Tracking the people, science, funding and programs working to protect wildlife, restore endangered species and strengthen conservation medicine worldwide.
Photo: The BLT / Noah's Ark Animal Sanctuary, via ABC NewsThe story of Leo, Shere Khan and Baloo at Noah's Ark Animal Sanctuary, followed by the BHOC Initiative perspective on friendship, shared hemoglobin biology and our responsibility to protect life. Different species. The same biological need: oxygen.
Collage: BHOC Veterinary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photo creditsFrom the Hermitage to Istanbul and Tashirojima, discover ten cat cities and islands, their histories and the people who care for their cats.
Compatibility, infection, storage, infusion-related injury and monitoring gaps in dogs and cats.
We are announcing an open call for partners interested in joint research and development with BHOC, based on the CRADA model.
Image source: COP17 Armenia via LinkedInCOP17 Armenia highlights CARES, a coalition of 17 countries, and the separate Species Recovery Alliance, bringing together nine philanthropic funders and organisations with more than US$500 million committed and aligned over five years.
Created and produced by Katie Cleary and directed by Kristin Rizzo, Give Me Shelter draws attention to animal exploitation and to the people who dedicate their lives to rescue, rehabilitation and care.
Katie Cleary’s documentary Why On Earth, featuring Clint Eastwood, resonates with the BHOC Species & Biodiversity Protection Initiative. Archil Jaliashvili reflects on the biology we share and our responsibility to protect life.
Photo: Edgar Beltrán / The Pillar · CC BY-SA 4.0The Vatican’s International Theological Commission has connected care for nature, biodiversity and vulnerable communities with moral responsibility. What does this mean for animal welfare, conservation medicine and One Health?
Photo: Pat Woolley · Source: QUTA study led by Dr Linette Umbrello, with QUT Associate Professor Andrew Baker and colleagues, has identified Planigale petrophila as a distinct marsupial species. Genetic and anatomical comparisons of museum specimens separated it from animals previously classified as Planigale ingrami.
The species is known from three specimens collected within a 12 km area of Kakadu National Park in western Arnhem Land. None has been recorded since 2004. The researchers call for an urgent conservation assessment; the limited records do not establish its present population size.
Published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, the study shows how museum collections can reveal overlooked biodiversity and help define conservation priorities.
BHOC Veterinary visual · Report source: WWF / ZSLWWF's Living Planet Report 2026 reports an average 73% decline in the size of monitored vertebrate wildlife populations from 1970 to 2022, based on 35,803 population trends across 5,790 species. Freshwater populations show the steepest average decline at 85%. The same report also documents a crucial counterpoint: targeted, sustained conservation can deliver measurable recovery, including global wild tiger numbers rising from about 3,200 in 2010 to around 5,700 in 2025.
Archil Jaliashvili has received COP17 accreditation and will join the delegation of Bridge That Gap Hope for Africa Initiative at the UN Biodiversity Conference in Yerevan, 19 to 30 October 2026.
We warmly thank Bridge That Gap Hope for Africa Initiative and personally its Executive Director, Gloria Bulus, for their cooperation. Meet us at COP17 to explore cooperation in animal health and species protection.
Source screenshot: EveryCat Health Foundation · 17 Nov 2008Cats need compatible blood, and healthy donors need careful selection, sedation assessment and monitoring. Read the source-linked article on feline transfusion compatibility and cat blood donation.
Astrophysicist Willie Soon's reflection on Dirac's work inspires a personal interpretation by Archil Jaliashvili: 'I believe that God's design can also be seen in the biology shared by humans and many other species.' The article connects hemoglobin, oxygen delivery and the responsibility to protect life.
Photo: Istanbul University · official university sourceSıvı Sağaltımı [Fluid Therapy] by Prof. Dr. Tarık Bilal includes a dedicated section on hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers (HBOCs), discussing Oxyglobin in veterinary fluid therapy, including anemia, acute intravascular volume loss and hemorrhagic shock. Its inclusion in a university veterinary textbook is a useful historical marker: oxygen-carrier technology had moved beyond experimental literature into formal veterinary education.
Historical source screenshot: Bellwether No. 49 · Penn Vet / University of Pennsylvania · p. 23Bellwether No. 49 documented Wodan, a five-year-old Belgian Malinois police dog transferred to Penn Vet's Veterinary Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania after severe line-of-duty trauma. The report describes a complex course of specialist surgery, ICU monitoring, antimicrobial and supportive care. Oxyglobin was recorded as one component of that broader treatment strategy. Wodan later returned home and continued follow-up care and rehabilitation.
