Cheetahs threatening the livestock? Call Brian. A crocodile attacking people? Brian will take it – the way he takes everything – to his Moholoholo Wildlife Rehab Centre for injured and endangered animals. He is the answer to all variety of animal problems that vex humans in the scrubby lowlands of eastern South Africa. (Christian Science Monitor)
Wildlife researchers said Tuesday that they've discovered 125,000
western lowland gorillas deep in the forests of the Republic of Congo,
calling it a major increase in the animal's estimated population. (AP article via MSNBC) This, on the same day that the AFP reports on a study that says primates are "disappearing from the face of the Earth". . . hmmm. A couple years ago I also reported that Gorilla populations had grown 17 percent in Uganda's Bwindi park, home to almost half of the world’s remaining mountain gorillas during the 1990's, with similar trends in another park.
Authorities in
northeastern India have asked the army to help protect endangered
one-horned rhinoceroses from poachers and have made the soldiers
honorary wildlife wardens, officials said Saturday. (Full story in the Guardian)
"Described by local residents as magical, a native herb called yerba mansa, known as the "the calming herb," has been used for centuries throughout the Southwest by American Indians and Hispanics for ailments ranging from toothaches to sinus infections. Anticipating the herb's rising popularity, a researcher has made yerba mansa a viable and desirable agricultural crop for New Mexico's small farmers, helping to protect the ecologically threatened plant from depletion." (Chicago Tribune Business section)
Africa's white rhinos were driven to the brink of extinction in the
early 20th century as poachers hunted the animal for its horn. A
breeding program launched in Botswana has been successful in bringing
the white rhino back to Botswana's bush and it gives hope that black
rhinos, which are still seriously endangered, may also survive.