Green Group discussion

This leopard was rescued from a well in India.

https://www.independent.ie/world-news...

Beautiful footage of an ocelot in Arizona.

https://www.ecowatch.com/arizona-ocel...

Thanks for these videos. I never before thought of how a wall will affect wildlife.

PS: Gorgeous animals

I would recommend a wildlife corridor, such as we have over some motorways. In this case it would be a tunnel and this could easily be observed by cameras so border guards could see if any human was messing around at the border.

The problem is that the Trump administration has no concern for the environment. It will take lawsuits.

We know tigers are under threat.
The Bengal tiger, a relatively small tiger compared to the Amur tiger because it lives in a hotter country, has been suffering from all the usual problems: poaching, habitat stress, poaching of its prey and conflict with farmers.
Now a few measures like buying back guns from poachers and expanding sanctuaries may be helping. But Bangladesh, a flat delta, is sinking.
https://www.care2.com/causes/banglade...

The Man-Eater of Jassapur is a good fictionalised look at the conflict between poor farming people and tigers.

As to why big predators are all endangered:
Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare: An Ecologist's Perspective

More big cats. The snow leopard is able to live in the Himalayas due to insulating fur. Sadly the fur is valuable to poachers. Habitat destruction and villagers concerned about livestock are further sources of conflict with a snow leopard population.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...

Avaaz has sent me the following information. If anyone is interested in supporting them, please do an online search for them and make sure your details will be secure. I tend to think governments can legislate to bulldoze through conservation areas... they have done it in Ireland.

" The snow leopard is fighting for its survival, and now, in Nepal, one of its last refuges could have a highway built right through the middle of it. This could be the snow leopard’s last stand -- but two Avaazers have come up with a brilliant, simple plan to save them!

They’re working with the local community and the Rainforest Trust to buy up and protect crucial snow leopard habitats. If they can raise enough, they’ll create a vast, permanent, snow leopard conservation corridor, while blocking the road completely!

But they’re running out of time. If they can’t raise the funds in the next few weeks, it won’t happen. If thousands of us chip in now, we can help urgently buy the land they need to create this snow leopard sanctuary -- and even better, everything we donate will be matched dollar for dollar by the Rainforest Trust! "

Nat Geo, a few photos of wild tigers taken by a remote controlled car camera.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/an...

https://www.africanparks.org/cheetahs...

" Lilongwe, Malawi: A small founder population of wild cheetahs has been successfully translocated from South Africa to Majete Wildlife Reserve, in Malawi, where cheetahs have not been present for decades. Cheetahs were entirely absent from Malawi for twenty years before a successful reintroduction returned them to Liwonde National Park in 2017. "

" Fota Wildlife Park celebrates birth of purr-fect Sumatran tiger cub "
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news...

Fota, in the south of Ireland, has been extremely successful at breeding cheetahs in their open-spaces style park. This is a branch of Dublin Zoo and animals like giraffes are rotated between the two locations.

Leopards in Armenia are so rare, I didn't know they had any. An individual has just been caught on camera by WWF.

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1014543

"“We can note that after a 50-year pause, the leopard has returned to Tavush Province. The last time the leopard was spotted in the area was in the 1970s. Tavush became the fourth province in Armenia to be home to leopards”, WWF said."

"The WWF and the Armenian environment ministry are jointly implemented the leopard conservation program since 2002.

Currently, the Caucasian Leopard – whose natural habitat is the Armenian Mountain Range – is listed in the Endangered Animal Book of Armenia. There are about 10 leopards in Armenia."

Saharan cheetah filmed in Algeria. These creatures number in the tens.

https://www.urdupoint.com/en/world/en...

Happy International Lynx Day!

"Slovakian project team members successfully transferred two lynx from Slovakia to Slovenia and Croatia."

https://www.lifelynx.eu/first-lynx-ar...

Fota Wildlife Park in Co. Cork Ireland, is an international centre for cheetah conservation. The Northern cheetah is seriously endangered; this spring Fota announced three new cubs.

https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2020...

The three Northern Cheetah cubs are now exploring their home in Fota. Gorgeous photos of them, also a Simang Gibbon baby being held by Mum as she swings through the air at Dublin Zoo.

https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2020...

