The World Health Organization has officially recognized Bhutan for eliminating dog-transmitted human rabies as a public health problem  — in time for World Rabies Day on Sept. 28.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Bhutan is the first country in the Southeast Asia region, and the second to be named globally after Mexico, to achieve this validation.

Nearly 99% of all human rabies cases globally are caused by the bite or scratch of an infected dog. Once symptoms appear, rabies is almost always fatal.

On Sept. 4, the WHO confirmed that Bhutan has recorded zero human deaths from dog-mediated rabies since June 2023 and has demonstrated that it has the resources and systems in place to prevent the disease’s re-emergence.

Bhutan’s achievement comes as organizations including the WHO, World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC) mark World Rabies Day with the theme of “Stronger Together”, advancing a global goal to eliminate human rabies deaths worldwide by 2030 under the “Zero by 30” initiative.

To eradicate rabies, Bhutan has persistently invested in a comprehensive “One Health” approach, which recognizes that animal, human and environmental health are interconnected, the WHO said in a press release.

A 2021 Royal Decree by the King of Bhutan launched the Nationwide Accelerated Dog Population Mangement and Rabies Control Programme, implemented jointly by the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock.

WHO said field health teams and veterinarians supported by civilian volunteers achieved 100% sterilization coverage of the country’s free-roaming dog population. They also vaccinated more than 90% of free-roaming dogs against rabies, exceeding the 70% threshold recommended by the WHO to break transmission chains.  

Additionally, post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) treatment, given after exposure to rabies to prevent the virus from reaching the central nervous system and causing death, is universally free across all of Bhutan’s 20 districts. It is funded by the Bhutan Health Trust Fund.

“I congratulate Bhutan on this historic achievement, which is another step towards our goal to end human deaths from dog-transmitted rabies by 2030,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, the WHO press release. “Bhutan’s success shows that the health of humans, animals and the environment we share is inextricably linked.”

The World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) said in a statement that WHO validation is a major milestone, but not the end of the journey. “Continued vigilance will be essential to maintain surveillance, sustain high vaccination coverage, strengthen wildlife rabies surveillance, enhance cross-border collaboration and ensure long-term financing for rabies prevention and control activities,” it added.

On Sept. 14, the WHO announced that Chile had also been validated for eliminating dog-transmitted rabies — the first South American country to do so, having recorded no human cases since 1972.

Banner image: A dog in Nobding village in Wangdue Phodrang district in Bhutan. Image courtesy of Gerd Eichmann via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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

In 2022, poachers had taken 14 white rhinos from private farms in Namibia in six weeks, so owners started removing their horns. One cow had a horn 86 centimeters (34 inches) long. Jaco Muller said he was nearly in tears when it was removed. “It is such a magnificent animal,” he said. “But for the animal’s sake, it is for the best.”

Dehorning gave poachers less reason to kill a rhino. For Muller, the sight of a dehorned rhino was preferable to finding a dead one.

The idea for breeding rhinos came from his son, then 15, as a school project. In 2010, Muller converted the family’s antelope-breeding operation into what became the Rhino Momma Project in Namibia’s Kunene region.

Muller believed that breeding more white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum), keeping them secure enough to reproduce, and then replenishing populations across Africa could help save the species. So he built a breeding program with a rhino-custodianship farm and the nonprofit Help Our Rhinos Now, or HoRn.

The first calf was born in 2013; by 2025, the project had become one of Namibia’s larger privately run rhino-breeding operations.

Kifaru Lodge, which Muller opened in 2018, brought in money from tourists to help cover security and rhino care.

Muller also supported legalizing the trade in rhino horn. His argument was that prohibition let criminals collect the profits while farm owners and conservation groups paid for security. He compared harvesting horn to shearing sheep: the animal would survive, the horn would grow back, and a regulated market might finance protection.

“Right now, only poachers make money from horns,” he said in 2025.

That was, and remains, a controversial argument. Opponents question whether a legal trade would enable laundering of poached rhino horns or increase demand. For Muller, the case came from the economics of a breeding program: horns were valuable, and protecting the animals was expensive.

He believed rhinos needed populations outside Namibia as well. In a controversial move in 2024, 42 white rhinos from Kifaru Lodge were exported to Texas. He cited the Arabian oryx, which survived through captive breeding and reintroduction, as an example.

Muller often used a gyrocopter to survey the reserve from the air, looking for signs of intrusion and checking on rhinos spread across the property. On Sept. 19, Muller, 53, was killed when the gyrocopter crashed while he was monitoring rhinos and wildfire flare-ups near Outjo. By then, the school-project idea had become a herd of rhinos: the project had recorded 197 births since its first calf arrived in 2013.

