wildlife

JAKARTA — Despite various commitments from global brands and the government to protect Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, home to some of the rarest species on Earth, development of new palm oil plantations and drainage of carbon-rich peatlands continue in the ecosystem, a new investigation finds. At the same time, deforestation in Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve, a […]

An expedition team has found a rare Brazilian tree that botanists thought might be extinct after nearly two centuries without a confirmed sighting. The Pernambuco holly tree (Ilex sapiiformis), which can grow to a height of 12 meters (nearly 40 feet), was found again in March in northeast Brazil by a team led by ecologist […]

This story was supported in part by the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Fund for Environmental Journalism. OLYMPIC PENINSULA, Wash.—In the middle of a forest reserved for timber harvesting on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, Mark Elbroch and two other members of the Olympic Cougar Project prepared to investigate a likely cougar den. They were tipped off to […]

In Ecuador’s Jama-Coaque Reserve (JCR), nearly every surface is encased with life: moss, ferns,  epiphytes and orchids — a color wheel of green in three dimensions. Amid the green, chestnut-headed oropendola nests hang like woven teardrops from towering trees, troops of howler monkeys shout their boundaries and hummingbirds dive-bomb from branch to blossom. JCR protects […]

HOLBOX, Mexico — The tour I’d arranged in Holbox wasn’t one of the usual packages. It isn’t advertised on social media or sold at the dozens of stalls along the white coral beach. The environmentalists who organized it didn’t take me swimming with whale sharks or to the lagoon where you can see caimans by […]

The world’s largest limpet, Scutellastra mexicana, is making its last stand on a group of islands off Mexico, with experts warning that it may slip into extinction without urgent conservation action. Researchers counted the limpets, a species of sea snail, around Mexico’s María Madre Island, a prison until 2019. They found only around 2,300 individuals, at […]

Remember Indiana Jones’ famous line “Snakes! Why’d it have to be snakes?” in the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark? That iconic moment has taken on a new twist as the actor behind the adventurous archaeologist, Harrison Ford, has become the namesake of a newly described snake species. In the forests of Otishi National […]

“When we caught it, we all just looked at it and said, ‘You look ridiculous. Look how big your nose leaf is,’” Jon Flanders, director of endangered species interventions at Bat Conservation International, told Mongabay. The odd-looking creature in their net was a Hill’s horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hilli)—the first seen since 1981. “We feared the […]

Fires in El Salvador are spreading farther and lasting longer than in previous years, threatening protected areas and reforestation efforts throughout the country. As it enters the peak of its dry season, El Salvador is seeing the rate of fires, many of them brush and forest fires, almost triple from the previous year, according to […]

JAKARTA — A plan to clear forests in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua for food crops will release as much greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as Australia emits in an entire year, according to a new analysis. This will spell disaster for Indonesia’s commitments to tackling climate change by reducing emissions from the forestry and […]