Iberian Lynx.

"Spotty of coat, tufty of ear, and teetering on the verge of extinction less than two decades ago, the Iberian lynx is continuing to claw its way back across Spain and Portugal.

According to the latest survey, the lynx population on the peninsula has increased ninefold over 18 years, rising from 94 in 2002 to 855 this year. Experts say that if the current conservation and reintroduction efforts can maintain their momentum, the species could be out of danger by 2040."

https://www.theguardian.com/environme...

The progress could be undone by a series of forest fires, it seems to me. Don't count your lynxes too soon.

Persian leopards.

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/wild-...

"A pair of Persian leopards, a species that numbers less than 50 individuals in the Russian Federation, have been released as part of a WWF captive breeding program to try and revitalize a declining species.

Kodor (male) and Laba (female) were born and brought up in a special leopard breeding and training center in Sochi National Park, which was established in the Caucasus Mountains back in 2009.

They were released as adults, having learned independence, hunting skills, and socialization within the safety of captivity to ensure they stand a chance at surviving long enough to help the species recover."

Another leopard rescued from a well. Seems to me more effort could be made to stop anything falling into these wells, including children.

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/watch...

An ocelot came to a scarce water source, but a leopard was lying in wait and had passed up the earlier tapir...
Guatemala.

https://gizmodo.com/unprecedented-cam...

I am posting this zoo escape story, not so much because of the distinctly unhappy escape tale, but because it gives an update as to the status of Sumatran tigers.

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2021/02...

"Two 11-month-old Iberian lynxes have been released into the wild in Castilla-La Mancha region.

Named ‘Regata’ and ‘Rally’, they are part of the ‘Lynx Connect’ breeding in captivity programme in Spain."

https://www.costa-news.com/spanish-na...

Lynx are featuring more often now in stories from Europe and even UK, where the Eurasian lynx are perhaps going to be re-introduced as a rewilding project. Lynx eat rabbits, so any forestry owner planting young trees will love them. They also eat roe deer, another plus for forestry.

Snow leopards in Mongolia.

https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories...

"Today, Mexico is home to an estimated 4,000 jaguars.* At risk of extinction, this population faces threats from poaching, injuries from vehicle collisions, loss of habitat due to agricultural expansion, and human-wildlife conflict.

With former jaguar habitat converted to livestock ranches, jaguars, faced with diminishing food sources, began preying on livestock and other domestic animals. In turn, livestock producers increasingly retaliated against the jaguars. At least seven jaguars were killed in the last three years in La Palizada, a small town in Campeche in southeastern Mexico that is mostly dedicated to livestock production.
...
"Aguirre contacted WWF-Mexico’s field officer and biologist Fernando Contreras, who previously helped communities manage conflicts with jaguars, pumas, and coyotes in southeast Mexico. To help prevent further attacks on Aguirre’s ranch, WWF-Mexico and the NGO Animal Karma helped install a solar powered electric fence around Las Piedras, which emits a low voltage electric shock if the jaguar touches it. Immediately, the Aguirre family felt safer and experienced no further attacks since its installation.

Beyond reduced jaguar attacks, the fence brought electricity to the ranch for the very first time. And the solar energy used to power the fence also means minimal impact to the environment.

“This is the first electric fence installed in the area to help prevent conflicts between ranchers and jaguars and is part of WWF-Mexico’s project to ensure the protection of the jaguar population in the Maya Forest,” said Contreras. “Sometimes, nature conservation becomes much more, the jaguar also brought light into the family home—light for the kids to study, for the family to spend quality time together, and improve their well-being.”"

https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories...

An article mainly about wolves, mentions that:
"Michigan Tech's Peterson, who was not involved in the research, said, "If anything, the researchers underestimated the value of the deer-vehicle crashes. The deeper dimension of these collision costs can include large medical bills and, sometimes, human fatalities."

A 2016 study found that cougars decreased the number of deer-vehicle crashes in parts of the eastern U.S. by about 22%.

The wolf study "adds to growing awareness that scientists should consider both the costs and the benefits of having large carnivores on the landscape," said Adrian Treves, a University of Wisconsin conservation biologist not involved in the study."

https://phys.org/news/2021-05-wolves-...

