Researchers have recorded microplastics in frog tadpoles and their pond habitats in the wild in the Amazon for the first time, according to a new study. This confirms widespread microplastic contamination in the Amazon Rainforest, the researchers say.  

Previous studies from the region have found microplastic contamination in fish, invertebrates, soil and water samples.

In the recent study, ecologist Fabrielle Barbosa de Araújo from the Federal University of Pará and her colleagues collected 20 water samples from five natural water bodies formed by the accumulation of rainwater in soil depressions at Gunma Ecological Park in Pará state in April 2025. These temporary ponds are important breeding sites and larval development areas for various frog species in the Amazon. 

From each of the five ponds, the researchers also collected 100 tadpoles of the Venezuela snouted treefrog (Scinax x-signatus), commonly found in both forests and urban areas across South America.

The researchers found microplastics in each sampled pond and tadpole. Most of the microplastics were transparent, blue and black fibers made of plastic like polyester. Other studies have also found similar blue and transparent fibers across the Amazon, possibly originating from sanitary sewage and fishing activities, the researchers write.

Araújo told Mongabay by email that finding microplastics in the tadpoles and their habitats was not surprising as several previous studies have shown microplastic contamination in other organisms in the Amazon. “What really caught our attention was the large quantity found, especially because this is an area with low [human] population density and considered relatively well preserved,” she said. 

Araújo said she’s particularly concerned about microplastics in the tadpoles because the “contamination can negatively affect the health of amphibians, causing genetic and morphological damage, such as alterations in blood cells and in the DNA itself.” She added that microplastic particles can also accumulate in tissues and cause physiological changes in frogs.

The authors write that tadpoles of the Venezuela snouted treefrog eat algae, fungi and eggs in water and may have ingested the microplastics that way.

“Research on the presence of microplastics in the Amazon has intensified in recent years, and our goal is to continue monitoring this contamination, especially in anuran tadpoles, in order to better understand how this pollutant is affecting the biodiversity of our region,” Araújo said.

“This study provides the first evidence that microplastics are reaching tadpoles in the Amazon, a region where we have very limited data,” Jess Hua, an ecologist who studies freshwater ecology and amphibians and wasn’t affiliated with the study, told Mongabay by email. “This is important because amphibians represent the most threatened vertebrate taxa and understanding potential threats, including from microplastics, is important to their conservation.” 

Hua added that microplastic contamination in freshwater systems is still much less studied compared to marine systems.

Banner image of a Venezuela snouted treefrog by Taucce et al., 2022, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

Bird deaths from collisions with glass structures are a global problem. But in India, conservationists are just beginning to learn the scale of the issue, reports Mongabay India’s Kartik Chandramouli.

While humans are taught the concept of glass and its transparency, birds likely perceive the reflection of vegetation or the sky as reality, researchers say, leading to collisions, often fatal.

In Gujarat state, in western India, for example, more than a dozen migratory rosy starlings (Pastor roseus) crashed into a glass building in February 2022. In Meghalaya, in northeast India, several long-tailed broadbills (Psarisomus dalhousiae) collided with the façade of an automobile showroom in January this year.

While such sporadic local reports exist, well-recorded data on bird collisions are generally missing in India. Only recently have a few studies started offering some trends. A 2025 study in Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve in southern India recorded 35 instances of collisions in just one year, involving 22 bird species, including the endemic Nilgiri wood pigeon (Columba elphinstonii). These collisions involved two-story buildings. 

“Tall glass skyscrapers are not the only culprits,” Peeyush Sekhsaria, an architect and bird-watcher, told Mongabay India. Many birds in India move between trees and plants tall enough to reach the fourth floor, placing most buildings directly in their flight paths.

Given the lack of data, Sekhsaria and Ashwin Viswanathan, an ecologist at the nonprofit Nature Conservation Foundation, launched a citizen science project called Bird Collisions India on the iNaturalist app in 2020. As of April 2026, it’s recorded nearly 88 cases of bird collisions involving 47 species. The Indian pitta (Pitta brachyura), a vibrant migratory bird, appears frequently among the reports.

Sekhsaria and Viswanathan have also collected reports of bird-building collisions on Facebook posts, iNaturalist observations and eBird entries, and through interviews with wildlife rescue organizations. So far, they’ve compiled roughly 500 collision reports involving more than 80 species. Most records come from the city of Bengaluru, though, and aren’t representative of a national trend.

Both projects have shown Sekhsaria and Viswanathan that citizen science isn’t enough to reveal the full scale of the bird collision problem in India. Wildlife rescue organizations in cities, which often treat injured birds, could help fill the gap if they collected data systematically.

