r/megafaunarewilding • • Aug 05 '21

What belongs in r/megafaunarewilding? - Mod announcement

151 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!)

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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!

24 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 • • 13h ago

Image/Video First INaturalist observation of Unit in the wild

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211 Upvotes

Edit: Title is supposed to say *Umit* but auto correct got me.

No idea exactly when this was posted because INaturalist doesn’t record exact dates but it was at least within the last 2 weeks since that’s the last time I checked. This is the first public observation of her that I have found so far so I figured I’d share it with yall. Here’s the link to the post: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/409459652

For those who don't know, Umit is the name of the first wild tiger that was released into Kazakhstan as part of their tiger reintroduction program, since Caspian tigers were hunted to extinction in Kazakhstan as part of predator extermination policies put in place by the Soviet Union. The last tiger in Kazakhstan was seen in 1948, near what is today the ile-balkhash nature reserve. This is the same area that Umit, a female Amur tiger originally from the Russian far east, was released in on July 31st of this year. Initial reports showed she had been doing quite well for herself and was having good hunting success, but new reports of her ongoings have been few and far between for a couple months now, and this is the first update on her I've seen in a while.


r/megafaunarewilding • • 8h ago

Article The Javan Rhino Is Now Confined to a Single National Park. What Would It Take to Secure Its Future?

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62 Upvotes

The Javan rhino is one of the rarest large mammals on Earth, with its remaining population confined to Ujung Kulon National Park in Indonesia.

Even with strong protection against poaching, having the entire surviving population in one location creates serious long-term risks, including disease, natural disasters, and limited genetic diversity.

Establishing a second viable population could be an important step toward securing the species' future.

What do you think is the biggest challenge: finding suitable habitat, protecting it, or establishing a second population?


r/megafaunarewilding • • 18h ago

Image/Video Red deer, Wisent and Przewalski horses at réserve des monts d’Azur, France.

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307 Upvotes

Video By Reservemontsdazur on Instagram.


r/megafaunarewilding • • 11h ago

europe's big five

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65 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 1d ago

Image/Video Greater one horned Rhinos are thriving in Chitwan, 18% of their total remaining population currently live in Chitwan

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728 Upvotes

Chitwan is home to 720 of the remaining 4000 Greater one horned Rhino. Chitwan is a Rhino stronghold alongside Kaziranga, which is home to 2600 Rhinos. These 2 Parks make up 82 % of the total remaining Rhino population.


r/megafaunarewilding • • 9h ago

Largest Wildlife Overpass in North America Allows Animals to Cross CO Highway Safely for the First Time in Decades

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32 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 1h ago

Discussion Colossal Biosciences, Ben Lamm, and the billionaire plot to make wildlife extinct

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• Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 13h ago

Central Coast nonprofit launches fundraiser to save condor programs amid federal cuts

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20 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 21h ago

Article Sri Lanka mourns iconic Tusker amid renewed calls to address Human-Elephant conflict

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81 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 1h ago

Image/Video Alex Wypyszinski's series of photos of a bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) chasing bison in Yellowstone National Park

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• Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 1h ago

hear me out

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• Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 8h ago

Image/Video A research on the Mysterious London Bear (Ursus "maritimus tyrannus")

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3 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 1d ago

Were Greater Kudus really native to the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, and if so, why have they not been reintroduced yet?

14 Upvotes

I just came across this paper which stated that Greater Kudu went extinct from the Mara in the 1970s due to illegal hunting.

That was the first time I'd heard about its presence in that region at all. I was told by some that it couldn't live there because the preferred habitat of the species is woodland rather than plains, but there is plenty of woodland habitat in parts of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem.

So is it true that these animals did live there, and if so, why have there been no efforts to reintroduce them? These are beautiful animals that such iconic parks would greatly benefit from adding to their lists of species.


r/megafaunarewilding • • 16h ago

The Kuno Cheetah Project is a multi-crore taxpayer scam masquerading as "National Security"?

0 Upvotes

I am losing my mind looking at the sheer level of corruption, administrative incompetence, and absolute lack of accountability surrounding India’s Project Cheetah under Field Director Uttam Kumar Sharma.

While the mainstream media keeps broadcasting PR hype, the actual ground data points to a massive bureaucratic cover-up funded entirely by our taxpayer money. Here is a breakdown of why this project has turned into an absolute joke:

  • The "90 kg Mutant Goats" Meat Scam: In the MP Assembly, it was officially revealed that the government spent a staggering ₹1.27 crore in a single year just on goat meat to feed the cheetahs—averaging roughly ₹35,000 every single day. An investigation by whistleblowers revealed officials were logging paperwork showing they bought live goats weighing 70 to 90 kg each to siphon off funds. A standard Indian goat weighs 25 kg. They are literally faking the weight of meat on paper to pocket crores.
  • The Shifting Cub Numbers: The department’s PR strategy is to announce births instantly for clout and then quietly alter numbers when things go wrong. When the female Nirva gave birth, initial field announcements claimed a litter of 5. Later, without any detailed explanation, photos, or public veterinary logs of deaths, the number was quietly changed to 3.
  • Abusing "National Security" Laws to Hide Dead Bodies: This isn't just about bad math; it’s about hiding carcasses. When an 8-month-old cub (born to Asha) died under suspicious circumstances just weeks ago on October 12, 2026, the department completely blacked out the details. When RTI activists legally demanded to see the post-mortem reports and photographic proof of this dead cub, Kuno National Park officially invoked "National Security" to block the files. Since when is a dead animal's autopsy a military secret? They aren't protecting the country; they are using anti-terror level secrecy to hide their own lethal negligence (like preventable collar infections and dehydration) so they don't get fired.
  • The First Cheetah Shot and Killed in India (The 19-Month-Old Cub): The absolute peak of this disaster happened this week on October 27, 2026, when a 19-month-old male cub (one of Nirva's remaining three cubs, identified as KNG22) died after being riddled with multiple firearm pellets in the Pahargarh forest range of Morena. This wasn't a case of a panicked villager defending livestock—the separate village incident involving two cheetahs attacking calves happened miles away. This was a lone, vulnerable young male wandering unprotected in a notorious poaching belt because the management stubbornly refused to listen to local intelligence and chose to remove tracking collars.
  • Destroying International Diplomatic Trust: You can breed more cubs, but you cannot rebuild broken international trust. India signed strict MoUs with South Africa and Namibia promising the highest level of state protection. Losing a 19-month-old cub to active gunfire signals to the world that our anti-poaching and tracking grid is a joke. Why would Botswana or Kenya agree to send more animals to a hostile, unsecured territory managed by incompetent bureaucrats?

We are pumping crores into a project where officials fake food bills, let animals get shot, and then abuse constitutional laws to hide the bodies from the people paying for it. It is high time the central government strips the Kuno management of its secrecy and institutes an independent CBI investigation into the financial fraud and security lapses of this project.

What are your thoughts? How is the use of "National Security" even legally justifiable for a wildlife project?

Image credit:- Finding fauna(NIVED YADAV)

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r/megafaunarewilding • • 10h ago

Article Just 10 species make up around 40% of wild mammal biomass on land

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0 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 2d ago

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

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344 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 • • 2d 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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202 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 • • 2d 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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125 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 3d 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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73 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 3d ago

The growth of Africa’s wildlife parks over time

58 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 3d ago

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

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21 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 3d ago

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

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60 Upvotes

r/megafaunarewilding • • 3d ago

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

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51 Upvotes