The authors found a small number of yellow-tailed woolly monkeys in a part of Peru 200 kilometres from where in 1974 the species was ‘rediscovered’ (having been believed extinct). As the area is also the home of a number of endemic Peruvian birds, they suggest it may have been a refugium in the late Pleistocene and should be both protected and explored for other possible undescribed species.

In the early 1800s the once abundant North Atlantic right whale was believed to be extinct. But by mid-century the species had been ‘rediscovered’, and hunting was resumed until 1918, when the whales were again in trouble. In 1935 all right whales became fully protected by an international convention, and in the 1950s the North Atlantic population was once again ‘rediscovered’. Today, after nearly 50 years of protection and slow recovery, the author assesses the present status of the North Atlantic population. Surveys showed disappointing results until in 1980 a survey of the lower Bay of Fundy (prompted by the threat of an oil refinery being built there) revealed surprisingly high numbers. Another survey in 1981, in which the author also took part, has shown the Grand Manan Island region to be a summer and autumn assembly site for at least several dozen of these endangered whales, including a number of cows and calves. This may be a key area for the North Atlantic right whale's survival.

The southern pudu Pudu pudu, a small forest deer, now occurs only in the temperate Valdivian rainforests of Chile and Argentina. Ninety per cent of its historic habitat, the lowland forest, has been occupied and cleared by man, bringing the pudu increasingly into contact with both man and his domestic livestock. This, coupled with increased predation, livestock diseases and competition from introduced exotic deer, has made the pudu extremely rare and locally extinct in many areas, especially in Argentina. In the IUCN Red Data Book it is classed as vulnerable.

The northern race of the square-lipped rhinoceros Ceratotherium simum cottoni is disappearing in Africa and is now believed extinct in Uganda. Commonly called the white rhinoceros because of its wide (weit) square mouth, it differs from the black rhino in size, habits and disposition. The white rhino occurred naturally in three countries: the West Nile Province of Uganda, north-east Zaire, and the Bahr el Ghazal and Equatorian provinces of Sudan. The Nile limited its eastern spread, although fossils show that it existed in Tanzania some 400,000 years ago. Its extreme southern limit was the river Ora which enters the Nile opposite Wadelai, from where it extended northwards along the western bank of the Nile through to Shambe, and then north-west through the Bahr el Ghazal drainage to the borders of Chad, where in the 1890s it was abundant. Harper reported the collection of many rhino horns yearly in Abecher. At the beginning of this century Sidney described the species as numerous in the upper waters of the Bahr Azoum and the Bahr Aoule, plentiful in the Birao area, fairly numerous north of the Uele river in what is today in Zaire's Garamba National Park, and abundant in Okolo, Aringa and West Madi in Uganda.18Rhinos were so common in all these areas that in 1919 Theodore Roosevelt's headquarters for the Smithsonian African Expedition collecting rhino products was named Rhino Camp. Here in 1932 Captain Pitman encountered 30–40 groups of at least seven individuals each within a day's walk, and he could approach to within 7–8ft because they were unharried by hunters and poachers.

The centres for rehabilitating confiscated orang utans in Borneo and Sumatra have shown that at least some animals can be successfully restored to the wild. But there is still the fear of introducing disease and possibly social stress into wild populations. Two centres, Bohorok and Sepilok, which are largely administered and funded by the Indonesian and Malaysian governments, are extremely popular, have many visitors, and thus have a valuable role in conservation education. The authors, have been working on education programmes at these centres.

Barbary macaques have been on Gibraltar continuously for 240 years, maybe longer. Today they are a major tourist attraction – 1000 people may visit them in a day. But they have caused much trouble in the past, raiding gardens, damaging houses, biting people. Since 1913, with few breaks, they have been fed regularly on the top of the Rock by the British Army. Numbers have fluctuated – in 1900 there were 130, in 1943 only four, which on Mr Churchill's instructions were increased by imports to 24. Today they are kept at between 30 and 40, and controlled by exports to zoos and culling, which the author, who is studying their adaptation to living with man, considers unacceptably wasteful.

Because the salamander Megalobatrachus davidianus makes sounds like a baby crying, its common name in China is ‘baby fish’. The largest amphibian now in existence, it may grow to 180cm in length and weigh up to several dozen catties (1 catty = ½kg); one specimen caught in Hunan Province weighed 65kg. It is one of three salamander species belonging to the Cryptobranchidae. The other two, Cryptobranchus japonicus in Japan and C. alleganiensis in the eastern United States, are similar to the Chinese species in shape and size, but the American one is much smaller.

Two ffPS African tours have been arranged for August and September this year. The first comprises two weeks in Zambia, including six days at Norman Carr's Chibembe Camp, and an optional week in Zimbabwe: August 11–29. The second also spends two weeks in Zambia (Luangwa Valley and Kafue National Park), preceded by an optional week in Botswana on the Okavango Delta: September 3–24. Full details from the ffPS.

In a five-month survey, sponsored by the ffPS Oryx 100% Fund, of the distribution and numbers of primates in Bangladesh early in 1980, the authors visited most of the surviving natural forest. Their report shows that wildlife reserves are inadequate, both in quantity and quality, but acknowledges the Government's efforts in the face of great difficulties.