The Galápagos rail, a small, black, ground bird, hadn’t been seen on Floreana Island in the Galápagos since 1835, when Charles Darwin first described it. That changed recently when researchers monitoring birds on Floreana recorded the rail at three different locations. These new sightings after 190 years are likely the result of efforts to eradicate invasive species on the island.

The Galápagos rail (Laterallus spilonota) is a largely flightless bird and as such is particularly vulnerable to predation. The bird is found on several of the Galápagos islands, where Darwin developed his theory of natural selection. But on Floreana, the rail wasn’t seen again after Darwin’s initial visit. Invasive species like rats and cats that can eat bird eggs and adults were, however, on the rise.

“Potentially some of the species like the rodents came with pirates, with some of the people that settled on the island, and even potentially when Darwin came,” Paula Castaño, native species manager with the NGO Island Conservation, told Mongabay in a video call.

Invasive species on Floreana have caused the extirpation of many native species, including several bird species and giant tortoises.

To improve conditions so native animals can return, a team including Island Conservation and the Charles Darwin Foundation began a campaign to eradicate rats using toxic chemicals.  Castaño said they took special care to protect native species that might be at risk of exposure to the poison, especially birds of prey that could eat poisoned rats.

For instance, to mitigate risk to the Galápagos short-eared owl (Asio flammeus galapagoensis), “part of the of the population was brought in captivity and once the island is ready for that species to come back, we will be releasing that population again,” Castaño said.

They also worked with the local community on a campaign to encourage people to keep pet cats inside. Domestic cats are thought to be the single biggest nonnatural killer of birds worldwide.

Residents of the island have been supportive of the eradication program and excited to see the Galápagos rail once more. “I was really moved when they told me it had been seen, and I have also seen it myself now,” longtime resident Claudio Cruz told Mongabay in an email.

“Hopefully, other birds that we once thought were lost will start to reappear again,” Cruz added.

The project coordinators are actively monitoring 12 different native species to see if they return to the island now that both rats and cats have largely been removed.

It’s possible a small population of Galápagos rails may have always been present on Floreana but unnoticed until their population grew once invasives were removed. Alternatively, they may have come from another island. They’re strong swimmers but don’t fly well so, if true, it would be impressive, Castaño said.

“Nature has a way to amaze us all the time,” she said.

Banner image of a Galapagos rail courtesy of Island Conservation.

Heavy rainfall and flooding damaged homes and vehicles in Australia, with locals even reporting shark sightings in inland canals.

Cyclone Alfred formed over the Coral Sea on Feb. 22, NASA Earth Observatory reported. It intensified for a week offshore causing heavy rainfall along the coast even before making landfall in Australia on March 8.

The cyclone caused widespread flooding and toppled power lines. Local media reported 200 millimeters (7.8 inches) of rainfall in just two hours on the morning of March 9. The Clarence River in New South Wales peaked at 5.7 meters (19 feet) that day.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a televised speech that the situation in Queensland state and the northern part of neighboring New South Wales “remains very serious due to flash-flooding and heavy winds.”

At least one man died after being caught in the floods and several others were injured, including 12 soldiers whose convoy got into an accident on its way to a rescue operation.

Residents had to be rescued from their homes or cars after being trapped in rising floodwaters. The New South Wales Emergency Services received more than 6,000 rescue requests.

Among the worst-hit areas was the Gold Coast in Queensland, which saw its long sandy beaches eroded by the storm and more than 100,000 people left without power. The city’s beaches have been closed due to cyclone debris. Surf Life Saving Queensland operations manager Nathan Fife also cautioned people about the eroded dunes, which can collapse on people, ABC reported.

Local videos of sharks in Gold Coast canals show the extent to which marine life was forced inland from the flooding.

Electricity distributor Energex said more than 300,000 people across the country had lost power, media reported.

Hundreds of schools in the region closed on March 7 and aren’t expected to open until March 11.

Prime Minister Albanese later announced that eligible workers and small businesses, or sole traders, can get income support from the government.

As affected residents recover, authorities have raised concerns about diseases, including tetanus and melioidosis, which are contracted through bacteria in the soil or water.

Michael Clements of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners told ABC that people can get infected through cuts and scratches on their skin.

NASA Earth Observatory noted that Coral Sea cyclones are often difficult to predict as the area frequently experiences “complex winds and weather systems.” The wind moving Alfred was weak, which prolonged its damage to the coast. The Earth Observatory pointed out that “anomalously high sea surface temperatures in the northeast Coral — some of the warmest recorded for the months of January and February” further fueled the cyclone.

