Quaggas were beautiful pony-sized zebras in southern Africa that had fewer stripes on their bodies and legs, and a browner body coloration than other zebras. Indigenous people hunted quaggas, portrayed them in rock art, and told stories about them. Settlers used quaggas to pull wagons and to protect livestock against predators. Taken to Europe, they were admired, exhibited, harnessed to carriages, illustrated by famous artists and written about by scientists. Excessive hunting led to quaggas' extinction in the 1880s but DNA from museum specimens showed rebreeding was feasible and now zebras resembling quaggas live in their former habitats. This rebreeding is compared with other de-extinction and rewilding ventures and its appropriateness discussed against the backdrop of conservation challenges-including those facing other zebras. In an Anthropocene of species extinction, climate change and habitat loss which organisms and habitats should be saved, and should attempts be made to restore extinct species?

From the snub-nosed monkeys of China to the mountain gorillas of central Africa, our closest nonhuman relatives are in critical danger worldwide. A recent report, for example, warns that nearly 20 percent of the world's primates may go extinct within the next ten or twenty years. In this book Guy Cowlishaw and Robin Dunbar integrate cutting-edge theoretical advances with practical management priorities to give scientists and policymakers the tools they need to help keep these species from disappearing forever.
"Primate Conservation Biology" begins with detailed overviews of the diversity, life history, ecology, and behavior of primates and the ways these factors influence primate abundance and distribution. Cowlishaw and Dunbar then discuss the factors that put primates at the greatest risk of extinction, especially habitat disturbance and hunting. The remaining chapters present a comprehensive review of conservation strategies and management practices, highlighting the key issues that must be addressed to protect primates for the future.

Every garden, large or small, in a town or in the country, even one formed completely by pots, can be a living dance of lavish colours, glorious scents and pollen-rich flowers alive to the sound of bird song and the buzz of bees. In Planting a Paradise, Arthur Parkinson, bestselling author of The Flower Yard, focuses on what to grow through the seasons with an array of planting ideas and recommended varieties to inspire the experienced and novice gardener alike. From his newly found love of muscari, narcissi and seeding grasses, to circuses of dahlias, luscious herbs, figs and crab apples, the result is not only a stunning living harvest but also an oasis for wildlife at a time when we need this style of gardening more than ever. Praise for The Flower Yard: 'Simply gorgeous' - Nigel Slater 'The Kew-trained king of the small-space garden' - Guardian

In 2006, vaquita, a diminutive porpoise making its home in the Upper Gulf of California, inherited the dubious title of world’s most endangered marine mammal. Nicknamed “panda of the sea” for its small size and beguiling facial markings, vaquita have been in decline for decades, dying by the hundreds in gillnets intended for the commercially valuable fish, totoaba. When international crime cartels discovered a lucrative trade in the swim bladders of totoaba, illegal gillnetting went rampant, and now the lives of the few remaining vaquita hang in the balance. Author Brooke Bessesen takes us on a journey to Mexico’s Upper Gulf region to uncover the story. She interviewed townspeople, fishermen, politicians, scientists, and activists, teasing apart a complex story filled with villains and heroes, a story whose outcome is unclear. When diplomatic and political efforts to save the little porpoise failed, Bessesen traveled with a team of veterinary experts in a binational effort to capture the remaining ten vaquita and breed them in captivity—the only hope for their survival. In this fast-paced, soul-searing tale, she learned that there are no easy answers when extinction is profitable. Whether the rescue attempt succeeds or fails, the world must ask itself hard questions. When vaquita and the totoaba are gone, the black market will turn to the next vulnerable species. What will we do then?

A marvelously illustrated reference to the natural wonders of one of the most spectacular places on earth Separated from Africa's mainland for tens of millions of years, Madagascar has evolved a breathtaking wealth of biodiversity, becoming home to thousands of species found nowhere else on the planet. The New Natural History of Madagascar provides the most comprehensive, up-to-date synthesis available of this island nation's priceless biological treasures. Now fully revised and expanded, this beautifully illustrated compendium features contributions by more than 600 globally renowned experts who cover the history of scientific exploration in Madagascar, as well as the island's geology and soils, climate, forest ecology, human ecology, marine and coastal ecosystems, plants, invertebrates, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. This invaluable two-volume reference also includes detailed discussions of conservation efforts in Madagascar that showcase several successful protected area programs that can serve as models for threatened ecosystems throughout the world. Provides the most comprehensive overview of Madagascar's rich natural history Coedited by 18 different specialists Features hundreds of new contributions by world-class experts Includes hundreds of new illustrations Covers a broad array of topics, from geology and climate to animals, plants, and marine life Sheds light on newly discovered species and draws on the latest science An essential resource for anyone interested in Madagascar or tropical ecosystems in general, from biologists and conservationists to ecotourists and armchair naturalists

