On 26th June, 1689, an English youth, named Henry Kelsey, and an Indian boy set out northwards on a month-long journey from a newly-founded trading post at the mouth of the Churchill River in Hudson Bay. Their object was to find Indians who might bring furs to the new post, but they hiked an estimated 200 miles out and back over the Barrens without meeting a single human being. If, however, their trip was commercially a fruitless, as well as an arduous enterprise, they still made one discovery of some scientific interest. On Sunday, 9th July, Kelsey recorded in his diary: “in ye Evening spyed two Buffillo left our things & pursued ym Kill'd one they are ill shapen beast their Body being bigger than an ox leg & foot like ye same but not half so long a [long] neck & head a hog their Horns not growing like other Beast but joyn together upon their forehead & so come down ye side of their head & turn up till ye points be Even wth ye Buts their Hair is near a foot long” (Doughty and Martin, 1929, pp. 27–8).

During a survey in Dana Nature Reserve (southwestern Jordan) carried out between November 1994 and January 1995, Nubian ibexes Capra nubiana were sighted twice on a cliff at Jebel Um-Suwwana in the Wadi Araba area. The low number of sightings and an assessment of range conditions throughout the study area suggest that the population is reduced to a low density and suffers from severe competition for food and range with goats. Further research needs are discussed in a conservation perspective.

The green turtle Chelonia mydas is one of two marine turtle species to nest in Turkey. Its three main nesting beaches are in eastern Turkey, with possibly the densest congregation of nesting turtles in the Mediterranean being found at Kazanli. However, beach erosion, hatchling predation, agricultural encroachment and chemical pollution mean that the future of the Kazanli nest site is uncertain. The Turkish Society for the Protection of Nature (Dogal Hayati Koruma Dernegi) is making valiant efforts to protect all the turtle nesting beaches in Turkey but lacks detailed information on the numbers of nesting turtles on many beaches. This paper describes a short study of nesting turtles at Kazanli during 1990 and makes recommendations for the conservation of the nesting beach.

Mount Oku, in the Northwest Region of Cameroon, is known for its rodent diversity. It is located in an area with a high human population density (up to 400/km2), resulting in intense pressure on natural resources. Threats to biodiversity include overgrazing by cattle and goats in grassland areas and montane forests, firewood harvesting, agriculture, bee keeping, debarking of Prunus trees for medicinal uses, and bushmeat hunting. We used data from interviews with 106 local hunters to provide insights into rodent trapping in Oku village. Trapping took place primarily in closed canopy forest. The majority of hunters (88.8%) set at least 100 traps per week, with a mean of 38 rodents trapped per hunter per week. The two most captured species were the Vulnerable Hartwig's praomys Praomys hartwigi and the Endangered Mount Oku rat Lamottemys okuensis, both of which have declining populations. Rodents were harvested mainly for household consumption and/or local trade, but 65.1% of interviewees also used P. hartwigi for traditional medicine. Our findings suggest that rodent trapping in Oku village requires conservation attention, and that further quantitative studies are needed to assess its sustainability.

Schemes for the preservation of fauna in Kenya, Tanganyika, and Uganda are much to the fore at the present time, and quite rightly so, but we would like to advance the claims of N'gamiland as being one of the finest places of them all where the wild life of Africa may yet be found in its almost pristine state, rivalling that of N'gorongoza, the Serengeti Plains and the Ngorongoro Crater. We plead also the urgent need for the formation of a society dedicated to the protection of the fauna in support of an understaffed and overworked Game Department.

The plant Carduncellus matritensis (Cardueae, Compositae) was formerly known from only a single locality: Cerro Negro in Madrid Province, Spain. It is one of the six endemic species of the Spanish flora considered to be extinct. The causes of its presumed extinction were anthropogenic: the growth of the city of Madrid subsumed the locality into the city, such that Cerro Negro is now a railway station. During 2021–2022 we discovered three new populations c. 50 km south of the type locality, with 130–166 mature individuals. Habitat fragmentation and degradation are the most significant threats facing the three populations. We categorize the conservation status of the species as Critically Endangered according to the IUCN Red List criteria. To avoid the loss of this species, we recommend both in situ (creation of micro-reserves) and ex situ (seed storage) conservation measures.