Giraffe Skin Disease Linked to Soil Fertility

Giraffe in Tarangire National Park

Giraffe Skin Disease is a disorder of the skin that is characterized by crusty lesions on the back side of the front legs of adult Masai giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi) the only subspecies in Tanzania. Lesions such as the ones shown in this picture on the forelimbs indicate Giraffe Skin Disease. Giraffe Skin Disease was first … Read more

Community-Based Wildlife Conservation in Tanzania Yields Ecological Success

Dik-diks in Randilen WIldlife Management Area, Tanzania, East Africa. Dik-diks were among the wildlife species that benefitted from the community-based wildlife conservation area.

Good news about the environment is rare these days, but in Tanzania there are signs that local wildlife conservation efforts can effectively protect the natural resources that provide the lion’s share of revenue for the economy. Eco-tourism is Tanzania’s largest economic sector and biggest dollar earner for this developing nation, but wildlife populations have suffered … Read more

Post-fire Logging, But Not Severe Fire, Harms Spotted Owls

Spotted Owl in a severely burned forest.

Wildlife ecologists studying the rare spotted owl in the forests of California have discovered that large, intense wildfires are not responsible for abandonment of breeding territories. Instead, the researchers found that post-fire logging operations, which are common on both private and National Forest lands, most likely caused declines in territory occupancy of this imperiled wildlife … Read more

New Documentary Gives Smokey Bear A New, Positive Message About Forest Fire

A black-backed woddpecker emerges from his nest cavity in a severely-burned forest patch created by the Sugarloaf Fire of California.

A new video documentary released this week describes the important positive ecological effects of high-severity forest fires. High-severity forest fires, also called stand-replacing or crown fires, create rare and important wildlife habitat, and many species of plants and animals reach their highest abundances only in these blackened ‘snag forests’. Fear of high-severity forest fires is … Read more

New Study Describes A Threatened Long-Distance Wildebeest Migration Route

Eastern White-bearded Wildebeest migrate with their calves in northern Tanzania from the Gelai Plains calving grounds to Tarangire National Park. A new study described in detail for the first time this endangered long-distance wildebeest migration in the Tarangire ecosystem of northern Tanzania. Courtesy of Wild Nature Institute

A new study published this week described in detail for the first time an endangered long-distance wildebeest migration in the Tarangire ecosystem of northern Tanzania. Wildlife migrations were once widespread globally, but are now mostly lost, and the remaining few migrations are in precipitous decline because of rapid, human-caused changes to the landscapes where they … Read more

The Science of Forest Fire and Spotted Owls

Spotted Owl in a severely burned forest.

Fifteen years of research about severely burned Snag Forests in the western U.S.A. and their important value as wildlife habitat and ecological services has produced a healthy body of scientific literature. These papers, and others, have opened the eyes of many to the now-obvious fact that burned forests create wildlife habitat and even old growth … Read more