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This website aims to make it easy for those living with wildlife, and those who would like to see it, to find each other. Where-ever the wildlife, if the local people do not benefit it will not survive.  Please note, on some computers these maps can take 10 seconds to load.

Explore the worlds wilds, through the map above (each country contains a list of any wild areas within it – world maps for each fo these can be found at the top of the page -“wild places, “shadow of mankind”, “Hides”, “Future places” & “sightings board”), or the species in the expandable section below. Add your destinations, by clicking on “list your wild”. Scroll down to read our latest wild news.

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    Posted on

    Wildlife of the river Thames – one of the busiest rivers, with a global city built around it

    If you look at this image, or indeed the start of Eastenders, with its view from the air, you would think that the river can host no wildlife at all – but it still does, and could get better.

    Throughout time, much has been dropped or thrown into the river. From a giant statue of Michael Jackson, to a 16th century sword recently found, to (less appealingly) it having been used as an open sewer for a very long time.

    Never the less, this is a river, and has the capacity to support much life other than humans. Also, despite how much rubbish is pumped into the rive, it is much improved from several decades ago, and as such much wildlife has started to return.

    Continue reading “Wildlife of the river Thames – one of the busiest rivers, with a global city built around it”
    Posted on

    Website update

    I am well aware, that I have been quiet for some time. I am hoping that, that is, coming to an end. I have been working on the members areas, and trying to find a way for those to “blog” important news from their wilderness areas, as well as those areas of interest for other people.

    We hope that this is going to arrive within the next few days, but, I am hoping that I will be available to write more regularly in the near future.

    As ever, our aim is educate about the natural world and the threats that hurt it, and to create an increasingly complete list of wildernesses around the world, and opportunities to see the wildlife that live within it.

    Do get involved, as members (as we move forwards) and in other ways.

    Posted on

    African elephant populations have stabilized in their Southern African homes

    African elephant populations have risen and fallen incredibly fast over the last few centuries. It is estimated that as much as 20 million Savanah elephants roamed Africa in the year 1800, but in 1979 just 600,000 remained, and in 2016 just 415,000 live in Africa. At that point, over 100,000 had been poached in the previous decade.

    Unfortunately, it is not merely a case of making more parks. Elephants are incredibly intelligent, but so called fortress reserves, are not good enough. Indeed, less well protected reserves, that are linked together by migration corridors, are far better for the elephant population, than the aforementioned fortress reserves.

    These corridors have multiple benefits, from allowing elephants to leave overpopulated areas, to being able to move to places where food and water are available. It also means that the elephants can leave areas of heavy poaching, for instance the Virunga national park, where elephants virtually disappeared in the 1990s, but have started to return from Queen Elizabeth national park in Uganda, across the border.

    Where animals cannot move, one often has a boom and bust kind of population dynamic. Now, it should be noted, that this is not always easy, as migration corridors are rarely completely empty of humans, so there is more conflict in these areas, never-the-less, it is clear that these corridors are essential, if these elephant populations are to survive into the long-term. Of course, it also leads to an interesting situation, where virtually all of the huge ecosystems in Africa are along borders, as this allows more than one country to share the cost.

    Of perhaps greater worry, this population of 415,000 is both the African savannah and African forest elephant. Yet these two are completely separate species, African forest elephants are nicknamed the gardeners of the forest, and it is questionable whether it can survive as effectively in the long-term without their recovery. The African forest elephant had a population of 26 million in 1800, it is unclear how many are left, but what is clear, is that their population has collapsed in the last few decades.

    Posted on

    A natural reservoir that formed in the Peruvian Andes behind a glacier, in 1941 broke its bank and killed thousands – climate change is making a repeat more likely

    It is estimated that 15 million people live in areas which would be flooded, should glacial lakes collapse. As global warming increases the temperatures in these areas, these glacial lake collapses are only going to get more common.

    In 1941, lake Palcacocha (which sits high in the Cordillera Blanca range of the Peruvian Andes) broke its banks. The city of Huaraz lies beneath it, and when it collapsed 10 million cubic meters of water was dropped on the city. Apart from changing the areas geography permanently, at least 1800 people died, and possibly as high as 4500.

    We are making the collapse of these glacial lakes more likely as time goes by, by our increasing of carbon in the atmosphere – clearly it is not only low lying settlements which are in danger from climate related flooding.

    Posted on

    A Ugandan river has turned poisonous

    There is a lot of wildlife that lives in rivers, as well as most species having to drink regularly

    The Nyamwammba river, which runs through the Rwenzori mountains – in central western Uganda, having been flooding in an extreme way in recent years. This is enough of a problem, as there are many settlements among other things, that lie along the rivers course.

    However, there is a bigger problem. Along the river course, are copper tailing pools from an old Canadian mining operation. However, these are being flooded and eroded with increasing frequency. Why is this a problem? Because these elements are bad for wildlife and human alike.

    Having been washed into the river, they have found that they have infected most of the water supply and soil of the valley, with these deadly heavy metals. The cancer rates in populations living near these pools are far higher than normal, and there is a fear amongst scientists, that as flooding increases due to climate change, the heavy metal pollution will get worse, and therefore also the people affected.

