#conservation photography

[petra-constella]

Eastern Newt - Notophthalmus viridescens While hiking on a trail somewhat near St. Louis, we found a tiny pond under some pylons that had a variety of species living within it! One of which we saw multiple of were these tiny, very young Eastern Newts! When handling any amphibians, be sure your skin has no open wounds, and I think it's good practice to wet your hand with the water they've been in before handling. That is to say, it's usually best to leave them alone and observe at a distance. We're uncertain why at this point, but this newt and at least one other species nearby (spotted salamander) had these strange lumps/bubbles on some parts of their body. I don't believe it to be natural, so I'm hoping it's not some localized infection in the area. All that aside, seeing newts swim up to us was a highlight of the trip! They're the cutest little things, and they're so curious!

[sagerainephotos]

Snow Leopard cub

📷: nikon d3300

[savvysshots]

My absolute favorite wildlife photo ive ever taken. I unfortunately did not have my camera with me as this was a last minute zoo trip on a rainy day, but you can still get amazing photos with your camera phone if you know what you’re doing!

[addamsjuice]

i am interested in doing conservation photography as a career i think but i have bad imposter syndrome about it like i’m not a professional by any means i just mess around with cameras idk if i’m good enough for that

[maureen2musings]

Churchill, Manitoba

stephenwilkes

[reasonsforhope]

Camera-trapping data revealed in a new study show a steady recovery of tigers in Thailand’s Western Forest Complex over the past two decades.

The tiger recovery has been mirrored by a simultaneous increase in the numbers of the tigers’ prey animals, such as sambar deer and types of wild cattle.

The authors attribute the recovery of the tigers and their prey to long-term efforts to strengthen systematic ranger patrols to control poaching as well as efforts to restore key habitats and water sources.

Experts say the lessons learnt can be applied to support tiger recovery in other parts of Thailand and underscore the importance of the core WEFCOM population as a vital source of tigers repopulating adjacent landscapes.

The tiger population density in a series of protected areas in western Thailand has more than doubled over the past two decades, according to new survey data.

Thailand is the final stronghold of the Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti), the subspecies having been extirpated from neighboring Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam over the past decade due to poaching, habitat loss and indiscriminate snaring...

Fewer than 200 tigers are thought to remain in Thailand’s national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, only a handful of which are sufficiently undisturbed and well-protected to preserve breeding tigers. 

The most important of these protected areas for tigers is the Huai Kha Khaeng Thung Yai (HKK-TY) UNESCO World Heritage Site, which comprises three distinct reserves out of the 17 that make up Thailand’s Western Forest Complex (WEFCOM). Together, these three reserves — Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, Thungyai Naresuan West and Thungyai Naresuan East — account for more than a third of the entire WEFCOM landscape.

Now, a new study published in Global Ecology and Conservation documents a steady recovery of tigers within the HKK-TY reserves since camera trap surveys began in 2007. The most recent year of surveys, which concluded in November 2023, photographed 94 individual tigers, up from 75 individuals in the previous year, and from fewer than 40 in 2007.

Healthy tiger families  

The study findings reveal that the tiger population grew on average 4% per year in Hua Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, the largest and longest-protected of the reserves, corresponding to an increase in tiger density from 1.3 tigers per 100 square kilometers, to 2.9 tigers/100 km2. 

“Tiger recoveries in Southeast Asia are few, and examples such as these highlight that recoveries can be supported outside of South Asia, where most of the good news [about tigers] appears to come from,” said Abishek Harihar, tiger program director for Panthera, the global wildcat conservation organization, who was not involved in the study.

Among the camera trap footage gathered in HKK-TY over the years were encouraging scenes of healthy tiger families, including one instance of a mother tiger and her three grownup cubs lapping water and lounging in a jacuzzi-sized watering hole. The tiger family stayed by the water source for five days during the height of the dry season.

The team of researchers from Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, the Wildlife Conservation Society, Kasetsart University, and India’s Center for Wildlife Studies deployed camera traps at more than 270 separate locations throughout the HKK-TY reserves, amassing 98,305 days’ worth of camera-trap data over the 19-year study period.

Using software that identifies individual tigers by their unique stripe patterns, they built a reference database of all known tigers frequenting the three reserves. A total of 291 individual tigers older than 1 year were recorded, as well as 67 cubs younger than 1 year [over the course of the study].

Ten of the tigers were photographed in more than one of the reserves, indicating their territories straddled the reserve boundaries. The authors conclude that each of the three reserves has a solid breeding tiger population and that, taken together, the HKK-TY landscape is a vital source of tigers that could potentially repopulate surrounding areas where they’ve been lost. This is supported by cases of known HKK-TY tigers dispersing into neighboring parts of WEFCOM and even across the border into Myanmar.

Conservation efforts pay off

Anak Pattanavibool, study co-author and Thailand country director at the Wildlife Conservation Society, told Mongabay that population models that take into account the full extent of suitable habitat available to tigers within the reserves and the likelihood that some tigers inevitably go undetected by camera surveys indicate there could be up to 140 tigers within the HKK-YT landscape.

Anak told Mongabay the tiger recovery is a clear indication that conservation efforts are starting to pay off. In particular, long-term action to strengthen systematic ranger patrols to control poaching as well as efforts to boost the tigers’ prey populations seem to be working, he said.

“Conservation success takes time. At the beginning we didn’t have much confidence that it would be possible [to recover tiger numbers], but we’ve been patient,” Anak said. For him, the turning point came in 2012, when authorities arrested and — with the aid of tiger stripe recognition software — prosecuted several tiger-poaching gangs operating in Huai Kha Khaeng. “These cases sent a strong message to poaching gangs and they stopped coming to these forests,” he said."

...ranger teams have detected no tiger poaching in the HKK-TY part of WEFCOM since 2013.

-via Mongabay News, July 17, 2024

[girlwiththealligatortattoo]

Florida's only endemic bird species is the threatened Florida scrub jay, who has lost most of its habitat to development. Learn how you can help make a difference in the article below. Floridians, let's save room for this magnificent species.

[kafkasapartment]

Branch No.3, 2022. Leila Jeffreys. Photograph on archival fibre based cotton rag paper.

[ravensvalley]

#HighPerch

Mountainous Parts of the Northern Hemisphere.

@BenAdrienProulx September 12, 2024.

[ronthafrog]

hellgrammite!!! (eastern dobsonfly nymph)

I love these so much, their patterns are so beautiful. They can bite pretty hard, but i’ve never had one bite me at all. otherwise they’re harmless!

you can see its abdominal gills as well, which are really fucking cool !!

[petra-constella]

Western Slimy Salamander - Plethodon albagula These little guys let out a sticky secretion almost like glue, and we've definitely felt it on our hands the couple times we held them! They have beautiful white spots along their body, and are sometimes very quick! This one in particular had regrown his tail at least once, visible by the different coloration in the majority of it and a smaller different colored tail tip!

[sagerainephotos]

Zebra Swallowtails

📷: nikon d3300

📍: indian cave state park, nebraska

[roadtrippinlilly]

American Bison On The Prairies of Oklahoma

Source Me laf@ilyF ❤️

[rabbit-obj]

Visited the Hawk Conservancy for my fiancé’s birthday and snapped these of Angola 🧡

[pangeen]

" Sassy Tank boop 🐆" // © Samantha Faircloth

© Original Audio

[maureen2musings]

Monsoon season is a time of rebirth...

shaazjung