During a recent monthlong expedition, a team of scientists conducted one of the most comprehensive surveys ever undertaken in the deep waters of Trinidad and Tobago, a dual-island nation located in the southern Caribbean Sea. Nearly 93% of the country’s waters are deeper than can be reached by recreational scuba diving, making it impossible to map them without specialized equipment. This expedition, which took place between June 29 and July 28 onboard the California-based Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel R/V Falkor (too), helped fill major gaps about Trinidad and Tobago’s deep-sea environment by deploying remotely operated vehicles and other technology in the nation’s deep waters. The scientific team documented dozens of active cold seeps and species believed to be new to science, and mapped about 13% of the country’s marine territory, according to a press release. The expedition also marked a milestone for Caribbean science. It was led by deep-sea ecologist Diva Amon, a Trinidad and Tobago native and co-founder of SpeSeas, an organization that works to advance marine science, education and conservation across the country and the wider Caribbean. Amon, who is also a scientific advisor at the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was joined by fellow scientists from across the Caribbean as well as from the U.S., Canada and Spain. Deep-sea ecologist Diva Amon, right, a Trinidad and Tobago native and co-founder of SpeSeas, an organization that works to advance marine science, education and conservation across the country and the wider Caribbean, led…This article was originally published on Mongabay

NAPIER/DUNEDIN, Aotearoa New Zealand — In 2016, a scandal engulfed Aotearoa New Zealand’s fisheries regulator. Leaked documents showed that the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) had found, during investigative operations conducted in prior years, systematic illegal discarding of low-value fish as well as other violations, such as failing to report the catch of an endangered Hector’s dolphin (Cephalorhynchus hectori), on commercial vessels off the South Island — and elected not to prosecute or inform the public of the findings. The controversy raised a question that conservationists the world over have long asked about commercial fishing: what’s happening on vessels when no one is watching? In the years since, the MPI has mandated onboard cameras across most of the country’s inshore fleet, which operates close to the coast, alongside other forms of electronic monitoring. The rollout, aimed at monitoring catch, discards, protected species interactions, and the use of mitigation devices, has put New Zealand near the leading edge internationally in the use of onboard cameras. This comes as fisheries managers across the world are discussing the use of electronic monitoring as a complement to, or even an imperfect substitute for, the onboard work of fisheries observers, who collect scientific data and report on compliance with rules. Yet electronic monitoring has its detractors, including even Shane Jones, the politician who oversees Fisheries New Zealand (FNZ), a branch of the MPI. He took office following a 2023 general election, after the camera system rollout was already underway, as a member of the conservative…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Checkmate Government Relations, a lobbying firm founded by a hunting friend of Donald Trump Jr., recently represented Vantara, a controversial private Indian zoo that has been in the spotlight over the questionable origins of some of its more than 150,000 animals, which include protected and endangered species. Tristan Breijer, the head of the U.S.-based lobby firm Checkmate’s London office, sent an unsolicited email “representing the Vantara initiative in the United Kingdom,” sometime before July, according to a source who asked not to be named. Breijer is a lobbyist and has a history of representing pro-hunting groups in Europe. Vantara is a massive private zoo that sprawls over 3,000 acres (1,200 hectares): It’s about four times the size of Central Park in New York City and is run by Anant Ambani, the son of one of Asia’s richest men, Mukesh Ambani. The zoo, which claims to be an animal rescue facility with about 2,000 species, came under scrutiny after media reports surfaced that it allegedly acquired endangered animals illegally. A report by CITES, the global treaty that regulates commercial international trade in endangered wildlife, flagged irregularities in some of its animal imports. Vantara has denied wrongdoing and India’s top court dismissed similar allegations after an investigation last year. Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, at Vantara. Image by Bohoindian via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0). In the email allegedly sent by Breijer, he invited the recipient to a roundtable meeting hosted by Vantara on the sidelines of the Animals…This article was originally published on Mongabay

