News

Slow lorises may look cute and cuddly but these large-eyed primates are deadly and use venom to injure and even kill other slow lorises. Recent research has shown that slow lorises use venom as a defense mechanism against others of its kind, something that has previously only been seen in four other species worldwide. Only …

Pete Etheridge writes about the importance of coppicing for woodland conservation and biodiversity. A decline in coppicing Coppicing has been practised in the UK for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. In 1905 (decades after the peak in coppicing activity), it was estimated that there was somewhere in the region of 230,000 ha of actively …

Robin Redbreast – the UK’s ‘national bird’ – is under threat, and wildlife experts are encouraging the public to support robins and other native birds in their gardens this winter. There’s warning of a ‘perfect storm’ for winter birds this December, with reports of a La Nina event set to cause harsh cold spells alongside …

Lorna Griffiths, from the Nottinghamshire Dormice Group (NDG), describes how the dormice in her county are delighting the group members. In 2016 I wrote an article for The Dormouse Monitor about the hazel dormouse releases in Nottinghamshire. Since then, the Nottinghamshire Dormouse Project, which focuses on the three reintroductions, Treswell Wood (2013), Eaton Wood (2014) …

Gemma Watkinson, a member of the Lincolnshire Dormouse Group, reports on how their hazel dormice have not been observing lockdown. Dormice find their way into a new woodland This year, even though we were only able to carry out our nest box surveys during August, September and October, the results have been really exciting! We’re …

Neil Bemment, Chair of the Common Dormouse Captive Breeders’ Group (CDCBG), explains what a dormouse ‘studbook’ is, and why we need it.  The Common Dormouse Captive Breeders Group (CDCBG) was established in the early 1990s and brought together several like-minded private individuals and zoological collections interested in conserving hazel dormice. As the CDCBG population slowly …

With a shock of hair like Einstein and sharing a scientific name with one of Greek mythologies’ most tragic characters, the little cotton-top tamarin surely has enough to contend with. Unfortunately, they’re also burdened with being classified as critically endangered. Similar in size to squirrels, these charismatic primates are found in the forests of Colombia. …

This year has been an extremely difficult one for all of us. However, as an unprecedented global catastrophe unfolded, we’ve been heartened at PTES to hear how our teams on the ground and around the globe have been adapting and overcoming challenges. Zac Hill, from SEED Madagascar, recently got in touch, proud to tell us …

Although specific species like Persian leopards, Asiatic cheetahs, and Persian onagers whose last haven has been the expanses of Iran are endangered, we can hopefully strive for a better future for these wonderful creatures. Mitra Gholami is an environmentalist and colleague of PTES’s Conservation Partner, Dr. Mohammad Farhadinia. She recently wrote to us about her …

Rabbits: abundant, small to medium-sized herbivores – or as one account puts it, a little ungenerously, ‘food-chain fodder’. But there’s more to rabbits than food for foxes and stoats and buzzards. These unassuming grazers are landscape engineers, a talent that wasn’t appreciated until we almost lost them. Arriving in Britain Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus), like their …

PTES intern, Danai Kontou, has been busy this year, investigating a critical but little-known species that once dominated our coastal waters. With PTES funding, and under the supervision of Chris Yesson at the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Danai has spent the better part of a year wading through chilly British coastal …