Even with an injured leg, a tall, grey-crowned crane (灰冠鹤) walks proudly through a bird shelter in the Rwandan capital Kigali. The shelter—called Umusambi Village—has rescued more than 200 cranes from captivity (囚禁). Olivier Nsengimana founded the Umusambi Village in 2015, and runs it together with the government. Umusambi means “grey-crowned bird” in the Kinyarwanda language. In just four years, the organization has helped to increase the population of these endangered birds from 487 to 881.

Before this work began, local neighborhoods were hunting or catching the birds to sell, said Nsengimana. Nsengimana recently explained why this was possibly happening. In Rwanda, the bird is often a symbol of high social position and wealth. So, they are often raised in private homes or hotels.

In fact, six years ago, he said there were more cranes living in captivity in hotels and homes than in the wild. Nsengimana added that poverty and a lack of awareness (意识) of animal protection in the local neighborhoods also led them to catch and sell the birds illegally. He said raising awareness of their endangered position is helping to protect the birds.

For Nsengimana, his own love of the bird goes back to his childhood. He grew up in a village filled with grey crowned cranes. They not only woke up people in the morning, but they also provided entertainment.

Some of the rescued birds are brought to the village after being injured by illegal hunters. Others come from homes where their owners broke their legs or cut their wings to prevent them from flying away.

At Umusambi Village, the cranes are able to recover. When they are healthy enough to survive in their natural environment, Nsengimana sets them free in a protected forest. However, the cranes are still endangered by illegal hunting and by the destruction of their natural environment. This is happening not only in Rwanda, he said. Cranes are endangered in many other parts of the world, including North America.

In a video, an anxious elephant is pacing back and forth. However, the animal instantly calms down upon hearing a song of American singer and actress Cher. The video was the evidence of the pop singer and animal activists' four-year-long efforts to save Kaavan, the world's loneliest elephant.

Kaavan was just a year old when Sri Lankan officials gifted him to Pakistan in 1985. The now 36-year-old Asian elephant spent a large part of the next three decades chained in a small space at the Marghazar Zoo in Islamabad, Pakistan. He was only brought out regularly to entertain zoo visitors. To make matters worse, his partner Saheli, a female elephant who arrived at the zoo in 1990, died in 2012, leaving the social animal with no companion. Lonely Kaavan's mental and physical health rapidly became worse.

The poor animal's sufferings first caused activists to start a social media campaign that urged Pakistani officials to move him to an elephant sanctuary（保护区）. However, their request fell on deaf ears. In 2016, Cher was looking through her Twitter when she noticed messages by fans urging her to help Kaavan. Cher reached out to fellow animal activists Mark Cowne and his wife, Gina Cowne, to help her launch a social media campaign to help Kaavan. They first pushed for Kaavan to rid chains and then persuaded the zoo to add a tin roof over his shelter, water in the pool, and a tire for him to play with.

While the reforms were encouraging, the team soon realized that more needed to be done and set up Free the Wild, a nonprofit organization devoted to rescuing Kaavan and other wild animals in similar situations. It took four years, but in 2020, an Islamabad high court ordered the Marghazar Zoo to shut down and relocate all its animals to new homes.

For Kaavan, that meant taking a seven-hour flight to the beautiful Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary. The elephant is adjusting extremely well to his new home and has even picked his favorite female elephant from the three he has been interacting with since arrival.

In a world on fire and underwater, scientists have announced some good news: Several important tuna(金枪鱼) species have stepped back from the edge of extinction.

Two bluefin tuna species, a yellowfin, and an albacore are no longer seriously endangered or have moved off the leading international list of endangered species entirely. The unexpectedly fast recovery speaks to the success of efforts over the past decade to end overfishing. But tuna are not the only species scientists are thinking carefully at the 2021 World Conservation Congress in Marseille, France, which is organized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Researchers warn that many other sea species continued to be imperiled. For example, more than a third of the world’s sharks are still threatened with extinction due to overfishing, habitat loss, and climate change.

“I think the good news is that sustainable(可持续的) fishing industry are possible,” says Beth Polidoro, a biologist at Arizona State University. “We can eat fish without reducing the population to the point where it is on the road to dying out or extinction. “ At the same time, she warns that the recovery should not encourage us to catch as many fish as we want. “We need to keep doing what’s working,” Polidoro adds.

The IUCN, which determines the world’s most endangered species on its Red List of Threatened Species, also announced at the meeting that some animals are moving in the other direction, onto the Red List. Like the Komodo dragon, an lizard (蜥蜴), it is at particular risk from climate change.

Of course, the work of protection is never over, and it will require close and continuous attention to make sure neither tuna nor Komodo dragons return to the edge of dying out. But for now, people can celebrate a few wins for the animal world.