The governments of Kenya and Ethiopia agreed last week to develop a new action plan to help protect the endangered Grevy’s zebra (Equus grevyi), the rarest zebra species and the largest equid species on the planet. The previous five-year conservation strategy for the species expired last year. Grevy’s zebra populations have declined from an estimated [...]

In 2009 four of the world’s last seven northern white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) were moved from a zoo in the Czech Republic to Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. At the time conservationists expressed hope that returning the rhinos to semi-wild lives under their native African skies would help inspire the animals to mate and, [...]

Smile, you’re on endangered-species camera. The world’s last 35 Javan rhinoceroses (Rhinoceros sondaicus) are a little bit safer this week as 120 new camera traps have been installed in Ujung Kulon National Park, located on the western corner of the island of Java, in Indonesia. The new video cameras were donated by the World Wildlife [...]

One of the world’s rarest birds has a little bit more breathing room this week. The Giles–Fuertesi Nature Reserve in the Colombian Andes, home to the critically endangered Fuertes’s parrot (Hapalopsittaca fuertesi), has doubled in size following the acquisition of an additional 144 hectares of neighboring land. The acquisition was a joint effort by Fundación [...]

The frog-killing fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), which causes the disease chytridiomycosis, has been blamed for about 100 amphibian extinctions around the globe since it was first observed in 1998, but clear information on exactly how it spreads has remained a mystery. Now a team of scientists working in Belgium have come up with one potential [...]

Sometimes a simple egg hatching can be a victory. That’s the case in the Philippines, where a threatened bird of prey known as the Pinsker’s hawk–eagle (Nisaetus pinskeri) has been bred in captivity for the first time. The Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF) reports that the Pinsker’s chick hatched on April 2 at its breeding program [...]

Rare reptiles known as tuatara (the last two species of the order Sphenodontia) survived the age of the dinosaurs, but the age of man has given them a bit more trouble. After living in New Zealand for millions of years, tuatara were completely wiped out on the country’s two main islands by invasive Polynesian rats [...]

Two of the world’s rarest and most vulnerable cat species have had some good news in the past few weeks. The best of the news items covers the critically endangered Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis), probably the rarest cat species on the planet, with a wild population of approximately 40 to 50 individuals. Russia, which [...]

A new U.S. rule went into effect this week that—after years of legal wrangling—places limitations on hunting of three critically endangered African antelope species: the scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah), addax (Addax nasomaculatus) and dama gazelle (Nanger dama). Although almost nonexistent in their homelands, thousands of these animals have been raised in captivity and now live [...]

Things keep getting worse for North American bats. Nearly seven million from various species have now fallen victim to the deadly but little-understood disease known as white-nose syndrome (WNS) since it was first observed in February 2006. The fungus that causes WNS, Geomyces destructans, has quickly spread from cave to cave and state to state, [...]