Adjusting communication to take into account information available to one’s audience is routine in humans but has been assumed absent in other animals. This assumption may be premature. Scientists Catherine Crockford and Roman Wittig from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and Klaus Zuberbühler from the University of Neuchatel show that wild…
The population of chimpanzees in West Africa has declined by over 80% in the last 20 years and in September 2016 they were classified as a critically endangered sub-species by the International Union of Nature Conservation (IUCN). As a result of this dramatic decline, the Government of Guinea has decided to implement its objective of…
For 27 years Angola was gripped by civil war. Half a million human lives were lost and wildlife, too, was decimated to sustain troops. Rhino and elephants became valuable targets – rhino horn and ivory served as currency for arms among rebel forces. During the conflict elephant populations fled across the border into Botswana, Zambia…
People often worry about the risks involved of catching diseases from animals, such as rabies. However, the risk humans pose to animals is often only considered once a species becomes critically endangered. Mountain gorillas live in two isolated regions: the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP) in Uganda and the Virungas, bounded by Uganda, Rwanda, and…
The African Conservation Foundation lost a dear friend and colleague recently as our co-founder John Parkin sadly suddenly passed away, aged 72. John Parkin was a gifted teacher and after taking early retirement he concentrated on developing his strategic information management skills and passing on this knowledge to organisations and conservationists in Africa and elsewhere….
The Rwanda Development Board’s (RDB) decision to double price of Rwanda gorilla permits from USD 750 to USD1500 has been received with mixed feelings from local and international tour operators, conservationists and also the people of Rwanda. Many looked at the gorilla permits increase as a gamble that is bound to fail in the near…
Liz Alden Wily, Leiden University The still new African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights has issued a landmark judgement for marginalised communities across Africa. It ruled that the Kenyan government violated the rights of the Mau Ogiek people by evicting them from their ancestral land in the Mau Forest complex. Before taking their case…
Well over 7 000 rhino have been lost to the hands of poachers in Africa in the last decade and the continent continues to lose nearly three rhinos per day. The pressure on those who seek to protect and conserve Africa’s rhino has never been greater. In South Africa, while poaching is down in Kruger…
Premier online education platform MasterClass announced today that Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, UN Messenger of Peace and one of the world’s most renowned naturalists and conservationists, will offer her first-ever online class. Pre-enrollment for Goodall’s class begins today at www.masterclass.com/jg. For over 55 years, Goodall has dedicated her life’s work and studies to animal sciences…
A King penguin – rare to South African oceans – is currently under the professional care of the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) after being discovered in arrested moult on Hout Bay’s main beach on Thursday, 27 April 2017. SANCCOB was notified of the penguin’s presence by a retired marine…