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Wild dogs have returned to the famed Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. The first puppy litters were not far behind. (slnyt) [more inside]
posted by poffin boffin on Aug 5, 2019 - 17 comments

It started as a good day. As usual, Kevin Langergraber got up at dawn to follow and observe the chimpanzees of Ngogo, in Uganda’s Kibale National Park. An anthropologist from Arizona State University, he has been studying the group for 19 summers. This year, food has been scarce, and so have the chimps. But yesterday Langergraber found a group of 30 adults playing and relaxing, with infants crawling all over them. “It was just me and 30 chimps,” he says. “I was so happy. And it just turned so quickly.” Later in the day, the chimps were on the move, traversing a familiar route between two stretches of forest. Shortly after they reentered the trees, Langergraber, who was right behind them, heard one of them scream. He thought they had stumbled onto a buffalo or an elephant, but when he ran up to them, he was shocked to see two people. Poachers. Ed Yong writes for the Atlantic about the poaching of a chimpanzee. [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura on Aug 1, 2019 - 8 comments

Sleepy gorillas make their nests in Kahuzi-Biega National Park. You can visit these gorillas by going on a virtual gorilla trek in Democratic Republic of Congo!
posted by ChuraChura on Dec 22, 2015 - 9 comments

Gorgeous time-lapse video of South Africa and its wildlife. [more inside]
posted by mudpuppie on Nov 20, 2015 - 14 comments

The Ecotourism Industry Is Saving Tanzania’s Animals and Threatening Its Indigenous People. "With much of the natural world in the Global North already past the point of no return, and with the effects of climate change multiplying yearly, more and more of the Global South is being cordoned off in service of a global patrimony that has little relevance to the lives of the people closest to the land. The collateral social damage of these conservationist policies presents a conundrum, a Sophie's Choice. Whose rights are preeminent—those of nature or those of the people who have always lived closest to it?"
posted by infini on May 13, 2015 - 16 comments

"In July 1960, Jane Goodall boarded a boat, and after a few hours motoring over the warm, deep waters of Lake Tanganyika, she stepped onto the pebbly beach at Gombe. Last summer, almost exactly 54 years later, Jane Goodall was standing on the same beach. The vast lake was still warm, the beach beneath her clear plastic sandals still pebbly. But nearly everything else in sight was different."
posted by ChuraChura on Mar 14, 2015 - 23 comments

The folks at the Duke Lemur Center are helpfully offering you the opportunity to figure out: what kind of lemur are you? [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura on Nov 6, 2014 - 44 comments

Walk in the footsteps of Jane Goodall on Street View: Gombe National Park.
posted by ChuraChura on Oct 25, 2014 - 3 comments

A genet in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in South Africa has been photographed by camera traps for several weeks running, riding around on the backs of cape buffalo and rhinoceros . Researchers agree: this is weird! (via.) [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura on Sep 9, 2014 - 60 comments

a herd of elephants cross a stream ... audacity of the mandrills ... panthers play with their reflection in a mirror ... a passing group of gorillas ... 52 red river hogs eat fruit ... a leopard falls in love with the camera trap ... a sitatunga frightens some ibises while crossing a stream ... two elephants fighting ... chimpanzees attack a mirror ... a slithering Gaboon Viper ... a family of elephants on the trail ... 15 animals at the same place, close to camp
posted by ChuraChura on Feb 9, 2013 - 11 comments

Born in Africa to French wildlife photographer parents, Tippi Degré had a most unusual childhood. (Possibly NSFW)
posted by DaDaDaDave on Jan 18, 2013 - 19 comments

Wildlife photographer mauled by African lion, with pictures recovered from the body. Of course, this is not exactly what it seems, and there are other pictures as well.
posted by davejay on Apr 19, 2010 - 20 comments

Dame Daphne Sheldrick runs an orphanage in Kenya. For elephants. The orphanage has been the focus of a report on 60 Minutes and a special called "The Elephant Diaries" on BBC1. At the orphanage, elephants are taught skills they will need to know in the wild, including how to play football.
posted by grapefruitmoon on Apr 26, 2009 - 10 comments

Brutal or Amazing? - this is just one of many fine posts on the Photo Africa Blog, an excellent source of in-the-wild animal and nature photos and reports from bush field guides. Also see: Madikwe Lions.
posted by madamjujujive on Oct 4, 2008 - 20 comments

Giraffe mating battles can be brutal but they are generally gentle giants. Man's fascination with these exotic creatures can be tracked from 9,000 year old rock art to the quest for exotics that brought them to the courts of Medici-era Florence, Restoration Paris, and Imperial China, spawning much curiosity and fanciful illustration. Today, giraffe-o-philes can get up close and personal in Kenya's Giraffe Manor. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Sep 30, 2007 - 31 comments

As two more villages are relocated to create reserves for Project Tiger in India, each family will be offered two hectares of land, a house and 100,000 rupees or approximately $2200. But is this a sustainable solution for anti poaching measures? At Ranthambhore tiger reserve in the backward district of Sawai Madhopur, poaching has been controlled but pressure on the park remains as long as the seven relocated villages are unable to find alternate sources of long term income and other resources. When seeking food and shelter, saving the tiger is the last thing on their minds. Witness the slaughtering of the rare gorilla in Congo for food recently until the rebels were convinced to stop. Local needs versus long term ecological preservation will continue to be issues unless alternate viable solutions can be found.
posted by infini on Jan 26, 2007 - 8 comments

Alex Bernasconi's (Mostly Wildlife) Photography [via MeCha]
posted by Gyan on Sep 16, 2005 - 4 comments

The Peace Parks Foundation is an international, neutral body that coordinates the creation of "Peace Parks" -- a more foundation friendly name for "Transfrontier Conservation Areas." Peace Parks are defined as "relatively large protected areas, which straddle international frontiers between two or more countries and cover large-scale natural systems encompassing one or more protected areas."

Executive Vice-Chairman Willem van Riet of South Africa, in San Diego, California, this month to receive the Presidential Award from GIS software giant ESRI, is that Peace Parks remove the fences of international frontiers -- the "scars of history" -- to let elephants resume their natural migratory paths. An early success of this idea was profiled in full and stunning color by the National Geographic in 2001.
posted by mmahaffie on Aug 22, 2004 - 6 comments

Polar bears of Churchill, Manitoba. Wildlife photographer Ken Bereskin has a nice collection of polar bears frolicking in the snow. This itchy bear is so frustrated, he's using the rippled ice of a frozen lake to scratch himself. If you need a change of temperature, he also has over 500 images of wildlife from Uganda and Kenya, including big cats (a mother cuddling with her cubs, a cheetah chomping down on a gazelle, and a young lioness shredding a skeleton to pieces), great apes, and other wildlife (the lowly hyena eating the cheetah's leftovers, a black-headed heron eating a venomous boomslang snake, and a scary-looking vulture taking it all in from above). He also has a smaller collection of desert wildlife from the dunes of Etoshia National Park in Namibia. (His real job is working for Apple, and he has a Panther blog that hasn't been updated in eons, but evidently that's not as much fun as chasing after hungry carnivorous animals in the sweltering heat, or risking frostbite in the snow).
posted by invisible ink on May 6, 2004 - 5 comments