Banner image: Jaco Muller. Image courtesy of the Rhino Momma Project.

Plastic pollution could disrupt the bioluminescent light produced by deep-sea organisms, researchers warn in a letter in the journal Cambridge Prisms: Plastics. When deep-sea organisms ingest plastics, it could disrupt the chemical pathways that create bioluminescence and damage the tissues in their bodies, impairing their ability to find food and a mate, the authors said.

In the deep sea, up to 80% of organisms with complex cells are believed to be bioluminescent, the only source of light in the darkest parts of the ocean. The light these organisms create is essential for their survival and reproduction, the letter notes. Disruption of their bioluminescence could negatively impact food webs and ecosystem functions in the deep sea, the largest and least-explored biome on Earth, the letter says.

In an email to Mongabay, co-author Renjith VishnuRadhan of Amity University in India offered the example of an anglerfish. “It is widely recognizable from documentaries and films such as Finding Nemo,” he said. “Female deep-sea anglerfish have a modified dorsal spine ending in a luminous lure called the esca. Light produced by symbiotic bacteria helps attract prey and may also assist with recognition or communication in darkness.”

It’s well-established that bacterial bioluminescence can be affected by pollutants, VishnuRadhan said, and ingestion of toxic plastic additives by anglerfish could disrupt the bacterial symbiosis in the lure, theoretically affecting its luminous signaling.

The authors note there’s some evidence of plastic pollution impacts on deep-sea ecosystems, but scientists lack the high-quality data and observations needed to understand the problems in depth. A major challenge is that deep-sea organisms are fragile and their habitats are largely inaccessible to researchers. “The main constraint is that a rigorous in situ effect study requires more than merely detecting plastics and organisms at the same location; it must establish exposure, biological response, and, preferably, causation under deep-sea conditions.”

Edith Widder, an expert on deep-sea bioluminescence and CEO of the Ocean Research & Conservation Association, who wasn’t involved with the study, agreed that better data are necessary to really understand the threats microplastics may present to deep-sea bioluminescence. “Whether microplastic pollution represents a significant emerging threat to deep-sea bioluminescence remains uncertain. Detecting and understanding any such impacts will require sustained, long-term monitoring.”

VishnuRadhan said he’s hopeful that studies are technically feasible using advanced technologies and remotely operated vehicles.

“I am optimistic that the effects of plastic on deep-sea organisms and ecological processes will become a recognized research area,” he said. “The subject is moving rapidly beyond simply asking, ‘Are plastics present in the deep sea?’ Investigators are now examining transport pathways, ingestion, chemical leaching, food-web transfer and biological stress.”

Banner image: Humpback blackdevil (Melanocetus johnsonii) anglerfish © Marc Martin Sola via iNaturalist. CC BY-NC 4.0.

Lulingu, a Grauer’s gorilla (Gorilla beringei), was reintroduced to Virunga National Park, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 2024. In May 2026, Lulingu gave birth to a new baby, bringing hope for the species and excitement for the conservationists working there.

“The baby and the mother are doing perfectly well. It really makes us happy. We are proud of her, it is also a bit of our success. Imagine, we knew her as a baby, we watched her grow, be rehabilitated and now she is a mother,” Jackson Kabuyaya Mbeke, country director of the DRC Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education Center (GRACE), told Mongabay by phone.

Lulingu arrived at GRACE, a 16-hectare (40-acre) wildlife sanctuary, in 2016 when she was 18 months old. She was rescued from an illegal wildlife trafficking network by the Congolese Wildlife Authority (ICCN) and the NGO Gorilla Doctors. The sanctuary gave her space to socialize and play in a setting close to her natural habitat, under the watchful eyes of adoptive gorilla mothers. Lulingu was later reintroduced into the wild near Mount Tshiaberimu, a remote part of Virunga National Park.

“The purpose of our sanctuary is to take in rescued gorillas, but also to care for them until they can be released into the wild. The fact that Lulingu has had a baby is a sign that she has adapted well to life in the wild,” Kabuyaya Mbeke explained. “By reintroducing them into the wild, we also hope to repopulate forests that have been stripped of their wildlife.”