BANJARMASIN, Indonesia — As a strengthening El Niño fuels wildfires across much of Indonesia, NGO and government conservationists are at work in forests here trying to save an increasing number of orangutans from burning landscapes. “Seven individuals were rescued through August,” said Heribertus Suciadi, spokesperson for Yayasan International Animal Rescue Indonesia (YIARI), a Borneo-based NGO working to establish and maintain sustainable orangutan populations. The Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) is one of three orangutan species in the world, and the only one found on the island of Borneo. All three species of orangutan are critically endangered and native to Indonesia. The Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) and Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) are both found on the island of Sumatra. The most recent assessment by the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, estimated just over 100,000 Bornean orangutans remained in the wild. But that survey was conducted in 2016, and conservationists estimated a projected decline in the Bornean species population of around 86% between 1950 and 2025. Researchers attribute this population collapse over three generations to habitat loss and direct killing. Orangutans also reproduce exceptionally slowly, with Bornean females typically giving birth to a single offspring about every seven to eight years, making populations particularly slow to recover from losses. In addition, major wildfire crises accelerate the decline. “Recurrent forest fires, especially in peat forests, cause additional sharp declines about once every decade,” the IUCN noted. Indonesian meteorologists expect an intense fire season through October as climate forecasts point to a strengthening El…This article was originally published on Mongabay

RIOHACHA, Colombia — Amid the low slopes of a tropical dry forest, families from the Wiwa community of Gomke are building a new home. Their ancestral settlement lies higher on a lush mountain in the town of Dibulla, overlooking the Caribbean coast in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Across this region, many Indigenous communities have been forcibly displaced by climate-related disasters or uprooted by armed actors. Gomke’s move to lower terrain, however, is described by community representatives as voluntary: a collectively led adaptation strategy to protect social, educational and spiritual cohesion amid intensifying climate pressures and the presence of paramilitary groups. They call their new settlement Shegunamke. Shegunnamke is a recently rebuilt Wiwa village. Severe weather events and the spread of paramilitary violence have made their home village increasingly isolated and dangerous. In response, the community is building a new settlement in a safer and more accessible location in order to preserve its social and spiritual structures. Image by Roberto Maccariello. The Wiwa have also acquired other parcels of land elsewhere in the Sierra, including at higher elevations. “We have left [those] untouched so that rivers, springs and bodies of water do not die,” said Roberto Carlos Coronado Calvo, rector of Shenzhawimaku, the Wiwa educational institution that combines conventional learning with the community’s language, culture, knowledge systems and relationship to the territory. “If we begin clearing and cutting into the páramo [ecosystem], how can we guarantee life for those living below?” Across the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, known…This article was originally published on Mongabay

In 2020, a juvenile osprey was fatally shot in Ghana. The bird, one of hundreds of raptors killed in similar circumstances across West Africa every year, had been fitted with a leg ring by the British Trust for Ornithology in Scotland the previous year. Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) were locally extirpated in Scotland in the early 1900s due to persecution, and the bird killed in Ghana was part of a population reintroduced to that part of the U.K. beginning in the 1990s. Tim Mackrill, an osprey expert and director of the Scotland-based Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, said the bird’s death points to the need for a conservation approach that spans migratory birds’ entire habitat. “If you’re not thinking of the whole flyway of migratory routes, connectivity, and then where the birds are actually wintering, then conservation efforts for that species are really not sufficient.” Many raptor species, such as ospreys, return to the same wintering site year after year. “They are literally faithful to the same tree, whether it’s in Ghana, whether it’s in Guinea, or whether it’s in Gambia,” Mackrill said. Raptors such as ospreys travel in large numbers from Europe to West Africa during the Northern Hemisphere winter. Image by Eileen Fonferko via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0) Millions of birds travel from Europe to Africa each year, spending the Northern Hemisphere’s coldest months in warmer climates far to the south. “People put a huge amount of effort into restoring raptors and protecting them in Europe, and that is a…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The UK government will require technology companies such as Apple Inc. and Google to stop children from taking, sharing or viewing nude images on their phones and tablets, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told the House of Commons on Tuesday.

