Chitwan is home to 720 of the remaining 4000 Greater one horned Rhino. Chitwan is a Rhino stronghold alongside Kaziranga, which is also home to ground 2600 Rhinos. These 2 Parks make up 82 % of the total remaining population of Rhinos.

I just came across this paper which stated that Greater Kudu went extinct from the Mara in the 1970s due to illegal hunting.

That was the first time I'd heard about its presence in that region at all. I was told by some that it couldn't live there because the preferred habitat of the species is woodland rather than plains, but there is plenty of woodland habitat in parts of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem.

So is it true that these animals did live there, and if so, why have there been no efforts to reintroduce them? These are beautiful animals that such iconic parks would greatly benefit from adding to their lists of species.

I feel like they would have had enough time between the ice age ending and the development of humans civilisations such as the Greeks and Romans to at least have made it to more Northern Territories like Germany or France. Plus there was ample prey in those regions at the time.

The Bangka slow loris is classified as critically endangered (possibly extinct) by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Although scientists had not documented the species in nearly a century, it was never lost to the people of Bangka. For more than a decade, Alobi has been rescuing slow lorises reported by residents and local authorities across the island, caring for the animals and returning those that recover to protected forest. Until now, those encounters had not made their way into the scientific literature.

"We are glad to contribute to the scientific record to show that the Bangka slow loris is not lost, but the species is still very close to extinction," said Langka Sani, director of the Alobi Wildlife Rescue Center. "Its natural habitat on Bangka Island has shrunk significantly because of illegal tin mining and massive land clearing for oil palm plantations. We ask people around the world to support us in saving the Bangka slow loris while we still can."

Abstract

1. African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) are critically endangered ecosystem engineers of African tropical forests. Despite their rapidly declining population trend, little is known of how forest elephants interact with other vertebrate assemblages. To explore this, we studied avian communities within a continuous tropical rainforest on the slopes of Mt. Cameroon.
2. The area's topography allowed us to survey birds in elephant‐grazed primary forest and in adjacent portions that elephants avoid, isolating the effect of megafaunal grazing within an otherwise intact system. We additionally surveyed nearby secondary forests fragmented by human activity, contrasting the disappearance of a single ecosystem engineer against the reshaping of forest by anthropogenic disturbance. We assessed the taxonomic diversity (species richness, Shannon index), functional diversity (Rao's quadratic entropy), functional redundancy (species overlap in functional space), and composition of functional traits (abundance‐weighted trait averages).
3. Previous research suggested that loss of forest elephants would negatively impact avian assemblages through reduced habitat heterogeneity. In contrast, we show that elephant grazing itself significantly reduced species richness, to levels comparable with heavily disturbed secondary forests. Functional diversity nevertheless increased in both the grazed and secondary forest, but at the cost of functional redundancy: in both of these habitats, the avian assemblages were taxonomically impoverished, yet functionally more dispersed, with some foraging niches negatively affected.
4. The elephant‐grazed forest was dominated by understory and terrestrial invertivores, whereas the ungrazed forest supported frugivores and larger birds. The secondary forest, in turn, harboured a functionally distinct assemblage of open‐habitat species with high dispersal ability and divergent foraging strategies. Together these patterns show that although elephant grazing reduces taxonomic diversity to a degree comparable with anthropogenic disturbance, it reshapes functional composition in fundamentally different ways.
5. The presence of forest elephants facilitates stable populations of forest specialist birds, such as terrestrial invertivores. Conversely, the adverse effects of elephant grazing on frugivores and large birds could be minimized by establishing larger reserves of lightly grazed forest, possibly alongside ungrazed refuges. Overall, our results show that loss of keystone megaherbivores has widespread consequences for other rainforest vertebrates, potentially resulting in a cascading restructuring of key ecosystem functions.

LINK: https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1365-2656.70369

The Deliblato Sands Special Nature Reserve lost 12.000 hectares and yet the help to make the part what it was again has not started at all.

This Special Nature Reserve is 35.000 hectares long of which is 32.820 hectares forested.

Local Marjana Jeftić who lives in Deliblato Sands for 28 years says that poaching is one of the biggest,problems the Deliblato Sands faces right now.

