A radio-collared Mongolian gazelle sets out across the Eastern Steppe. These antelope are among the last great herds of migratory wildlife, with more than a million traveling across the vast expanse of Mongolia’s grasslands as they search for forage throughout the year.
For the past decade, these animals have been part of a wildlife health study conducted by WCS and partners. The researchers have found that livestock, rather than gazelles, drive foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks on the Eastern Steppe. This highly contagious viral disease affects domestic sheep, goats, camels, and cattle, as well as Mongolian gazelles. Based on the results, the researchers recommend a livestock vaccination and health-monitoring program.
A small group of Himalayan snowcock forages along a pathway in Afghanistan’s Sarkund Valley, part of the Wakhan Corridor where WCS is conducting ongoing wildlife surveys. Just two weeks before a remote camera snapped this photo, it recorded a snow leopard prowling about with her cub. Snowcock are generally found above the tree line and below the snow line in mountainous habitat, and are a popular gamebird…and snow leopard prey.
Learn more about the WCS Afghanistan Program >>
A Southern River terrapin—one of the most endangered turtles on Earth—makes its way into Cambodia’s Sre Ambel River, in the midst of an admiring crowd. The female turtle has been fixed with a satellite transmitter that will allow conservationists to track her whereabouts.
The release marked the first-ever satellite monitoring study for this species. Scientists estimate that just 200 adult Southern River terrapins remain in the wilds of Cambodia, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Conservationists from WCS, the Cambodian Fisheries Administration, and Wildlife Reserves Singapore will track the terrapin’s movements to see how she uses this region, and what types of threats she faces.
To learn more, read the press release.
Ranging from the snow-covered peaks of the Andes in northwestern Bolivia and Peru to the tropical rainforests below, Madidi-Tambopata is one of the planet's most biologically diverse regions.On a field trip to the region, WCS Staff Photographer Julie Larsen Maher traveled from the park’s humid Amazon River basin to nearly 16,000 feet to meet with these alpaca farmers. (Luckily, she’d stowed a jacket in her daypack.)Many Andean people dress in colorful woolen layers to keep warm in the thin mountain air. In the highlands, WCS is working with local farmers on a fencing project to help protect their livestock from local carnivores, including pumas. This reduces retaliatory killing of the predators, lessening the instances of human-wildlife conflict in the landscape.
An Andean bear strikes an (unknowing) pose as it walks by a camera trap set up in Colombia’s Parque Nacional Natural Chingaza. These remote cameras help WCS researchers like conservationist Isaac Goldstein working with the National Parks Unit (PNN) to monitor and conserve the elusive bears, and identify individuals. Through studying these photos, conservationists can also determine if a bear is traveling alone or in a pack, and where each individual's territory is located.
WCS has been studying Andean bears since 1976 and is at the forefront of research and conservation activities happening throughout the bear’s range.
Learn more about the program >>
A female jaguar and her two cubs plod through Kaa Iya National Park, Bolivia, just a short distance from the Isoso Station of the Santa Cruz-Puerto Suarez Gas Pipeline. The mother, nicknamed Kaaiyana, has been seen with her cubs in the area for over a month; though WCS conservationists confirm the big cat has lived in the area for at least six years.
At more than 13,200 square miles, Kaa Iya National Park is the largest protected area in Bolivia and safeguards the most expansive dry forest in the world. Park guards work with Gas TransBoliviano personnel to prevent illegal hunting and settlements along the right-of-way to the gas pipeline and ensure the protection of wildlife, including jaguar prey, in the park.
Learn more from the press release >>
Across New York State, the northern cricket frog is disappearing. A decade ago, herpetologists could count 25 distinct cricket frog populations within the state’s borders. Today, only three or four remain. To uncover the reason behind the decline, WCS staff from the Bronx and Queens Zoos have partnered with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in a study funded by State Wildlife Grants. As a first step, the team is working to rule out two common amphibian pathogens as potential culprits.
Seeing a tiger in the wild is an incredibly rare experience, even for full-time tiger conservationists. WCS's own tiger program coordinator, Emma Stokes, only recently saw and photographed one for the first time, in Corbett National Park, India. Indeed, Emma swears that the experience lived up to the hype, saying "Four and a half years, ten tiger countries, visiting every WCS tiger landscape ... it was worth the wait!"
Learn more about Emma and WCS's tiger work >>
Some 16,000 feet above sea level in Bolivia’s Andes Mountains, a band of vicuñas, the smallest members of the camel family, trots by the Kantantica Pass. Once covered with tropical glaciers, today the mountain peaks are increasingly bare—the effect of a changing climate. As the ice recedes, water sources for local people and wildlife diminish.
WCS conservationists are monitoring populations of vicuñas here and across the Andean slopes they call home.
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