KATHMANDU– When German professor Jochen Martens and his associate W. Schawaller visited subtropical forests in Nepal in 1988, they collected samples of different insects found in eastern Nepal, including a “bizarre”…
KATHMANDU — Conservationists in Nepal have introduced a new standard for efforts to protect the red panda, in the hope of translating successful initiatives in the country’s east to threatened…
KATHMANDU — On the afternoon of Oct. 28, a wild male elephant attacked and killed a woman herding her sheep at a pasture in the town of Amlekhgunj, in the…
KATHMANDU — The Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve in western Nepal is known for its pristine high-altitude grasslands, and buzzes with helicopter traffic every October and November, at the onset of winter.…
KATHMANDU — In 2002, the black softshell turtle was declared extinct in the wild — not a difficult assessment to make, given that, back then, the only known population of…
SINDHUPALCHOWK — When Batuli Tamang goes to cast her vote during Nepal’s general elections, scheduled for Nov. 20, she will have only one thing in mind, she says: saving her…
KATHMANDU – Wild yaks (Bos mutus) are believed to have once roamed the regions north of Nepal’s Himalayas. The iconic large bovine, considered the ancestor of the domesticated yak (Bos…
KATHMANDU — From early to mid-October, as Nepali Hindus celebrated the festivals of Dashain and Tihar, the skies over the Kathmandu Valley stayed a clear blue. To the north lay…
KATHMANDU — Four of the five days of the Nepali Hindu festival of Tihar, which occurs at the same time as the better-known Deepavali, are dedicated to animals. Kukur Tihar,…
KATHMANDU — Hindus in Nepal marked Tihar this past week, the festival of lights that takes place at the same time as the better-known holy day of Deepavali. But for…
KATHMANDU — Since time immemorial it has inspired the legend of the Yeti. Said to be massive, ferocious and voracious — especially for horse flesh — it’s a creature you…
KATHMANDU — Dashain, in Nepali Hinduism, commemorates the victory of the goddess Durga over the demon Mahishasura. It’s a multiday holiday in the Himalayan country, the biggest one of the…
KATHMANDU — From March to June every year, the hottest news from some of the hilly regions of Nepal revolves around one theme: yarsa gunbu, also known as yarsagumba or…
KATHMANDU — This past July 20, Radha Krishna Rijal noticed a strange animal struggling in the drainage channel of his house in the Parshyang neighborhood of western Nepal’s Pokhara Valley.…
KATHMANDU — They have a bare yellow neck and a head connected to a long pointed beak, and they can be easily spotted in Nepal’s agriculture fields when the rice…
KATHMANDU — Sandwiched between China and India, Nepal is known for its geographical as well as botanical diversity. The country is not only home to the tallest mountains in the…
KATHMANDU — They can dig burrows during extreme weather events, run on land, and will eat just about anything. These traits, among others, make mugger crocodiles (Crocodylus palustris) a versatile…
KATHMANDU — When conservationist Bed Bahadur Khadka roamed the banks of the Rapti River near Chitwan National Park to monitor gharials released from a breeding center in August 2020, he…
KATHMANDU — Nepal’s tigers hogged the headlines around the world this past July as officials announced that their population had nearly tripled over the past 12 years. The figure of…
KATHMANDU — On the morning of July 31, a tiger (Panthera tigris) entered the enclosure of the Kasara gharial breeding center in Chitwan National Park unnoticed. It observed the behavior of…
KATHMANDU —They can be seen nesting in tight spaces between buildings, on window panes and rooftops across Kathmandu. Common pigeons (Columba livia) were once a beloved site in this city,…
KATHMANDU — As the monsoon draws to a close in Nepal, workers are putting the finishing touches on a dam designed to breathe life back into a sacred river that’s…
KATHMANDU — Conservationists in Nepal have expressed concern over the opening of a new airport in the tourist town of Pokhara, renowned as a bird paradise, at the start of…
KATHMANDU — Something occurred to Phoebe Griffith as she observed gharial and mugger crocodiles in and around Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, she recalls. Both crocodiles live in the same environment,…
KATHMANDU — Growing up in the southwestern plains of Nepal, Prashant Ghimire was always fascinated to observe birds roam the fertile farmlands. “I especially liked to watch storks and cranes…
KATHMANDU — When zoologist Bivek Gautam and members of his team were on an expedition to look for the Himalayan salamander (Tylototriton himalayanus) in 2020 in the forests of eastern…
KATHMANDU — When Nepal's Supreme Court recently canceled government plans to build an international airport in Nijhgad in the country's south, the project's environmental impact assessment report, or EIA, was…
KATHMANDU – The Sherpa Indigenous community in Nepal has lived in the lap of the world’s tallest mountains for centuries. Ever since Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay and New Zealand climber…
KATHMANDU — Thousands of farmers in Nepal's fertile southern plains, the country’s rice bowl, face a double whammy of a fertilizer shortage and inadequate monsoon rains. This is likely to…
KATHMANDU — The number of tigers in Nepal has nearly tripled over the past 12 years, officials announced July 29, on the occasion of International Tiger Day. The figure of…
Abhaya Raj Joshi is a staff writer for Mongabay based in Kathmandu, Nepal. Find him on Twitter via 
