Once abundant throughout its range, the medicinal leech became endangered largely because it was so widely used by doctors for blood-letting in the 19th century. France alone imported more than a thousand million over the century. Since then demands for research purposes have greatly increased following the discovery that this leech contains a potentially very valuable anticoagulant of human blood. Protection for the species is urgently needed, says the author. One school class could unknowingly wipe out the whole of a small remnant population.

The endemic proboscis monkeys in Borneo live along the rivers and coasts where people also tend to concentrate. Hitherto there has been room for both. But in Kalimantan, logging and wood-processing industries are expanding rapidly — Indonesia hopes to be self-sufficient in pulp and paper by 1984 — and this, together with the planned removal by the same date of 2½ million people from overcrowded Java, mostly to Kalimantan, could seriously affect the proboscis.

After careful examination of trade and other statistics, notably in Hong Kong and Japan, which are the two major importers of African elephant ivory, the authors calculated average tusk weights and estimated the number of elephants involved in Africa's raw ivory exports. They conclude that previous estimates of the number of African elephants killed have been exaggerated.

Land nationalisation, starting in 1963, brought settlers and cultivation into mountain areas of Peru where hitherto spectacled bears had been disturbed only by occasional hunting. This greatly reduced the numbers of bears, and also habituated those that survived to eating the farm crops and farm animals that replaced their natural foods, thus incurring the wrath of the farmers who replied with guns. Moreover, bears are becoming isolated from each other, in some cases confined to high ridges surrounded by cultivated land. The author, who spent two years studying the spectacled bear in Peru, believes that as a result, fewer bears will be able to breed and that genetic variation will be reduced.

By the end of the 19th century the vast grasslands that once covered nearly two-fifths of the US land surface had almost disappeared, turned over to cultivation. Today some of the very few surviving remnants are being saved, but they are unlikely to be enough to support the full range of prairie species, and since the 1930s efforts have been made to create new prairies. Because prairie is prime habitat for cranes, many of which are endangered, the International Crane Foundation, as part of its Ecosystem Restoration Programme started in 1979, is planting a prairie in Wisconsin. The author, who is in charge of this, describes the methods and results so far.

Freddie is a three-year-old chimpanzee born wild in the forests of Guinea. Some time in 1980 his mother was murdered so that Freddie could be sold on the black market. His captor shut him in a plywood box and firmly nailed down the lid. Barely able to move in this confined space, Freddie endured endless dusty hours of travel on the rough bush roads. He was fed any leftovers that could be pushed through the small opening in the side of his prison. Unable to move very much he was forced to sit in his own excrement and as a result his anus became badly infected. He also developed gingivitis, a painful condition which causes the gums to recede and become soft and tender.

Nearly two-thirds of 200 sites the authors visited for an otter survey of mainland Greece early in 1981 showed evidence of otters. In some places there were signs that populations were becoming fragmented, but in some of the intensively farmed areas they were widespread in the irrigation ditches, where reeds and bramble thickets gave them cover. The study was financed by the Vincent Wildlife Trust.

The Chinese regard conservation as important, more for economic than for aesthetic or moral reasons. An economic rationale is a persuasive tool in a developing country such as China. The trade in wild-animal products plus the potential of rare and endemic wildlife species to attract much-needed foreign exchange are important factors. Rational use of wildlife through domestication and sustained-yield harvesting can alleviate pressures on wild populations and help to ensure genetic diversity for the future. Rare and endemic species such as the giant panda attract foreign exchange through tourism and research, and conservation measures preserve a cultural heritage, something of increasing importance to the Chinese.

Several questions arise, however. How do economically unimportant species fit into this scheme? How can conflicts of interest created by economic incentives be resolved? Will the shortage of trained manpower undermine the conservation effort? Once these obstacles are resolved, China may become a leader i n wildlife conservation among the developing countries of the world, and show that conservation and development can co-exist.

In the summer of 1980 four members of the University of London Natural History Society went to Lake Alyki in Macedonia to study a population of tortoises Testudo hermanni. Such studies are urgently needed because very little is known about the ecology of Mediterranean tortoises, which are declining seriously, due mainly to habitat loss and collecting for the pet trade. The expedition chose Alyki after an expedition by the same society in 1979 had reported an exceptionally rich wildlife there including a large tortoise population. A new holiday village nearby did not appear to threaten the main wildlife areas, and a commercial salt works only operated at the north end of the lake from which access to the heath was not easy. However, unknown to the four members, the 1980 expedition had walked into an explosive situation. The following account is quoted from their report.

In 1884 the brown bog-rush Schoenus ferrugineus, a European member of the Sedge Family, was discovered for the first time in Britain on the shore of Loch Tummel in Perthshire, in the Scottish Highlands. The discoverer was James Brebner, Rector of the Harris Academy in Dundee. The author tells how the plant was exterminated on this site but successfully established 90 years later in a nearby site with plants propagated in a botanic garden from a single plant taken from the original site. The story, he suggests, poses a number of questions for plant conservationists.

The black rhino will be exterminated soon in northern Tanzania if poaching is not stopped, says the author, after surveying eight national parks and game reserves, either from the air or on the ground, or both. Tanzania is making great efforts to stop the poaching, but essential equipment is desperately short, and much more outside help is needed.

The people of Brunei know that they need to conserve the resources of their very small country. Proboscis monkey, clouded leopard, dugong, three sea turtles, eight hornbills and the earless monitor lizard are among the fully protected species; and there is little hunting. The people are Muslims, so many animals cannot be eaten. The Government controls timber extraction; no timber is exported and clear-felling is prohibited. So far there are no wildlife reserves, but, after investigating the potentialities of several uninhabited areas, including some mangrove islands, the author has made recommendations.

During a two-week visit to Vietnam the author was able to take one 200-km journey into the countryside, and to talk with the Foreign Minister as well as several scientists. He found that both people and government were concerned about wildlife and that the government would be receptive to offers of help with field surveys. Fortunately the only national park lies outside the areas affected by the herbicides in the war. Elephants survive on the Laos border, but there is no news of kouprey. Rhinos may not be extinct, and tigers have increased, but several of Vietnam's many species and sub-species of monkeys are endangered.

Four rare Pseudemys felis were captured and eight more turtles seen in a two-day survey on Cat Island, Bahamas, in March, 1981. A breeding population of this species persists in an area of 2.5sqkm. Cat island turtles are captured for pets and food by local people and are threatened by potential road building and land development.

So far as is known pygmy chimpanzees, or bonobos, occupy only a comparatively small area in the central basin of Zaire. A large multinational company has acquired logging rights in what is believed to be the core of their range, and the authors, who have been studying the animals, believe that this could mean the end of this major population. A reserve is urgently needed, and they suggest a particular area of undisturbed primary forest where the local people would act as guardians and also continue their traditional uses.