This viewpoint considers the historical value of private rhino ownership and the challenges the industry faces now and in the future, in light of substantial increases in poaching and the associated economic impact. With declines in state-managed populations, private rhino owners may have an even more important role to play in the protection of one of Africa’s Big Five. Photograph by Charles Theron.

Elucidating environmental factors that explain distribution patterns provide us with a better understanding of habitat–species relationships. The forage availability mainly explained abundance and productivity distribution of guanaco. Guanaco used habitats with intermediate to low forage availability in the breeding season and those with high forage availability in the non-breeding season, owing to competition between guanaco family groups and livestock and unassessed factors such as predation risk by feral dogs. Photograph by Rodrigo Lorenzo.

We studied leopard in Kamdi forest corridor of Terai Arc Landscape, Nepal using a non-invasive camera trap survey and diet analysis. Leopard density was found to be comparatively lower in the forest corridor. A large proportion (~60%) of leopard diet in Kamdi consists of wild ungulates, but approximately one-third of the diet consists of livestock, indicating intense human–leopard conflict. Photograph by DNPWC/NTNC.

Yellow-eyed penguins in New Zealand are exposed to both regulated and unregulated tourism. We evaluated the impact of a beach closure, implemented to mitigate potential detrimental impacts of human disturbance during penguin breeding. We found that the beach closure was beneficial because average chick survival remained constant in the closed area, rather than declining, as it did at an adjacent area left open to the public. Photograph by M. J. Young.

Rare and secretive snake species with low occupancy and detection rates are expensive to monitor and study by using traditional box traps. The present study compared snake detections between camera traps and box traps designed to detect Louisiana pinesnakes (Pituophis ruthveni), and showed that both traps generated similar detection trends for large snake species. To reduce survey costs, we recommend these traps be used interchangeably, first, by trapping with cameras until a target species is detected and then switching to box traps. Photograph by Toby J. Hibbitts.

Wild small mammals produce economic and sanitary problems on pig farms. The present study aimed to assess how management decisions and habitat characteristics influence small-mammal assemblage, and showed that exotic pest species responded to the way waste and food were managed, the frequency of rodent-control activities and abundance of cats. Recommendations to improve management decisions and prevent infestation are made. Photograph by Daniela Paula Montes de Oca.

Non-invasive sampling methods have become popular in wildlife research; however, temporal consistency in sampling performance of these approaches has yet to be confirmed. We paired hair snares and game cameras to examine temporal variation in brown bear hair and image collection, and found that sampling success of these approaches did not change substantially over multiple years. Photograph by UW Alaska Salmon Program.

Precise diet studies of marine animals have been difficult to perform without direct observation of feeding events or handling individuals to obtain diet samples. Here, we show that DNA metabarcoding is an effective tool for determining the diet from faeces where genus- or species-level diet precision is required, and can reliability indicate diet from passively collected latrine samples and from different age classes of animals. We explore the efficacy and limitations of using this technique to make inference about the diet of the endangered yellow-eyed penguin (Megadyptes antipodes), a species facing localised extinction on mainland New Zealand. Photograph by Melanie J. Young.