Banner image of Cyclone Alfred as it nears the Australian coast, by NASA via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

The Ocean Census project has identified 866 new marine species, many from the deep seas, less than two years since its launch.

The project announced its findings on March 10, marking the first phase of its goal to document 100,000 new species in the Earth’s oceans.

“The ocean covers 71% of our planet, yet only around 10% of marine life has been discovered, leaving an estimated 1-2 million species undocumented,” Mitsuyuki Unno, executive director of The Nippon Foundation, which sponsors the Ocean Census initiative along with U.K.-based nonprofit Nekton, said in a statement. The Nippon Foundation is also involved with deep-sea mining research and offshore oil and gas.

Among the newly identified species is a pygmy pipehorse, a 4-centimeter (1.6-inch) master of camouflage found in Sodwana Bay, off the coast of South Africa in the Indian Ocean. It is the first record of the Cylix genus ever found in Africa. Until now, it was thought to be exclusive to New Zealand’s cooler waters.

In Norway’s Jøtul Vent Field, a 35-day expedition into the depths of the Arctic Ocean revealed a new species of deep-sea limpet (Cocculina genus) living more than 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) deep, where pressure can be 300 times greater than at the surface. Limpets live in one of the most extreme environments on Earth, where highly acidic waters dissolve their shells, requiring the snail to continuously rebuild new protective layers.

Off the coast of Mozambique and Tanzania, scientists identified a new species of guitar shark, which, despite its name, is a type of critically endangered ray. Many more novel species, including sea butterfly, mud dragon, bamboo coral, water bear and brittle stars, have now been registered with the Ocean Census’ biodiversity data platform.

Researchers used DNA sequencing, high-resolution imaging and machine learning to speed up species identification in specialized workshops.

“There has never been a better time to be a marine biologist,” Oliver Steeds, Ocean Census’ director, told Mongabay by phone. “With the technologies we have now, we can learn more about the ocean in the next 10 years than we have in the last 10,000 years.”

“On the flip side, the ocean is changing faster than it has for millions and millions of years,” Steeds added. “So, the more we can learn about the ocean now, the more we can help sustain it for future generations.”

Banner image: A new species of critically endangered guitar shark was identified off the coast of Tanzania. Image courtesy of The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census/Sergey Bogorodsky.

The Trump administration, as part of its downsizing of the federal government, fired roughly 1,000 National Park Service (NPS) employees, who manage protected areas in the U.S. With more terminations on the horizon, former NPS employees are sounding the alarm that critical visitor services and research won’t be conducted, to the detriment of U.S. public lands and visitors.

More than 331 million people visited the U.S. national parks in 2024, the most visitors since records began 1904. The national parks can be dangerous; on average more than 300 visitors die each year and thousands need to be rescued. Russell Galipeau, spent 40 years with the NPS before retiring. He warns that staffing cuts could leave visitors without enough trained personnel to help in emergencies.

Galipeau’s last position at the NPS was superintendent of the Channel Islands National Park, off the coast of California. He now serves as on the board for the nonprofit Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.

Without enough experienced staff in the parks, Galipeau says poaching of plants, animals and fossils will likely increase. He adds that the parks may become degraded as visitors wander off trails; furthermore, roads and facilities may fall into disrepair.

Galipeau says he fears that ongoing research projects are at risk. Many parks have a project called Vital Signs, in which scientists track key indicators to assess overall park health.

“We can’t measure everything in a park, [but] if we can measure these four or five things, it’ll give us a sense of the health of the resource,” Galipeau says.

He cites the island fox (Urocyon littoralis) in the Channel Islands National Park as an example. Park scientists discovered that the fox, the island’s apex predator, was declining due to predation from golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos), a protected species in the U.S., but nonnative to the island. To save the foxes, scientists relocated golden eagles and reintroduced bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), which are historically native to the island and prefer fish over foxes. Staff also started a captive breeding program for the fox. Without permanent staff to catch the problem and intervene, Galipeau says the foxes might have gone extinct in the park.

“You need that permanent staff there,” he says.

Many parks work to remove invasive species like rats, which threaten wildlife such as the Scripps’s murrelet (Synthliboramphus scrippsi). Galipeau says that if rats eat the seabird’s eggs and chicks because rangers aren’t there to eradicate invasives, the species’ survival is at risk.

Galipeau says Americans have a responsibility to maintain healthy parks for future generations, adding that he finds hope in the parks themselves.

“As bad as it may be, you have hope that it’s going to be better tomorrow. And where can you find hope? You go this weekend to a national park. That’s what you do,” he says.

Banner image: Banner image: an island fox on Channel Island National Park courtesy of Tim Coonan via NPS.

