The FPS Hon. Secretary reports on the International Whaling Commission's meeting in Washington which he attended on behalf of the Society. A major step forward was the decision to abolish the blue whale unit, but the quota fixed for the next season was again unrealistically high and the USA shows signs of losing patience.

The re-discovery of the pygmy hog Sus salvanius in some numbers in the Himalayan foothills of Assam this year was an exciting event in which the members of the FPS Indian tour participated: they obtained what may be the first photographs ever taken of this diminutive rare animal. When in April fourteen were captured as well as one hispid hare (probably much more endangered), and held on tea estates in Assam the FPS sent an investigator, Mr Jeremy Mallinson, to report. The following account is largely based on his report.

The Gorongoza Game Reserve in Northern Mozambique is among the finest in the world, combining beauty of terrain with large numbers of birds and mammals in astonishing variety. About two miles from the camp is a flat treeless plain, some three miles across, flooded in the rainy season by the sluggish Pungwe river. Here some months ago I estimated well over 1000 animals of twelve species, with elephant, buffalo and wildebeest predominating, but strangely mixed.

Man is the only land vertebrate to have successfully colonised the remote Easter Island, and his domestic animals graze almost the whole island. Three, perhaps four species of sea turtle occur, and of fourteen species of seabird, eight breed, some in very large numbers. Five bird species have been introduced with unhappy results. There is now a weekly air service to Easter Island, and Dr. Harrisson, who spent eight days there early this year, urges the need for careful study of conservation problems and support for the Chilean government.

In an eight-month field study of the pygmy hippopotamus, an endangered Red Book species, the author was able to make some assessment of the status of other animals in Liberia and Sierra Leone and shows how the danger is increasing for most of them. Chimpanzees in particular are exported in large numbers, and in order to catch the young animals whole family groups may be eliminated.

Two members of the Rhodesia National Parks Department make a preliminary reassessment of the status of the black rhinoceros Diceros bicomis in Rhodesia, and examine the techniques for estimating numbers used by Dr. H. H. Roth in his paper on White and Black Rhinoceros in Rhodesia, in ORYX, December 1967 and which, they believe, led him to overestimate the situation. They call the black rhino the hook-lipped rhino, but the more usual name has been retained in the title as being more widely understood.

A paper in Oryx, May 1970, Elephants or Fire – Which to Blame?, by R.M. Lawton and Mary Gough, may have given a wrong impression of the ecological work being carried out by the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and National Parks in the Luangwa Valley game reserves. The authors of the paper disagree with the policy of culling animals within the game reserves, and consider that the Control of fire should be a primary aim in management.

Anyone who has ever kept orang-utans would agree that they are the most lovable and fascinating of animals. Their sad expressions and reserved ways give them a depth of character rare outside our own species. Man's interest in them has been great for hundreds of years and cave deposits from Sarawak show that our ancestors of thirty thousand years ago shared this interest. Yet the orang-utan or ‘man of the woods’ has now become the rarest, most threatened and least understood of all the apes.