In 1971 FPS proposed a world conference on breeding endangered species in captivity, and the first conference was held under the joint auspices of FPS and the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust at Jersey Zoo in 1972 (Oryx XI:5, May 1972). This proved highly successful and in response to the worldwide demand for a repeat a second conference was held in July 1976, at the London Zoo, under the joint auspices of FPS and the Zoological Society of London, which this year celebrated its 150th anniversary. In this account Dr Paul Leyhausen, of the Max Planck Institute, who is Chairman of the IUCN Cat Group, and took part in the meetings, sums up their content and importance.

The Comoro lemurs, the only wild lemur populations outside Madagascar, are protected and seem secure. But after spending seven months in the islands the author believes that they could become threatened if forest destruction, particularly of the protected forest, continues at the present rate. He urges the need to enforce both forest protection and the hunting laws.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for biomedical research workers to get the wild primates they consider essential for their work. Successful primate ranching could help solve the problem. In 1967 a well-known animal dealer in Colombia, Mike Tsalickis of Leticia, released over 5000 squirrel monkeys on an island in the Amazon in the hope of quick breeding results. Five years later he estimated the island monkey population at over 20,000, and the experiment appeared to have been very successful; later counts, however, suggested considerable errors in the figures and that the monkeys had in fact decreased catastrophically. The authors describe this and other experiments, some successful, but only as a result of expensive supplemental feeding.

Although the tamaraw occurred on Luzon during the Pleistocene, in historic times this buffalo has been restricted to the Philippine island of Mindoro. There it established a reputation for aggressiveness that made it widely known in the Philippines, but it was not described for science until 1888. It has been estimated that 10,000 tamaraw Bubalus mindorensis occupied Mindoro island in 1900 but by 1949 numbers had declined to 1000 animals, and in 1953 fewer than 250 remained. In 1969 Harrisson estimated that about 100 survived in three of their four known areas. Poaching was the main cause of the decline. Thanks to Harrisson's and General Lindbergh's efforts, 1969 also marked the start of the Philippine Government's tamaraw conservation effort, and wardens and guards were posted at the Mt Iglit Game Refuge and Bird Sanctuary in Occidental Mindoro. Between May 1972 and March 1974 I conducted a tamaraw study on 2000 hectares of the refuge where the major tamaraw population was to be found.

How valuable as a nature reserve is a small wood? How much more valuable is a bigger wood, and why? The author shows how ecological considerations and the requirements of different species affect the value of particular areas and should be taken into account in selecting nature reserves.

Maned wolf, giant armadillo, giant otter, giant anteater, and marsh and pampas deer are among the endangered species to be found in the Parque Nacional das Emas, the National Park of the Rheas, in Brazil. But the park is in danger of losing much of its value because boundaries were wrongly drawn and vital areas omitted. The author urges the need for international funds to help Brazil create in Das Emas a well planned, well guarded and well equipped park that will be outstanding in Latin America.

Between August 1974 and July 1975 the authors spent eleven months in Zaire, six of them in an isolated tract of rain forest in the Equateur region studying the ecology and behaviour of bonobos, or pygmy chimpanzees. They urge the need to establish a reserve to protect bonobos, mainly because of threats to their habitat, and suggest an area in the Lomako Forest that is also rich in other wildlife.

Only about 300 mountain gorillas survive in the Virunga Volcanoes of Zaire and Rwanda. In the last Oryx Dr John MacKinnon suggested that a transfer of animals from the Kahuzi-Biega National Park to introduce new blood to the Virunga population should be considered. The author of this article, who spent two years intheVirungaswith Dian Fossey studying the gorillas, points out first that we do not yet know whether the animals are, in fact, suffering from inbreeding, and suggests why they may not be so; and second that there are special difficulties about the transfer that make death of the released animals and disruption of the population the most likely results at present. Dr MacKinnon, who has read the article, agrees that there are many dangers in translocation and that it should not be done without careful consideration and expert supervision.

Four new national parks are being created in Nepal, three in the Himalayas, including Sagarmatha (Everest), to protect the mountain ecosystems with their wildlife and a fourth, the Royal Chitwan National Park (already gazetted) to protect the rich wildlife of the Terai. This park includes a now thriving population of great Indian rhino as well as tiger and gaur, and may be extended to include areas where both marsh crocodile and the highly endangered gharial are found. This ambitious new conservation programme was described by John Blower in Oryx, October 1973. Melvin Bolton is FAO Ecologist with the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Project in Nepal.