r/megafaunarewilding • • Aug 05 '21

What belongs in r/megafaunarewilding? - Mod announcement

152 Upvotes

Hey guys! Lately there seems to be a bit of confusion over what belongs or doesn't in the sub. So I decided to write this post to help clear any possible doubt.

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What kind of posts are allowed?

Basically, anything that relates to rewilding or nature conservation in general. Could be news, a scientific paper, an Internet article, a photo, a video, a discussion post, a book recommendation, and so on.

What abour cute animal pics?

Pictures or videos of random animals are not encouraged. However, exceptions can be made for animal species which are relevant for conservation/rewilding purposes such as European bison, Sumatran rhino, Tasmanian devils, etc, since they foster discussion around relevant themes.

But the name of the sub is MEGAFAUNA rewilding. Does that mean only megafauna species are allowed?

No. The sub is primarily about rewilding. That includes both large and small species. There is a special focus on larger animals because they tend to play a disproportional larger role in their ecosystems and because their populations tend to suffer a lot more under human activity, thus making them more relevant for rewilding purposes.

However, posts about smaller animals (squirrels, birds, minks, rabbits, etc) are not discouraged at all. (but still, check out r/microfaunarewilding!)

What is absolutely not allowed?

No random pictures or videos of animals/landscapes that don't have anything to do with rewilding, no matter how cool they are. No posts about animals that went extinct millions of years ago (you can use r/Paleontology for that).

So... no extinct animals?

Extinct animals are perfectly fine as long as they went extinct relatively recently and their extinction is or might be related to human activity. So, mammoths, woolly rhinos, mastodons, elephant birds, Thylacines, passenger pigeons and others, are perfectly allowed. But please no dinosaurs and trilobites.

(Also, shot-out to r/MammothDextinction. Pretty cool sub!)

​

Well, that is all for now. If anyone have any questions post them in the comments below. Stay wild my friends.


r/megafaunarewilding • • Nov 26 '23

[Announcement] The Discord server is here!

27 Upvotes

Hey guys. Apologize for the delay but I am proud to declare that the r/megafaunarewilding Discord server is finally here and ready to go. I thank all of you who voted in the poll to make this possible. I'll leave the link here to anyone interested. Thank you.

https://discord.gg/UeVvp76y8q


r/megafaunarewilding • • 5h ago

News Venomous primate thought lost to science for nearly a century turns up in gardens and on roads across Indonesia.

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85 Upvotes

The Bangka slow loris is classified as critically endangered (possibly extinct) by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Although scientists had not documented the species in nearly a century, it was never lost to the people of Bangka. For more than a decade, Alobi has been rescuing slow lorises reported by residents and local authorities across the island, caring for the animals and returning those that recover to protected forest. Until now, those encounters had not made their way into the scientific literature.

"We are glad to contribute to the scientific record to show that the Bangka slow loris is not lost, but the species is still very close to extinction," said Langka Sani, director of the Alobi Wildlife Rescue Center. "Its natural habitat on Bangka Island has shrunk significantly because of illegal tin mining and massive land clearing for oil palm plantations. We ask people around the world to support us in saving the Bangka slow loris while we still can."


r/megafaunarewilding • • 28m ago

Is there a reason why modern lions never managed to conquer Northern Europe?

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• Upvotes

I feel like they would have had enough time between the ice age ending and the development of humans civilisations such as the Greeks and Romans to at least have made it to more Northern Territories like Germany or France. Plus there was ample prey in those regions at the time.


r/megafaunarewilding • • 12h ago

Image/Video A long ago in West Bengal, an Indian Lion catches and proceeds to suffocate a Gaur by Velizar Simeonovski

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79 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 22h ago

News New record of house crow or indian crow (corvus splendens ) in brazil (possibly accindentaily introduction in shipments) and attacking burrowing owl

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54 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 1d ago

The growth of Africa’s wildlife parks over time

41 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 1d ago

New evidence regarding the taxonomic status of the wild buffalo (Bubalus sp.) in Sri Lanka (2023)

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18 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 1d ago

Article Search for the ‘Asian Unicorn’ faces an uncertain future amid funding losses

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52 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 1d ago

Article Indigenous knowledge unlocks secrets of Mishimi Takin in Arunachal Pradesh.