The Jarawa, one of the oldest tribes of human beings in the world, may go extinct because of a road that runs through pristine forests in the Indian-administered Andaman Islands, in the Bay of Bengal, and no one seems to care. Tourists take the road each day to try and get selfies with the tribespeople, who came from what is now Botswana over 60,000 years ago. Once proud of their independence, the Jarawa are now tempted with biscuits and trinkets, as if they were exotic animals in a human safari park. They can’t survive like this. In this astonishing book, Jonathan Lawley returns to what was once a penal colony built by the British to house Indian mutineers. He asks what responsibility colonial administrators like his grandfather may have had for the sad plight of these palaeolithic hunter- gatherers, and what the Indian government should now be doing to protect them.

Following the downgrading of the snow leopard's status from "endangered" to "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2017, debate has renewed about the actual number of snow leopards in the wild and the most effective strategies for coexisting with these enigmatic animals. Evidence from Pakistan and other countries in the snow leopard's home range shows that they rely heavily on human society-domestic livestock accounts for as much as 70 percent of their diet. Maintaining that the snow leopard is a "wild" animal, conservation NGOs and state agencies have enacted laws that punish farmers for attacking these predators, while avoiding engaging with efforts to mitigate the harms suffered by farmers whose herds are reduced by snow leopards. This ethnography examines the uneven distribution of costs and benefits involved in snow leopard conservation and shows that for the conservation of nature to be successful, the vision, interests, and priorities of those most affected by conservation policies-in this case, local farmers-must be addressed. A case history of Project Snow Leopard in the mountains of northern Pakistan, which inspired similar programs in India, Bhutan, Nepal, Mongolia, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, describes how the animal's food habits are studied, how elusive individuals are counted, and how a novel kind of "snow leopard insurance" has protected the species by compensating farmers for livestock losses. The Snow Leopard and the Goat demonstrates that characterizing this conflict as one between humans (farmers) and wildlife (snow leopards) is misleading, as the real conflict is between two human groups-farmers and conservationists-who see the snow leopard differently.

In Producing Predators Michael D. Wise argues that contestations between Native and non-Native people over hunting, labor, and the livestock industry drove the development of predator eradication programs in Montana and Alberta from the 1880s onward. The history of these antipredator programs was significant not only for their ecological effects but also for their enduring cultural legacies of colonialism in the Northern Rockies. By targeting wolves and other wild carnivores for extermination, cattle ranchers disavowed the predatory labor of raising domestic animals for slaughter, representing it instead as productive work. Meanwhile, federal agencies sought to purge the Blackfoot, Salish-Kootenai, and other indigenous peoples of their so-called predatory behaviors through campaigns of assimilation and citizenship that forcefully privatized tribal land and criminalized hunting and its related ritual practices. Despite these colonial pressures, Native communities resisted and negotiated the terms of their dispossession by representing their own patterns of work, food, and livelihood as productive. By exploring predation and production as fluid cultural logics for valuing labor rather than just a set of biological processes, Producing Predators offers a new perspective on the history of the American West and the modern history of colonialism more broadly.

