Category Archives: Mammals

Fears for platypus populations after flooding in Queensland and NSW

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Ecologists urge people to monitor for platypuses in their area after indications of a ‘severe decline’ in Ipswich

There are fears that platypus populations might have been wiped out by recent floods in greater Brisbane, sparking new calls for the species to be nationally recognised as a threatened.

While the platypus is endangered in South Australia and was listed as vulnerable in Victoria last year, the iconic monotreme is not officially considered threatened in Queensland and New South Wales.

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WHO stresses monkeypox surge not linked to monkeys amid attack reports

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World Health Organization issues statement after reports of animals being poisoned in Brazil

The World Health Organization has stressed that monkeypox outbreaks are not linked to monkeys, following a number of reported attacks on the primates in Brazil.

“What people need to know is that the transmission we are seeing is happening between humans,” a WHO spokesperson, Margaret Harris, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday.

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Florida’s manatees are dying in record numbers – but a lawsuit offers hope

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US wildlife agency agrees to review protection for habitats after conservationists sue over mass die-offs from poor water quality

The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has agreed to update critical habitat protections for manatees after legal pressure from environmental groups, as the animals continue to die in record numbers.

More than 1,000 manatees died in Florida last year, wiping out more than 10% of the state’s population, the deadliest year on record. The unusually high mortality rate for the threatened mammals has continued into 2022, with 562 deaths in the first five months.

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Hope for Kenya’s mountain bongos as five released into sanctuary

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Rewilding programme marks the ‘most significant step’ in ensuring the critically endangered species’ survival

Five mountain bongos have been released into a sanctuary in Kenya, a milestone in the fight for the animals’ survival with fewer than 100 left in the wild

Considered critically endangered, the chestnut-coloured mountain bongo is one of the largest forest antelopes and native to the equatorial forests of Mount Kenya, Eburu, Mau and Aberdares. IUCN predicts their numbers will probably continue to decline without direct action. A recent wildlife census in Kenya counted just 96 mountain bongos in the wild.

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Yellowstone at 150: busier yet wilder than ever, says park’s ‘winterkeeper’

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From the return of wildlife to the pressures of tourism and the climate crisis, Steven Fuller has seen it all in his nearly 50 years watching over America’s oldest national park

• Read more: Native Americans are at the heart of Yellowstone. After 150 years, they are finally being heard

As “winterkeeper” at Yellowstone national park, Steven Fuller lives in a rustic cedar-shingled cottage, built in 1910, set on a hill a short walk from the majestic Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

On balmier days, with the windows open, he can hear the roar of the 308ft Lower Falls tumbling into the chasm. In autumn, he is treated to the sound of bugling bull elk in rut or, in the middle of night, the howls of wolves.

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Massive feeding effort underway to save starving Florida manatees

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First two months of 2022 alone have seen more than 300 manatee deaths as major conservation effort to rescue population

More than 80 Florida manatees are currently in rehab centers across the US as officials and conservations work to rescue a population that has been hit hard by starvation.

The data released by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and US Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday underscores the peril facing the manatees, and comes amid a major conservation effort that includes a feeding program distributing 3,000lb of lettuce daily at a site on the Florida coast.

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Court halts land clearance on edge of protected park in Zambia

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Conservationists welcome interim injunction to stop farm development they say threatens migration of 10 million fruit bats

Conservationists in Zambia have hailed a high court injunction preventing deforestation and commercial agriculture on the edge of Kasanka national park, which they say threatens the world’s biggest mammal migration.

Every October, about 10 million straw-coloured fruit bats descend on the swamps of Kasanka from across Africa and beyond. They feast on fruit in and around the park, one of Zambia’s smallest but under the highest level of protection, dispersing seeds across the continent on their epic journey.

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Best bird a bat: tiny flying mammal wins New Zealand bird of the year competition

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No stunt, say organisers, who wanted to raise awareness of the pekapeka-tou-roa, which faces the same threats as native birds

In a huge upset to New Zealand birds, but a win for one of the country’s only native land mammals, a bat has swooped in “by a long way” to take out the annual bird of the year competition.

Forest and Bird, which runs the election, thew the bat among the pigeons as a surprise entry this year. The pekapeka-tou-roa, or long tailed bat, is one of two bats in the country and one of the rarest mammals in the world. It is as small as a thumb, and the size of a bumblebee when it is born.

