Cats - Artensterben

A red fox carrying a squirrel in its mouth, a symbol of the hunting success of this highly adaptable predator, which in Australia became a threat to numerous endemic animal species. (© NPS Photo/Kent Miller, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

19. October 2025 Doreen Fräßdorf

From 60 to 1.7 Million: How the Red Fox Conquered Australia in Just 60 Years

When European settlers of British origin brought the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) to Australia from around 1870 onward, they were thinking of tradition, not ecological consequences. Hunting foxes with packs of hounds, then a deeply rooted social ritual in England and now banned, was meant to continue in the new

The only known photograph of the Cape lion, which went extinct in the mid-19th century. (© See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

17. October 2024 Doreen Fräßdorf

Study Questions the Myth of the Extinct Cape Lion as a Distinct Subspecies

A study published yesterday in Scientific Reports questions the taxonomic status of the Cape lion (Panthera leo melanochaita), which was driven to extinction around 1860. For a long time, this large cat was considered a distinct subspecies, characterized by its striking black mane that extended over its shoulders and belly,

A Barbary lion in Algeria, photographed by Sir Alfred Edward Pease in 1893. The particularly dense, dark mane was striking, but this provides little information about the species; rather, it may represent an adaptation to climatic conditions. (© Alfred Edward Pease (29 June 1857 – 27 April 1939), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

12. June 2022 Doreen Fräßdorf

Barbary lion

The cultural significance of North Africa’s lions Lions already played a role in early Egyptian art and literature. Archaeologists, for example, found statues and statuettes of lions from Egypt’s Early Dynastic Period (3100 to 2686 BC) in Hierakonpolis, the religious and political centre of Upper Egypt, and in the former

Jagdgesellschaft um O. Vojnich mit totem Bali-Tiger

Hunting party of Baron Oszkar Vojnich (Oscar Voynich) with kill Bali tiger in 1911. (© O. Vojnich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

1. August 2021 Doreen Fräßdorf

Bali Tiger

A colonial victim of hunting tourism Shortly after the Indonesian island of Bali came under Dutch colonial rule in 1908, the first photographs were taken showing white men in linen suits with pith helmets, half-naked islanders and killed Bali tiger. The Hungarian Baron Oszkar Vojnich is said to have killed