Grauer’s gorilla, also known as the eastern lowland gorilla, is endemic to the tropical forests of eastern DRC. It is the largest primate on Earth, but its habitat is shrinking under the pressures of armed conflict, deforestation and mining. In 2016, it was reclassified as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List after decades of being classified as endangered. Conservationists estimate that 77% of the population has disappeared since 1994, falling from an estimated 16,900 to 3,800 individuals by 2015. That means every birth is important for the species.

“Thanks to this success, we are now looking at whether we will reintroduce more gorillas into the wild. We are in the preparatory phase,” Kabuyaya Mbeke said.

However, security concerns still exist. Virunga National Park has faced decades of violence since the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda. Conflict has included clashes between DRC armed forces, militias and local self-defense groups known as the Wazalendo. Since early 2025, M23 has seized control of large parts of the park, fueling poaching, deforestation and illegal trafficking.

To build support for the park and its wildlife, conservationists will invite local communities to suggest names for Lulingu’s new baby. “A vote will be held to choose its name, which will be revealed during a ceremony. Everyone will be involved,” Kabuyaya Mbeke said.

Banner image: Lulingu, a Grauer gorilla, holding her new baby. Image courtesy of GRACE Gorillas. 

BANGKOK (AP) — Rain eased in Thailand ’s capital on Sunday, but flooding persisted in several low-lying areas, with thousands forced to move into temporary shelters. At least eight people were reported killed in the past 10 days nationwide.

Days of continuous downpours have caused widespread flooding and severe disruptions in Bangkok, impacting traffic and businesses, with accumulated rainfall exceeding 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) in many areas.

Thailand’s Meteorological Department said moderate to heavy rain was still expected Sunday in several parts of the country, but conditions were expected to improve by Monday.

The city set up more than 200 temporary shelters, and about 3,000 people remained in them as of Sunday. Officials said 31 roads were still impacted by floodwaters.

Bangkok Gov. Chadchart Sittipunt said rainfall in the capital has decreased and city officials were working to drain water as quickly as possible. He cautioned that water levels in the city’s main canals remained high, with some still rising as water continued to flow in from nearby areas.

Several low-lying areas, particularly in the suburbs, were still submerged and many communities had to evacuate, Chadchart said.

More than 545,000 people in 25 other provinces have been impacted by flooding as of Sunday, especially in the central and eastern regions, according to the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation.

Incessant rainfall caused flooding that overwhelmed drainage capacity in many areas, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said.

He ordered relevant authorities to take immediate measures to relieve the situation and assist those impacted.

Several long-distance train and bus services were suspended. Airports continued to operate, but passengers faced some delays.

By Associated Press

Banner image: Floodwaters inundate Bangkok, September 28, 2026.  Image courtesy of  Sakchai Lalit, Associated Press

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

A mountain lion in front of the Hollywood sign sounds almost too convenient. When photographer Steve Winter proposed the picture, National Park Service biologist Jeff Sikich thought he was crazy. There were, as far as Sikich knew, no mountain lions in Griffith Park.

Then P-22 turned up.

Winter spent more than a year trying to get the photograph. Remote cameras were stolen, and equipment failed. Eventually, he captured P-22 walking beneath the Hollywood sign at night, his tracking collar visible around his neck.

The photograph made P-22 famous and gave Los Angeles a symbol of the problems faced by wildlife boxed in by roads and development. P-22 became closely associated with the campaign for the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing over U.S. Route 101, which is intended to reconnect habitat divided by one of the region’s busiest freeways.

The story is one of nine in Big Cats, a new book by Winter and journalist Sharon Guynup, who is also Mongabay’s wildlife editor. The pair revisit some of their most consequential reporting projects in the book in their recent conversation with Mike DiGirolamo, the host and producer of the Mongabay Newscast.

One of those projects took them to Thailand’s Tiger Temple, a lucrative tourist attraction where visitors could pose with captive tigers. Guynup and Winter spent a year investigating the operation and documented its links to illegal wildlife trafficking. Thai authorities eventually raided and closed it.

In the Himalayas, Winter spent months photographing snow leopards while working alongside researchers and local communities. While working on the story, he helped start a program that provided local livestock owners with free vaccinations if they agreed not to kill snow leopards. Winter said disease was killing about 30% of their livestock. After three years, the local community took over the vaccination program.

Winter approaches wildlife photography as a photojournalist, reporting on the people and circumstances that shape the cats’ survival.

Listen to the newscast episode with Steve Winter and Sharon Guynup here.

Banner image: This photo of P-22 the mountain lion took Steve Winter 15 months to shoot. After its publication, the cat became a worldwide icon. Image courtesy of Steve Winter/Big Cat Voices.