Altering Earth’s natural systems not only spreads disease to humans. Ecosystem disruption increasingly puts wild animals at risk of devastating pandemics and threatens endangered species’ survival.
Medical, public health, and conservation experts are calling for greater pathogen surveillance and regulation of the legal wildlife trade in order to quickly identify pathogens and prevent the next pandemic.
MEDAN, Indonesia — Conservation authorities in Indonesia have launched an investigation into alleged animal abuse by a public zoo where Sumatran tigers have been found emaciated and apparently eating grass.…
In spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic took off in the United States just as the breeding season for the black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes) commenced. Disease is always at the forefront…
It’s easier to spot the bristly, gray-brown hide of a Bornean bearded pig (Sus barbatus) ambling through orderly rows of oil palm trees, than amid a dense tropical forest. But…
For more than a year, the world has closely followed the development, approval and deployment of various coronavirus vaccines that could bring an end to the global pandemic, debating every…
I’ve been writing about wild things for more than 10 years, and while there are many animals I don’t know, I thought I’d at least heard of most of the…
Rodents live among us, but we rarely see them. Nondescript, tiny, and often nocturnal, they slip through the cracks of society, largely unnoticed. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the…
In May 2020, Shivaprakash Nagaraju, senior scientist at The Nature Conservancy in India, was working in New Delhi when he contracted COVID-19. “I had breathing problems and other symptoms, and…
The new, more contagious COVID-19 Delta variant is raging worldwide, while new pandemics are emerging at an ever-faster rate. But we’re still not taking the urgent action needed to prevent the next zoonotic disease outbreak, experts say.
Toxic Bubble Bounce Mushrooms or Green Iguana Disco Mushrooms may sound like psychedelic drugs, but they are, in fact, names of live corals available for sale online. These brilliantly colored…
In 2019, animal welfare inspectors visited Pienika Farm, a captive-lion facility in the North West province of South Africa. They found sick lion after sick lion living in conditions inspectors…
Since the 2018 emergence of African swine fever in China, the viral disease has torn through Asia, leaving behind a trail of economic devastation. It’s witheringly fatal to pigs but…
Two gorillas at San Diego Zoo in California have tested positive for COVID-19, in the first reported cases of great apes contracting the novel coronavirus. Three of the primates showed…
A few months after the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 began to pop up in the U.S., a piece of news came out of the Bronx Zoo in New York…
The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that when coronaviruses leap from wild animals to humans, the results can be devastating. A new study from Vietnam provides new insights about…
Avoiding the loss of human life and the economic fallout caused by future pandemics will require a seismic change in our approach to the causes of the emergence of disease-causing…
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — On July 23, after several months of anticipation within Vietnam’s conservation community, the government released a new directive on managing the wildlife trade in…
Hellbenders are North America’s largest salamanders, living in rivers and growing to an incredible length of over two feet. Eastern newts are tiny and terrestrial, but both are susceptible to…
COVID-19 will cost the world trillions of dollars. But the cost of preventing a future pandemic could be as little as 2% of that cost, a research-based opinion piece published…
The U.S. is home to the world’s highest diversity of salamander species, many of which are thought to be susceptible to the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans or 'Bsal' for short.…
North America and the U.S. in particular is the world’s hotspot of salamander diversity, hosting about a third of all species, so researchers are concerned about the potential landfall of…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has lifted a moratorium on the release of captive wild animals, imposed earlier this year as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of the…
Reporter Benji Jones and wildlife disease ecologist with United States Geological Survey, Daniel Grear, join this special edition of Mongabay's podcast to discuss the hunt for Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal) in…
With just over 1,200 cases and ten deaths, it may appear that Madagascar has been spared the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. But in the deep south of the country,…
In January 2017, researchers noticed two ill chimpanzees in Taï National Park in Côte d'Ivoire. The baby and adolescent West African chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) were coughing, breathing hard, and…
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – Conservation organizations in Vietnam sent a letter to the Prime Minister last week asking for an update on planned measures to curtail the trade…
JAKARTA — Measures aimed at halting the spread of the novel coronavirus in Indonesia have meant tough times for Indonesia’s captive animals, both at wildlife rehabilitation facilities and in the…
ANTIQUE, Philippines — Calls are mounting for an investigation into ongoing coal-mining activity on Semirara Island in the central Philippines, amid a series of confirmed COVID-19 cases originating from the…
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, popularly known as CITES, is a rare animal: an international environmental treaty with teeth. It regulates the global trade in some of…