Nandy said ministers would introduce primary legislation “as soon as we can,” but declined to give a precise timetable. The government had given Apple and Alphabet Inc.-owned Google a three-month deadline in June to introduce such measures voluntarily. Although both firms offer content protections for young users, neither comprehensively blocks the taking or sending of nude images across devices.

Nandy praised some “meaningful changes” at the operating-system level, including progress toward blocking rather than merely blurring nude imagery on underage devices, and Apple’s earlier rollout of operating-system age assurance tied to safety features on iMessage and FaceTime. She said those steps were not enough.

“For too long, technology companies have failed to protect children from some of the worst harms,” Nandy said. “And to be frank, I am not prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt that progress will continue at the pace that we need it to, while harm is being done now.”

The planned law would require major platforms to build device-level protections into smartphones and tablets sold and used in the UK, covering both existing and newly sold devices. Officials also intend to require apps used by children to introduce similar blocks on nude imagery, so restrictions are not limited to cameras and first-party messaging.

Nandy said the government could reassess legislation if Apple and Google implement technical solutions before a bill is passed. “We know that this is a sector that can, when required, innovate at an extraordinary pace when the chips are down,” she said. Based on the past three months, she added, it was “almost certain” that legislation would be needed.

The June challenge, announced during London Tech Week, set a goal of making Britain the first country where children could not take, share or view naked pictures on their devices. Protections would be on by default for under-18s, with adults able to use unrestricted features after age verification. Officials have said the measures would not require monitoring or reporting of adult users’ content.

An Apple spokesperson said the company launched its Communication Safety feature in 2021 and has continued to expand it.

Nandy said some details still need to be resolved, including which devices would be covered. Draft legislation is expected to apply to operating-system providers and potentially others in the supply chain, such as retailers.
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MacDailyNews Take: Forcing Apple to make it impossible for children to take, view, or share nudes at the whole-device level sounds simple. In practice it would trade one harm for others that hit ordinary users, not just predators.

It cannot stay “kids-only” without checking everyone.

The government itself says blocks would be on by default and lifted only after age assurance. That means adults — and older teens — must prove they are adults to use a normal camera, Photos, Messages, or many apps. Age checks are leaky: they can be wrong around the 16–18 boundary, biased by face/age models, spoofed, or borrowed (a child using a parent’s unlocked phone). Shared family devices become a mess.

A phone that inspects every photo is a different kind of device.

To stop taking nudes, the OS has to watch the camera, the gallery, screenshots, and third-party apps — not just iMessage. Apple’s current Communication Safety blurs and warns after content appears in specific apps, on-device, without sending images to Apple. A mandate to block creation and viewing everywhere is a live content filter on the device. Even if images never leave the phone, users lose the assumption that the camera and photo library are private tools they control. Privacy groups and encrypted-messaging firms called that a surveillance architecture, even when UK ministers claim “no reporting, no monitoring.”

Nudity detectors get it wrong.

Skin, babies in a bath, medical photos, art, sports, breastfeeding, theatre, and accidental crop can all look like “nudity” to a model. A high accuracy rate still produces a lot of false blocks when every UK iPhone is scanning constantly. Kids and parents then fight a black-box “your photo is banned” system with no good appeal.

Safety software can create new security holes.

The UK has already pointed to on-device blockers as the model. A phone sold as doing exactly this kind of blocking was later pulled after researchers found serious other flaws (including a reported way to pair as another child’s “guardian”). Extra privileged scanners in the OS are more attack surface: bugs, poorly designed parental pairing, and pressure to expand the same pipeline later (violence, “harmful” speech, whatever the next statute names).

Determined harm still happens; everyday use gets worse.

