Animals
An emerald-green hummingbird lost to science reemerges in Colombia
In the mountains of Colombia, an experienced bird-watcher saw an iridescent flash of blue and green. “A hummingbird caught my attention. I got out my binoculars and was shocked to see that it was a Santa Marta sabrewing,” Yurgen Vega said. “This sighting was a complete surprise, but a very welcome one.” This was only […]
Mexico court drops injunctions, paving way for controversial Tren Maya railway
A major section of Mexico’s Tren Maya railway line could be moving forward with construction, following a high court decision to reject several legal challenges that had created months of delays for the project. Line 5 of the Tren Maya project, which will run through Cancún, Tulum and Playa del Carmen, poses a serious threat […]
Bolivia’s former ‘death road’ is now a haven for wildlife
In Bolivia, the infamous “Death Road” has become a haven for life. Once the only route north from La Paz, the narrow and treacherous old road to the Yungas claimed an average of 300 lives per year during peak usage. However, since the construction of a safer road in 2007, traffic has dropped 90% and […]
Plantations threaten Indonesia’s orangutans, but they’re not oil palm
JAKARTA — The vast majority of orangutan habitat in Indonesia is located outside of protected areas. That can be bad news for orangutans living in corporate concessions, where a new report finds many companies lack safeguards and commitments to protect these critically endangered apes. The report, by Amsterdam-based sustainability consultancy Aidenvironment, found that Indonesia has […]
Inside Sierra Leone’s Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary (video)
In the 1970s, there were around 20,000 critically endangered western chimpanzees in Sierra Leone. But by 2008, when the most recent census was carried out, there were only around 5,500 western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) left. Like those of its neighbors in West and Central Africa, Sierra Leone’s chimpanzee habitats are shrinking — and so […]
Andean eagles have managed to adapt to fragmenting habitats — for now
Even the greatest, most mobile predators aren’t immune to the shrinking of South America’s forests. The endangered black-and-chestnut eagle (Spizaetus isidori), one of the largest raptors on the continent, has been forced to change its behavior to survive in increasingly fragmented habitats and growing threats from humans. A new study in Global Ecology and Conservation […]
Miners, drug traffickers and loggers: Is Costa Rica’s Corcovado National Park on the verge of collapse?
News articles and opinion pieces have popped up in the pages of different Costa Rican newspapers over the past several years, warning of the imminent collapse of Corcovado National Park, one of the country’s most treasured protected areas. The park is in “agonizing” condition and “on a downward spiral,” some of the opinion pieces said. […]
Draining tropical peatlands for oil palms isn’t just bad — it’s unnecessary, study shows
JAKARTA — For decades, oil palm farmers in Indonesia have drained — and destroyed — tropical peatlands on the basis that the crop doesn’t grow well in the boggy soil. But now, a new study shows that oil palms grown in rewetted peatlands show no drop in productivity. The findings shore up environmental activists’ case […]
Why are Florida manatees showing up in Cuba and Mexico?
Throughout the winter and spring of 2007, there were several curious sightings of a manatee and her calf in a power plant intake canal in the Cuban town of Santa Cruz del Norte, approximately 33 miles (54 kilometers) east of Havana. Manatees in Cuba aren’t known to frequent power plant canals. That kind of behavior […]
Conservation costs are rarely reported, making it difficult to prioritize funding
Conservation has a price tag, but the costs are rarely reported. This lack of transparency makes it difficult for people to decide on the most cost-effective methods to conserve wildlife and ecosystems, experts say. In a newly published study in the journal BioScience, researchers from the University of Cambridge’s Conservation Science Group looked into 1,987 […]