More information: Jennifer L. Raynor et al, Wolves make roadways safer, generating large economic returns to predator conservation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2023251118
Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

So here is the 2016 story in the WP.

https://www.washington.edu/news/2016/...

"A team including University of Washington’s Laura Prugh has for the first time begun to quantify the economic and social impact of bringing back large carnivores. Using cougars and their value in reducing deer-vehicle collisions as a case study, the researchers found that within 30 years of cougars recolonizing the Eastern U.S., large cats could thin deer populations and reduce vehicle collisions by 22 percent — each year preventing five human fatalities, 680 injuries and avoiding costs of $50 million.

The study is published online this week in the journal Conservation Letters. The student-led project was initiated during a community ecology class Prugh taught in 2014 at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Lead author Sophie Gilbert, now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Alberta, will start in the fall as an assistant professor at the University of Idaho."

Full study:

https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.co...

"Abstract
The decline of top carnivores has released large herbivore populations around the world, incurring socioeconomic costs such as increased animal–vehicle collisions. Attempts to control overabundant deer in the Eastern United States have largely failed, and deer–vehicle collisions (DVCs) continue to rise at alarming rates. We present the first valuation of an ecosystem service provided by large carnivore recolonization, using DVC reduction by cougars as a case study.
Our coupled deer population models and socioeconomic valuations revealed that cougars could reduce deer densities and DVCs by 22% in the Eastern United States, preventing 21,400 human injuries, 155 fatalities, and $2.13 billion in avoided costs within 30 years of establishment. Recently established cougars in South Dakota prevent $1.1 million in collision costs annually. Large carnivore restoration could provide valuable ecosystem services through such socio-ecological cascades, and these benefits could offset the societal costs of coexistence."

Do not buy cheetahs. Do not pay to have your photo taken with them.

https://phys.org/news/2021-11-cheetah...

"The steady plunder of cubs from the wild to satisfy the pet trade only compounds this decline.

More than 3,600 live cheetahs were illegally traded worldwide in the decade to December 2019, according to research published this year that documented hundreds of advertisements for cubs on social media platforms including YouTube and Instagram.

"If this keeps going... that kind of offtake causes the population to go extinct in a very short time," said Marker, a leading authority on cheetahs.
...

"Marker said wealthy owners liked to show off their cheetahs in selfies as much as their cars and cash.

"There's kind of a one-upmanship on it, and there's bragging power. One of our messages is do not 'like' this kind of thing on social media," Marker said."

Good news for cheetahs.

"Fota Wildlife Park has announced the names of the five Northern Cheetah cubs who were born there on 10 August.

The names, chosen by members of the public, are Roy, Sonia, Arlo, Mia, and Cora.
...

"The Northern Cheetah subspecies is considered endangered by the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as there are fewer than 800 left in the wild.

A total of 238 cheetahs have been born at Fota Wildlife Park since 1984."

https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2021...

Clouded leopards are being photographed at much higher elevations than normal.

https://www.timesnownews.com/the-buzz...

"A rare sighting of elusive clouded leopards has been reported in the Nagaland mountains for the first time. A team of researchers recorded photographic evidence of the clouded leopards at an elevation of 3,700 metres in a community-owned forest along the Indo-Myanmar border.

It is said to be one of the highest reported altitudes where the wild cat has been sighted in the world to date.

The researchers published their findings in the Winter 2021 issue of the Cat News, the IUCN/Species Survival Commission (SSC) Cat Specialist Group’s biannual newsletter.

The tree-climbing leopard, Neofelis nebulosa, is the smallest of the large wild cats. The species is categorised as ‘Vulnerable’ under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

The photos were captured in the community forest of Thanamir village in eastern Nagaland’s Kiphire district.

In the local Chirr dialect, the clouded leopard is known as "Khephak", which means a greyish big cat.

"In total, we have evidence of at least two adults and two cubs. Two distinct individuals were photocaptured at a camera placed above the tree line at 3,700 m close to the summit of Mt. Saramati. Another individual was photo captured at 3,436 m," the report said."

Upthread I mentioned roads with wildlife crossings.