What’s new: Rising temperatures and variation in the length of dry seasons appear to influence the prevalence of dengue fever, according to a recent study conducted in the Philippines.

What the study says:

• Cases of dengue fever are rising globally; in the Americas, they more than doubled from 4.6 million cases in 2023 to 10.6 million in 2024, according to the World Health Organization. In the new study, researchers wanted to find out what climate factors, including temperature and rainfall, can explain the risk of dengue infection in the Philippines.

• Using an advanced mathematical framework, the study found that temperature “consistently increased” dengue incidence throughout all the 16 regions the researchers studied. However, the effects of rainfall on cases on dengue differed depending on the variation in dry season length, “a factor previously overlooked,” the study authors write.

• The researchers found that in regions with relatively stable dry season lengths, rainfall essentially flushed out stagnant water, which tends to reduce mosquito breeding sites and in turn makes dengue transmission less likely. Meanwhile, sporadic rainfall in regions with a less predictable dry season had a weaker flushing effect and created new water pools that serve as breeding sites.

• The findings were validated when they found a similar result using data from Puerto Rico. “This consistency across different geographical regions strengthens the generalizability and reliability of our findings,” the researchers write.

What this means:

Lead author Olive R. Cawiding said in a statement that the study “represents a significant step toward understanding how climate change may impact mosquito-borne diseases globally.”

The researchers write that their methodology can also be used to better understand other climate-driven diseases like malaria, influenza, and Zika fever.

The study’s findings can “have important implications for dengue intervention strategies such as monitoring and surveillance of breeding sites, container management, and solid-waste management,” the researchers write.

The authors add that for areas where the dry season is predictable, efforts to control dengue can be scaled back to save resources. However, sustained year-round intervention is needed for regions with a less predictable dry season, they say.

Banner image of a yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti) by James Gathany, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

Three New Zealand islands will join an international initiative to remove invasive species and restore native wildlife.

With the addition of Maukahuka (Auckland) Island, Rakiura (Stewart) Island and Chatham Island, the Island-Ocean Connection Challenge (IOCC) will have 20 ongoing projects aimed at restoring and rewilding 40 globally significant island-ocean ecosystems by 2030.

“New Zealand’s three IOCC island restoration projects will be the largest and most challenging our country has ever attempted,” New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC) national eradication manager Stephen Horn told Mongabay by email. He added that each island in the new initiative is 4-15 times larger than the biggest island in the country that has been previously cleared of invasives.

“Their scale, remoteness from the mainland, difficult terrain, wild weather, multiple animal pest species, and the presence of human settlements for two of the three islands pose unique challenges,” Horn added.

Maukahuka Island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to more than 500 native plant and animal species, including the endangered Gibson’s albatross (Diomedea antipodensis gibsoni), New Zealand sea lion (Phocarctos hookeri) and hoiho (Megadyptes antipodes), a rare penguin. But with the introduction of mice, feral cats and pigs, 32 native bird species are no longer present on the island.

Rakiura, New Zealand’s third-largest island, is home to the tokoeka or brown kiwi (Apteryx australis) and other native species. Researchers plan on reintroducing the critically endangered kākāpō (Strigops habroptilus) once the island is cleared of invasive species like rats, feral cats, hedgehogs, and possums.

Meanwhile, Chatham Island has over 300 threatened or at-risk plant and animal species. It has also been overrun by possums, rats and feral cats.

Horn said the initiative will use innovative tools and technologies such as trail cameras and artificial intelligence to identify pests.

“Eradication experts will continue to sweep the island with conservation dogs, camera monitoring networks, tracking tunnels, and traps over years before declaring the island free of pests,” he said.

The initiative, led by Island Conservation, Rewild and UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, brings together the New Zealand government, Māori and Moriori Indigenous communities as well as local organizations to restore what the DOC calls “living remnants of a prehistoric world” and to strengthen climate resilience.

In a release, Island Conservation explained that restoring islands is one of the most effective ways of protecting biodiversity. The water surrounding islands free from invasive species have more robust seabird populations,  50% more fish biomass and can recover four times faster from bleaching events, according to Island Conservation. Moreover, when seabirds return to previously infested islands, they restore the flow of nutrients between land and sea with their guano.

The New Zealand government has invested $54 million of the $202 million needed for the projects while the New Zealand Nature Fund spearheads fundraising efforts.

Banner image of a white-capped albatross (Thalassarche cauta steadi) on Maukahuka/Auckland Island by Jake Osborne.

Correction, 03-10-2025: article was edited to reflect that Rakiura island isn’t home to the kākāpō yet.