News by Subject Policy & Ethics

Putting land management in the hands of local communities helps the wildlife within, according to new research by a Penn State scientist. A new study demonstrates the positive ecological impacts of a community-based wildlife conservation area in Tanzania.

Humans have been capturing wild Asian elephants for more than 3,000 years, and this still continues today despite the fact that the populations are declining. An international team of researchers has now analysed records of timber elephants in Myanmar to understand the effects of capture. The study shows that even years after their capture, wild-caught elephants' mortality rate remains increased, and their average life expectancy is several years shorter compared to captive-born animals.

Images of baby animals reduces people's appetite for meat say researchers, who found that the effect is much stronger for women than for men. The findings may reflect women's greater emotional attunement towards babies and, by extension, their tendency to empathise more with baby animals. Also, meat is associated with masculinity and images of tough men who consume meat for muscle building protein, along with prehistoric ideas of the male as hunter.

A new study spearheaded by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) shows that there are still many areas in Europe where bears are extinct but with suitable habitat for hosting the species. An effective management of the species has the potential to help these animals come back in many of these areas, according to the head of the study.

Morris Animal Foundation-funded researchers suspected and have now confirmed that plague vaccine bait, designed to protect prairie dogs and assist with recovery efforts of the black-footed ferret, is readily consumed by thousands of small rodents each year but with no apparent ill effect. Results were recently published in the journal EcoHealth.