Following its policy of helping small countries, which have special difficulties in protecting their wildlife, the FPS Council asked Sir Landsborough Thomson, one of our Vice-Presidents, to investigate the proposed Abuko nature reserve in The Gambia, for which we had received an appeal for help. This is the first and only reserve in this small independent state (200 miles long by less than 20 wide). On the basis of his favourable report the FPS advanced £3000 from the FPS'WWF Revolving Fund to pay for the necessary fencing. In an interview with the Prime Minister, Sir Landsborough learned of the other proposed conservation measures likely to be promulgated in this forward-looking country in the near future.

Each of the larger islands of the Galapagos has (or had) its own subspecies of giant tortoise. Today ten are known to survive, but two are in serious danger, one of them, on Isla Pinzon (Duncan), because introduced black rats eat the young. To save them the Charles Darwin Research Station has successfully reared young tortoises in the station and will this year return 29 four-year-olds (which are large enough to cope with the rats) to their native island. A new tortoise-breeding centre was built last year, and the work is being extended. This article, which describes the rearing programme and comments on the general tortoise situation in the Galapagos, is based on information supplied by Roger Perry, the retiring Director, who has been largely responsible for this successful breeding programme. An article on the Galapagos tortoises by Dr David Snow, a former Director of the CDRS, was published in ORYX, December 1964.

The author's experience of the damage done by elephants to farms on the edge of a forest reserve in Western Ghana emphasises the point made by Dr. Kai Curry-Lindahl in his recent report to the Ghana government that human settlement should not be allowed close to forest reserves. But where such settlement exists there seems to be no alternative, Mrs Jeffrey suggests, to keeping elephant numbers down by culling.

Faced with the problem of having to capture large numbers of game animals on difficult terrain and in a short time, the author, who is Senior Capture Officer of the Natal Parks Board in South Africa, hit on a remarkably simple and highly successful method. He found that large animals like antelopes will not attempt to go through or past plastic material, and by making a cheap and simple plastic ‘curtain’ he could drive them with a helicopter into waiting lorries. This way he captured 3500 animals in four months.

The Sierra Leone Government has plans for wildlife protection and conservation. But meanwhile the hunting slaughter and habitat destruction go on. One result of killing off leopards, civet cats and pythons was a plague of the giant cane rat which is doing immense damage to crops.

Sixty square miles of the Simien Mountains, home of two of Ethiopia's most seriously endangered wild mammals, the walla ibex and Simien fox, both endemics, has at last been declared a national park. The author, who was Wildlife Adviser to the Ethiopian Government from 1965–70 (he has just gone in a similar capacity to Nepal) has worked unceasingly to achieve this as well as other parks and reserves to protect Ethiopia's still remarkably rich wildlife. This is the second national park to be gazetted in Ethiopia; the Awash park, which the FPS African tour visited in February this year, was declared early in 1968.

At least four species of sea turtle nest in the Fiji Islands. In January 1970 Dr Bustard, aided by a grant from the FPS, visited the eastern group in order to assess the populations. He found, as had been feared, that the turtles were reduced to very low numbers, largely through killing for food; his main recommendation for restoring them is the enforcement of the very good legislation that already exists but which is openly flouted. He also investigated the status of the unique Fijian iguana and urges the need to establish at least one national park to save it—and that quickly.

In 1966 the Ford Foundation made a grant of £78,000 to finance a three-year research project in the Tsavo National Park in Kenya. The big problem to be investigated was the vast and increasing numbers of elephants which were said to be destroying the park by their wholesale destruction of trees. A research programme was started, involving the killing of large numbers of elephants. This aroused considerable controversy, and in May 1968 the Director and a research ecologist resigned. Research has, however, continued under the direction of the author, who is Botanist Warden, aided by a zoologist, both of whom joined the project later in 1968, and a count of the elephants in 1969 showed that they had not increased at all since 1965. Dr Glover's account of the work that is being done, the findings so far, and the changes in the park itself explains why it is important that the work should continue, and for this new funds must be found.

The authors have compiled a list of specimens of endangered and recently extinct mammals in the outstanding collections of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter. All those listed are in the IUCN Red Data Book except the extinct quagga, koala (recently endangered but now greatly increased and well protected), diademed sifaka, rufous rat-kangaroo and Astor and Kashmir markhors.

Britain lags behind many European countries in the protection of wildlife other than birds, although there is a move now to promote a general wildlife protection bill which could be used to protect particular species as and when the need arose. In this article Herr Kirk, who has written a book on mammal protection in Europe, has listed the European countries in which particular small mammals are protected.