Historical source cover: Biopure Corporation · Oxyglobin Solution - Case Listing Book II · October 2000Between December 1998 and August 1999, Biopure collected 885 veterinary reports through a Free Replacement Bag Offer. The 2000 booklet prints 146 selected canine case vignettes spanning blood loss, hemolysis and ineffective erythropoiesis. Across those clinical settings, the recurring pattern was oxygen-carrying support used as a bridge while the underlying cause was treated, surgery was performed, bleeding was controlled, compatible blood was prepared or endogenous erythropoiesis recovered. This is a manufacturer-collected descriptive archive, not a controlled efficacy trial.
Visual identity: Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework · CBDBHOC has reviewed the goals and targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to understand where the BHOC Species & Biodiversity Protection Initiative may contribute within the conservation work already led by scientists, veterinarians, institutions, local communities and international initiatives worldwide. Relevant areas include species recovery, veterinary capacity, knowledge sharing and access to practical conservation technologies. This is an independent positioning statement. It does not represent a formal partnership with, participation in or endorsement by the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Researchers have described Leopardus tilcayo, a small wild cat from Bolivia's Yungas and the first new living cat species formally described in more than a century. Genomic analysis suggests its lineage separated from related tiger cats about 1.4 million years ago. We did not identify published blood-type or transfusion-compatibility data for L. tilcayo at the time of this review. That matters in a veterinary emergency. Studies in other nondomestic felids show that blood typing alone may not predict transfusion compatibility, and compatible donors can be difficult to find, especially for rare species.
Photo: Jon Sullivan / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0New Zealand’s Department of Conservation reports that a joint annual survey counted more than 285 kākāriki karaka/orange-fronted parakeets at Brook Waimārama Sanctuary on one survey day and 229 on the next, almost 100 more than last year. The critically endangered species has around 450 birds remaining overall, and the sanctuary now supports the world’s largest population. The birds were first introduced there in 2021, making the new count a measurable recovery outcome rather than a simple release milestone.
BHOC Initiative image provenanceA new open-access paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B uses the Zoological Society of London’s 200-year history to examine what wildlife health means in practice. Andrés Valenzuela-Sánchez and colleagues show that the scientific literature remains strongly disease-centred, especially around infection and disease ecology, while wildlife health also includes broader well-being, veterinary science, welfare, ecological responses, management and policy. Drawing on historical analysis and six applied examples, the authors argue for stronger routes from evidence to action and for a more reciprocal One Health model in which wildlife is not viewed only as a source of risk to people and domestic animals, but as an integral part of healthy social-ecological systems.
Veterinary blood donation saves lives. But it also depends on healthy animals becoming donors. A new BHOC Veterinary research concept examines this question across species. In a study covering 29,201 feline blood-donation events, 95.6% involved sedation. Adverse reactions were uncommon overall, but conscious donors had 4.4 times higher odds of an adverse reaction. Beyond cats and dogs, the challenge becomes even more complex in horses, camels, birds, zoo animals, endangered species and marine mammals, where compatible donors may be difficult to identify, access or support in time.
Twenty-five years after 9/11, BHOC Veterinary remembers the search-and-rescue K-9 teams who worked beside first responders at the World Trade Center. On September 19, 2001, HHS reported as many as 300 rescue dogs at the site and 13 Veterinary Medical Assistance Team veterinarians providing emergency care. The documented 9/11 response includes veterinary treatment for fatigue, lacerations, smoke and dust inhalation, eye irritation, dehydration and exhaustion, but we have not identified a primary record confirming Oxyglobin use at Ground Zero. Less than a year later, on August 22, 2002, Fresno Police K-9 Saxon became a documented Oxyglobin real-world case after catastrophic gunshot trauma. In Biopure's 2002 Annual Report, Police Chief Jerry Dyer wrote that discussions with veterinarian Dr. Roger Gfeller left no doubt, in their view, about the pivotal role Oxyglobin played in saving Saxon's life. Fresno Police later established the Saxon Award in his honor.
Photo: Akshita Rabdiya / BirdLife InternationalAt the Global Flyways Summit, governments, scientists, NGOs, conservationists and financial institutions signed the Nairobi Flyways Declaration, committing to coordinated conservation across entire migration routes. BirdLife reports that three multilateral development banks are integrating flyway conservation into lending frameworks, with more than $6 billion in conservation finance being mobilised since 2021. The Asian Development Bank is mobilising $3 billion over 10 years for at least 50 priority wetlands; CAF is mobilising $3–5 billion through 2050 for more than 30 landscapes and seascapes; and the World Bank and BirdLife are mobilising several billion dollars across Africa, Europe and Asia. The scale matches the biological problem: 45% of migratory bird species are declining and one in nine is threatened with extinction.
