Scientists at the University of Bristol have discovered evidence that giraffes are a highly socially complex species. Traditionally, giraffes were thought to have little or no social structure, and only fleeting, weak relationships. However in the last ten years, research has shown that giraffe social organisation is much more advanced than once thought. In a paper…
Tourists could be spreading the virus causing COVID-19 to wild mountain gorillas by taking selfies with the animals without following precautions. Researchers from Oxford Brookes University examined 858 photos posted on Instagram from 2013-2019 under two hashtags — #gorillatrekking and #gorillatracking — and found most gorilla trekking tourists were close enough to the animals, without…
Oxford University study leads cutting-edge scientific and historic analysis of elephant tusks found in shipwrecked cargo. OXFORD, 17 December 2020 – An international team has discovered the origin of the largest cargo of African ivory found from the oldest shipwreck in southern Africa. The discovery of a 16th-century shipwreck has, with the aid of advanced scientific…
As they roam around the African savanna in search for food, giraffes and elephants alter the diversity and richness of its vegetation. By studying the foraging patterns of these megaherbivores across different terrains in a savanna in Kenya, scientists from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and collaborating institutions discovered that these large mammals prefer…
A Cameroonian government decree allowing logging in a forest that is home to the rare Ebo gorilla and other endangered species, like chimpanzees, forest elephants and grey parrots, has been cancelled. The decree, which was signed mid-July, had sparked outrage among local communities and conservation groups. In total 68,385 hectares of virgin forest would be…
The predation of livestock by carnivores, and the retaliatory killing of carnivores as a result, is a major global conservation challenge. Such human-wildlife conflicts are a key driver of large carnivore declines and the costs of coexistence are often disproportionately borne by rural communities in the global south. While current approaches tend to focus on…
Rainforest Rescue released a petition protesting the Cameroonian government’s move to open 150,000 hectares of Ebo Forest – an area the size of Greater London – to logging. The logging concessions would impact one of Africa’s great biodiversity hotspots. Ebo Forest is the habitat of a possible new subspecies of gorilla, as well as a…
The ALU School of Wildlife Conservation (SOWC), part of the African Leadership University (ALU), is a platform for emerging leaders with interests in conservation to get cutting edge leadership training to learn to lead effectively and manage Africa’s unique natural assets for sustainable and inclusive human benefit. SOWC aims at developing the next generation of…
New research published this month indicates that lion populations in Africa may be lower than current estimates suggest. The research, a collaboration involving University of Queensland and Griffith University, published in Frontiers in Ecology & Evolution,and Ecological Solutions and Evidence, found that current lion counting methods for research/conservation purposes may be overestimating lion numbers and densities. Lead author…
Five years ago, a dentist from Minnesota killed Cecil the lion Hwange National Park’s most famous resident. This caused an outcry in the United Kingdom and in the rest of the world against trophy hunting. Yet people are still killing big game for sport. A new book reveals explosive insight into hidden world of trophy…