KATHMANDU — Fishing cats are among the most elusive and understudied small cats in the world. They’re also among the most threatened, faced with habitat loss, conflict with humans, and…
On Saturday, July 29, the world celebrated International Tiger Day with good news from my home country of Bhutan, a small Himalayan kingdom sandwiched between India and China. Bhutan’s latest…
Experts on wildlife crime in Suriname monitored and documented two of the most powerful jaguar trafficking networks in South America. The networks, called “SA1” and “SA18,” operate in Suriname and…
Big cat conflict is a threat to charismatic species like tigers and leopards. Small cat conflict, though often less severe, can also harm the livelihoods of communities and farmers and…
KATHMANDU — When India announced the results of its national tiger census in April this year, it added a new habitat for the big cats: the Suhelwa Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttar…
Lions are returning on their own to parks in Mozambique and Chad thanks to the creation of vast landscape mosaics that include core protected areas, corridors and cooperating communities through which the big cats roam.
Years of law enforcement to tackle rampant snaring and poaching have failed to halt the loss of Cambodia’s last remaining Indochinese leopard population, according to a recent study. The researchers…
Interbreeding with domestic cats, and also with other wildcat species, is altering the behaviors and genetic profiles of some small wildcats, creating conservation dilemmas about how best to define and protect these species.
Every night, somewhere unseen across the vast, semidesert and dry savanna habitat of Southern Africa, the continent’s deadliest cat emerges to hunt. Black-footed cats (Felis nigripes) are ideally suited for…
KATHMANDU — Until a few months ago, residents of Geruwa, a rural municipality in western Nepal, used to rush to their homes before dusk and shut themselves indoors. That was…
SHAMSHY, Kyrgyzstan — “I was only 9 when I first saw a snow leopard with my father. He was a ranger bringing injured animals found in the mountains to the…
In 2019, researchers declared the Indochinese tiger extinct in Laos as widespread snaring in Nam Et-Phou Louey National Park picked off the last few individuals of Panthera tigris corbetti. Two…
Across the Indonesian island of Java, suitable habitat for Javan leopards shrunk by more than 1,300 square kilometers, or 500 square miles, between 2000 and 2020. That’s according to a…
More than 30 species of small cats roam Earth today. They control small mammal populations to keep ecosystems in balance while helping farmers reduce rodent numbers. Over a dozen small cat species are hugely at risk.
The nature of her father’s work, as an aerial fumigation pilot, meant that Daniela Araya lived in many areas of Costa Rica when she was a child. She usually traveled…
Thought to mostly feed on rabbits, researchers accidentally observed Iberian lynx feeding on carrion, a potential food source but also posing a disease risk to the Iberian lynx, which recently saw its numbers rebound.
KATHMANDU — News of four cheetah cubs being born recently in India has sparked interest in the species in the conservation community in neighboring Nepal, where the big cat’s historical…
KATHMANDU — In 2012, when wildlife biologist Kanchan Thapa visited Chitwan National Park, a stronghold of the Bengal tiger in Nepal, a colleague asked him a question: “How much carbon…
It’s often been said that big cats don’t like water — but this mythological thinking isn’t entirely accurate. New research provides evidence that some male cougars (Puma concolor), or pumas,…
New video of a West African lioness and her three cubs is exciting news for the conservation community, sparking hope for the slow recovery of a population perilously close to…
KATHMANDU — When researchers last year confirmed the presence of the manul, the “world’s grumpiest cat,” on the world’s highest mountain, they immediately looked at past records of the elusive…
On the main road of the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in South Texas, two ocelots recently jumped out in front of a car. The mother ocelot then went back…
KATHMANDU — On Nov. 1 last year, a leopard dragged off an 8-year-old boy as he was playing just steps away from the cowshed where his grandmother was milking the…
Think of a tropical rainforest being cleared for an oil palm plantation, and the first animal that comes to mind is probably an orangutan. But there’s another tree-dwelling species, not…
KATHMANDU — If you were a grumpy cat, you’d probably want to avoid company. And if you were the world’s grumpiest, as David Attenborough once described the elusive manul, what…
KATHMANDU — Climate change is likely to expand the habitat of leopards in the Nepal’s high mountain regions, potentially increasing conflict with humans and competition with snow leopards, a new…
The decline of big carnivore populations like lions, bears and lynx is most closely associated with rapid economic growth, according to a study published this week in Nature Communications. The study…
During a dietary study on fishing cats living near Colombo, Sri Lanka, researchers made an unexpected finding: Some scat samples collected contained plastics. Varying in size from tiny microplastics to…
The village of Rukubji, in Bhutan’s central Wangdue Phodrang district, lies in a valley at the intersection of three rivers, its surrounding hillsides scattered with yak herder tents or swathed…
Examining the torn remains of a calf, Paul Raad saw evidence of a jaguar attack. Most big cats grip the throat to bring down their prey, but jaguars prefer to…