The landscapes of Madagascar have long delighted zoologists, who have discovered, in and among the island's baobab trees and thickets, a dizzying array of animals, including something approaching one hundred species of lemur. Madagascar's mammal fauna, for example, is far more diverse, and more endemic, than early explorers and naturalists ever dreamed of. But in the 2,500 or so years since the arrival of the island's first human settlers, the vast majority of its forests have disappeared, and in the wake of this loss a number of species unique to Madagascar have vanished forever into extinction.
In "Extinct Madagascar," noted scientists Steven M. Goodman and William L. Jungers explore the recent past of these land animal extinctions. Beginning with an introduction to the geologic and ecological history of Madagascar that provides context for the evolution, diversification, and, in some cases, rapid decline of the Malagasy fauna, Goodman and Jungers then seek to recapture these extinct mammals in their environs. Aided in their quest by artist Velizar Simeonovski's beautiful and haunting paintings--images of both individual species and ecosystem assemblages reproduced here in full color--Goodman and Jungers reconstruct the lives of these lost animals and trace their relationships to those still living.
Published in conjunction with an exhibition of Simeonovski's paintings set to open at the Field Museum, Chicago, in the fall of 2014, Goodman and Jungers's awe-inspiring book will serve not only as a sobering reminder of the very real threat of extinction, but also as a stunning tribute to Madagascar's biodiversity and a catalyst for further research and conservation.

Would you ask a honeybee to point at a screen and recognise a facial expression? Or ask an elephant to climb a tree? While humans and non-human species may inhabit the same world, it's likely that our perceptual worlds differ significantly. Emphasising Uexkull's concept of 'umwelt', this volume offers practical advice on how animal cognition can be successfully tested while avoiding anthropomorphic conclusions. The chapters describe the capabilities of a range of animals - from ants, to lizards to chimpanzees - revealing how to successfully investigate animal cognition across a variety of taxa. The book features contributions from leading cognition researchers, each offering a series of examples and practical tips drawn from their own experience. Together, the authors synthesise information on current field and laboratory methods, providing researchers and graduate students with methodological advice on how to formulate research questions, design experiments and adapt studies to different taxa.

Based on a series of articles in the journal British Birds, this book highlights the international importance of the UK's 14 Overseas Territories for birds and other wildlife. Many of these places are small islands dispersed mostly across the Atlantic, Antarctic and Pacific Oceans, where they are home to a quarter of the world's penguins and a third of the word's breeding albatrosses, as well as 34 species that are globally threatened. With a foreword by RSPB President, Miranda Krestovnikoff, this book will be a 'must have' for anyone interested in international conservation or wanting to visit some of these jewels in the UK's natural history crown.

The neotropical primate family Pitheciidae consists of four genera Cacajao (uacaris), Callicebus (titis), Chiropotes (bearded sakis) and Pithecia (sakis), whose 40+ species display a range of sizes, social organisations, ecologies and habitats. Few are well known and the future survival of many is threatened, yet pitheciines have been little studied. This book is the first to review the biology of this fascinating and diverse group in full. It includes fossil history, reviews of the biology of each genus and, among others, specific treatments of vocalisations and foraging ecology. These studies are integrated into considerations of current status and future conservation requirements on a country-by-country basis for each species. A state-of-the-art summary of current knowledge, Evolutionary Biology and Conservation of Titis, Sakis and Uacaris is a collective effort from all the major researchers currently working on these remarkable animals.

With a new introduction by the author Some thousands of years ago, the world was home to an immense variety of large mammals. From wooly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers to giant ground sloths and armadillos the size of automobiles, these spectacular creatures roamed freely. Then human beings arrived. Devouring their way down the food chain as they spread across the planet, they began a process of voracious extinction that has continued to the present. Headlines today are made by the existential threat confronting remaining large animals such as rhinos and pandas. But the devastation summoned by humans extends to humbler realms of creatures including beetles, bats and butterflies. Researchers generally agree that the current extinction rate is nothing short of catastrophic. Currently the earth is losing about a hundred species every day. This relentless extinction, Ashley Dawson contends in a primer that combines vast scope with elegant precision, is the product of a global attack on the commons, the great trove of air, water, plants and creatures, as well as collectively created cultural forms such as language, that have been regarded traditionally as the inheritance of humanity as a whole. This attack has its genesis in the need for capital to expand relentlessly into all spheres of life. Extinction, Dawson argues, cannot be understood in isolation from a critique of our economic system. To achieve this we need to transgress the boundaries between science, environmentalism and radical politics. Extinction: A Radical History performs this task with both brio and brilliance.