Bengaluru’s Avian and Reptile Rehabilitation Centre (ARRC) has started collecting collision incidents through a standardized reporting form and aims to develop a protocol that other centers can adopt. But implementation could be challenging, Jayanthi Kallam of ARRC told Mongabay India. Many rescue centers in India have limited staff and funding, maintain handwritten or digital logs, or have no recordkeeping at all.

Without more coordinated monitoring, scientists don’t have a full picture of hotspots for bird collisions or understand what species are most vulnerable to collisions.  

Read the full story by Kartik Chandramouli here.

Banner image: The Indian pitta is vulnerable to collisions with glass surfaces in India. Image by Sinijose Jose via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0).

A suspected chemical discharge is flowing into Nairobi National Park, raising concerns over the vulnerability of a unique protected ecosystem and the growing pressure of urban-industrial activity at its borders.

On April 30, 2026, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) reported in a press release sent to Mongabay “abnormal foamy water inflows” entering the park through the Mlolongo drainage corridor. In a statement sent to Mongabay, the agency described white, effervescent bubbles, continuous discharge and unnatural coloration, all “consistent with possible chemical contamination”.

What makes the situation particularly alarming is the location. Established in 1946, Nairobi National Park is the only national park in the world located within a capital city. The park covers 117 square kilometers (45 square miles) of savanna, forest and wetlands. It’s home to four of the “Big Five”: lions, buffalo, leopards and rhinos (missing only elephants). The park also hosts a rhino sanctuary and an animal orphanage where injured wildlife are treated. But its proximity, surrounded by Nairobi’s expanding industrial zones, has long made it vulnerable.

KWS warned that the risk goes beyond wildlife, noting, “The affected system feeds into the Mbagathi and Athi Rivers, placing Athi Dam a critical ecological and water resource at significant risk, alongside aquatic biodiversity and downstream water users, including communities, agriculture, and livestock.” Authorities have urged the public to avoid fishing and using water from the rivers.

An investigation has been launched to determine the source of the contamination. Preliminary findings suggest that “the runoff may have interacted with nearby industrial zones, including areas near Orbit Chemical Industries Ltd, though investigations are ongoing to confirm the source.” Founded in 1972, the company produces hygiene products as well as industrial chemicals, including anionic surfactants, compounds commonly used in laundry detergents and known to cause skin irritation.

Mongabay contacted Orbit Chemical for comment, but the company did not respond by the time of publication.

On April 30th, KWS announced it has launched a joint intervention with the National Environment Management Authority and the Water Resources Authority to identify the source of the pollution, determine its composition and implement containment measures.

KWS added that the discharge of untreated waste or hazardous substances into protected ecosystems is illegal and will be met with strict enforcement.

Banner image: Picture of the abnormal foamy water taken by KWS officers in Nairobi National Park. Image courtesy of Kenya Wildlife Service.

Icelandic commercial whaling company Hvalur hf. plans to resume whale hunting this summer, following a two-year pause in commercial operations.

In 2024, the Icelandic government issued the company a five-year license allowing it to catch up to 209 fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) annually. However, Hvalur hf. didn’t hunt any whales in 2024 or 2025.

Iceland’s Marine and Freshwater Research Institute advised that no more than 150 should be caught in 2026, a 28% reduction from previous catch recommendations.

The IUCN Red List classifies fin whales as vulnerable to extinction. The species is the second-largest animal on Earth, after blue whales (B. musculus). Partly because they are so large, fin whales are “slow to mature, with low reproductive rates, which means populations recover slowly from any pressure,” Luke McMillan, head of hunting and captivity with the U.S.-based NGO Whale and Dolphin Conservation, told Mongabay by email.

Following the 1982 International Whaling Commission moratorium on commercial whaling, most countries discontinued the practice. Just Iceland, Japan and Norway still allow it. However, Iceland Minister of Industries Hanna Katrín Friðriksson has reportedly said commercial whaling is not in the public interest and that legislation to end the practice will be introduced in the fall, after the 2026 whaling season.

Animal welfare concerns remain a central question. A 2023 report from the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority found more than 40% of whales did not die immediately after being struck by harpoons, with a median of 11.5 minutes before death. In one case, a whale took a full two hours to die after being struck.

McMillan said he doesn’t believe whale hunting can be done in a way that guarantees humane treatment. “At sea, you’re firing from a moving ship at a moving target, in weather you can’t control, making consistent humane killing impossible,” he said.

However, Hvalur hf. CEO Kristján Loftsson has previous defended whaling in purely utilitarian terms by reportedly saying, “Whales are just another fish for me, an abundant marine resource, nothing else.” Whales are not fish, they’re marine mammals.

