant bull in his home range of Kalawewa in Sri Lanka’s…
Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary sprawls across a vast expanse of Cambodia’s eastern reach. But much of what used to be covered in lush rainforest has been laid barren by deforestation.…
The Ugandan and Tanzanian governments have signed agreements with French oil major Total and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) to build a 1,400-kilometer (900-mile) pipeline from Uganda's Murchison Falls…
UDAWALAWE NATIONAL PARK, Sri Lanka — Earlier this month, more than 300 people gathered near the borders of the Dahaiyagala Wildlife Sanctuary in Sri Lanka’s Uva province armed with axes,…
In March 2020, a massive migration began when an international travel ban to curb COVID-19 brought Thailand’s tourism industry to a sudden halt. Elephant camps, which use more than 2,700…
A forestry company in Gabon has built new roads to log a forest in the northeastern province of Ogooué-Ivindo. Villagers had applied to the government last August to reclassify this…
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…
Despite a petition of over 100,000 signatures condemning the sale, Namibia’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism (MEFT) plans to finalize a controversial auction of 170 of its wild elephants…
The Sumatran elephant is a small Asian elephant whose numbers are dwindling as their lowland forest habitats are converted to uses like oil palm plantations. Experts say that Indonesia has…