The constant flow of new environmental science is a wonder to behold: Every day I receive dozens of notifications of newly published papers from every continent, often sharing discoveries about some amazing or little-understood species.

Most of these papers come from journals whose titles include variations of the words “ecology,” “conservation,” “endangered species,” or “wildlife.” They form the core of our regular “This Month in Conservation Science” column, and you’ll find links to many of them collected below.

But sometimes the best or most interesting new papers come from journals outside the environmental field. This month, for example, my favorite study came from the Hong Kong Medical Journal.

The paper, from a team of five pediatricians, takes its inspiration from tragedy: a baby Bryde’s whale (Balaenoptera brydei) who was struck and killed by a boat propeller in the sea around Hong Kong in July 2023.

But from pain comes wisdom: “As pediatricians, we should seize this opportunity to encourage societal reflection and to educate children and families,” the doctors wrote in the introduction to their paper, which digs into the lessons we can teach children from this whale’s death and similar sad events. The authors offer guidance on talking about animal rights, how recreational activities can harm animals (or people), legal protections for wildlife, overfishing, and more.

As they write in their conclusion, “The death of the Bryde’s whale serves as a reminder to collectively value Hong Kong’s marine life and prompts physicians, especially pediatricians, to strengthen preventive and environmental medicine for children and families in Hong Kong.”

Perhaps other doctors around the world can follow their cue.

Let’s get to some more of this month’s most interesting conservation research:

The Over-Under

Preventing animal deaths on roadways remains an active and important field of research. Here are two new papers: one that looks at animals going above roadways and the other underneath.

• • “Highway Crossing Rates of Wild Felids Before, During, and After Wildlife Crossing Structure Installation” (Ecology and Evolution)
  • “Does artificial light interfere with the activity of nocturnal mammals? An experimental study using road underpasses” (Biological Conservation)

Right Whales and Other Ocean Species

As we covered recently, North Atlantic right whales face a lot of threats that could magnify under the second Trump administration. Here are some new papers about those whales, as well as other ocean-dwelling species covered in the same article:

• • “Vessel strike encounter risk model informs mortality risk for endangered North Atlantic right whales along the United States east coast” (Scientific Reports)
  • “Beyond Calanus: changes to the copepod community in the northeast USA and implications for North Atlantic right whale foraging energetics” (Endangered Species Research)
  • “Predictive Modeling of Juvenile Smalltooth Sawfish Habitats: Challenges and Opportunities for Conservation” (Ecology and Evolution)
  • “Recent Occurrence of the Critically Endangered Smalltooth Sawfish Pristis pectinata in Tamaulipas, Mexico” (Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems) (firewalled)
  • “Responsiveness to cold snaps by turtle embryos depends on exposure timing and duration” (Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)

On the Border

Speaking of the Trump administration, the science of border walls continues to reveal how bad they are for wildlife:

• • “International border fences and walls negatively affect wildlife: A review” (Biological Conservation) (firewalled)
  • “Border fences threaten movements of large mammals in southwestern China post-COVID-19 pandemic” (Global Ecology and Conservation)
  • “Zoonosis: social and environmental connections in the Mexico-United States border region” (One Health Outlook)

Wolves and Snow Leopards

These two species tend to dominate research into large predators and megafauna, and with good reason: They help illuminate so many big issues — especially when they live in the same habitats.

• • “Narrow Dietary Niche With High Overlap Between Snow Leopards and Himalayan Wolves Indicates Potential for Resource Competition in Shey Phoksundo National Park, Nepal” (Ecology and Evolution)
  • “Uncovering the full potential of attitude measures in navigating human-wolf coexistence” (Biological Conservation)
  • “Tracking the Ghosts of the Himalayas: Snow Leopard Conservation Insights From Satellite Collar Data” (Ecology and Evolution)
  • “Dispersal and settlement dynamics of wolves in a lowland ecological corridor in northern Italy: Effects of resource availability and human disturbance” (Biological Conservation)
  • “Silent Signals in the Snow: Tracking the Spatio-Temporal Territorial Marking Behavior of Snow Leopards (Panthera uncia) in the Mountainous Region of Baltistan, Pakistan” (Ecology and Evolution)

