Camera traps installed in the world’s largest tiger reserve, in China, have captured footage of an Amur tigress and her five cubs for the first time.

Recorded in November 2025, the footage from Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park shows an adult tigress ambling along a dirt road, and four young cubs tootling behind her. After a few seconds, as two of the cubs pause to sniff what looks like a stone, a fifth tries to catch up with the rest of the family.

Scientists say they believe the tigress is about 9 years old (tigers typically live for about 10-15 years in the wild), and the cubs are about 6-8 months old.

The 14,100-square-kilometer (5,400-square-mile) national park has China’s largest populations of Amur, or Siberian, tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) and leopards (Panthera pardus orientalis). It’s seen an increase in tiger numbers in recent years: in 2024, 35 cubs were born there.

Amur tigers, which roam the dense forests and snowy mountains of northeast China, Russia’s far east and parts of the Korean peninsula, are endangered due to poaching, forest logging, habitat fragmentation and prey scarcity. By the 1930s, scientists estimated there were fewer than 30 Amur tigers left in the wild. Latest estimates from the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, suggest there might be 265-486 tigers in Russia and roughly 70 in China, mostly in Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park.

“Amur tigers were all but written off in China only twenty-five years ago when, after a century of declining numbers, surveys suggested fewer than a dozen left,” Jon Slaght, regional director of the temperate Asia program at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), told Mongabay by email. “Since then, habitat protections and anti-poaching efforts have allowed tigers to triumphantly return, and today there are 70-80 of them,”

Tigers typically have one to four cubs, so sighting a female with five cubs — the first such sighting recorded in China — is extremely rare. “This is fantastic news, and a clear indication that tiger conservation in China is working,” Slaght said.

As apex predators, tigers require large, connected habitats and healthy prey numbers to thrive. In recent years, China has worked with many NGOs to ban hunting and logging, establish protected areas, improve monitoring and antipoaching efforts, and mitigate human-tiger conflict by working with local communities. “The first footage of ‘six wild tigers in one frame’ recorded in China reflects that China’s conservation actions have been effective,” Zhou Fei, chief program officer of WWF-China, said in an emailed press release.

However, the population in China is “still not demographically or genetically secure,” and requires “expanding suitable habitats, restoring prey populations, strengthening ecological corridors, reducing poaching, and enabling tigers to disperse into broader potential habitats beyond the current core areas,” Wang Jing of WWF-China told Mongabay by email.

Banner image: Screenshot of Amur tiger cubs, courtesy of Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park.

Every year, researchers and people out in nature capture some aspect of animal behavior that’s unusual or unexpected in some way, changing how we understand the natural world.

Here are five such examples that Mongabay reported on in 2025:

Massive fish aggregation seen climbing waterfalls in Brazil

For the first time, scientists observed a “massive aggregation” of small bumblebee catfish (Rhyacoglanis paranensis) climbing up waterfalls in Brazil in November 2024. Rhyacoglanis species are considered rare and scientists don’t know much about their biology and behavior, making these observation especially valuable. Researchers say the fish were likely heading upstream to spawn.

Wolf hauls up crab trap to eat bait

In Canada, Indigenous Haíɫzaqv guardians and collaborating scientists set up a camera trap to see who was damaging traps they’d submerged to capture invasive European green crabs. The video showed a female wolf (Canis lupus) swimming with a trap’s rope in her mouth, pulling it to ground once ashore, then opening the trap and eating the herring bait inside. These actions suggest the wolf understood there was food inside a hidden, submerged container, researchers say. This offers a new understanding of wolf cognition, they add.

Parasitic ants grab power by turning workers against their queen

For the first time, researchers observed queens of two ant species — L. orientalis and L. umbratus — take over other ant colonies by tricking the worker ants into killing their own queen, then accepting the intruding queen as their new leader. The parasitic queen takes advantage of how ants communicate: through odors. She covertly approaches the resident queen and sprays her with what researchers suspect is formic acid, making the worker ants attack their own mother. This study is the first to document this kind of host manipulation, the researchers write, in which offspring are induced to kill “an otherwise indispensable mother.”

Unlikely alliance between ocelots and opossums in the Amazon

Using camera traps, researchers in the Peruvian Amazon captured a predator, the solitary ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), strolling alongside its prey, the common opossum (Didelphis marsupialis), several times. The researchers say the unusual partnership could be due to two possibilities: opossums may benefit from the ocelot’s hunting prowess, while the ocelot may gain from masking its scent with the opossum’s pungency. The footage shows how little we understand about rainforest dynamics.

Capuchin monkeys on Panama island seen stealing howler monkey babies  

On a remote Panamanian island, researchers captured footage of young male capuchin monkeys (Cebus imitator) stealing howler monkey (Alouatta palliata coibensis) babies for the very first time. The researchers say the observations suggest necessity isn’t always the driver of new behaviors, “especially on islands, where both need and free time are often abundant.”

Banner image: A subadult male capuchin with a howler monkey infant. Image courtesy of Brendan Barrett/Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior.

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries.