A child can still use an adult’s phone, an old un-updated handset, a cheap Android, a laptop, or a friend’s device. Groomers already move platforms. Meanwhile lawful users get friction: ID to turn features off, broken camera workflows, apps that refuse to work unless they hook the OS filter, and a UK-specific iOS that diverges from the rest of the world.

The precedent is the long-term cost.

Once Apple is legally required to classify and suppress a category of pixels on every UK device, the next demand is easier: more categories, more apps, more “just keep the scanner.” That is bad for users who want a general-purpose computer in their pocket—not a government-specified content appliance with an adult unlock.

Child sexual abuse is real; Apple already ships on-device warnings for that reason. The harm of a forced, default, device-wide ban plus age gates is that it weakens privacy and reliability for everyone, while remaining easy to route around for anyone with another device.

Apple already has Communication Safety (and the related Sensitive Content Warning) to detect possible nudity on-device, blur it, warn the child, and offer help—not a full device-wide ban on taking nudes with the Camera app.

What it does

• On-device machine learning checks photos/videos for nudity. Apple says it does not get the images or a signal that nudity was found.

• If a child receives or tries to send such content, it is blurred and they see a warning plus options: message a trusted adult, leave the chat, block the contact, or open safety resources.

• For children under 13 (age can vary by country), a Screen Time passcode can be required before they can view it.

• Apple documents that it is on by default for under-18s in Family Sharing on current software (age varies by region).

• It applies in Apple apps and some share flows: Messages, AirDrop, FaceTime (calls/video messages), Contact Posters, shared albums, the Photos picker, and when choosing media to send in some third-party apps—not the camera itself across every app.

Apple Support documentation

• About Communication Safety on your child’s Apple device
• Check for sensitive images and videos in Screen Time on iPhone
• About Sensitive Content Warning on Apple devices
• Receive warnings about sensitive content on iPhone

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In the village forests of Uttarakhand, in the Himalayan region of northern India, a tree can be charred at its base while maintaining a green canopy at its peak. The distinct separation between burnt and unburnt wood is a physical marker of how high the flames reached. For the local women who rely on these woods for survival, the aftermath of wildfire means their daily chores take twice as long, forcing them deeper into the forest just to gather basic fodder and firewood when those closer to home are unusable. Uttarakhand is the most fire-prone state in the Indian Western Himalayas, with increased fire incidence in the region coinciding with high-altitude warming that exceeds the global rate. Beyond individual fire events, the fire season itself is expanding. While the season usually lasts for about 12 weeks starting in mid-March, Uttarakhand now experiences winter fires, an alarming shift from what was previously snow season, hinting at a deeper ecosystem-level impact. This trend has only escalated, with the state recording a sharp spike in forest fire activity during the first four months of 2026. This period is not just witnessed but experienced through each of the human senses. Trails of grey smoke engulf the bright blue sky. Along with the fog-like situation, the air carries soot, sometimes covering the roofs of houses with snow-like ash. “We are all coughing our lungs out; during that time, our eyes are bloodshot, irritated by all the smoke, and it’s hard to breathe in the thick…This article was originally published on Mongabay

