A team of conservationists from the Royal Veterinary College, WCS, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna published a letter in this week’s edition of the journal Science on the threat of the virus peste des petits ruminants (PPR) to conservation.
A massive decade-long study of Western Equatorial Africa’s gorillas and chimpanzees has uncovered both good news and bad about our nearest relatives. The good news: there are one third more western lowland gorillas and one tenth more central chimpanzees than previously thought. The bad news: the vast majority of these great apes (80 percent) exist outside of protected areas, and gorilla populations are declining by 2.7 percent annually.
October 11, 2017 – The Burmese star tortoise (Geochelone platynota), a medium-sized tortoise found only in Myanmar’s central dry zone, has been brought back from the brink of extinction thanks to an aggressive captive-breeding effort spearheaded by a team of conservationists and government partners.