Photo: GRACE Gorillas / Re:wildLulingu, a critically endangered eastern lowland (Grauer’s) gorilla rescued from the illegal wildlife trade at about 18 months old, has given birth after being rewilded at Mt. Tshiaberimu in Virunga National Park. She was one of four females returned from the GRACE sanctuary to reinforce a small isolated population judged at high risk of extinction without reproductive females. The infant, fathered by wild silverback Mwasa, shows that Lulingu has integrated into the wild group; both mother and infant were reported healthy, and none of the four rewilded females has required veterinary treatment for illness or injury since release.
BHOC Veterinary visualRoss University School of Veterinary Medicine and the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization have signed a Framework Agreement to advance One Health across the Eastern Caribbean. The partnership covers veterinary and public-health education, interdisciplinary research, zoonotic and emerging-disease surveillance, disease elimination and regional capacity building. Ross Vet will contribute technical expertise for certification work on schistosomiasis and dog bite-mediated human rabies, while the wider programme will address antimicrobial resistance, climate change and emerging infectious diseases.
Image provenanceAt Attica Zoological Park near Athens, three two-month-old Sumatran tiger cubs received their first vaccinations and identification microchips as part of an international effort to maintain a backup population for the critically endangered species. Zoo and wildlife veterinarian Dr. Arsinoi Psaroudaki, mammal curator Antonis Balas and head keeper Theodoros Babilis are among the team highlighted by AP. With as few as 400 believed to remain in the wild, managed zoo populations may support potential future reintroductions.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons · CC0Assam is moving ahead with a 235-hectare wildlife complex in Dibrugarh. Phase I includes a veterinary hospital and wildlife rescue centre for species including rhinoceroses, tigers, leopards and bears; Phase II adds advanced research infrastructure. The project brings wildlife treatment, rehabilitation, research and conservation capacity into one major facility.
Photo: Ron Knight · Wikimedia CommonsThirty European turtle doves were released in Hampshire after a roughly 98% UK population decline from their late-1960s peak to 2023. Habitat work includes restored ponds, hedgerows and food plants, while another 100 birds are being prepared for 2027. One released female returning to lay eggs is an early biological signal worth watching.
Photo: Gary Campbell-Hall · CC BY 2.0The 4th International Conservation Translocation Conference brings together specialists in reintroduction, ecosystem restoration and conservation management, with 174 presentations. Organisers include NatureScot, the University of Edinburgh’s Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.
BHOC Veterinary visualJeff Kremer shared a public campaign, drawing on material from Humane World for Animals, that challenges tourist attractions allowing direct contact with wild animals. The discussion highlights the long-term welfare cost of turning wild animals into photo props and calls for tourism that protects natural behaviour.
Photo: Jim Clark / USFWS · Public domainA White House executive order directs the Interior Secretary, within 90 days, to determine whether gray wolves and Mexican wolves meet Endangered Species Act recovery criteria for delisting or downlisting. The order itself does not delist the wolves. It initiates a policy and scientific review that could materially change future protection and management.
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Photo: Hobbyfotowiki · CC0Eight chicks fledged naturally in Kent this summer, bringing the county population to 35 choughs, including nine born in the wild. The partnership led by Kent Wildlife Trust and Wildwood Trust returned the species after more than two centuries of absence. The key milestone is no longer release alone: the birds are breeding and expanding their range.
Mars Veterinary HealthAndy Pharoah, Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Sustainability at Mars, is associated with a Mars Impact Fund grant round awarding more than $13 million to six partners. Worldwide Veterinary Service received $3 million for a Thailand rabies-elimination programme designed to strengthen local veterinary infrastructure and protect animals and communities. Durable veterinary capacity is as important as campaign activity.
BHOC Veterinary visualPablo P. Castelló, Faculty Co-Director of Animals Forward and Research Fellow in the Animal Law Program at the University of Denver, shared a new American Journal of Political Science publication on the political interests of wild animals. Treating an injured animal is only one part of protection when survival also depends on habitat, movement corridors and ecological continuity.
Photo: Sarah Manktelow / DOCNinety chicks from the 2026 breeding season were added to the official population, taking the critically endangered kākāpō to 325 birds. The recovery programme began in 1995 with only 51 birds. New approaches increasingly use remote nest technology and reduced intervention, moving from intensive rescue toward more natural breeding and long-term population resilience.
BHOC Initiative Scout method: BHOC Initiative Scout applies a high publication threshold and screens every candidate for duplication. New items are added only for exceptional rescue or recovery outcomes, globally significant conservation initiatives, substantive veterinary evidence milestones or other material developments; routine news is excluded.
Company news, scientific discussion and BHOC publications.
Open LinkedInGuided veterinary evidence map, oxygen biology and routes into the source library.
Open evidence platformSource-linked veterinary evidence, regulatory records, publications and documented cases.
Open Vet Real-World Evidence & Cases