McMillan told Mongabay that fewer than 2% of Icelanders report regularly eating whale meat. Japanese demand, historically the main market for fin whale meat, has declined by roughly 99% in fiscal year 2023-24 compared with the previous year.

In 2025, Loftsson said the Japanese market was unfavorable, “making the price of our products so low that it is not justifiable to fish.”

“The economic case for whaling has effectively collapsed,” McMillan said. “What remains is a political and legal question about whether to formalise that with legislation. The question for the 2026 season is whether any fin whales will be killed before that legislation arrives.”

Mongabay requested a comment from Hvalur hf. and Iceland’s Ministry of Industries but did not receive a response from either at the time of publishing this article.

Banner image: A rare blue whale-fin whale hybrid killed by Hvalur in 2018. Image courtesy of Hard to Port.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — For roughly 380 right whales left in the North Atlantic, which can die after getting tangled in fishing ropes or hit by ships, the Trump administration said this month it wants to delay new protections by almost a decade in favor of commercial fishing interests.

The sleek black whales, which weigh as much as a midsized bulldozer, are critically endangered and their numbers have declined sharply in recent decades. Environmental groups say reducing deaths and injuries caused by people is essential to the species’ recovery.

The whales give birth off Florida and Georgia before making a long migration north to feed off New England and Canada. Protected areas of ocean aid them on their journey, but scientists have said they have strayed from those zones in recent years in search of food as the oceans have warmed.

A proposal by U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine, would push back new federal protections for right whales to 2035, and allow time to craft regulations that are less burdensome to the fishing industry. The White House released a memo Friday saying it “strongly supports” the plan and that President Donald Trump’s senior advisors would recommend he sign it into law if it passes Congress.

The proposal comes as the government already paused any new federal rules about right whales until 2028.

According to Golden, Maine’s iconic lobster industry would’ve been crushed by the now-paused regulations, which he said were “based on flawed science and hypothetical scenarios rather than the reality on the water.”

A longer delay would give the government time to “get the science right” about threats to whales, Golden said in a statement Friday.

The U.S. lobster and crab fishing industries are worth hundreds of millions of dollars at the docks.

“This legislation is critical to ensuring the long-term stability of American fisheries for generations to come,” said John Drouin, vice president of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association.

Environmental groups like California-based In Defense of Animals have pushed back against efforts to weaken whale protections. They cite how the whales’ population fell by about a quarter from 2010 to 2020, and recent years of recovery have been slow.

Some signs about the whale’s population have been encouraging. This year’s birthing season produced 23 mother-calf pairs, the most since 2009, the New England Aquarium said in a statement.

The whale, which has been federally protected for more than 50 years, remains critically endangered, the aquarium said. They were once abundant off the East Coast, but they were decimated during the era of commercial whaling.

By Patrick Whittle, Associated Press

Banner image: A pair of North Atlantic right whales interact at the surface of Cape Cod Bay, March 27, 2023, in Massachusetts. Image by Robert F. Bukaty, NOAA permit # 21371

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries.

Researchers have been using sound to study ecosystems for years. A study from ETH Zürich uses it to examine Costa Rica’s payment for ecosystem services program, reports Mongabay’s Abhishyant Kidangoor.

Giacomo Delgado, a doctoral researcher, compares the method to a physician using a stethoscope. With enough experience, a doctor can distinguish a healthy heartbeat from an irregular one. Forests, he suggests, also produce patterns that can be compared across sites.

To test this, Delgado and colleagues deployed recorders across 119 sites on the Nicoya Peninsula in northwestern Costa Rica. They gathered more than 16,000 hours of audio from various types of landscapes: protected forests, areas regenerating under the country’s payment for ecosystem services (PES) scheme, monoculture plantations, and active pastures. Costa Rica’s PES program, launched in 1997, compensates landowners for maintaining forest cover and is frequently used as a reference point in conservation policy.

Satellite data show that forest cover has recovered after steep declines in the late 20th century. They don’t show whether those forests function as habitats. Counting trees is simpler than assessing species diversity or ecological interactions.

Sound offers a different way to assess this. Insects, birds and amphibians produce layered soundscapes that change over the course of a day. Forests with more activity tend to show pronounced peaks at dawn and dusk. Pastures do not.

The recordings that Delgado and his team collected suggest that naturally regenerated forests under PES resemble protected forests more closely than degraded land. Plantations show signs of recovery, though less consistently.

The method doesn’t resolve all uncertainties. It can’t establish what would have happened without financial incentives. Even so, it provides a more direct measure of ecological condition than canopy cover alone. Delgado’s team is now expanding the analysis across the country.

Read the full story Abhishyant Kidangoor here.

Banner image of a forest in Costa Rica. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.