Ten million cattle and 4½ million sheep and goats, all increasing by nearly 2 per cent every year, combined with a rapidly increasing human population, pose severe problems for good land management in Nepal. But this small country, not much larger than England but with a dramatic and unique range of habitats, from low-lying swamps to the highest mountains in the world, has now embarked on a conservation programme aided by the United Nations Development Programme and the World Wildlife Fund. Plans have been drawn up for four new national parks, covering over 1000 square miles—one including Everest has been approved by the Government—and four new wildlife reserves. Between them these would ensure the survival of most of Nepal's endangered species, including Indian rhino and elephant, tiger, gaur, and both snow and clouded leopards. The author, well known for his conservation work in Africa, has been since 1970 FAO Adviser to the Nepal Government on national parks and wildlife management, under the UN Technical Assistance Programme.

Last year the Indian Government imposed a total ban on the export of tiger and leopard skins, and goods made from such skins. Also all the Indian states banned tiger shooting — none too soon — and possibly too late, for the latest census figures suggest that tigers may now have dropped as low as 1500 for the whole of India. In this article, written in the first place for the Junior Statesman in India, Anne Wright, our FPS correspondent in India and a member of the Cat Group of the Survival Service Commission, who lives hi Calcutta, describes what she saw on several visits to the back streets of Calcutta. This explains one of the biggest drams on tigers and leopards in India.

The Leathery Turtle, Dermochelys coriacea, the largest living Chelonian, is a creature of great antiquity—a survival from the time of the dinosaurs. It is the only representative of the suborder Athecae and is distinguished from other turtles by the absence of a true shell covered by large plates; it has instead a mosaic of small bony platelets embedded in its skin.

Little is known about the heritable behavioural traits of attacks by large carnivores on people. During the last 30 years attacks by brown bears Ursus arctos on people in the Cantabrian Mountains of Spain have been disproportionately concentrated in the eastern subpopulation. Excluding factors such as the existence of a single unusually bold bear, a higher human population density, particular human activities promoting encounters, or clear habitat differences in the area of this subpopulation, we propose that a plausible explanation for the unbalanced geographical attack pattern is that this subpopulation, separated a century earlier from the western subpopulation, may harbour a higher proportion of bolder bears. In the absence of genetic analyses this explanation remains speculative, but supports the hypothesis that genetic variation on the shy–bold continuum may influence attacks of large carnivores on people.

It is, I think, common knowledge that in the course of the war the defences of Gibraltar were strengthened, the garrison reinforced, and the civilian population largely evacuated. But there was another notable measure taken which, so far as I know, has escaped publicity. It is not easy to come by information on the affairs of Gibraltar, but the local belief is that during a brief official visit to the Rock, Mr. Churchill became aware that the famous Apes had so decreased in numbers as to make their continued existence precarious. Conscious, no doubt, of our Society's good purpose, and aware, perhaps, of the age-long belief that if ever the Apes should come to an end a like fate would befall our possession of Gibraltar, the Prime Minister gave an urgent order that the Apes should be increased by such a number as would ensure their preservation. This was done by an importation of monkeys of the same species (Macaca, sylvana) from Barbary, across the Straits, and these are now, to all appearance, well established in their new home. Their location is about half-way up the Rock, and accessible by road. A soldier of the garrison has charge of them and notice boards here and there request visitors “not to touch or feed the roaming Apes”, but in practice no objection is made if anyone wishes to give them fruit. Judging by the number of young ones, the Apes have multiplied since their arrival and the total colony appears to amount now to about twenty.

Hong Kong is one of the busiest metropolises, and the Eurasian otter Lutra lutra is one of its most threatened species. We collected published data for 1890–2020 to document changes in local otter abundance and distribution over time. The 108 records revealed new distribution data and showed that decline began as early as the 1930s. The local Eurasian otter is strongly associated with coastal and alluvial wetlands, and its last refugium, the Yuen Long floodplain draining the Mai Po Inner Deep Bay Ramsar Site, has always been a critical habitat. Our analysis suggests that hunting is unlikely to be a major cause of the otter's decline. Rather, dependence on lowland wetlands makes it particularly susceptible to habitat loss caused by increasing urbanization. Auxiliary infrastructures and water pollution have also exacerbated wetland degradation to the detriment of otters and their prey. There is a need for greater cooperation amongst government agencies and landowners to guarantee otter survival: priority steps include the establishment of additional and interconnected wetland reserves, better stakeholder engagement and enforcement efficiency to tackle entrenched pollution problems, and flood prevention schemes that preserve or restore functional riverine ecosystems within critical otter habitats. The current otter distribution range has been earmarked for development in a government-led mega urbanization plan; the plight of the local Eurasian otter needs to be widely publicized to garner stakeholders' support and galvanize immediate conservation actions across society.

In 2011 we carried out the first systematic survey to determine the density and abundance of endemic forest primates in Siberut National Park, in the Mentawai Islands of West Sumatra, Indonesia. Distance sampling was employed to survey 18 transects located systematically throughout the Park, yielding a total survey effort of 192 km and 285 observations of primates for data analysis. From density estimates for the four resident primate species, the Siberut langur Presbytis siberu, the pig-tailed snub-nosed langur Simias concolor, Kloss's gibbon Hylobates klossii and the Siberut macaque Macaca siberu, we extrapolated a total population of c. 51,000 primates within the Park. We conclude that Siberut National Park is of major significance for the continued survival of Siberut's endemic primates, and provide recommendations to help ensure that it will continue to function as a refuge for primates.

The Endangered tiger Panthera tigris and Vulnerable snow leopard Panthera uncia are umbrella species and conservation priorities. Jigme Dorji National Park is an important protected area for the conservation of both species because it serves as a source site for tigers to adjacent areas and has the largest snow leopard population in Bhutan. Habitat overlap of tigers and snow leopards in Bhutan has been previously reported based on evidence of tigers (pugmarks, livestock killed and camera-trap images) in known snow leopard habitat above 4,000 m altitude. Here we report the first photographic evidence of both tigers and snow leopards at the same locations, confirming habitat overlap and co-occurrence of the two species. The data are derived from the countrywide tiger survey carried out during October 2021–January 2022. Fifty-six pairs of camera traps were installed in a 5 × 5 km grid at an altitude range of 1,200–4,300 m. After a survey effort of 1,528 trap-nights, 478 tiger images and 31 snow leopard images were captured at 12 and three camera stations, respectively. At all three camera stations that captured snow leopard images, tigers were also captured. These findings indicate the habitat overlap and co-occurrence of tigers and snow leopards in Jigme Dorji National Park. Further research is required to inform conservation practice in the National Park focusing on these apex predators.