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Extinction is a natural process. In geological time there have been several periods of mass extinction. One of these periods is unfolding right now but all the evidence suggests that current extinction rates are between a hundred and a thousand times greater than the background rate. To put this in to context, a quarter of all known mammalian species is at risk. The current extinction crisis is unique, because it is caused by the impact of one species, humans, on all others. This acceleration of species loss, and the much more widespread reductions in the populations of many species, is not merely a tragedy in aesthetics, it is also a threat to the quality of human life, indeed to the entire human enterprise. Biodiversity, the diversity of life, is not only fascinating and beautiful, it is the engine of all the world's natural cycles, and the source of many of the resources on which humanity depends. Concern about biodiversity conservation is, therefore, not merely the preoccupation of a few enthusiastic naturalists - it is the lifeline business of everybody. In this Very Short Introduction, David Macdonald introduces the concept of biodiversity and the basic biological processes that it involves - evolutionary, ecological, and behavioral. He considers the various threats to biodiversity, their impacts, and some of the solutions to the problems; concluding by considering the future of biodiversity conservation. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

In this 2008 text, two of the world's leading experts in palynology and paleobotany provide a comprehensive account of the fate of land plants during the 'great extinction' about 65 million years ago. They describe how the time boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene Periods (the K T boundary) is recognised in the geological record, and how fossil plants can be used to understand global events of that time. There are case studies from over 100 localities around the world, including North America, China, Russia and New Zealand. The book concludes with an evaluation of possible causes of the K T boundary event and its effects on floras of the past and present. This book is written for researchers and students in paleontology, botany, geology and Earth history, and everyone who has been following the course of the extinction debate and the K T boundary paradigm shift.

In Endangered, the result of an extraordinary multiyear project to document the lives of threatened species, acclaimed photographer Tim Flach explores one of the most pressing issues of our time. Traveling around the world to settings ranging from forest to savannah to the polar seas to the great coral reefs Flach has constructed a powerful visual record of remarkable animals and ecosystems facing harsh challenges. Among them are primates coping with habitat loss, big cats in a losing battle with human settlements, elephants hunted for their ivory, and numer ous bird species taken as pets. With eminent zoologist Jonathan Baillie providing insightful commentary on this ambitious project, Endangered unfolds as a series of vivid, interconnected stories that pose gripping moral dilemmas, unforgettably expressed by more than 180 of Flach's incred ible images.

This collection of original essays by economists, biologists and political scientists has a common theme: that protecting species at risk while safeguarding social order is a policy challenge that entangles biology, politics, and economics. Nearly 1200 species are listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973; only twelve have been removed from the list. Attempts at species recovery on public and private property lead the authors to examine the political realities that define the debate: who should pay the costs and receive the benefits, and how interest group behaviour affects the nature of endangered species protection. Although the ESA directs administrative agencies to list and protect species following scientific priorities, the collection addresses the economic choices that still must be confronted. These range from the protection potential of private markets to the design of incentive schemes to encourage conservation by private landowners.

Of the forty mammal species known to have vanished in the world in the last 200 years, almost half have been Australian. Our continent has the worst record of mammal extinctions, with over 65 mammal species having vanished in the last 50 000 years. It began with the great wave of megafauna extinctions in the last ice-age, and continues today, with many mammal species vulnerable to extinction. The question of why mammals became extinct, and why so many became extinct in Australia has been debated by experts for over a century and a half and we are no closer to agreement on the causes. This book introduces readers to the great mammal extinction debate. Chris Johnson takes us on a detective-like tour of these extinctions, uncovering how, why and when they occurred.

Of the forty mammal species known to have vanished in the world in the last 200 years, almost half have been Australian. Our continent has the worst record of mammal extinctions, with over 65 mammal species having vanished in the last 50 000 years. It began with the great wave of megafauna extinctions in the last ice-age, and continues today, with many mammal species vulnerable to extinction. The question of why mammals became extinct, and why so many became extinct in Australia has been debated by experts for over a century and a half and we are no closer to agreement on the causes. This book introduces readers to the great mammal extinction debate. Chris Johnson takes us on a detective-like tour of these extinctions, uncovering how, why and when they occurred.

