Another milestone in the conservation of the European bison, with the release of 18 individuals in the Shadagh National Park, Greater Caucasus. This reintroduction project is jointly led by WWF Germany and Zoo Berlin, and 12 of the released bison (3 males, 9 females) were born in European zoos. The other six joined from the bison project in the Rothaar Mountains. 

 

​This species went extinct in the wild in the 1920s, and it was only thanks to the animals that remained in zoos, and collaborative conservation projects, including reintroductions, that the species bounced back and can again be seen across Europe and Central Asia.

🎉Great news to start off 2026... Perth Zoo announced that a Western Ground Parrot chick has successfully hatched and left the nest - a first for this species in human care!

📈Behind this achievement are intensive monitoring and research efforts into the species' breeding biology, which the zoo team has carried out since they received their first Western Ground Parrots in 2014.

🦜With only 100-150 estimated to remain in the wild, successful breeding in human care is an important step towards the conservation of this Critically Endangered species.

Four numbats bred at Perth Zoo have been released into the wild, in the Dryandra Woodland National Park (Western Australia). The four animals were released across different sites where the local government is working to remove non-native predators such as foxes and feral cats. These are part of wider efforts to protect and recover native wildlife in the area.

 

Perth Zoo is the only zoo in the world to breed this species and has released over 300 numbats into the wild in the last 30 years.

Several European zoos and other breeding centres have sent 115 ground squirrels for release into the wild in Bohemia and Moravia in the Czech Republic, as part of a project led by the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic.

 

The wild populations of this threatened species have suffered steep declines mainly due to habitat loss. The release of captive-bred animals aims to both reinforce existing wild populations and establish new ones, and is part of wider conservation efforts for the species.

In a world's first, Parque das Aves successfully bred the blue-eyed ground dove, a Critically Endangered species only found in Brazil that was once thought to be extinct, but was rediscovered in 2015.

 

🕊️ Parque das Aves currently houses six blue-eyed ground doves, including two breeding pairs. Only 20 individuals have been confirmed to remain in the wild, and therefore the ex-situ population is key for future interventions to reintroduce and/or reinforce populations of this species in the wild.