The “Projeto Ararinha na Natureza” led by SAVE Brasil, launched the first annual report of the conservation outreach activities it is undertaking with the aim of preparing a future reintroduction of the iconic Spix’s Macaw. The species is currently “extinct in the wild” although a number of institutions have been collaboration to return this species to its natural habitat. It has been a great pleasure to … [Read more…]
In another natural history short note me and a few colleagues document the finding of an adult specimen of Bothrops taeniatus Wagler, 1824 in the Municipality of Assis Brasil, in the Rio Acre Ecological Station, Acre, Brazil. This is the first record of this species for the state of Acre, extending the species distribution globally by approximately 164 Km west. Find … [Read more…]
Last November I went out to work on a Environmental Education project lead with Ricardo Lima, in the small island country of São Tomé and Príncipe in West Africa. We visited hundreds of people in rural communities and dozens of classrooms across the country in an experience that undoubtedly made us realise how important these activities are and how they should … [Read more…]
A few days ago I co-author a short note that presents the first record of the Bicoloured-spined Porcupine for Brazil. Its not often that a mammal of this size is first recorded for a country, even one as large and biodiverse as Brazil! Checkout the short note here.
In the latest issue of Nature, I co-author a reply to S. Kumar’s article: “Extinction need not be forever“, published also in Nature about a month ago. In this reply we highlight how behavioural and ecological factors, which are not necessarily captured by genetic material, are essential not only to define a species identity but also to ensure its … [Read more…]
In a recent Editorial I co-authored for the Asian Journal of Conservation Biology we touch on the issue of wildlife trade in Asia and discuss how the consumer must be the central part of our strategies to manage this trade that threatens many species worldwide . Read it here.
The snake Bothrops muriciensis is a little known Brazilian viper that until recently was only known from the couple of records that were used to describe it. I paper I co-authored in the open-access North-Western Journal of Zoology presents six more records and looks at applying the IUCN Red List criteria to the species until now classified as Data Deficient. … [Read more…]
The latest issue of the Herpetological Bulletin has a natural history note reporting on the predation of a slender anole (Anolis fuscoauratus) by a northern woodland racer (Drymoluber dichrous) in North-eastern Brazil. This short note was co-authored with Gonçalo Rosa and Marco António Freitas. See the Pdf here
The magazine “the Ecologist” published my essay: “Greening” the Crisis: Turning Trouble into Opportunity which won the IUCN-Thomson Reuteurs Media Award 2012. You can read the article and the entire essay on: http://www.theecologist.org/a-student-writes/1615763/greening_the_crisis_turning_trouble_into_opportunity.html
A recent paper in Oryx has highlighted an interesting conservation conundrum. What do you do when one endangered species is preying on another endangered species? An analysis of data from the Tortuguero National Park, led by Diogo Veríssimo (Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent) looked at population dynamics and the increasing predation of endangered … [Read more…]