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo — High above the lush forests of protected areas in the Congo Basin in eastern Congo, the calls of endemic birds and monkeys echo through the trees. Beneath the canopy, the Maiko, Salonga, Kahuzi-Biega, and Virunga National Parks sprawl across millions of hectares. For millennia, long before these protected areas were established, Indigenous peoples lived in, roamed and shaped these lands, only to be expelled during the 20th century. “We lived in harmony with the forest,” says Julien Basimika, a young Mutwa man, one of the Indigenous Twa people in Congo. “We protected everything that needed protecting, because our lives depended on it. If we had started destroying the forest, we would have suffered the consequences.” Today, many descendants of those who were displaced live in extreme poverty owing to lack of land, armed conflicts and discrimination. Discussions on how to better involve these communities in conservation fuel passionate debates among protected area managers, environmentalists, lawyers and human rights advocates: Should they return to their ancestral lands or not? Should they be part of environmental projects? If so, which ones? How can we mitigate armed conflicts and the involvement of Indigenous peoples in illegal logging, which complicate the situation? Among the communities living near these four national parks, views vary on how to address these issues. Meanwhile, policymakers are discussing how best to involve communities in the Belém Call to Action, announced in November 2025, which aims to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Deep within Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, one of the most important peat swamp forests left on Earth is being cleared, drained, and burned. The Singkil peat swamp is the largest of three remaining coastal peat swamp forests on Sumatra’s west coast, alongside Kluet and Tripa. Together, these extraordinary peatlands form what’s been called “the orangutan capital of the world,” supporting some of the highest densities of Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) ever recorded. But Singkil is being destroyed. A worker inside the Singkil peat swamp, a legally protected wildlife reserve and crucial orangutan habitat, July 2026. Image by Global Conservation. The Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve is nationally protected under Indonesian law. Clearing forest and establishing oil palm plantations inside the reserve is illegal. Yet forest is being cleared and burned, peat is being drained, and canals are being dug into the swamp, lowering water tables and transforming ancient forests into land for agriculture and oil palm. Satellite investigations have documented extensive illegal clearing and plantation expansion inside the reserve. And Indonesia’s fire season has now begun. Fires are lit and illegal clearing is taking place in the Singkil peat swamp, Leuser Ecosystem. Image by Global Conservation. An orangutan seen in the Leuser Ecosystem, the last place on earth where tigers, orangutans, elephants and rhinos still coexist. Image by Global Conservation. For peatlands, fire can be devastating. Once drained, peat dries out and becomes highly flammable. Fires can smolder deep underground for weeks or even months, continuing to burn beneath the surface and…This article was originally published on Mongabay

LAGO DO PURUZINHO/KARIPUNA INDIGENOUS TERRITORY/CALAMA, Brazil — The Lake Puruzinho community sits on a clear, fish-rich lake in the Brazilian Amazon, an area that, at first glance, resembles paradise. Just 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the city of Humaitá in Amazonas state, the community is soundtracked by two contrasting noises: the song of birds like the crested oropendola as it flies in search of fruit, and the thunderous engines of vessels plying the Madeira River. For decades, the approximately 170 residents of the riverside community ate fish from the lake, but that changed when they learned about mercury — and discovered that large quantities of the heavy metal were being dumped into the Madeira by illegal gold mining. The river, which feeds Lake Puruzinho and is a tributary of the Amazon, receives an estimated 10-50 metric tons of mercury from dredges used in gold mining. “There was a lot of mercury in our hair [because] of the fish, the tucunaré, which we eat a lot,” says Maria Rogelina Soares da Silva dos Santos, a fisher and homemaker, at the door of her house, located on the shore of Lake Puruzinho. “It was a huge scare.” She’s referring to studies by researchers at the Federal University of Rondônia (UNIR), in which she has participated for 26 years. The research examines how mercury contamination affects fish and, ultimately, human health, focusing on pregnant women, breastfeeding women, and children in communities along the Madeira River. The studies revealed, in recent years, the presence…This article was originally published on Mongabay

