Illegal mining has become an “epidemic” in the Amazon rainforest, destroying naturally protected areas and threatening indigenous territories, according to a new joint study by six Amazonian countries. The crux…
On a midsummer evening earlier this year, Tracy Pham was on a walk along Huntington Beach, California, an outing she usually made to photograph birds. This time, along the way,…
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…
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Every other hour, Sonja Krüger logs onto her website and checks the birds’ status. Pharoah is taking a mud bath in the mountains, Jeremia is on…
Monitoring technology deployed in a remote rainforest over time subjects it to high heat, humidity, and rainfall, as well as potential damage by insects and other wildlife. When you add…
Flor Rumayna and Sara Hurtado arrived in Lima this past August from their homes in the Amazon headwaters to learn more about aerial monitoring of forests. They’d been researching new technologies…
Drug-sniffing dogs are an accepted part of our modern world. In the near future, could pollution-sniffing mosses be equally common? Although plants seem inactive compared to animals, a team led…
Sharks shed bits of themselves into the ocean constantly. Scientists can now use DNA in these bits to monitor whether white sharks – commonly called great whites – are swimming…
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — “This is the world’s first ever video of a wild Javan rhino couple mating,” Mamat Rahmat declared in a presentation to veterinary undergrads in the Indonesian city…
Animal tracking has revolutionized our study of animal movements and behavior. Radio transmitter tags, followed by GPS and other satellite-based tags, placed on animals via a collar, harness, glue, or…
Tropical forests are incredibly diverse ecosystems, and ecologists have long wondered why. New research studying a specific Panamanian tree – the yellow-flowering Handroanthus guayacan – has provided an answer. But…
Technology users and tech developers don’t always talk directly to each other, but they should. The relatively small size of the scientific/conservation community and its need for a particular suite…
Forest monitoring has experienced a revolution in recent years, with vast improvements in satellite sensors, the emergence of drones, and growing ubiquity of on-the-ground technologies like smartphones and camera traps.…
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…
Of gaps and limitations Our knowledge about sea animals is riddled with holes. We may study and record sea lion colonies or sea turtle nesting and hatching events as they…
“It’s easy to quantify if insects are dead,” said Harvard post-doctoral fellow James Crall, lead author of the recent study “Neonicotinoid exposure disrupts bumblebee nest behavior, social networks, and thermoregulation.”…
Researchers have developed a web-based application to enable citizen scientists to listen to the sounds of killer whales in the northeast Pacific in real time. Publicly launched on Nov. 1,…
OK, Google: Has the general public lost interest in biodiversity conservation? Has people’s interest in environmental issues been overshadowed by climate change alone? The answer to both questions, according to…
Most of Kenya is arid, and lengthy droughts can lead to livestock loss, illegal grazing in protected areas, and violent interactions between nomadic herders and other landowners. Less known are…
Botswana’s policy of zero tolerance for poaching and illegal hunting has given it the reputation of valuing wildlife conservation. But an increase in human-wildlife conflict in recent years appears to…
NYERI, Kenya - It took nine hours for Margaret Wanjugu and neighbors to put out a fire that razed Gathorongai forest near her home in central Kenya, in 2016. She…
In a high-rise just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, a conference room echoed of clacking keyboards as fluorescent lamps glared down on whiteboard scribbles and hunched shoulders. This was…
An extensive study of the leopard population in the wildlife-rich southern Indian state of Karnataka has indicated that these big cats are thriving there, buoying hopes the species’ genetic pool…
An international team of scientists has developed a method to assess the detection area of acoustic monitoring devices. These instruments, which can record the calls and other sounds of animals…
When Osa Conservation project coordinator Juan Carlos Cruz met a local landowner angered by the presence of a pair of camera traps on his land in this southwestern section of…
Since the arrival of the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) caterpillar in West Africa in early 2016, true to its name, it has been marching quickly and mercilessly through the continent,…
African elephants use areas of grassland, bushland, and woodland, but how do they move through these different vegetation types in different seasons, especially where water becomes a seasonally scarce resource?…
The iNaturalist species data- and image-sharing platform reached a milestone earlier this month with its one millionth observer. The platform consists of a mobile app and corresponding website that help…
Chief Antonio Manquid Jiménez, an elder and shaman of the Matsés tribe of northeastern Peru, hasn’t always used a smartphone to document what he finds during his hunting and gathering…
The non-profit Conservation X Labs (CXL) recently announced twenty finalists for the Con X Tech Prize – subtitled “Hacking Extinction.” The finalists will receive $3,500 to continue developing their projects,…
