Tag - endangered

 
 

ENDANGERED

Sardines may not be the traditional choice for Japan's special midsummer eel-eating day, but with a few special touches, the fish can be a satisfying and sustainable replacement.
LIFE / Food & Drink / Washoku Essentials
Jul 21, 2024
Going eel-less for Japan’s midsummer tradition
Japanese eel is endangered, but sardines are an ethical — and delicious — substitute for this year’s double Doyo no Ushi no Hi.
About 100 of the roughly 200 species of snails in the Kinki region of Japan are threatened with extinction, researchers have warned.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jul 14, 2024
Snails becoming rarer in Japan, facing risk of extinction
About 100 of the roughly 200 species of snails in the Kinki region are threatened with extinction, researchers warn.
Two Javan rhinos in Ujung Kulon national park in Indonesia's Banten province. In 2023, a newborn Javan rhino in Indonesia raised hopes for the highly endangered species.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Jun 19, 2024
Javan rhino clings to survival after Indonesia poaching wave
Conservationists fear poachers have killed up to a third of the surviving population, possibly with inside help.
Sena Ishikawa and Saki Anan, master’s students studying giant salamanders, wash off one that was caught before taking a DNA sample and implanting a tracking chip, at Kyoto University.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 18, 2024
A tale of two nearly extinct giant salamanders
While trying to save large amphibians native to Japan, herpetologists in the country unexpectedly found a way to potentially save an even bigger species in China.
A white-tailed eagle is released backed to the wild in Hokkaido in February after having been treated for bird flu with human-use influenza drug.
JAPAN / Science & Health / FOCUS
Jun 6, 2024
White-tailed eagle treated with human drug returns to wild
After having been released in the wild in February, subsequent tracking verified that the bird was successfully living independently in its natural habitat.
Black bears have been added to the list of "designated wildlife species for control" by the Environment Ministry.
JAPAN
Apr 16, 2024
Japan adds black and brown bears to subsidized hunting list
The government is stepping up the control measures as bear attacks on humans hit a record high in fiscal 2023 that ended in March.
Wildlife researcher Amelia Hiorns says Japan's bears feel the pressure of human presence and have learned that encountering us is not worth their time.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Mar 30, 2024
Amelia Hiorns: 'Guiding and introducing people to Japan's nature has been rewarding'
Wildlife researcher Amelia Hiorns shares how separate interests in Japan and in bears culminated in conservation work in the mountains of Nagano.
Director of the Akan International Crane Center, Miyuki Kawase, says tourism is incredibly helpful for the birds, but the people who come to take pictures of the birds have to remember they are still wild animals.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Feb 24, 2024
Miyuki Kawase: ‘Experience, whether happy, sad or painful, makes you grow’
The director of the Akan International Crane Center in Hokkaido tells us how she found herself in a career centered around the symbolic white birds.
Specimen M831 stored at the National Museum of Nature and Science’s Tsukuba Research Departments in Ibaraki Prefecture
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife / OUR PLANET
Feb 22, 2024
How a 13-year-old discovered a possible Japanese wolf specimen
A new paper by Hinako Komori and two academics says a specimen she found could be one of two Japanese wolves kept at Ueno Zoo in the late 19th century.
A sea turtle swims off the coast of Brazil. Sea turtles can migrate hundreds or thousands of miles.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Feb 14, 2024
Overhunting and habitat loss endanger migratory animals, U.N. says
One in five migratory species is at risk of extinction, according to a new report by the United Nations.
A Bengal Tiger pauses in a jungle clearing a Kaziranga National Park, some 280 kilometers east of Guwahati in 2014. Tigers in India have been photographed in high-altitude mountains rarely seen before, with experts suggesting relentless human pressure and a heating climate are driving them from traditional hunting grounds.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Feb 8, 2024
India's tigers adapt to higher ground as temperatures soar and human pressure builds
The animals are venturing into higher mountainous terrain, signifying increased pressure on their habitats.
A bear spotted in the town of Shibecha, Hokkaido, in June
JAPAN
Dec 26, 2023
Japan mulls designating bear populations for capture amid attacks
There were a total of 193 bear attacks in Japan between April and November, with six fatalities among the 212 victims.
A giant panda at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington during one of its last days on American soil. Pandas Tian Tian, Mei Xiang and Xiao Qi Ji were returned to China on Nov. 8 upon Beijing's request.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 14, 2023
Pandas don’t play diplomatic hard ball like China does
Panda diplomacy is endangered, with the forced return of three bears from Washington to China an exercise in "dumb power."
Young Japanese eels successfully hatched from the new breeding process
JAPAN / Science & Health
Nov 5, 2023
Japan university becomes first to breed Japanese eels
Nearly all eels on the market come from farms but most are first caught in the wild and smaller catches have raise the importance of breeding from eggs.
Thon Soukhon, who has been a ranger in Virachey since the forest became one of Cambodia’s first national parks in 1993, holds a rope as he crosses a rain-swollen river within the protected area.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy / OUR PLANET
Oct 29, 2023
In the name of sustainability, Cambodia risks its ‘final frontier’ of biodiversity
Virachey National Park is a rare untouched wilderness in Southeast Asia, but potential hydropower plans threaten its future.
The Iriomote cat, native to the island of the same name in Okinawa Prefecture, is remarkable for its resilience: It occupies the smallest habitat of any wildcat on Earth.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife / OUR PLANET
Oct 15, 2023
The last of Japan's wildcats
Only about 100 animals of each species survive today, putting both on the brink of extinction along with more than 3,700 other species nationwide.
Xiang Xiang the giant panda was put on public view on Sunday for the first time since returning to China in February.
JAPAN / Society
Oct 10, 2023
Japan-born panda Xiang Xiang makes public debut in China
In a video posted to Weibo by a giant panda research center in Sichuan Province, the female panda can be seen leisurely eating bamboo shoots.
Sheep rest under a starry night in Pontimia Pasture in the Swiss Alps.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Aug 25, 2023
Crying wolf to save livestock and their predator
Preservation groups have hailed the return of wolves, seeing it as a sign of a healthier ecosystem. But breeders decry soaring attacks on livestock.
Takakia lepidozioides, a type of moss found mainly in the U.S., Japan and Tibet, has survived for at least 165 million years. Now it’s disappearing in the wild due to climate change.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife
Aug 25, 2023
This moss survived millions of years. Warming is killing it
Takakia lepidozioides, found mainly in the U.S., Japan and Tibet, has survived for 165 million years. Now it’s disappearing due to climate change.

Longform

Traditional folk rituals like Mizudome-no-mai (dance to stop the rain) provide a sense of agency to a population that feels largely powerless in the face of the climate crisis.
As climate extremes intensify, Japan embraces ancient weather rituals