MADRE DE DIOS, Peru — “Bayolet, my little daughter, had some tests when she was five years old,” says Gladys Ordoñez, a mother from the Shintuya Indigenous community, located on the banks of the Madre de Dios River, in the Peruvian Amazon. “She had already fainted twice at school, and we didn’t know why … That’s where they found mercury.” Ordoñez still remembers the group of “outsiders” who arrived a decade ago to take blood and hair samples. Weeks later, they returned to warn that the fish the community was consuming — its main source of food — could be contaminated. “We said no, that it couldn’t be,” says María Santos, another mother from the community. “We don’t mine for gold here. There is no mining here”. But its source was not in the village: Upstream, illegal gold mining was pouring mercury into the rivers that flow through the Madre de Dios region. Fish came into contact with the heavy metal and traveled downstream before reaching the plates of dozens of local families. Eleven years later, the problem persists. Little Bayolet is now 16 years old. In her fourth year of secondary school, she says she still finds it difficult to concentrate when taking lessons. According to Bayolet, her greatest wish is to finish school so she can take nursing classes. She remembers feeling constant fatigue in the classroom, along with tiredness and weakness. After her diagnosis of mercury exposure, she says she only received treatment for anemia. Bayolet was…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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BENI, Bolivia — Gilberto Vaca Muiba fears that the mercury in his body will end his life. Yet, the fear does not change his routine. He takes his old fishing rod, walks toward the river, and waits patiently for the meal of the day. He is on his knees on one of the shores of the Beni River, in the Bolivian Amazon, waiting for a fish to bite — so he can take the food home. It is a July afternoon in the Bolivian community of Puerto Yumani, and he has just caught a small surubí. The local fish is likely contaminated with mercury, but he brings it to his table nonetheless. Puerto Yumani is one of the five Indigenous communities Mongabay visited along a 41-kilometer (25.48 miles) stretch of the Beni River. The other four are Carmen Soledad and Puerto Motor, in the municipality of Rurrenabaque (in the Beni department), and Eyiyoquibo and Buena Vista, in the municipality of San Buenaventura (north of La Paz department). All these territories, belonging to the Tacana, Leco, and Ese Ejja Indigenous peoples, are exposed to mercury contamination arising in the river. Because of that, the Beni River is perceived in two ways: As a source of subsistence for the communities but also as the center of all their ills. “We eat fish every day; it is our common diet because buying meat or chicken is too expensive for us. In the rivers, we have our food, but this very food is contaminated.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

BANGKOK, Thailand — In the narrow alleys of Bangkok’s Chatuchak Market, the world’s wildlife is for sale. Ensnared in jungles, fished out of rivers and plucked from wetlands across the globe, hundreds of exotic species are packed onto transcontinental flights only to end up on display in what experts say ranks as one of the largest wildlife markets on Earth. Here, alongside Thai milk tea vendors and mango sticky rice stalls, visitors need only veer a few steps from the tourist path to end up in the market’s “Pets” zone — an arguably liberal use of the term. This section of the market hosts a menagerie of domestic and wild animals alike, often crammed into cages with little water and no respite from temperatures that soar beyond 32° Celsius (90° Fahrenheit). From Africa, there are spurred tortoises, fennec foxes, gray parrots, serval cats, and ball pythons. Giant bush babies retail for 48,000 baht (about $1,450), with signs advertising the nocturnal African primates as “newly arrived.” Miniscule meerkats dressed in tutus, sometimes presented in petting zoo sandboxes, are among the most plentiful animals at Chatuchak. Masked palm civets, sugar gliders, squirrels, rainbow lorikeets, and eclectus parrots are on offer from Asia and Oceania. As are baby raccoons, prairie dogs, iguanas, goats, cats, baby pigs, among others. Much of the planet is represented in this market; meerkats, like the one pictured here, hail from Southern Africa and are dressed up to be sold as an adorable pet. Image by Gloria Dickie. To…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Since China banned the import of plastic waste in 2018, plastic pollution has been having a growing impact on the people and ecosystems of Latin America. As the region imports an increasing amount of the world’s used and discarded plastic, new research shows that waste infrastructure in many countries is already buckling under the strain of dealing with domestic trash. As a result, much of the imported plastic is leaking out into the environment, with experts and the U.N. warning of major consequences for human health. A study published in April found that seven countries in the region — the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Paraguay — have become plastic pollution hotspots, or PPHs, where high imports of low-quality plastics meet high rates of mismanaged waste. Global plastic waste generation reached 353 million metric tons in 2019 alone, of which 72% ended up being landfilled or dumped and just 9% was recycled, according to an OECD report. Much of the world’s plastic waste was previously destined for China, but in 2018 the country banned those imports. While Malaysia and Thailand took up much of the slack, Latin America also started importing more plastic waste, although the region has historically been an importer of difficult-to-recycle plastics. “Certain countries in Latin America have started importing more waste but they haven’t actually got the capacity to deal with [it],” Veronica Herrera, lead author of April study and an associate professor at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Apple TV’s dystopian hit “Silo” is heading toward a planned conclusion, but the underground world may not be sealed off for good.