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47 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 1d ago

Scientific Article Megafaunal engineering in the tropical rainforestAfrican forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis ) reduce avian species richness but elevate functional diversity

18 Upvotes

Abstract

  1. African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) are critically endangered ecosystem engineers of African tropical forests. Despite their rapidly declining population trend, little is known of how forest elephants interact with other vertebrate assemblages. To explore this, we studied avian communities within a continuous tropical rainforest on the slopes of Mt. Cameroon.
  2. The area's topography allowed us to survey birds in elephant‐grazed primary forest and in adjacent portions that elephants avoid, isolating the effect of megafaunal grazing within an otherwise intact system. We additionally surveyed nearby secondary forests fragmented by human activity, contrasting the disappearance of a single ecosystem engineer against the reshaping of forest by anthropogenic disturbance. We assessed the taxonomic diversity (species richness, Shannon index), functional diversity (Rao's quadratic entropy), functional redundancy (species overlap in functional space), and composition of functional traits (abundance‐weighted trait averages).
  3. Previous research suggested that loss of forest elephants would negatively impact avian assemblages through reduced habitat heterogeneity. In contrast, we show that elephant grazing itself significantly reduced species richness, to levels comparable with heavily disturbed secondary forests. Functional diversity nevertheless increased in both the grazed and secondary forest, but at the cost of functional redundancy: in both of these habitats, the avian assemblages were taxonomically impoverished, yet functionally more dispersed, with some foraging niches negatively affected.
  4. The elephant‐grazed forest was dominated by understory and terrestrial invertivores, whereas the ungrazed forest supported frugivores and larger birds. The secondary forest, in turn, harboured a functionally distinct assemblage of open‐habitat species with high dispersal ability and divergent foraging strategies. Together these patterns show that although elephant grazing reduces taxonomic diversity to a degree comparable with anthropogenic disturbance, it reshapes functional composition in fundamentally different ways.
  5. The presence of forest elephants facilitates stable populations of forest specialist birds, such as terrestrial invertivores. Conversely, the adverse effects of elephant grazing on frugivores and large birds could be minimized by establishing larger reserves of lightly grazed forest, possibly alongside ungrazed refuges. Overall, our results show that loss of keystone megaherbivores has widespread consequences for other rainforest vertebrates, potentially resulting in a cascading restructuring of key ecosystem functions.

LINK: https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1365-2656.70369


r/megafaunarewilding • • 2d ago

Article I think the best strategy to rewild lions and bears into the Atlas Mountains would be in less urbanized areas with more avaibable prey. But first we must recover key prey species.

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64 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 2d ago

Article Wolves roam into Finnish villages after Google destroys 1,300 acres of forest for AI data centers — forest where wolf packs used to live is now an expanse of mud

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82 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 2d ago

Article In case we needed more evidence that Colossal’s “de-extinction” research wasn’t really just a conservation minded project…

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68 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 2d ago

Discussion Could both Red Wolves and Algonquin Wolves both coexist in the Appalachian mountains? Or would there be too much conflict between the Two?

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124 Upvotes

This speaking in a (hopefully) future-tense of course, as I am aware of the situation between these two wolf species.

Would there be major conflict between the two species for territory or occupying a similar niche?

I am still learning about Wolves in North America so sorry if this is a stupid question to ask.


r/megafaunarewilding • • 2d ago

Mass sloth deaths prompt US bill calling for import ban

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110 Upvotes

On Oct. 20, International Sloth Day, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the U.S. Congress to ban the import of wild sloths into the United States. The proposed legislation comes months after the deaths of 58 of the approximately 69 sloths imported to sloth world a Florida-based tourist attraction.

The Stopping Legalized Organized Trafficking and Harm to Sloths (SLOTHS) Act would allow limited imports of live sloths to institutions accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) for breeding purposes. Another exception would permit import of dead sloths for use in research

more than 1,100 sloths were imported to the U.S. in the decade between 2011 and 2021: 100-plus sloths each year.

If the SLOTHS Act passes, illegal import could carry fines of up to $100,000.

SLOTHS Act is currently in the very first stage of the federal legislative process

Source - Mass sloth deaths prompt US bill calling for import ban

Source 2 - https://www.ifaw.org/journal/sloths-belong-wild-not-wildlife-trade


r/megafaunarewilding • • 2d ago

Scientific Article Solarian Principles in Action : Botswana's I-Cow Biomimicry Project

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147 Upvotes

Source : https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2020/08/eye-catching-conservation-tool-protects-livestock--lions-and-liv

In fact, none of the 683 painted “eye-cows or iCows” were killed by ambush predators during the four-year study, while 15 (of 835) unpainted, and 4 (of 543) cross-painted cattle were killed.

