A team led by WCS and Myanmar’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation, along with James Cook University, University of New South Wales and IUCN have completed the first IUCN Red List assessment for ecosystems in Southeast Asia, identifying 64 individual ecosystems types for Myanmar.

WCS released remarkable camera trap footage showing a virtual parade of Asian wildlife – tigers, elephants, sun bears, and other species – individually visiting a single, small watering hole in Thailand’s Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary.

A new study found that animals sampled in the wildlife-trade supply chain bound for human consumption had high proportions of coronaviruses, and that the proportion of positives significantly increases as animals travel from traders, to large markets, to restaurants.

Conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) in Myanmar have announced that this year for the first time, an isolated female Burmese roofed turtle living far upstream on the Chindwin River who has never been known to produce fertile eggs, deposited a clutch of 19 eggs, 14 of which hatched earlier this month.

Twenty-three Royal Turtles hatched from nests on the Sre Ambel River this year. This is more than the total number hatched in the previous three years combined.

In a single deliberate poisoning event, three Giant Ibis, equivalent to 1-2 percent of the global population, have been killed – part of a disturbing global trend where conservationists are noticing increases in hunting of protected species since the spread of coronavirus began to disrupt traditional economic and social systems in rural areas.

To prevent future major viral outbreaks such as the COVID-19 outbreak, impacting human health, well-being, economies, and security on a global scale, WCS recommends stopping all commercial trade in wildlife for human consumption (particularly of birds and mammals) and closing all such markets.