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BioRescue, an international consortium of scientists and conservationists, succeeded in achieving the world’s first pregnancy of a rhinoceros after an embryo transfer. The southern white rhino embryo was produced in vitro from collected egg cells and sperm and transferred into a southern white rhino surrogate mother at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya on September 24, 2023. The BioRescue team confirmed a pregnancy of 70 days with a well-developed 6.4 cm long male embryo. The successful embryo transfer and pregnancy are a proof of concept and allow to now safely move to the transfer of northern white rhino embryos – a cornerstone in the mission to save the northern white rhino from extinction.

Scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) analysed 370 documented cases of hedgehogs being injured (cut) by electric gardening tools in Germany. Almost half of the hedgehogs found between June 2022 and September 2023 did not survive the injuries. The data reveal a serious animal welfare and conservation issue for these specially protected animals, as most hedgehogs were only found hours or even days after the accidents. In two further studies, an international team of scientists analysed how hedgehogs behaviourally respond to an approaching robotic lawn mower. The observed behavioural responses were used to develop a scientifically sound, standardised safety test to protect hedgehogs for robotic devices. The three scientific papers are published in the special issue “Applied Hedgehog Conservation Research” of the scientific journal “Animals”.

An international research consortium with the participation of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) is building the world's largest koala pedigree genomic database. This will help to improve the understanding and prevention of diseases, protect endangered koala populations, and thus ensure that koalas prosper everywhere in the long run. Among key challenges for these animals is the koala retrovirus (KoRV), which increases their susceptibility to bacterial infections, leukaemia and other types of cancer. All koalas in zoological gardens in North America and Europe as well as almost all free-ranging koalas in Australia carry this virus.

Not only do many bats die at wind turbines, the turbines also displace some species from their habitats over large areas. When the turbines are in operation at relatively high wind speeds, the activity of bat species that hunt in structurally dense habitats such as forests drops by almost 80 per cent within a radius of 80 to 450 metres around the turbine. This is the result of a scientific investigation led by scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) and the Philipps-Universität Marburg, which is published in the journal “Global Ecology and Conservation". The team suggests that one of the causes of this avoidance behaviour is the noise emission of the turbine rotors, which increases with increasing wind speed.

While some wildlife species thrive well in cities, it's harder for large, insectivorous bat species to find enough food: To get their fill, city-dwelling common noctules (Nyctalus noctula) have to hunt longer than their rural counterparts and yet they catch fewer insects. While rural bats hunt together, their urban counterparts regularly forage alone. These findings, published in the scientific journal “Global Change Biology”, are the results of a new scientific investigation led by PD Dr Christian Voigt and Dr Laura Stidsholt from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW).

In late summer, some bat species migrate from northern Europe along the coastlines to their wintering sites in central and western Europe. Until now it was assumed that all bats travelled in the same direction during the migration. However, the reality is more complex: On the Latvian Baltic coast, a research team led by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) reconstructed the flight paths of Nathusius’ pipistrelle bats using ultrasound microphones. Most animals flew southwards in late summer, but on some days 20 percent travelled in the opposite direction – presumably owing to weather conditions. More and more wind turbines are being set up along the coasts and on the high seas of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. As bats spend more time along the coastlines than expected, partially deviate onto the high seas and even fly detours, the wind turbines pose a more (deadly) danger to bats than previously recognised, the team concludes in an article in the journal “Global Ecology and Conservation”.

Reproductive behaviour in the animal kingdom is extremely diverse. Until now, it was believed that the copulatory behaviours of mammals always involve penetration of the female genital tract by the penis. A scientific investigation led by the University of Lausanne and the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW), which was recently published in the journal “Current Biology”, reveals an exception in bats, a group of mammals whose sexual behaviour is still poorly understood. The common serotine bat mates without intromission of the penis into the female genital tract.

Wild caviar, a pricey delicacy made from sturgeon eggs, has been illegal for decades since poaching brought the fish to the brink of extinction. Today, legal, internationally tradeable caviar can only come from farmed sturgeon, and there are strict regulations in place to help protect the species. However, by conducting genetic and isotope analyses on caviar samples from Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Ukraine—nations bordering the remaining wild sturgeon populations—a team of sturgeon experts found evidence that these regulations are actively being broken. Their results, published today in the journal “Current Biology”, show that half of the commercial caviar products they sampled are illegal, and some don’t even contain any trace of sturgeon.