    Can the company be charged for the clean-up? Perhaps, at the time of the mines creation Uganda did not have strict enough environmental rules, though one would hope that a credible company would not have to be forced to clean up after themselves.

    Posted on

    Shrinking trees, and tuskless elephants – what other effects are humans having?

    Humans are causing trees to grow smaller, as big trees are more likely to be harvested. In the same way, elephants are being born in some reserves without their tusks, as this means that they are less likely to be hunted (and therefore, those born without tusks tend to survive better and have more young).

    Snails are developing lighter shells, in order to cope with heat better, and swallows are developing shorter wings as this is easier to avoid being hit by cars, are just some of the large number of effects that humans are having on the natural world.

    The problem is if these impacts mean that the species is less capable of surviving (do tuskless elephants live as long?). Are humans becoming the primary threat for many species?

    If so, we need to change that and fast.

    Posted on

    Sumatra is finding that building bridges over roads is much cheaper than elsewhere

    This seems a very cheap and simple solution to roads, at least for primates. A standard motorway bridge in the UK can cost well over $1million (estimates suggest at least £890,000). This compares to a canopy bridge costing $5000 if even that much.

    Each male Sumatran Orangutan needs 15 square miles, while females need at least 3 square miles. Therefore in order to have a significant population in an area of say 1000 individuals, you are talking about needing almost 10,000 square miles of rainforest that is connected. It is highly likely, in a 100 by 100 square mile block that there will be some roads crossing it. Therefore, these simple methods for connecting forest blocks could become more and more important.

    It should be noted, that while this works for primates in areas like this, it will not help the Sumatran elephants, or rhino or tigers, which share some of these forests. Still, it might mean that larger bridges for other animals to cross could be less common, while still allowing primates to cross with ease?

    Posted on

    Scientists dissect the worlds rarest whale – the Spade-toothed beaked whale for clues on it (almost nothing is known about it)

    researchers conduct autopsy on stranded spade beaked whale CC BY-SA 3.0

    I wrote about this find (click here to read the original article) as one of just 7 of this species (spade-toothed beaked whale) to have washed ashore, it was too important an opportunity to find out something about this species in the wild.

    Whales do eventually sink to the ocean floor, so it is quite difficult to know how many spade toothed whales there are left in the world (as we only encounter those which wash up on shore). They are thought to be very rare, but this is just conjecture. This is because, having been timed, holding breath for 87 minutes (and theorized that they might be able to last more than 2 hours), they would only have to surface perhaps 15 times in a 24 hour period. Furthermore, given their incredibly low profile in the water, they are likely capable of regularly coming to the surface without being particularly visible. It is true that they have been seen blowing spouts (the puff of moisture and air that signals a whales breath), but given their low profile, perhaps they are capable of exhaling in a less obvious way.

    This one in question washed ashore in Otago, on South Island of New Zealand.

    Continue reading “Scientists dissect the worlds rarest whale – the Spade-toothed beaked whale for clues on it (almost nothing is known about it)”
    Posted on

    In December, the worlds oldest known bird, an albatross, laid an egg in her 74th year.

    albatross aged 74 photo credit US fish and wildlife service

    The bird, called Wisdom, is a Laysan albatross was photographed with her current partner and the egg. Normally expected to live between 12 and 40 years, this is an incredible lifespan. She is also thought to have had around 30 chicks, which given that they do not breed every year is a phenomenal number. Perhaps more impressive, the chick survived, and has been seen within the last month, suggesting that not only did she have this chick at such an old age, but she raised it successfully.

    She was first tagged in 1956 (the year that my father was born) and they do not breed until at least 5 years old.

    Posted on

    Male dominance is perhaps less the default than thought amongst primates, a new study has found

    Even before the study was started, it was known that some species are not male dominated. Above is a family of Bonobos, and these great apes live in a female dominated society.

    Given our assumption that on male dominance, it is perhaps surprising, that only 58% of primate species have dominant males. Perhaps not surprising, as a result, every major primate group had at least one species which was female (or co-dominant) structures.

    Indeed, with the gibbons (or lesser apes on this website, to check them out, click here to visit the home page, and then expand the species database, and click on lesser apes) all 5 species examined (there are a total of 20) have been classed as non-male dominant.

    Amongst primates, this likelihood is (according to Lewis, the head of the study) relatively easily predicted, as tends to occur in the species, where there is little difference between the size of male and female members.

    An example here, is clear: while a male gorilla can weigh twice that of a female, siamang gibbons only have males a couple of kg heavier than females – not surprisingly, while male gorillas are dominant, this is not the case with siamang gibbons.

    It should be noted, therefore, that while 4 out the 5 species of great apes are male dominated (we assume this in humans as well, though, in the modern day, it would be hard to argue that we are not more of a co dominant species. Given that likely all the lesser apes (the gibbons) are more or less co-dominant, it follows, that even just looking at the apes, more are female dominant or co-dominant.

    Continue reading “Male dominance is perhaps less the default than thought amongst primates, a new study has found”
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