When Truphena Muthoni stepped up to a royal palm in Nyeri and wrapped her arms around its trunk, few expected her to stay there for three days. Even fewer thought the gesture would spark a national conversation. Muthoni is 22, softly spoken, and no stranger to environmental advocacy. Her 72-hour embrace, now awaiting verification by Guinness World Records, said something that cut through official statements and tired public debates: Kenya’s forests are in trouble, and people know it.

Her vigil began as a “silent protest.” Muthoni wanted authorities to face the consequences of unplanned development, shrinking tree cover, and neglected water catchment areas. She also linked her action to mental health.

“The reason for hugging trees is that it is therapeutic,” she said before starting. The claim sounded odd to some. By the end, the crowd around her included police officers, county officials, and residents who stood in the rain cheering her on.

Tree hugging, usually dismissed as a caricature of environmentalism, has a long history of serious resistance. The Bishnoi of Rajasthan paid with their lives in 1730 when more than 300 villagers died protecting khejri trees at Khejarli, at the ahnds of soldiers sent by the maharaja of Marwar. Their stand helped inspire the Chipko women of Uttarakhand, who in the 1970s placed their bodies between loggers and oaks, insisting on their right to intact forests. Later came the Appiko Movement in southern India; the tree sitters of Clayoquot Sound in Canada; Julia Butterfly Hill atop an ancient redwood for 738 days; and Miranda Gibson’s 449-day vigil in Tasmania. Each episode seemed improbable until it wasn’t.

Kenya has its own lineage, and its most influential figure remains Wangari Maathai. Her Green Belt Movement did more than plant trees. It reframed forests as the basis of public health, economic security and civic agency. Maathai was beaten, jeered and imprisoned. She kept going. Karura Forest in Nairobi, once at risk of being carved into private plots, stands today because of that persistence. Muthoni’s choice of Nairobi and Nyeri was a nod to Maathai’s legacy and to the hydrological systems that begin on the slopes of Mount Kenya and sustain much of the country.

Muthoni is not Maathai, and she is not trying to be. Her method is smaller in scale, almost austere. Yet its simplicity may be what people remember. She hugged a tree until she could not. In doing so, she offered a reminder that environmental activism does not always begin with institutions or campaigns. Sometimes it begins with a single person standing still, refusing to look away, and asking others to do the same.

Read Lynet Otieno’s story on Truphena Muthoni’s tree hug here.

Banner image: Truphena Muthoni, who hugged a tree for 72 hours in Kenya’s Nyeri county, at the foot of Mount Kenya. Image courtesy of Mutahi Kahiga X.

Amid accelerating biodiversity loss and shrinking ecological spaces, it’s easy to lose hope. But every year, there are stories of optimism: of species that are making a comeback after being nearly wiped out.

Here are five such species whose recovery Mongabay reported on in 2025:

Cape vulture

The Cape vulture (Gyps coprotheres), southern Africa’s largest vulture species, saw its conservation status improve from endangered to vulnerable on the IUCN Red List in 2021. The bird’s recovery is thanks to more than five decades of conservation efforts, which include reducing conflict with landowners, mitigating electrocution on power lines, and rehabilitation and captive breeding. However, researchers warn that some colonies are still seeing localized extinctions. (Full story)

Green turtle

After decades of decline, green turtles (Chelonia mydas) are recovering in some parts of the world. The species was reclassified from endangered to least concern on the IUCN Red List this year. The recovery in some regions is thanks to legal protections against international trade and direct hunting, and conservation measures like protecting nesting beaches and the use of turtle excluder devices to keep them from getting entangled in fishing gear. (Full Story)

Campbell’s keeled glass-snail

Campbell’s keeled glass-snail (Advena campbelli) was once presumed extinct. But after discovering a small population of the snail on Norfolk Island, off the Australian mainland, organizations came together to create a snail-breeding program at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo in 2021. There are now more than 800 individuals, of which 340 tagged snails were released into Norfolk Island National Park in July this year. During subsequent monitoring, researchers found the snails are multiplying, which is promising. (Full story)

Bali starling

The Bali starling (Leucopsar rothschildi) was once down to six individual birds in the wild in Indonesia due to habitat loss and poaching of individuals for the songbird trade. But the species is now recovering, partly through Indigenous-led efforts on Nusa Penida Island off Bali. In 2006, all villages on the island agreed to protect 64 captive-bred birds released there by inscribing the protections into their customary laws. The Bali starling population on Nusa Penida grew to about 100 by 2009. Another 420 wild Bali starlings live in Bali Barat National Park as of 2021. (Full story)

Siberian crane

The population of the critically endangered Siberian crane (Leucogeranus leucogeranus) has increased by nearly 50% over the past decade. This boost in the snowy-white crane’s numbers is the result of efforts to secure the migratory bird’s stopover sites along its eastern flyway, or migratory route, between Russia and China, experts told Mongabay. (Full story)

In 2025, Mongabay’s investigative journalism earned international honors for stories exposing environmental crime, corruption, and abuse of both people and the environment. Mongabay journalists uncovered hidden public health risks, schemes to take advantage of Indigenous groups, and took personal risk traveling to underreported regions on nature’s frontlines.

