Science and Conservation

The latest update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species has provided hope for the conservation of the Mountain Gorilla, which has moved from Critically Endangered to Endangered. In a forest of lush green vegetation, you wouldn’t have thought that a human would look like a suitable and comfortable seat would you? And yet, that was exactly what one young mountain gorilla decided Sir David Attenborough looked like during filming for his Life on Earth series. This scene is one of Attenborough’s most iconic and showed the soft and playful nature of these huge primates. A young mountain gorilla testing the comfiness of Sir David Attenborough during filming for Life on Earth But these gentle giants haven’t had things easy on the conservation front. The last IUCN assessment of the mountain gorilla carried out in 2008 estimated that only roughly 680 individuals survived. This report placed the species in the ‘Critically Endangered’ category, meaning it was facing an ‘extreme

With so many species under threat of extinction, how can we decide which species to prioritise? The EDGE score uses a scientific framework to identify the world’s most Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered species that can then be targeted for conservation intervention. Staggeringly, of the 93,577 species whose conservation status has been assessed to date by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), 26,197 are under threat in 2018. That’s roughly 28%. And as 95% of known species are yet to be assessed, the number of threatened species is only going to increase, and is likely to increase massively. Current estimates from the IUCN suggest that up to 10,000 species are being driven to extinction each year. Depressing stats for sure. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of conservation organisations and governments worldwide, resources for conservation remain comparatively scarce in the face of the enormous challenges facing our wildlife. This raises

Yellow-eyed penguin This is the first in a new series of blog posts that will focus in on the conservation of some of the world’s less well known species, animals that are not particularly famous amongst the general public but who need urgent conservation attention. The posts will give some background on the species and then focus in on the conservation challenges they face and the efforts being undertaken to conserve them. The first species placed under the spotlight is the beautiful and charismatic yellow-eyed penguin. Yellow-eyed penguin,  © Chris Ruis Species profile The yellow-eyed penguin is endemic to the dramatic coastlines and churning seas of New Zealand, where it is found in the southeast portion of the South Island and on Stewart Island and the subantarctic Auckland and Campbell Islands. It’s a species with a rather descriptive scientific name: Megadyptes antipodes translates roughly as ‘large diver of the southern islands’. And the Maori