A Clouded Leopard in the Middle of the Road: New Thinking about Roads, People, and Wildlife

Fota Wildlife Park in Co. Cork, Ireland, bred this lovely Sumatran tiger, and he has been well received at Chester Zoo on the border of England and Wales.

https://www.rte.ie/news/munster/2022/...

"Fota Wildlife Park participates in the European Endangered Species Programme for Sumatran tigers, and the move has been welcomed by those involved in animal welfare.

Director of animals and plants at Chester Zoo Mike Jordan described Dash as a handsome and confident young tiger.

"Dash has quickly settled into his new surroundings. He's been carefully matched with female tiger Kasarna, based on his age, character and his genetics, and we're hopeful that they'll soon strike up a close bond and, one day, go on to have cubs."

He added that with only 400 left in the wild, every cub could be critical for the future of the species."

I am currently enjoying very much this YA read. It's about snow leopards and the work to preserve the species, whether at zoos or in their natural environment.

The Storm Leopards

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022/...

"A recent study led by Queen’s University Belfast and Cornell University in the US found that the reintroduction of native predator species, such as lynx could help in the control of problematic invasive species.

Rewilder and author Eoghan Daltun says the re-establishment of lynx in Ireland could help tackle the problems posed by a number of invasive species, including Sika deer.

"Sika deer were introduced here in the 19 century and have become highly over-populated. The result of that is wild native habitats like forests are completely grazed bare so they are not able to reproduce," he said.

"Any seedlings get immediately eaten, the bark is stripped from older trees, killing them.

"If we had lynx back it would help bring balance back in so many ways, by regulating the behaviour and numbers of grazers like sika deer and feral goats, but also mesopredators like fox and the invasive American mink."
...

"Strong echoes of such wild cats have survived in the oral tradition. Folklorist Dr Daithí de Mórdha says wild cats feature prominently in placenames and in mythology.

"Here in Corca Dhuibhne we have the likes of Inse na gCat and Cathair na gCat, places which have strong associations with wild cats and, in Co Roscommon, you have the well-known cave of Uaimh na gCat, where according to an old manuscript Cú Chulainn faced three wild cats," he said.

"In our legends and stories there are many instances where we have wild, vicious, dangerous cats protecting places like ringforts and underground tunnels and the hero in these tales has to kill the cat to succeed in whatever task is before him," he added."

The Lynx and Us

Technically the Lynx is not a big cat, but it's a large cat. Nor, by the way, is a cheetah a big cat, or its cousin the puma.
Tigers, lions, jaguars, leopards, snow leopards, clouded leopards and Sunda clouded leopards are the big cats.
All the rest are small cats, which in some cases grew large to fill the niche of the now-vanished bigger cat such as a sabre toothed tiger.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/an...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_cat

Here is another small cat. Looking rather like the Scottish Wildcat. This is the Corsican 'cat fox'.


https://phys.org/news/2023-03-mysteri...

"New genetic analysis has "revealed a unique genetic strain to the wild cats" found in the remote forest undergrowth of northern Corsica, it confirmed.

Genetic sampling clearly distinguishes the ring-tailed Corsican cat-foxes from mainland forest felines and domestic cats, said the OFB in a statement.

While resembling house cats in some ways, the cat-fox earned its name from its length—measuring 90 centimeters (35 inches) from head to tail—and its distinct black-tipped, ringed tail."

https://phys.org/news/2023-04-easy-ti...

"The behavior of the 248 Siberian tigers observed through a personality test showed that the endangered cats had unique traits influencing both their success in reproduction and survival, researchers reported in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

"We found that tigers are very individual, and that people who've worked with them and know them well see their individual personalities," co-author Rosalind Arden of the London School of Economics told AFP.

The study adapted a commonly used human personality test to explore tiger traits such as confidence, sincerity, bullying and savagery in two separate populations of tigers held in semi-captivity in China.

Questionnaires with a list of 70 personality indicators were filled out by veterinarians and feeders who work with the tigers on a daily basis.
...
"
Siberian tigers are endangered due to poaching and habitat loss. Only around 500 remain living in the wild.

More information: Rosalind Arden et al, Majestic tigers: personality structure in the great Amur cat, Royal Society Open Science (2023). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.220957

Journal information: Royal Society Open Science

More lynxes are being released in Spain.

https://www.costa-news.com/latest-new...

