Hello everyone,

To introduce myself, I am a Master's student in Environmental Science with a Bachelor's degree in Biology. I also completed a two-month internship on the reintroduction of the yellow-bellied toad in Belgium.

I have several questions.

First, I saw an internship offer at the IUCN office in Brussels last August to which I applied, but I never received a response, even though the internship was supposed to start in October. I recently saw another internship offer at the same office this month, which is expected to start in February, and I applied again. How can I ensure I get a response, even if it's negative, and avoid being left in limbo? I am placing a lot of hope in this internship, as it would be an incredible gateway to start a career in nature conservation.

Most of the offers I see are usually for volunteer work. Do you have any suggestions on where I can look or institutions I can contact to find paid internships? I know that if the internship or organization is located in a European territory (even places like Curaçao, Guadeloupe, or French Polynesia), I can finance the internship with an Erasmus scholarship. I am totally willing to relocate and be in nature to gain experience.

Also, I wanted to ask what your positions are and the corresponding salaries? I’m trying to understand the job market and the mobility that comes with it.

A new camera-trapping study in Indonesia’s Aceh province has identified an ample but struggling population of Sumatran tigers, lending fresh urgency to calls from conservationists for greater protection efforts in the critically endangered subspecies’ northernmost stronghold forests.

The big cat population and its prey likely contend with intense poaching pressure, the study concludes; their forest home is also under threat from development pressure, illegal logging, rampant mining and agricultural encroachment.

Link to the full article:- https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/camera-traps-reveal-little-known-sumatran-tiger-forests-need-better-protection/

Excerpt from Guy Mountfort's book "The Vanishing Jungle" recommending the rewilding of the Sunderbans forest reserve in Bangladesh (at the time East Pakistan). Mountfort would also recommend expanding the reserve's area to ~300 square miles and declaring it a national park.

Official estimates at the time put East Pakistan's tiger population at 300 animals (most of them being in the Sunderbans).

Pudus are very elusive animals and flee in zig-zags when chased by predators. The tiny deer also face threats from wild dogs and species introduced into southern Argentina and Chile. Only about 10,000 pudus remain and are classified as near-threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). "This pudu birth is obviously a joy for us," said Cristian Guillet, director of zoological operations at the Temaiken Foundation.

Guillet said that Lenga will help them research and gather data that will help conservation efforts for pudus and other Patagonian deer, like the huemul. "(This) offers hope of saving them from extinction," Guillet said.

Link to the full article:- https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/rare-pudu-birth-argentina-sparks-conservation-hopes-tiny-enigmatic-deer-2024-11-26/?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=discover&utm_campaign=CCwqGQgwKhAIACoHCAow5P2fCzDxh7gDMOKo2AIwwe6EAw&utm_content=bullets

Ok, so I just saw a post about putting lions and elephants in North America to fill the role the American lion and Columbia's mammoth. This is a really bad idea. So I'm basically gonna rant about all the cringe things I see on this server

Instead of reintroducing endangered animals to other parts of the world, we could support theme in their native ranges. Why put rhinos in the americas as a proxy for toxodon, when they need help in their native ranges

The Vast majority of us aren't ecologist. Most of us don't know nothing about wildlife reintroduction, and while it's cool to put animals back in their native ranges, a lot of the time it isn't possible. I myself aren't an ecologist and if I'm objectively wrong please correct me.

For me personally, we shouldn't put proxies for other organisms in different habitats. That's basically playing god at that point and had unforeseen consequences. We should help the ecosystems we still have before trying to play god and make Pleistocene ecosystems. Let's focus on the animals that are in trouble now instead of trying to recreate ecosystems they haven't existed for thousands of years.

I want this to be a discussion, so I would love to have civil conversations with everyone. Have a good day y'all

Edit: And I know humans caused animals to go extinct at the Pleistocene. But we can't fix that anymore, which out hurting the ecosystems we have left. We should help support the ecosystems we have no instead of recreating old ones that are long gone

Another Edit: Like I said before, most of us aren't ecologist, and I'm definitely not one. I'm glad people are interested in this, as it's important, but at the end of the day, most of us don't realize off the implications introducing 1 species could have on an ecosystem. Me included

Attack was documented on 2 men in pakistan in the Mountainous area called Murree,it's said that the lions are wild and this would mean in winter when it snows a lot (northern pakistan is very snowy in winter) they would likely have thick fur and bigger manes? Thoughts? Also that area is a mountainous area so a proper research can't be done there given the poor wildlife research facilities in Pakistan but I hope they look into it collar them etc to get more info and document them.

Colossal, the de-extinction-advertising company, obviously is known for its plans to genetically reconstruct essentially hybrids or "reverse introgressed" mammoths, thylacines, dodos, etc.

But what if this could have much wider implications on the conservation of other species. Let's say, instead of just fully desiring a clone of steppe wisent, we (also?) gradually introduce the genes and alleles of steppe wisent into modern populations of wisent, buckling under an extreme lack of genetic diversity, essentially "rewilding" a population of wild wisents, and then...just stepping back and letting natural selection run it's course on the selection and evolutionary future of these species.

The same thing could theoretically be done to feral horse populations across the Northern Hemisphere, obviously the tarpan (+ genetic material from Przewalski's horses), but also feral mustangs, burros, the feral horses in Yukon and Alberta, or even a hypothetical introduced proxy population of Grevy's zebra (and maybe even onagers in the north) with genes from E. (ferus) occidentalis, Haringtonhippus, E. (ferus?) lambei and E. simplicidens.

Potentially you could have major and wide sweeping implications for both conservation, proxy rewilding, and de-extinction: a synthesis of all three, on a spectrum from simply reintroducing extinct alleles/gene variants into endangered species for conservation to full blown genomic reconstruction.

The article reads the following "They have already caught magpies and crows. That may sound crazy, but it is really good to see. The tigers are very interested in their surroundings and therefore still have their hunting instinct. They have grown up in captivity, but still go after something that moves. That is important for the project, because then they can also teach their young to hunt. That is very positive."

In a significant achievement in wildlife conservation, India’s tiger population has grown to 3,682 in 2022, up from 2,967 in 2018, showing a 6 per cent annual increase in consistently monitored areas, the Parliament was informed on Monday.

Link to the full article:- https://www.ap7am.com/en/90632/indias-tiger-population-rises-to-3682-doubles-since-2006