WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study says climate change has tripled the frequency of atmospheric wave events linked to extreme summer weather in the last 75 years. And the research indicates that may explain why long-range computer forecasts keep underestimating the surge in killer heat waves, droughts and floods. Monday’s study says that in the 1950s, Earth averaged about one extreme weather-inducing planetary wave event a summer. But now it’s getting about three each summer. Planetary waves are connected to 2021’s deadly and unprecedented Pacific Northwest heat wave and wildfires, the 2010 Russian heatwave and Pakistan flooding and the 2003 killer European heatwave.

Reporting by Seth Borenstein, Associated Press

Banner image: Survivors wade through water in their village Khairpur Nathan Shah, Pakistan, on Nov. 2, 2010, which is surrounded by floodwaters. (AP Photo/Shakil Adil, File)

Previous reports of drastic declines in the elusive angelshark in Wales, U.K., may be overestimated and may be partly explained by changes in fishing trends throughout the past decades, according to a recent study.

The angelshark (Squatina squatina), listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2006, is a bottom-dwelling shark that can grow up to 2.4 meters (8 feet) long. It was once a common predator in the sandy habitats of the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea. However, over the past 50 years, the shark is reported to have declined dramatically in Wales — by as much as 70% between 1970 and 2016 — as it would often be caught as bycatch in nets used on the seabed to catch shellfish and other bottom-dwelling animals.

Most data on the angelshark have come from chance encounters with it as bycatch, the authors write. But it is important to consider how socioeconomic fishing practices have evolved and influenced historical sightings and records of the angelshark, they add.

To address this, researchers from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Natural Resources Wales and Welsh fishing organizations interviewed 27 Welsh commercial, recreational and charter fishers who actively fished within the Welsh Zone between 1968 and 2019. All of them recalled catching angelsharks incidentally, sometimes while fishing for thornback rays (Raja clavata), before the year 2000. One fisher told the researchers that angelsharks were a “nuisance” since they didn’t have commercial value and would damage fishing gear.

However, over the past decades, the fishers described several changes in the way they fished that may have made them less likely to encounter angelsharks. For example, the fishers said thornback ray populations had declined in the period, leading to a shift toward other species and fishing gear—this may have decreased the likelihood of catching angelsharks. Some fishers mentioned policy changes that made it difficult for them to fish in certain areas, while some spoke of reduced profitability among commercial fisheries and increased operational costs leading them to fish less, all of which may have decreased angelshark sightings.

“Identifying how changes to fishing practices over the last 51 years have impacted our ability to monitor them indicates that there may be more angelsharks swimming off the Welsh coast than we previously thought — we’re just having a harder time spotting them,” Francesca Mason, study’s lead author and ZSL researcher, said in a statement.

Mason said the new study shows the importance of working with fishers and combining their knowledge with research and science for conservation. However, she added that with fewer angelsharks now being accidentally caught, it also means there’s need for newer ways to monitor the species. ZSL researchers have used environmental DNA (eDNA) — bits of genetic matter that animals leave behind in their environment — to confirm the presence of angelsharks in Cardigan and Carmarthen Bay.

Banner image of an angelshark by Michael Bommerer via Wikimedia Commons (CCBY4.0).

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

A decade ago, Rwanda had more crowned cranes in living rooms than in the wild. They were brought back from the brink by a coordinated effort of conservation and public outreach, reports Mongabay contributor Musinguzi Blanshe.

Just 10 years ago, Rwanda’s gray crowned cranes (Balearica regulorum) were vanishing. Once a familiar sight in wetlands across East Africa, their numbers in Rwanda had collapsed, driven by habitat loss and capture for the exotic pet trade. By 2017, there were more cranes in private homes than in the wild.

That grim picture has changed, thanks largely to the work of Olivier Nsengimana, a veterinarian and founder of the Rwanda Wildlife Conservation Association (RWCA). His group has led a national campaign to rescue captive cranes, rehabilitate them and reintroduce them to the wild. Rather than punishing bird owners, RWCA offered amnesty — an approach that led to a wave of voluntary handovers.

