News

On the night before Holi, as the country prepared for the festival of colours, Shailendra Singh sat on a lonely motorboat along the forests of Sundarbans, waiting for a critically endangered riverine turtle to crawl out of the waters and lay eggs. The Batagur baska was suspected to be extinct in the wild, but Singh, an aquatic …

Hibernation strategy There are three main strategies that animals use to help them get through the winter months. They migrate and move away from harsh weather; they adapt by growing thicker fur and storing food, or they hibernate. Hibernation is often referred to as a ‘sleep’ but it’s a very special type of sleep. The …

We’ve been funding Mohammad Farhadinia and his team in Iran since 2013. Their work has been a pioneering effort to understand conservation needs of Persian leopards, to apply novel and practical solutions to resolve the conservation problems and to raise the awareness for leopard conservation in Iran, and abroad. Face to face In mid-December 2019, …

Living alongside predators When you live alongside large cats, it’s not always easy to be a fan of wildlife. “A lot of people are simply unaware of the devastating impacts that a single crop loss or livestock predation incident can have on a family. If a herd of elephants come by, they can wipe out …

Despite the fact that Scotland’s red squirrel numbers have dropped hugely in recent decades, it is still home to 75% of our UK population. This makes it extremely important that we ensure Scotland’s endangered red squirrels have a secure future. We’ve been funding intern George Porton, who is part of the Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels initiative. …

How wild are wildcats? Our wildlife faces many different threats which all come with their particular challenges. Hybridisation between a wild animal – particularly one which has very few individuals left – and a domestic animal can be really problematic to deal with. Are the wildcats in the wild, really wild? Are there any true …

Lemurs’ need for trees Across Madagascar 90% of littoral forest – that’s the forest found on the shore that has adapted to grow on the sand– has been lost due to human activities. Much of it is still under threat, mainly from slash and burn agriculture and mining projects. There are some animals which are …

In the fields and forests of Bulgaria, Nedko Nedyalkov and his team have been avidly looking for evidence of Roach’s mouse-tailed dormouse over the past year. This mouse-tailed dormouse is one of the Europe’s rarest mammal species and is only found in the border area of Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece. For forty years there had …

Understanding wildlife trade Wildlife trade has made headline news recently because of the part it’s played in the coronavirus outbreak. But disease is not the only threat. Species are also at risk, sometimes even of extinction. Animals such as pangolins are being captured from the wild for consumption – whether as meat or medicine – …

Studying in the rain has its challenges Conducting field research in the tropics is challenging. Working in the Peruvian Amazon during the rainy season, between November and April, is even more so. When I started studying giant otters in the Madre de Dios province a few years ago, I was advised to stick to the …

Arnaud Desbiez and his team are working in the Pantanal region, Brazil, to protect giant anteaters from habitat degradation and fragmentation as part of the Anteaters & Highways project. Giant anteaters are classified as vulnerable to extinction. Our colleague, Arnaud, wrote to us recently to describe how the recent fires in the Amazon have affected …

Briddlesford, an ancient woodland Every January, we invite a loyal group of enthusiastic volunteers to join us in Briddlesford, our nature reserve on the Isle of Wight, to help us maintain and manage the woodland for wildlife. Briddlesford is both a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Area for Conservation. The presence of …