Several years ago, my colleague Richard York and I were sitting outside on a Eugene, Oregon patio discussing Elizabeth Kolbert’s then-new book, The Sixth Extinction, and we came to an…
The recent plunge in numbers of Grauer's gorillas in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has lopped off one-fifth of the subspecies’ genetic diversity, leaving it potentially vulnerable to…
In 1982, an orangutan researcher working in Indonesian Borneo wrote to a colleague at the biology department at the National University in Jakarta. He told of meeting a traditional-medicine trader…
On this episode, the true story of how 96 critically endangered sea turtles survived a New York City beach — with a little help from some dedicated conservationists and scientists.…
The current mass extinction is eliminating whole branches of the mammal tree of life, which will take millions of years to replace, according to a recent study. Some researchers suggest…
JAKARTA — Conservationists have captured a wild Sumatran rhinoceros in Indonesian Borneo and relocated it to a breeding center — a key step toward saving the critically endangered species. The…
Decades of “extreme” conservation have lifted the mountain gorilla from the edge of extinction, leading the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to change the animal’s status from the…
On October 10th the world lost an unlikely conservation hero: Bill Wood, a trapper who turned his expertise to save scores of species from extinction. Bill was 84. A third…
Orangutans face a changing climate and are hemmed in by a growing human population using novel technologies to hunt them down. It's a situation they have been in before —…
JAKARTA — Hopes for a long-awaited collaboration between Indonesia and Malaysia to breed the near-extinct Sumatran rhino are fading fast, as the last of the species languish amid government inaction.…
Pangolins living in Central Africa aren’t feeling the effects of a landmark decision in 2016 to protect them from a ravenous international trade, a report published in July has found.…
Frogs in a tropical forest in Panama are doing better than scientists believed after a devastating fungus slashed population numbers and wiped out entire species about a decade ago. In…
Together with other leading primate conservationists, Russell Mittermeier, Chief Conservation Officer for the NGO Global Wildlife Conservation and recently announced winner of the 2018 Indianapolis Prize, is sounding the alarm…
For most foreigners, the mention of Kenya conjures images characteristic of the country’s southern safari circuit — the famed Masai Mara wildebeest migration, Amboseli’s elephant herds dwarfed by Mount Kilimanjaro’s…
JAKARTA — Twenty-five of the world’s top environmental scientists have lambasted plans to construct a hydroelectric dam in northern Sumatra, Indonesia, because it would threaten the rarest species of great…
On May 17, 2018, the first eight orange-furred students arrived to begin their studies at a new orangutan forest school in the province of East Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo. Under…
JAKARTA — Puan, the world’s oldest living Sumatran orangutan, has died at an Australian zoo after a lifetime spent in service to the conservation of the critically endangered species. Officials…
It was announced yesterday that Dr. Russell Mittermeier has been awarded the 2018 Indianapolis Prize. Mittermeier, a primatologist, herpetologist, and highly accomplished conservationist, is the seventh recipient of the prestigious…
According to the results of a census released last week, the mountain gorilla population in East Africa’s Virunga Mountains numbered 604 as of June 2016, up from from 480 in…
An expedition through the rainforests, mountains and grasslands of Bolivia’s Madidi National Park has turned up hundreds of species previously unknown in the park, including dozens that could be new…