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‘He’s so majestic’: Wally the walrus hits Iceland on tour of Europe

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Experts hope he is resting and building up blubber reserves before returning to Arctic to look for mate

When Wally the walrus disappeared after more than five months of appearances around the UK and Ireland, interspersed with visits to France and Spain, observers feared the worst.

But after about three weeks at sea he re-emerged in Iceland, looking skinnier but much closer to his Arctic home.

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‘Ecological island’: as Maasai herding lands shrink, so does space for Kenya’s elephants

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The collapse of ecotourism during the pandemic and moves to lease land to big farms threaten vital conservation corridors

Kenyan elephants risk a slow extinction in a bleak, ever-shrinking “ecological island” in one of the country’s most picturesque and photographed landscapes, according to a government report.

The animals face a grim future as habitat loss is exacerbated by the pandemic’s impact on tourism, which is pushing landowners to sell off areas for development, and a growing trend towards a sedentary lifestyle among the pastoralist Maasai people, says the new 10-year management plan.

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Why the world’s biggest mammal migration is crucial for Africa – photo essay

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Up to 10 million straw-coloured fruit bats descend on Zambia’s Kasanka national park every year, dispersing millions of seeds as they go

  • Words and photographs by Georgina Smith

David Mubiana will always remember the day he was shot. It happened in 2002, when his unit was ambushed by poachers with AK-47 rifles and a shotgun. He was wounded in the arm and stomach; one bullet rupturing his spleen. As a wildlife police officer in Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife, his job is inherently risky.

“Even if you fall down, you have to stand up and continue fighting. If we finish our wildlife, [our children] are not going to see what we are seeing today,” he says.

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Denmark tightens lockdown in north over mink Covid outbreak

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Twelve people infected so far with new strain against which vaccines may be ineffective

An outbreak among farmed mink of a mutant form of Covid-19 with the potential to be resistant to future vaccines has led to the Danish government bringing in tougher lockdown measures in parts of the country.

The measures were announced following the discovery of a new strain of the disease in animals bred for fur in the country’s northern regions.

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Previous incident may have led Orcas to target boats, say experts

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Inquiry into encounters off coasts of Spain and Portugal says speed could be a factor

Experts investigating a series of extraordinary encounters between orcas and yachts off the coasts of Spain and Portugal believe the animals responsible may have been triggered to target boat rudders by an earlier “aversive incident” involving some kind of vessel.

Related: 'They were having a real go': man tells of orca encounter off Spain

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Wildlife forensics: how a giant pangolin named Ghost could help save the species

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A new research programme in Gabon is identifying the ‘isotopic fingerprint’ of the world’s most-trafficked mammal in the fight to beat smugglers

After a two-week chase through Lopé-Okanda national park, a mosaic of rainforest and savannah in central Gabon, David Lehmann and his Wildlife Capture Unit were celebrating – they had caught a giant pangolin nicknamed Ghost, the biggest on record.

The team – consisting of eco-guards, an indigenous tracker, a field biologist and a wildlife vet – hope that Ghost, who weighs 38kg and measures 1.72m from nose to tail, will give valuable insights in their fight against poaching.

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Indigenous input helps save wayward grizzly bear from summary killing

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When a bear starts feeding off garbage and loses its fear of humans it is quickly shot but an unlikely conservation partnership may be setting a different path

In early April, a young grizzly bear swam through the chilly waters off the western coast of Canada in search of food.

Related: Groggy grizzly bear caught emerging from hibernation in viral video

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Pacific seals at risk as Arctic ice melt lets deadly disease spread from Atlantic

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Study finds seal and sea otter populations in Alaska hit by killer infection that migrated from North Atlantic

A potentially deadly disease affecting marine mammals, including seals and sea otters, has been passed from the North Atlantic Ocean to the northern Pacific thanks to the melting of the Arctic sea ice.

Experts have long been concerned that sea ice melting in the northern oceans, caused by global climate heating, could allow previously geographically limited diseases to be transmitted between the two oceans.

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Give endangered jaguars legal rights, Argentina campaigners ask court

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With fewer than 20 left in the South American country’s Gran Chaco forest – the big cats could be classed as a ‘non-human person’

Argentina’s supreme court has been asked to recognize the legal rights of the South American jaguar, of which fewer than 20 individuals remain alive in the country’s Gran Chaco region.

The largest cat in the Americas once roamed the continent as far north as the Grand Canyon, but is now in decline across the entire western hemisphere.

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