"Another four Iberian lynxes have been released into acclimatisation enclosures in the highlands of Lorca by Murcia regional government.

Continuing with the region’s participation in the EU Life+ project LynxConnect, two females – Tova and Turma; and two males – Tilo and Tinajero (which were named by schoolchildren) follow the four others which have already been released completely into the wild this year.

The objective is to establish a sufficiently large population with 15 reproducing females and a similar number of males, explained regional president Fernando López Miras."

https://www.sundayworld.com/videos/ra...

"A rare black jaguar has arrived at Chester Zoo as part of special programme to protect the species. The two-year-old big cat, named Inka, has moved from The Big Cat Sanctuary in Kent having been carefully selected as a fitting companion for Chester’s resident male jaguar, Napo. With scientists fearing that jaguars may become vulnerable to extinction in the near future, conservationists at the zoo hope Inka’s arrival will help to throw an all-important spotlight on these amazing animals."

https://phys.org/news/2023-10-special...

"To enable ocelots to leave highways back into nature, novel exits were designed in 2018 by the Texas Department of Transportation. These are openings in the fencing approximately 46cm across at their widest, 13cm across at their narrowest, and 60cm high—funnel-shaped to encourage ocelots to use them exclusively in the desired direction, away from the highway and back into the surrounding habitat.

The present study tested if the wildlife exits are correctly used by medium-sized carnivores in Texas. It was done along an 11.9-km-long stretch of State Highway 100 between Los Fresnos and Laguna Vista, between February 2019 and November 2020. In 2018, 10 wildlife exits had been installed along this stretch."

More information: Use and effectiveness of wildlife exits designed for ocelots and other mesocarnivores on a South Texas highway, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2023). DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2023.1235223. www.frontiersin.org/articles/1 … vo.2023.1235223/full

Journal information: Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution

Provided by University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Clouded leopards are a distinct lineage.

https://phys.org/news/2023-10-genomic...

"Neofelis nebulosa and Neofelis diardi are two extant clouded leopard species that are the closest living relatives to the five big cats of the genus Panthera to form the subfamily Pantherinae. Since clouded leopards are highly adapted to an arboreal lifestyle, they have broad paws and a long tail for balance with flexible ankles to descend trees headfirst. These species have the largest upper canine teeth in proportion to body size, with canines in similar proportion to those of sabretooth cats. Despite their large upper canines, the clouded leopards do not kill their prey as sabretooths did, but instead use a crushing nape bite.

The species are endemic to South Asia, across the Himalayas to Sundaland. Although assumed to be a monospecific genus, Neofelis comprises two species. The mainland clouded leopard N. nebulosa distributed in Nepal, India, South China; and the Sunda clouded leopard that currently lives on the two islands of Borneo and Sumatra. The two species are listed as vulnerable and are found only in tropical forests—they have experienced 30% habitat loss in the past two decades."

More information: Jiaqing Yuan et al, How genomic insights into the evolutionary history of clouded leopards inform their conservation, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adh9143

Journal information: Science Advances

The cat family, and genetic differences.

https://phys.org/news/2023-11-genome-...

"Researchers at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) and an interdisciplinary team of collaborators have uncovered new information about the history of cat evolution explaining how cats—including well-known species like lions, tigers, and domestic cats—evolved into different species, and shedding light on how different genetic changes in cats relate to survival abilities like the ability to smell prey.

By comparing genomes of several cat species, the project, published today in Nature Genetics, has helped researchers understand why cat genomes tend to have fewer complex genetic variations (such as rearrangements of DNA segments) than other mammal groups, like primates. It also revealed new insights into which parts of cat DNA are most likely to evolve rapidly and how they play a role in species differentiation."

More information: Kevin R. Bredemeyer et al, Single-haplotype comparative genomics provides insights into lineage-specific structural variation during cat evolution, Nature Genetics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41588-023-01548-y

Journal information: Nature Genetics

Provided by Texas A&M University

Cheetahs survive by hunting when other big cats and nocturnal predators such as hyenas, are asleep. Extreme daytime heat forces cheetahs to become more nocturnal.


https://phys.org/news/2023-11-cheetah...