There are many hypotheses describing the interactions involved in biological invasions, but it is largely unknown whether they are backed up by empirical evidence. This book fills that gap by developing a tool for assessing research hypotheses and applying it to twelve invasion hypotheses, using the hierarchy-of-hypotheses (HoH) approach, and mapping the connections between theory and evidence. In Part 1, an overview chapter of invasion biology is followed by an introduction to the HoH approach and short chapters by science theorists and philosophers who comment on the approach. Part 2 outlines the invasion hypotheses and their interrelationships. These include biotic resistance and island susceptibility hypotheses, disturbance hypothesis, invasional meltdown hypothesis, enemy release hypothesis, evolution of increased competitive ability and shifting defence hypotheses, tens rule, phenotypic plasticity hypothesis, Darwin's naturalization and limiting similarity hypotheses and the propagule pressure hypothesis. Part 3 provides a synthesis and suggests future directions for invasion research

A detailed exploration of the variety of threats that endangered species are facing around the world, whether they are due to human impact or so-called natural causes. Endangered species is a more complex issue and problem than it may seem on the surface. What species are endangered, and what is causing them to become vulnerable to population decline? How can essential industries such as farming, housing development, and manufacturing continue to thrive without harming flora and fauna that are protected? Are current efforts adequate or should more be done to protect endangered species? And who should be responsible for the substantial costs of working to save endangered species? Endangered Species: A Reference Handbook begins with an introduction that addresses major threats and extinctions in history, discusses the geographical and cultural contexts in which these incidents happened, highlights other key moments along the endangered species timeline, and clearly shows why the topic of endangered species matters. The following sections examine an unbiased synthesis of classic and contemporary studies that inform the issue of endangered species and outline the most controversial events related to endangered species and the actions that have been taken to address them. The book also presents perspective essays by scholars, activists, and other experts to provide diverse informed opinions on the issue of endangered species and includes a data and documents chapter that applies research finding to provide answers to questions like what species are most likely to become endangered in the future and which practices have historically been the most effective at protecting vulnerable species.

Since the release of the documentary Blackfish in 2013, millions around the world have focused on the plight of the orca, the most profitable and controversial display animal in history. Yet, until now, no historical account has explained how we came to care about killer whales in the first place. Drawing on interviews, official records, private archives, and his own family history, Jason M. Colby tells the exhilarating and often heartbreaking story of how people came to love the ocean's greatest predator. Historically reviled as dangerous pests, killer whales were dying by the hundreds, even thousands, by the 1950s-the victims of whalers, fishermen, and even the US military. In the Pacific Northwest, fishermen shot them, scientists harpooned them, and the Canadian government mounted a machine gun to eliminate them. But that all changed in 1965, when Seattle entrepreneur Ted Griffin became the first person to swim and perform with a captive killer whale. The show proved wildly popular, and he began capturing and selling others, including Sea World's first Shamu. Over the following decade, live display transformed views of Orcinus orca. The public embraced killer whales as charismatic and friendly, while scientists enjoyed their first access to live orcas. In the Pacific Northwest, these captive encounters reshaped regional values and helped drive environmental activism, including Greenpeace's anti-whaling campaigns. Yet even as Northwesterners taught the world to love whales, they came to oppose their captivity and to fight for the freedom of a marine predator that had become a regional icon. This is the definitive history of how the feared and despised "killer" became the beloved "orca"-and what that has meant for our relationship with the ocean and its creatures.

Beginning in 1984, Eric Dinerstein led a team directly responsible for the recovery of the greater one-horned rhinoceros in the Royal Chitwan National Park in Nepal, where the population had once declined to as few as 100 rhinos. The Return of the Unicorns is an account of what it takes to save endangered large mammals. In its pages, Dinerstein outlines the multifaceted recovery program-structured around targeted fieldwork and scientific research, effective protective measures, habitat planning and management, public-awareness campaigns, economic incentives to promote local guardianship, and bold, uncompromising leadership-that brought these extraordinary animals back from the brink of extinction. In an age when scientists must also become politicians, educators, fund-raisers, and activists to safeguard the subjects that they study, Dinerstein's inspiring story offers a successful model for large-mammal conservation that can be applied throughout Asia and across the globe.

Because carnivores are at the top of the food chain, it is often argued that protecting them will afford adequate protection to other taxa as well. In the past ten years, theoretical and empirical studies on carnivores have developed very quickly. This volume reviews and summarizes the current state of the field, describes limitations and opportunities for carnivore conservation, and offers a conceptual framework for future research and applied management. It will be of interest to students and researchers of conservation biology, mammalogy, animal behavior, ecology, and evolution.