Mongabay’s Karla Mendes won first place in the John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism for her investigative report, “Revealed: Illegal cattle ranching booms in Arariboia territory during deadly year for Indigenous Guajajara.” In this three-part series, Mendes uncovered a direct connection between the cattle industry and a spike in violent crime against local Indigenous Guajajara people in the Arariboia Indigenous Territory of the Brazilian Amazon. Federal prosecutors said they will use Mendes’s reporting as evidence in a trial for the murder of Paulo Paulino Guajajara, a forest guardian allegedly killed by loggers in 2019.

Contributor Gloria Pallares won in the Innovation & Investigative Journalism category of the International Anti-Corruption Excellence (ACE) Award, and received an honorable mention from the Trace Prize. Both honors were for her story “False claims of U.N. backing see Indigenous groups cede forest rights for sketchy finance.” Pallares’s investigation dug into false claims by entities in Latin America that they had the backing of the U.N. to convince Indigenous groups to give up economic rights to their forests for decades to come.

The Rio Grande do Sul Press Association awarded second place for national reporting to Mongabay’s Karla Mendes, Philip Jacobson and Fernanda Wenzel, alongside the Pulitzer Center’s Kuang Keng Kuek Ser, for their report, “That ‘fish’ on the menu? In Brazil’s schools and prisons, it’s often shark.” The investigation found the Brazilian government is buying shark meat for consumption in public institutions including schools, hospitals and elder care facilities. The report cites concerns that shark meat, which can be high in toxic mercury, is potentially dangerous to serve in large quantities, especially for children. A follow-up report also raised concerns that endangered angelshark species were being sold under the blanket term peixe anjo, often without the knowledge of the people buying it.

Mongabay’s Sonam Lama Hyolmo and Latoya Abulu won first place for best international Indigenous coverage from the Indigenous Media Awards. Their investigation, “Reporting confirms alleged Indigenous rights violations in Nepal hydropower project,” underscored complaints by Nepalese yak herders that a hydropower company had fabricated information in its environmental impact assessment, forged signatures, didn’t properly consult the community, and proposed a site that was 90 times larger than what it had received approval for.

Mongabay’s Aimee Gabay won third place for best coverage of Indigenous communities at the Indigenous Media Awards for her four-part series focusing on the struggles that the Yaqui tribe faces for defending its water rights in Sonora, Mexico.

Banner image: Indigenous youth playing soccer in the rain in northeastern Peru. Image by Gloria Pallares for Mongabay.

Within a forested limestone landscape of Papua New Guinea lives a shy, striking bird that’s new to science. This bird is also incredibly rare and may already be endangered, according to a recent study.

Researchers have photographed fewer than 10 individuals of the newly described hooded jewel-babbler (Ptilorrhoa urrissia) in about 10 years of monitoring — all within a 100-hectare (250-acre) area of Iagifu Ridge, located in the Agogo mountain range of Papua New Guinea.

Extrapolating from these figures, “we estimate that Iagifu Ridge may support some 50-100 individuals,” Iain Woxvold, study co-author from the Australian Museum Research Institute, told Mongabay by email. “However, an accurate estimate will require further research, and the actual number may well be fewer.”

Jewel-babblers are ground-dwelling birds with distinctive black masks and white throats or cheeks. Four species were known until now, all from the island of New Guinea.

Woxvold and colleagues first chanced upon the hooded jewel-babbler in 2017. They had set up camera traps to survey biodiversity on Iagifu Ridge, and among the images were those of two birds on the forest floor with distinctive coloration. “We were fairly certain it was a new taxon in 2017 … However, at that stage we were still not 100% sure that it was a new species,” Woxvold said.

More of these birds turned up during subsequent camera-trapping surveys in 2019 and later. “It was strange and wonderful to see them in those early photographs!” Woxvold said. “In 2022, we also set a video camera nearby, and were extremely lucky to film a sequence of a calling male.”

The researchers compared the birds in the images and video with museum specimens and field photographs of other jewel-babbler species. The male and female hooded jewel-babblers exhibited notably different feather colors and patterns from those of the other species, confirming them as new to science.

Conventionally, taxonomic descriptions of new-to-science species require specimens — one or more killed individuals — that are deposited in museums as a reference for future comparisons. But the hooded jewel-babbler has been described solely on the basis of camera-trap images and video.

A combination of factors “make it both acceptable and important to describe the species without a specimen,” Woxvold said.

These include the difficulty of capturing the elusive bird, he said. Its only known population on Iagifu Ridge is also tiny, and the area is subject to various threats like domestic cats and dogs, climate change impacts, and habitat fragmentation from roads and infrastructure for petroleum production facilities, the authors write.

“[G]iven available data on the species’ status and distribution, we feel that taking a whole animal specimen from the only known population would be unethical on conservation grounds,” Woxvold said. “For these reasons, we felt strongly that naming the species now is both taxonomically well-founded and important to encourage appropriate research and conservation action.”

Banner image: Newly described hooded jewel-babblers (Ptilorrhoa urrissia) from Papua New Guinea. Image courtesy of I. Woxvold/B. Gamui.