surveys News

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…

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.

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.

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.

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…

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…

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam - Five out of six people working in the conservation sector in Vietnam say that they have directly experienced some form of sexual harassment in…

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…

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…

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…

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 September 2014, Nepali zoologist Madhu Chetri asked his professor Morten Odden a strange question during their fieldwork. "Are you tired?" he asked Odden as the duo from the Inland…

A New Zealand-based research team assessing the utility of small, multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to survey and study humpback whales determined that video data collected from a UAV improved…

Researchers from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and CALeDNA have developed a toolkit designed to quickly identify the species in a biological community by simultaneously analyzing the environmental…

The Con X Tech Prize just announced its second round will be funding 20 finalists each with $3,500 to create their first prototypes. Some 150 teams submitted ideas that use…

Marine biologists survey fish assemblages and their associated habitat to understand the ecosystem of a place, compare fish communities over time or in response to changes in management, and examine…

Feeding aquatic sponges could provide biologists with unexpected underwater data collection assistance. Sponges (phylum Porifera) are immobile aquatic animals that eat by filtering out food particles from the water around…

The Angolan government has pledged $60 million to clear landmines in two national parks that form part of southern Africa’s highly biodiverse Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. The country’s environment minister,…

Any aquarist who has tried to grow a variety of the colorful Acropora coral in a hobby tank knows how delicate they are – “not for beginners.” And yet this…

The ‘landscape of fear’ is not a new term among biologists. From the now-iconic study of how elk and bison gradually adjusted their vigilance levels after wolves were reintroduced into…

Remember that 3-meter (17-foot) pregnant Burmese python recently captured by wildlife authorities in southern Florida? These snakes, invasive to North America and destructive to native wildlife, are cryptic in both…

A research team testing the capacity of both citizen scientists and machine learning algorithms to help survey the annual wildebeest migration in Serengeti National Park in Tanzania found that both…

Koalas are Australian icons, known globally for their fuzzy ears, broad wet nose, and love of eucalyptus leaves. They are also cryptic, slow-moving creatures that live high in the leafy…

Camera trapping has become an important conservation and research tool worldwide. Photos from remote cameras have afforded us insights into the lives of rare, shy, cryptic, nocturnal, or otherwise seldom-seen…

Forestry and construction companies in the U.K. are required to ensure their work doesn’t endanger protected species, including the nesting sites of protected bird species. In the case of the…

Everyone loves camera trap photos. Remotely installed cameras triggered by motion or heat of a passing person or animal, have helped research projects document the occurrence of species or describe…

You can now speak into your mobile phone and have it produce written text. Then have Google translate your words into Japanese, or Hindi. In two seconds. These examples of…

After months of fasting as she traveled hundreds of kilometers across the ocean, a female loggerhead sea turtle hauls herself up onto the sand: the shoreline she has returned to…

Using drones for wildlife surveys isn’t new to marine wildlife research, but it’s been focused mainly on detecting the large mammals and sea turtles that break the ocean’s surface to…

KATHMANDU, Nepal — As dawn peeks through the morning mist on an early spring day in Nepal's Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, a duck-sized bird flaps its wings and throws itself…