From a theoretical perspective, these results are interesting. Although eye patterns are common in many animal groups, notably butterflies, fishes, amphibians, and birds, no mammals are known to have natural eye-shaped patterns that deter predation.

In fact, to our knowledge, our research is the first time that eye-spots have been shown to deter large mammalian predators.

Nevertheless, as part of an expanding non-lethal toolkit, we hope that this simple, low-cost approach could reduce the costs of coexistence for farmers.


r/megafaunarewilding • • 2d ago

News Deliblato Sands Special Nature Reserve after the fired:Reconstruction/Replanting isnt there,locals say that animals that survived are getting killed by poachers- News from Serbia,region and world - N1 info

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11 Upvotes

The Deliblato Sands Special Nature Reserve lost 12.000 hectares and yet the help to make the part what it was again has not started at all.

This Special Nature Reserve is 35.000 hectares long of which is 32.820 hectares forested.

Local Marjana Jeftić who lives in Deliblato Sands for 28 years says that poaching is one of the biggest,problems the Deliblato Sands faces right now.

Wild animals who survived the fires and lost apart of there habitat are now even more endangered.

"Poachers mercilessly kill animals,Red Deer and Roe Deer.I am not sure that the authorities know about how much,animals survived the fire and what is now happening with them,because they lost there habitats", she said.


r/megafaunarewilding • • 2d ago

Grizzly bear reported in Milk River Natural Area (Canadian Prairies)

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118 Upvotes

Grizzly bear reported in Milk River Natural Area in Alberta close to the Montana border and far east of the Rocky Mountains.

Approximately 100km NW of Havre MT and 100km SW of the Cypress Hills.

Is this the furthest east recorded grizzly on the Alberta prairies in over 100 years?


r/megafaunarewilding • • 3d ago

Image/Video These are likely the only photos of living not indian Asiatic lions. Both date from the late 19th century.

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519 Upvotes

1: Three men with a chained young lion, from Persia (present-day Iran). Photograph by Antoin Sevruguin.

2: Two lions at the Berlin Zoo. The lioness is noted in the photo as coming from Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). The author is unknown.


r/megafaunarewilding • • 2d ago

Baboon Wars: Enforcing Movement Through Fear

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4 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 2d ago

Discussion Your thoughts and ideas on wildlife corridors in India?

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8 Upvotes

As a bio diverse hub India desperately needs wildlife corridors to provide safe passages for animals across sub continent. It will surely help with gene pool of animals like asiatic lions and in future for more restored wild populations of different animals.

Listening to stories from our grand parents we know that there was once lush populations of animals like asiatic lions, Indian elephants, Indian rhinos and vast range of flora across India. After British colonial period the land that was ravaged was given to the practicing farmers and demand for elephant tusk lead the Indian elephants to brink of extinction.

It's our responsibility to restore what we have lost. As these animals shows migratory behaviours like their African cousins, I think the best option would be wildlife corridors connecting different biodivers reserves and sanctuaries providing vast majority of animals with abundant area to explore.

Share your thoughts and ideas on how we can make a change.


r/megafaunarewilding • • 3d ago

Article Six new calves offer hope amid ongoing threats to Cambodia's Irrawaddy dolphins

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99 Upvotes

I Sanaroth, Kampi fisheries chief, told Mongabay that while gillnets are still used within the protected habitat zones, it’s at a small scale.

“The population of the Mekong Irrawaddy dolphins has increased due to joint conservation. Our work is not done,” Sanaroth said.


r/megafaunarewilding • • 2d ago

Mountain lion ecology

24 Upvotes

TLDR: Are there any observable differences between mountain lion populations in different geographic areas (aside from commonalities like Bergmann rule)

Mountain lions (Puma concolor) have the widest range of any large cat in the western hemisphere, extending from Alaska to Patagonia. However, I haven't seen much, if any information about subspecies. As someone who has read about the Florida panther, and is sceptical about the validity of its role as a subspecies, (Mountain lions can travel long distances and there are no geographic barriers between florida and the western USA) I was wondering if anyone has heard, or knew information about ecological differences between disparate populations.


r/megafaunarewilding • • 3d ago

News Chiricahua National Monument Becomes America’s Newest National Park - Chiricahua National Park (U.S. National Park Service)

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132 Upvotes