Sexy Time

• • “Repeated Copulation and Guarding, and Their Relationship With Male and Female Morphological Traits in the Water Scorpion Nepa hoffmanni” (Ecology and Evolution)
  • “First observation of mating behavior of the endangered forest musk deer Moschus berezovskii in the wild” (Tropical Zoology)

Animal Behavior

• • “Wild recognition: conducting the mark test for mirror self-recognition on wild baboons” (Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)
  • “Space use of a diverse megafauna community in a rewilding area in the southwestern Carpathians” (Biological Conservation)
  • “Tolerance and intraguild commensalism: the case of the European badger and the Iberian lynx” (European Journal of Wildlife Research)

Big Conservation Issues

• • “Who’s Responsible? Public Ascriptions of Responsibility for Endangered Species Conservation in Arkansas, USA” (Human Ecology)
  • “Evaluating the effectiveness of seabird bycatch mitigation measures for pelagic longlines in the South Atlantic” (Biological Conservation)
  • “Rethinking Conservation and Restoration Strategies of Endangered and Key Medicinal Clavicarpa Plants in Yunnan-Kweichow Plateau’s Karst Areas Under Climate Change” (Ecology and Evolution)
  • “Sampling mass mortality events to enable diagnoses: A protocol using freshwater mussels” (Methods in Ecology and Evolution)
  • “Unveiling the Threat to Vulture Diversity: A Comprehensive Ethno-Ornithological Study Uncovers Regional Trade Effects in Côte d’Ivoire” (Ecology and Evolution)
  • “Vertebrates in trade that pose high invasion risk to the United States” (Biological Conservation)
  • “Guardians of the forest: community-led conservation of Malayan sun bears in Mizoram’s dampa tiger reserve, India” (European Journal of Wildlife Research)
  • “Turtle Economic Value: The non-use value of marine turtles in the Asia-Pacific region” (Ecological Economics)
  • “Habitat Occupancy of the Critically Endangered Chinese Pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) Under Human Disturbance in an Urban Environment: Implications for Conservation” (Ecology and Evolution)
  • “Selecting habitats to reintroduce the endangered species Ardisia gigantifolia (Primulaceae) based on growth and physiological traits” (Global Ecology and Conservation)
  • “Projected Climate Scenarios Reveal an Expanding Suitable Habitat for the Critically Endangered African White-Backed Vulture Gyps africanus” (Integrative Conservation)
  • “Are Chemicals a Useful Tool for Glass Eel Traceability?” (Fishes) — part of a special issue on “the roles of fishery biology and fish population dynamics in fisheries management”
  • “Wild boar hunting and trapping as a threat for wildlife conservation on Sumatra, Indonesia” (Conservation Science and Practice)
  • “Amaranthus pakai (Amaranthaceae), a New Critically Endangered Species from the Hawaiian Islands” (Novon)
  • “Discovery of a potential open ocean nursery for the endangered shortfin mako shark in a global fishing hotspot” (Scientific Reports)
  • “Mercury exposure in an endangered songbird: influence of marsh hydrology and evidence for early breeding impairment” (Ecotoxicity) (firewalled)
  • “Proposal to list the Peruvian tuco-tuco (Ctenomys peruanus, Ctenomyidae, Rodentia) as a critically endangered species” (Biodiversitas)
  • “Why are hazel dormice common while edible dormice are endangered in Lithuania? The importance of forest management for dormouse conservation” (Journal of Vertebrate Biology)
  • “Do Endangered Glacial Relicts Have a Chance for Effective Conservation in the Age of Global Warming? A Case Study: Salix lapponum in Eastern Poland” (Biology)
  • “What the Turtles Taught Us: Improving Migratory Outcomes for Eastern Long-Necked Turtles Across Conservation Fences” (Ecological Management & Restoration)

Special Issues

Rounding it all off, we go beyond the individual papers to look at two cases of broader coverage:

• • The journal Ecopsychology published a special issue on “Nature and Health.”
  • And Biological Conservation released a special issue on “Leveraging genetics in spatial conservation prioritization.” Read the introduction.

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Our next science roundup column will appear in late March and cover publications from roughly Feb. 1 to March 15. We’re happy to hear from any author or team with a new paper coming out in a peer-reviewed journal or other publication during that timeframe, especially if you’re from the Global South or an institution without much public-relations support. For consideration in a future column, drop us a link at tips@therevelator.org and use the subject line TMICS.