Their efforts have paid off. Rwanda’s crane population has nearly tripled since 2017. Wetlands, which are crucial breeding grounds, are now better protected through community involvement. RWCA trains local residents to monitor wetlands, raise awareness and reduce pressures on the habitat. Most of the organization’s 270 staff come from these communities.

Nsengimana’s work has also expanded across borders. Cranes do not recognize national boundaries, so RWCA is partnering with groups in Uganda, Tanzania and, soon, Burundi to track and protect birds that migrate regionally. Uganda’s government has gazetted key wetlands and backed conservation with local stewardship.

For his role, Nsengimana has received the 2025 Whitley Gold Award — his second such honor. Rwanda’s cranes are no longer a symbol of loss, but of what coordinated, community-driven conservation can achieve.

This is a summary of Rwanda’s Oliver Nsengimana inspires protection for gray crowned cranes in East Africa

Banner image: Gray crowned cranes. Image courtesy of RWCA.

Several people have been killed after heavy rains hit parts of Asia over the past week, brought by the latest in a series of typhoons that scientists warn are growing more frequent under climate change.

Typhoon Wutip started out as an area of convection west of Micronesia, according to a June 5 weather advisory from the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center. It developed into a low-pressure area the next day, causing heavy rains and fueling the southwest monsoon in the Philippines. At least three people drowned after attempting to swim across an overflowed spillway in the province of Misamis Oriental.

As Mongabay has previously reported, scientists say climate change is making such extreme weather events in the Philippines more common.

By June 9, the storm had developed into a tropical depression over the South China Sea. It intensified into Tropical Storm Wutip on June 11 and flooded parts of Vietnam, where at least seven people were killed. The number of deaths caused by disasters in Vietnam tripled in 2024 compared to the year before.

More than 100 houses were damaged and at least 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) of farmlands were flooded. A number of roads were also flooded, including parts of a national highway. Rescue operations were still underway for missing people over the weekend, local media reported.

The bad weather forced the Miss Vietnam beauty pageant to reschedule its final event, which was supposed to be held outdoors.

By June 14, Wutip had intensified into a typhoon and made landfall in southern China, with wind gusts of 128 kilometers per hour (80 miles per hour). Residents were evacuated before the typhoon made landfall, schools were closed, and train services and flights were suspended.

Two deaths were reported in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on June 15 due to mudslides. Another two people were rescued by emergency response teams.

Local media showed photos of toppled trees in Hainan province. One report said early evacuation in China’s Guangdong province saved more than 50 people from a landslide. Risk inspectors observed slope movements while on midnight patrol on June 15, which prompted the evacuation before the landslide happened at 4 a.m.

A father and his son survived 26 hours at sea after being swept away by the typhoon off Hainan province, local media reported.  Wearing life jackets, they drifted into some fishing rafts in Guangdong, but the father was swept farther out to sea. The father was found near an abandoned net cage after his son was brought to hospital.

Wutip, which means “Butterfly” in Cantonese, eventually weakened into a tropical storm over the weekend as it skirted Hong Kong, but not before buffeting it with strong winds.

Hong Kong’s weather bureau forecast that Wutip would dissipate by June 16 or 17.

Banner image of Wutip as a severe tropical storm on June 14, 2025 by the Japan Meteorological Agency via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Poaching has decimated rhino populations across Africa, but a new study finds that dehorning the animals, or surgically removing their horns, drastically reduces poaching.

The study focused on 11 reserves in the Greater Kruger ecosystem that sprawls across the border of South Africa and Mozambique. Poachers killed nearly 2,000 rhinos here, 6.5% of the reserves’ population, from 2017-2023, reducing populations of both black (Diceros bicornis) and white (Ceratotherium simum) rhinos, according to Tim Kuiper, study lead and conservation scientist at Nelson Mandela University.

Poachers target rhinos for their keratin horns, incorrectly believed in traditional Asian medicine to hold medicinal properties. To deter poachers, many African reserves have tried dehorning, a procedure where veterinarians tranquilize rhinos and saw off their horns, leaving only a stump behind.