""Lions and leopards normally kill prey themselves, but if they come across a cheetah's kill, they will try to take it," said Bettina Wachter, a behavioral biologist who leads the Cheetah Research Project at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research.

"The cheetahs will not fight the larger cats, they will just leave," said Wachter, who is based in Namibia and was not involved in the study.

Hunting at different times of the day is one long-evolved strategy to reduce encounters between the multiple predator species that share northern Botswana's mixed savannah and forest landscape.

But the new study found that on the hottest days, when maximum daily temperatures soared to nearly 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), cheetahs became more nocturnal—increasing their overlapping hunting hours with rival big cats by 16%."

More information: Kasim Rafiq et al, Increasing ambient temperatures trigger shifts in activity patterns and temporal partitioning in a large carnivore guild, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2023.1938

Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

The serval is technically a small cat. But still a big wild cat.

A zoo in the war zone of Donetsk has sent its serval cats to a zoo in Kiev. Your browser may offer to translate, but do look because the photos are lovely. My translation below was made by RTE.

https://suspilne.media/645188-u-kiivs...

"A group of 4 servals found themselves in the very center of the war - Kurakhove, near Marianka in Donetsk region. Thanks to the efforts of animal activists, the animals were taken out of the shelling and transferred to Kyiv Zoo. They were sick, exhausted and under severe stress.

"Two months have passed, and the first pair of servals have moved on to the next stage of rehabilitation and socialization in their own enclosure," the statement reads.

For the comfort of Osiris and Sekhmet, the zoo staff provided everything necessary:

an African tree with climbing walls and claws
2 hammocks and a cozy loft for relaxation
a fountain for refreshment
three types of soil and a stone rock for walking and jumping.

There are also various toys and pillows in the house, because servals are cats, the zoo noted.

The zoo staff also informed that to bring the conditions even closer to natural ones, 3 types of lighting were installed in the enclosure: sunny-day, twilight-infrared, and night moonlight."

https://rte.social.ebu.io/KB7YIBXORRE6

""Oftentimes, we find it's the little things that rule the world," said Todd Palmer, an ecologist from the University of Florida, who was part of the research team that traced the implications of the big-headed ant on the hunting habits of lions in central Kenya.

"These tiny invasive ants showed up maybe 15 years ago, and none of us noticed because they aren't aggressive toward big critters, including people. We now see they are transforming landscapes in very subtle ways but with devastating effects," Palmer said. It all starts with the whistling-thorn acacia trees in the plains of Laikipia, Kenya. These thorny trees had developed a mutually beneficial relationship with the local acacia ant: The trees provide shelter and food for the ants and in return they use their stinging bite to discourage hungry elephants from devouring the trees. But the big-headed ant changed all that.

Thought to have originated on an island in the Indian Ocean and brought to the area by the movement of people and goods, these invasive marauders arrived around two decades ago and started killing the acacia ants, leaving the whistling-thorn trees vulnerable to herbivores. Diminished tree cover poses a problem for lions because they rely on the element of surprise to ambush their prey, notably zebras. Researchers spent three years in Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy tracking the lions' movements with GPS collars to see how they responded in the areas colonised by the invasive ants. Their study, published in the journal Science, found that the big-headed ants had led to a threefold decline in zebra killings.

But the researchers were surprised to find that this did not cause the lion population to decline -- good news because lion populations in the region have already shrunk to around 2,000 individuals from an estimated 100,000. Instead, the big cats switched dining preference and strategy -- ganging up in larger groups to go after buffalo, said Douglas Kamaru of the University of Wyoming, lead author of the study."

https://phys.org/news/2024-04-hair-ti...

"Prior research has shown that the Java tiger once flourished on the island. The tiger is a subspecies of the more well-known Sumatran tiger. But as humans encroached on their territory, leaving little land for the tigers, their numbers began dwindling. After farmers began shooting them for killing livestock, they disappeared completely. In 2008, the species was declared extinct. In this new effort, the research team has found evidence that the declaration may have been premature.

Over the past several decades, there have been reports by nonscientists of tigers still living on the island; some even suggested that livestock had been killed by one or more of them. But the sightings were unconfirmed.