Season 3 wrapped its weekly run on September 4. The fourth and final season, already filmed, is scheduled to premiere July 9, 2027. Apple announced years ago that season 4 would complete Hugh Howey’s original trilogy of Wool, Shift, and Dust. Seasons 3 and 4 were shot back-to-back; production on the finale season ended in March.

On September 7, Apple TV reporter Sigmund Judge posted that the streamer is developing a follow-up project. According to Judge, the show would begin pre-production later this year and tie into Howey’s planned “Silo 40” book trilogy, which Judge said is expected next summer.

9to5Mac amplified the report, noting Apple’s pattern of expanding successful science-fiction worlds. The service has already launched “Star City” from the F”or All Mankind” universe and announced a series set in the “Monarch” universe. “Silo” has been one of Apple’s strongest original dramas, which makes a continuation commercially logical even after the main story ends.

Howey pushed back immediately. Replying to Judge, the author wrote: “Yo, this is news to me. So probably not true.” Apple has not confirmed any spin-off.

The physical evidence is harder to dismiss. Judge and 9to5Mac both point out that the “Silo” sets have not been torn down nearly six months after cameras stopped. Production lots usually clear standing sets quickly when a series is finished. Leaving them intact is consistent with plans to reuse them.

The source material already points in that direction. Howey has said for more than a year that he is writing another trilogy focused on Silo 40, one of the 50 bunkers in his books. That story would run from before the events of Wool through after Dust. In the novels, Silo 40 is the bunker that learned the truth earlier than most and tried to disappear from the system that monitors the others. It is mentioned, but never visited in the original trilogy.
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MacDailyNews Take: If Apple is quietly lining up the next chapter, it would follow the same playbook it used with “Silo” itself: lock in the conclusion of one story while keeping the world available for another. Season 4 is still the advertised ending of Juliette Nichols’ arc. Whether the standing sets are insurance, a coincidence, or the first visible sign of Silo 40 will become clearer once pre-production either starts or doesn’t later this year.

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Every year, twice a year, millions of birds belonging to hundreds of species fly between breeding grounds in Europe and Asia and their non-breeding habitats in Africa. Scientists have surprisingly sparse knowledge of exactly where many species actually go — or what risks and obstacles the migrating birds encounter along the way. Populations of the vulnerable curlew sandpiper, which breeds in in Siberia, for example, appear everywhere from South Asia to East and Southern Africa during the northern hemisphere winter. “One important fact that we all need to understand is that migratory birds do not belong to any one country, but are a shared global heritage, and their survival requires a borderless safety net,” says Alex Ngari, who manages the migratory birds and flyways program for BirdLife Africa. “These birds know no borders, which means that the conservation methods that we develop must be aware of that fact, and every country has a responsibility to protect them.” Until recently, what monitoring there was relied on ringing — but piecing together birds’ year-long itinerary depends on where someone encounters a ringed bird, on that person knowing what the band on its leg means, and details of the encounter reaching some coordinating authority. As lighter and more reliable electronic tags that can be fitted to birds to record and broadcast their locations have become available, researchers have started to gather more detailed information about migratory pathways. This type of tracking is still relatively expensive, however, especially for tags small enough for small-bodied…This article was originally published on Mongabay

