Wildlife Conservation and Protection

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International border barriers everywhere are harming wildlife by bisecting their habitats, disrupting their hunting and collecting patterns and preventing them from commingling. In some cases, the borders are causing so much harm that they could cause certain species to go extinct.

The literature review, which analyzed 42 studies on wildlife and borders by scientists across the globe, was part of a special issue on addressing land degradation.

The review: International border fences and walls negatively affect wildlife

A recent report assessing the health of U.S. bird populations presents a grim outlook: Birds in the U.S. are declining, and a third of the species — 229 to be precise — are in need of urgent conservation actions.

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

Wildlife conservation is critical to sustaining the planet's biodiversity and health. But putting together a conservation plan is a tall order. First of all, you need to determine what species you're conserving, along with their numbers, habitat needs, threats and how they fit into a complex ecosystem.

In the final hours of the 118th Congress, the Senate took up and passed the EXPLORE Act, which former President Biden signed into law on January 6.

By design, the EXPLORE Act is human-centered and extractive—what can nature do for us?

The bipartisan introduction the EXPLORE Act received on the Senate floor wasn’t rooted in equity—it was rooted in money that the recreation industry can generate if turned loose on public lands.

Elk once roamed across much of North America. After more than a century’s absence, they’re thriving in the Appalachians.

Well-managed forests and community involvement are changing the narrative for orangutan conservation.

What’s new: A recent study has identified 16 new-to-science species of grasshoppers living in the deserts of the U.S. and Mexico. One of the grasshoppers was named after the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, while others reference actors from shows like Star Trek.

The study: Desert diversification: revision of Agroecotettix Bruner, 1908 (Orthoptera, Acrididae, Melanoplinae) with descriptions of sixteen new species from the United States and Mexico

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/115585

For more than two decades, researchers knew of just a single, male individual of the greater mouse-eared bat that would repeatedly hibernate in an unused railway tunnel in Sussex, U.K. This male bat became known as the “loneliest soul in Britain” since he was without a companion.

But researchers have now found that he isn’t alone after all: they’ve confirmed two individuals of the greater mouse-eared bat (Myotis myotis) hibernating in the U.K.

Munn added the find shows the importance of preserving heritage sites, which have become a refuge for many species, especially bats that need to hibernate undisturbed.

More than 1,100 dead olive ridley turtles have washed ashore on the beaches of Tamil Nadu state in southern India this month. Most were found near the state capital, Chennai. “I never heard [of] such large numbers of turtles stranded at any beaches of Tamil Nadu at least in the last three decades,” K. Sivakumar, an ecology professor at Pondicherry University, told Mongabay.

Once the epicenter for deadly human-elephant conflict, an eastern Nepal village along the Indian border has transformed into a model of coexistence.

Villagers, once fearful, have adopted elephant-resistant crops and beekeeping, and through a rapid response team, they safely guide elephants away.

Government policies, conservation efforts and shifting community attitudes have significantly reduced fatalities, with no deaths reported in the area since 2015.

While Bahundangi offers a model for coexistence, villages along the migratory routes for elephants have become hotspots for human-elephant encounters, requiring the need for conservation corridors and education to mitigate conflicts.

The beautiful toki have become a local point of pride.

A quarter of freshwater animals, including crustaceans, fish and insects, face extinction risks from threats like pollution, farming and dams.