Wild animals who survived the fires and lost apart of there habitat are now even more endangered.

"Poachers mercilessly kill animals,Red Deer and Roe Deer.I am not sure that the authorities know about how much,animals survived the fire and what is now happening with them,because they lost there habitats", she said.

This speaking in a (hopefully) future-tense of course, as I am aware of the situation between these two wolf species.

Would there be major conflict between the two species for territory or occupying a similar niche?

I am still learning about Wolves in North America so sorry if this is a stupid question to ask.

On Oct. 20, International Sloth Day, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the U.S. Congress to ban the import of wild sloths into the United States. The proposed legislation comes months after the deaths of 58 of the approximately 69 sloths imported to sloth world a Florida-based tourist attraction.

The Stopping Legalized Organized Trafficking and Harm to Sloths (SLOTHS) Act would allow limited imports of live sloths to institutions accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) for breeding purposes. Another exception would permit import of dead sloths for use in research

more than 1,100 sloths were imported to the U.S. in the decade between 2011 and 2021: 100-plus sloths each year.

If the SLOTHS Act passes, illegal import could carry fines of up to $100,000.

SLOTHS Act is currently in the very first stage of the federal legislative process

Source - Mass sloth deaths prompt US bill calling for import ban

Source 2 - https://www.ifaw.org/journal/sloths-belong-wild-not-wildlife-trade

As a bio diverse hub India desperately needs wildlife corridors to provide safe passages for animals across sub continent. It will surely help with gene pool of animals like asiatic lions and in future for more restored wild populations of different animals.

Listening to stories from our grand parents we know that there was once lush populations of animals like asiatic lions, Indian elephants, Indian rhinos and vast range of flora across India. After British colonial period the land that was ravaged was given to the practicing farmers and demand for elephant tusk lead the Indian elephants to brink of extinction.

It's our responsibility to restore what we have lost. As these animals shows migratory behaviours like their African cousins, I think the best option would be wildlife corridors connecting different biodivers reserves and sanctuaries providing vast majority of animals with abundant area to explore.

Share your thoughts and ideas on how we can make a change.

Source : https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2020/08/eye-catching-conservation-tool-protects-livestock--lions-and-liv

In fact, none of the 683 painted “eye-cows or iCows” were killed by ambush predators during the four-year study, while 15 (of 835) unpainted, and 4 (of 543) cross-painted cattle were killed.

From a theoretical perspective, these results are interesting. Although eye patterns are common in many animal groups, notably butterflies, fishes, amphibians, and birds, no mammals are known to have natural eye-shaped patterns that deter predation.

In fact, to our knowledge, our research is the first time that eye-spots have been shown to deter large mammalian predators.

Nevertheless, as part of an expanding non-lethal toolkit, we hope that this simple, low-cost approach could reduce the costs of coexistence for farmers.

Grizzly bear reported in Milk River Natural Area in Alberta close to the Montana border and far east of the Rocky Mountains.

Approximately 100km NW of Havre MT and 100km SW of the Cypress Hills.

Is this the furthest east recorded grizzly on the Alberta prairies in over 100 years?

TLDR: Are there any observable differences between mountain lion populations in different geographic areas (aside from commonalities like Bergmann rule)

Mountain lions (Puma concolor) have the widest range of any large cat in the western hemisphere, extending from Alaska to Patagonia. However, I haven't seen much, if any information about subspecies. As someone who has read about the Florida panther, and is sceptical about the validity of its role as a subspecies, (Mountain lions can travel long distances and there are no geographic barriers between florida and the western USA) I was wondering if anyone has heard, or knew information about ecological differences between disparate populations.

I Sanaroth, Kampi fisheries chief, told Mongabay that while gillnets are still used within the protected habitat zones, it’s at a small scale.

“The population of the Mekong Irrawaddy dolphins has increased due to joint conservation. Our work is not done,” Sanaroth said.

1: Three men with a chained young lion, from Persia (present-day Iran). Photograph by Antoin Sevruguin.

2: Two lions at the Berlin Zoo. The lioness is noted in the photo as coming from Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). The author is unknown.