When Elsa Quiroz saw the spotted body of a jaguar appear on her son’s computer screen, she couldn’t believe her eyes. “I’d only seen them in books,” she said. In late 2025, a camera captured the animal crossing a semi-abandoned path in Puerto Lara, a an Indigenous Wounaan village north of Panama’s Darien forest, close to the Pan-American Highway, an area known for its rich biodiversity. The community was aware of how many birds lived around them, but not of the jaguars. Samuel Cheucarama, Quiroz’s son, reviews each photo taken by the two cameras installed in Puerto Lara every two weeks. He was as astonished as his mom when he first saw the extent of the biodiversity concealed within Puerto Lara’s forest, which covers an area less than twice the size of New York City’s Central Park. He reels off the list: agoutis, spotted rabbits, turkeys, margays, white-headed monkeys, among others, all found within this wilderness of just 600 hectares, or less than 1,500 acres. Cheucarama’s work is a small part of a wider project promoting nature-based economic alternatives in four communities managing a combined 18,000 hectares (about 44,500 acres) of tropical forest in eastern Panama. Although the Panamanian government has made efforts to reduce deforestation in Darién National Park, deforestation from illegal logging and agricultural expansion has increasingly been putting communities under pressure, with little to no support from local and national authorities. As a result, communities have been exploring alternatives to make their conservation efforts economically viable. In…This article was originally published on Mongabay

In 2020, a strange rumor began circulating in villages around the Yangambi Biosphere Reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Tshopo province. A newly constructed scientific tower, people said, was extracting oxygen from the surrounding rainforest and sending it to Europe, where it was being sold for profit. Not long after, an initiative to plant acacia trees around the reserve was incorporated into the rumor: the trees, some people claimed, were being planted to produce more oxygen for the tower to extract. Then, during an unusually hot spell in May 2024, another version spread rapidly through social media in Kisangani, the provincial capital. This time, the tower was accused of causing the extreme heat by removing oxygen from the atmosphere. When that rumor spread in 2024, the DRC’s then environment minister, Ève Bazaiba, publicly attributed such claims to “ignorance” and “superstitions.” She posted a video on social media to demonstrate that the tower, CongoFlux, does not extract oxygen: it measures exchanges of greenhouse gases between the rainforest and the atmosphere, helping scientists understand the Congo Basin’s role in global climate regulation. But correcting the science only gets us so far. Rumors can also tell us something about the people who spread them — and their relationship with conservation. While conducting research in Yangambi, recently published in Environmental Sociology, we learned that the rumors are ways for people to contest conservation, but also to make claims about who should benefit from it. At the same time, they are shaped by a…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The onset of the rains in South Sudan around April each year is accompanied by a remarkable avian spectacle. “There are so many storks that they kind of look like flies in the sky,” said Megan Claase, a conservation manager with African Parks, the organization that manages the Boma and Badingilo national parks in partnership with the South Sudanese government. The vast flocks congregating in the skies above Boma and Badingilo include African openbills (Anastomus lamelligerus), Abdim’s storks (Ciconia abdimii), and other birds moving across Africa in sync with the changing seasons. “I think it’s a very productive system after the first rains,” Claase told Mongabay, citing as an example the large blooms of winged alates that emerge from termite holes and are eaten by a wide variety of birds, including the storks. “It’s just such a haven for migratory species.” Wetlands at Boma-Badingilo Migratory Landscape, South Sudan. Image © Marcus Westberg. As the rains persist and much of the landscape becomes waterlogged, an abundance of invertebrate food is produced, Claase said. That includes snails and other mollusks eaten by the openbills, named for the curious gap in their bills that help them to grip their slippery prey. The Boma and Badingilo parks and surrounding areas are all part of a massive interconnected ecosystem of wetlands, swamps, woodlands, and grassy plains, which Claase said lies at the heart of Africa’s largest intact savanna system. This landscape, around the size of North Korea, is home to an estimated 6 million antelopes,…This article was originally published on Mongabay