Then, five years ago, a conservationist working on the island saw what he believed to be a Java tiger on a western part of the island near a plantation. He reported this to a researcher on the island who visited the site and found footprints and claw marks on shrubbery and also a single hair stuck to a fence.

A later in-depth interview with the conservationist led the researchers to believe the hair was indeed from a Java tiger. They tested it genetically and compared the results with samples from a museum specimen of a Javan tiger collected in 1930, which showed them to be closely matched."

More information: Wirdateti Wirdateti et al, Is the Javan tiger Panthera tigris sondaica extant? DNA analysis of a recent hair sample, Oryx (2024).
https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S003060532...
Journal information: Oryx

https://phys.org/news/2024-05-genes-s...

"Dr. Hadi Al Hikmani, Arabian leopard Conservation Lead at the Royal Commission for AlUla in Saudi Arabia, described the motivation for this study: "The Arabian leopard is one of the world's rarest carnivores and is extraordinarily elusive. The only way to monitor these leopards in the wild is to deploy camera traps high up across the mountain ranges where the leopards live, and to collect the scats they leave behind on the mountain passes, for DNA analysis."

Thomas Birley, a Ph.D. researcher at UEA who performed the computer simulations for genetic rescue, said, "By using the genetic information from the wild and captive populations, we were able to forecast the best plan for genetic rescue to ensure long-term viability for this critically endangered big cat."

Professor Cock van Oosterhout, of the School of Environmental Sciences at UEA, added, "The problem is that all individuals are somehow related to each other. They are the descendants of the few ancestors that managed to survive a major population crash. Hence, it becomes virtually impossible to stop inbreeding, and this exposes 'bad' mutations, what we call genetic load. In turn, this can increase the mortality rate, causing further population collapse."

"The genetic load poses a severe threat, but it can be alleviated by genetic rescue, and our study has projected the best way to do this. The wild population needs 'genetic rescue' from more genetically diverse leopards bred in captivity. These leopards are genetically more diverse, and they can help to reduce the level of inbreeding and genetic load. However, there is a risk that we could introduce other bad mutations from the captive population into the wild, so we will need a careful balance.""

More information: Can genetic rescue help save Arabia's last big cat?, Evolutionary Applications (2024). DOI: 10.1111/eva.13701
Provided by University of Kent

Study link not coming up yet, it may later.
More on the Arabian leopard.
https://phys.org/news/2023-11-evidenc...

https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2024...

"The International Union for Conservation of Nature, which categorises species according to the level of risk they face in a "Red List" produced several times a year, yesterday bumped up the Iberian Lynx from "endangered" to "vulnerable".

While the Iberian Lynx shares the yellow eyes and short black stumpy tail with other lynx species, it is much smaller than them and has a distinctive black "beard" of long hair around its chin.

There were just 62 adults scattered across Mediterranean forests in 2001 but the population jumped to around 648 in 2022, IUCN said.

Today, the population has risen to more than 2,000, counting both young and adult lynxes across a range of thousands of kilometres covering rocky mountainous areas and valleys.

Francisco Javier Salcedo Ortiz, Coordinator of the LIFE Lynx-Connect project, which led the conservation action for the Iberian lynx called it "the greatest recovery of a cat species ever achieved through conservation" and praised a range of actors including landowners, farmers, hunters and the European Union which provided financial and logistical support.

Efforts have focused on increasing the abundance of its prey, a species of wild rabbit which is also endangered, programmes to free hundreds of captive lynxes and restoring scrublands and forests."

Gorgeous new arrivals at Fota. The Asiatic lion is down to 500 - 600 in the wild, so the three cubs - born to a lioness born at Fota Wildlife Park - are hugely important for the Asiatic lion.

https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2024...

""Mom has been doing a really good job. She kind of does all the hard work herself. We've been monitoring them from a distance up to this point.

"She's been keeping them in the bushes, keeping them hidden. She moves them into the warm heated cave behind me as the weather changes, and she'll move them back out again if she wants."

Gorgeous cubs. They will be a sight to see when they start running around.

I heard some time ago that lions breed readily, so lion cubs were a drug on the market for safari parks and zoos. However, an endangered species is a lion of a different colour.