The African wild ass is endangered. Its habitat is a drought-stricken war zone; its flesh is eaten and is believed to cure hepatitis; it is eagerly sought by dealers and collectors. The author, Chief Curator at Israel's Hai-Bar reserve, examines the problems hindering the conservation of this animal and explains why it is urgently necessary to list it on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora at its meeting in April 1983.

The population of the Near Threatened brown lemur Eulemur fulvus on the island of Mayotte was censused in 1974, 1984 and 1999. We carried out a new census in 2008, estimating individual and group densities in the three main habitat types on the island (preserved forest, anthropogenic forest and agricultural areas), and more generally evaluating population trends. Data included sex ratios and the number of young < 1 year-old per female. The census was at the end of the dry season, along 14 transect lines of 0.5 or 1 km length. Counts of groups and individuals were repeated three times between 07.00 and 10.00 and between 15.00 and 18.00. The densities of groups and individuals were calculated using Distance. By 2008 group and individual densities had significantly decreased in preserved forest, and there was also a decrease in group size in all habitat types. The 2008 census also showed that the overall population of E. fulvus on Mayotte has decreased by about half since 1999. We suggest that these changes reflect environmental stress associated with a decrease in available food resources. Urgent action to preserve forest habitat is necessary for the long-term survival of this lemur.

Management of wildlife use by communities living a partially traditional lifestyle is usually more successful when the interactions between those communities and the environment are well understood. We mapped the harvest areas for the Vulnerable pig-nosed turtle Carettochelys insculpta for six language-groups in the Kikori region of Papua New Guinea and compared harvest parameters between different areas and language-groups and, when possible, between 1980–1982 and 2007–2009. Spatially, the main influence on harvest method was a tribe's location relative to the turtle's distribution. No small juveniles (< 20 cm straight-line carapace length) were found outside the Kikori delta, which is probably the species’ feeding grounds. In contrast, nesting females were captured only in upstream and coastal sandbank areas. Temporally there were distinct differences in harvesting parameters between tribes, which may be explained by differential employment opportunities. To halt the decline of pig-nosed turtles in the Kikori region we recommend the establishment of beach and feeding-ground protection initiatives, together with monitoring of the turtle population and harvest. Concomitantly, trips specifically targeted at harvesting the turtles, which account for 81% of the animals captured, need to be restricted. These initiatives should include all six language-groups and take into account their specific harvesting patterns.

Monte Pascoal National Park contains an important remnant of Brazil's threatened Atlantic forest. It may not survive for much longer, however, because the park's fate is in the hands of two government agencies with conflicting objectives—one concerned with conserving species in the parks and the other concerned with the rights of indigenous people to those resources. Although the Pataxo Indians lived in these forests in the past without destroying their resource base, modern pressures have altered their ability to do so. If nothing is done, the forest as a home for threatened plants and animals and as a source of resources for people, will be lost.

Eradication of introduced species is often necessary to conserve native biota on islands. Seven wild turkeys Meleagris gallopavo were introduced to Santa Cruz Island, California, in 1975 and the population began to irrupt in the early 2000s. Turkeys posed a variety of threats to native species, including that they could replace the previously eradicated population of feral pigs Sus scrofa as a prey subsidy for golden eagles Aquila chrysaetos, which through incidental predation had driven three subspecies of island fox Urocyon littoralis to near extinction. We implemented a four-phase programme to eradicate the turkey population, based on general principles for eradication efforts. For example, we focused on preventing individual turkeys from becoming aware of our methods, which increased the likelihood we would be able to detect and dispatch all of the birds. Leveraging the tendency of turkeys to aggregate during winter, we used baited drop nets, precision shooting, and monitoring of surgically sterilized, radio-telemetered ‘Judas turkeys’ to eliminate the population. We estimate the population comprised 310 individuals when the project began in 2006 and that the last bird died in December 2012. Methods used in this project could be applied to other alien bird eradication programmes, of which there are few examples in the scientific literature.

Assisted colonization, or the translocation of species threatened with extinction to habitats outside their indigenous range (usually as a response to predicted climate shifts), is a divisive issue for conservationists. Yet, history shows that wildlife scientists were discussing the trade-offs and challenges of translocating species for conservation purposes, including introducing them to new habitats, long before anthropogenic climate change was recognized as posing a conservation problem. Here we examine a case of the scientific and policy deliberations of a high profile group of scientists and policy advisers from the 1960s (the U.S. Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife's Committee on Rare and Endangered Wildlife Species) to provide a useful historical context for assessing current debates on assisted colonization. The Committee's attempt to produce a consistent policy for the ‘transplantation’ of threatened species illustrates how translocation debates have long hinged on an unresolved set of scientific and conceptual concerns, including the relative value of individual species and historically intact ecosystems and the philosophical status of human-assisted movement of wildlife. Bringing the Committee's deliberations to light places contemporary debates over assisted colonization in the USA in their historical context and illustrates how what often appear to be highly technical and scientific disagreements over conservation translocations are ultimately driven by deeper conceptual issues about the means and ends of conservation.

One of Colombia’s finest national parks, La Macarena, is being gradually encroached by settlers — the park area has been nearly halved since 1948, and there is no sign of an end to the process. The author, a research zoologist of the New York Zoological Society, describes the situation and appeals to the President and the government to act to save the park.

At Uda Walawe in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) a group of about thirty elephants have become isolated in a small pocket of jungle as a result of large-scale agricultural development. There is not sufficient food for them and they are completely surrounded by farms. Inevitably they raid the fields at night, and are shot at by the farmers; some are injured, have become dangerous and killed people. Forced to act, the Wildlife Department has been trying to move them. The author, who is resident Veterinary Officer at Whipsnade Park in England, assisted with the second removal, and here describes how it was done and some of the problems.

Each of the larger islands of the Galapagos has (or had) its own subspecies of giant tortoise. Today ten are known to survive, but two are in serious danger, one of them, on Isla Pinzon (Duncan), because introduced black rats eat the young. To save them the Charles Darwin Research Station has successfully reared young tortoises in the station and will this year return 29 four-year-olds (which are large enough to cope with the rats) to their native island. A new tortoise-breeding centre was built last year, and the work is being extended. This article, which describes the rearing programme and comments on the general tortoise situation in the Galapagos, is based on information supplied by Roger Perry, the retiring Director, who has been largely responsible for this successful breeding programme. An article on the Galapagos tortoises by Dr David Snow, a former Director of the CDRS, was published in ORYX, December 1964.

The taruka Hippocamelus antisensis, a species of deer categorized as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, was thought to be locally extinct in the environs of La Paz, Bolivia. However, local people from Mecapaca municipality reported seeing tarukas at their former community establishment, which had been abandoned several years previously. After confirming the presence of taruka we conducted intensive surveys from which we estimated minimum abundance, and then calibrated relative abundance indices (faecal and track counts) to the abundance estimate. Using these calibrated indices we carried out a preliminary estimate of the total abundance of the species in the municipality of Mecapaca. We also carried out conservation education activities with teachers and students at local schools, which we discuss here in terms of the long-term conservation of this threatened species.