In eight of the 11 reserves the study examined, park authorities and researchers (some involved in the study) have dehorned rhinos in batches since 2017. This allowed the researchers to compare the impact of dehorning on poaching rates over time, against the three reserves where rhinos weren’t dehorned, and against conventional measures implemented prior to dehorning.

The study found a 78% reduction in poaching rates in the parks after dehorning — and it was cost-effective, too.

From 2017-2023, the reserves spent $74 million on antipoaching measures, including rangers, tracking dogs, cameras, better fences and access control. But dehorning accounted for just 1.2% of the budget, the study found. “So, it’s very clear that our study demonstrated massive declines in poaching in response to dehorning,” Kuiper told Mongabay by email, adding that some dehorned rhinos are nevertheless still hunted for the remaining stump.

Conventional antipoaching methods led to the arrest of more than 700 poachers, but didn’t significantly reduce poaching. Kuiper said it was surprising that reserves with more dogs, helicopters and cameras didn’t have less poaching overall. He added that systemic problems like insider information and poor law enforcement likely compromised these approaches.

Philip Muruthi, conservation scientist at the NGO African Wildlife Foundation, who wasn’t involved with the study, told Mongabay the paper adds valuable understanding about threatened wildlife, but said rhino conservation should be more holistic, involving all stakeholders, including local communities, and addressing root causes like local poverty and corruption that drive poaching.

Jasper Eikelboom, a wildlife researcher at Wageningen University, Netherlands, not involved in the study, said more research is needed to reveal the underlying cause of local reductions in poaching of dehorned rhinos.

“To do this, the poaching rates of other reserves in southern Africa at the same moment in time need to be considered as well, to contrast potential displacements of poacher activity with reductions in poaching due to reduced rewards,” he told Mongabay by email. “Before this is known, it still remains to be seen what will happen with rhino poaching rates if all rhinos in southern Africa are dehorned.”

Banner image: A dehorned white rhino with her calf. Image courtesy of Tim Kuiper.

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

In the summer of 2024, searing ocean temperatures devastated much of Mesoamerica’s corals. But in Honduras’s Tela Bay, a reef known as Cocalito remains improbably intact — dominated by elkhorn corals so robust they scrape the water’s surface.

The survival of this reef is baffling. Elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata), once common across the Caribbean, has declined by up to 98% in many areas due to warming seas, disease and pollution. Yet in Tela Bay, fed by a river heavy with fertilizer and waste, these corals not only endure, they flourish.

Scientists have taken notice, reports contributor Fritz Pinnow for Mongabay. A team from the University of Miami in the U.S., suspecting the corals harbor heat-resistant algae or unique genetic traits, collected samples to crossbreed with Florida’s nearly extinct elkhorns. Early findings suggest Cocalito’s coral hosts an unusually resilient symbiont. Still, results are preliminary, and other theories abound.

Some point to environmental quirks. Coastal currents may shield Cocalito from sedimentation and heat. Others cite human behavior: the reef’s shallow waters deter fishers, perhaps allowing a healthier ecological balance to persist.

Whatever the explanation, Cocalito’s persistence stands in stark contrast to the regional picture. Tela Bay’s other reefs were not spared from the global bleaching event, now affecting 84% of reefs worldwide. Local conservationists have long been working to mitigate stressors — fighting pollution, managing tourism and monitoring reef health — but even they are surprised by Cocalito’s resilience.

That surprise is now fueling action. With support from the Mesoamerican Reef Fund (MAR Fund), local NGOs are ramping up reef monitoring and protection. A documentary team is preparing to tell Cocalito’s story to the world.

The mystery remains unsolved. But in a year defined by coral loss, Cocalito offers something rare: A reason to keep looking for answers.

Read the full story by Fritz Pinnow here.

Banner image: Thriving elkhorn coral comprises most of the Cocalito reef. The species was once among the most dominant coral species in the Caribbean but is now endangered. Image by Fritz Pinnow for Mongabay.