ABSTRACT Surfing's potential as a conservation tool is evaluated in West Africa and Atlantic Maghreb by analyzing the spatial overlap between surf spots and key environmental areas. Surfing communities often advocate for protecting their favored locations, linking wave preservation with broader ecosystem conservation. The methodology integrates surf spot data from reference guides with geospatial analysis to assess proximity to Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), Ramsar sites, and Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs). Findings reveal that of 146 surf spots across 15 countries, 96 are within or less than 3 km from protected or labeled areas, including 59 near MPAs, 61 near KBAs, and 31 near Ramsar sites. High‐density regions, such as South Morocco, Senegal's Dakar Peninsula, Liberia's Robertsport, and Ghana's Gold Coast, offer significant opportunities for synergy between surfing and conservation. The concept of Surf Conservation and Wave/Surfing reserves could be integrated into coastal management policies to strengthen community‐driven conservation efforts. Such initiatives could raise awareness, engage local communities, authorities, NGOs, and foreign stakeholders, and promote sustainable tourism. By adopting these strategies, West African and Maghreb nations could protect marine ecosystems, create economic opportunities, and establish a development model where environmental preservation and local economies mutually reinforce each other, fostering sustainable livelihoods.

ABSTRACT Hybridization has long been a central topic in evolution and conservation. Recent developments in genomics have increased the ability to detect hybridization, defined here as breeding between species, subspecies or distinct populations, and assess levels of introgression between taxa. For decades, hybrids directly or indirectly created and/or spread by humans have typically been considered as threats to conservation, reflected by current regional and national environmental policies that focus largely on potential negative effects. In the context of the latest global conservation policy goals, and increasing evidence of historic natural hybridization events, we call for science‐based, reflective and context‐dependent management of hybrids, applying a framework that shifts focus towards measuring the impact of hybrids, and assessing potential risks and benefits. Alongside demographic and ecological information, it is crucial for impact assessments to consider genetic information, and conservation management of hybrids needs to be more case‐specific.

ABSTRACT Funding for conservation is limited and often biased towards charismatic megafauna. Funding agencies are less likely to support conservation focusing solely on herpetofauna that are relatively unknown to the public. Roadkill is a serious threat to the Hong Kong newt ( Paramesotriton hongkongensis ), which is named after the city where it was first discovered but remained relatively unknown to its 7 million human inhabitants. To raise awareness about this threatened species and raise funds for its conservation, we organized a crowd‐funded, single‐species eco‐art exhibition that showcased different aspects of the Hong Kong newt through high‐quality art in various formats, including photography, videography, scientific illustration, and installation art. In a relatively short time, we managed to crowdsource the funds (>$40,000) needed to host the exhibition, raise awareness about the conservation of this species, and conduct systematic research to inform decision‐making on the roadkill issue threatening this species using the funds raised. Here, we share the lessons learned through this experience, reflect on its impact on the conservation of a lesser‐known local fauna, and highlight the potential applicability of this model.

ABSTRACT The dynamic nature of research prioritization calls for flexibility in conservation research, yet there are many barriers to research flexibility. This article proposes that citizen science offers untapped capacity for flexibility in conservation research. Drawing on diverse examples from the literature, it explores eight common modes of research flexibility in citizen science and five underlying attributes of citizen science that generate a strong capacity for flexibility. Because these attributes are not typically viewed through a lens of flexibility; however, the capacity they confer may often be unrecognized and underdeveloped. By shining light on some common modes and sources of research flexibility in citizen science, this article establishes a shared frame of reference for researchers and practitioners in conservation and citizen science to explore specific ways that citizen science may address emerging research needs. The article closes with an overview of key considerations for actors at three levels—conservation researchers and practitioners, citizen science practitioners, and relevant professional communities—to further cultivate flexibility in conservation citizen science and to assess opportunities to leverage it for greater impact on conservation science and practice.

ABSTRACT Hector's dolphins, endemic to New Zealand, suffer from bycatch in fishing gear. Fishing restrictions in inshore areas have reduced bycatch, although dolphins have been recorded outside these areas. We studied the subsurface movements and foraging behavior of 11 Hector's dolphins using high‐resolution biologging tags to gain insight into their bycatch risk. Tagged dolphins traveled up to 15 km offshore, well beyond the boundaries of fishery exclusion zones, and regularly dove to the seafloor to forage at depths of up to 122 m. During these dives, the dolphins exhibited specific body postures that could increase their risk of bycatch. In addition, some dolphins produced very few echolocation clicks while traveling throughout the water column, potentially limiting their ability to detect nets. These subsurface behaviors may make Hector's dolphins more vulnerable to bycatch than previously thought, highlighting the need to reassess the efficacy of current protection measures.

ABSTRACTThe loss of species represents critical ecological events with far‐reaching implications for conservation biology. Accurate determinations of population status are therefore essential. Erroneous declarations of extinction or extirpation can lead to legal and policy inertia, the premature termination of recovery efforts, and the ongoing degradation of critical habitat. These outcomes ultimately heighten the risk to any remaining individuals and undermine Indigenous peoples’ cultural ways of life within which species are embedded. This study challenges the status designation of a caribou population with empirical evidence derived from a traditional ecological knowledge‐based conservation monitoring program initiated by West Moberly First Nations in the western subarctic of Canada. Relational, field‐based methods confirmed the presence of caribou where the governments of British Columbia and Canada had declared the species extirpated. These results necessitate an urgent reassessment not only of the status of the specific caribou subpopulation but also of broader conservation strategies, land use policies, and environmental monitoring. More fundamentally, the study underscores the imperative to center Indigenous knowledges in conservation biology and to critically examine the epistemic foundations that underpin species status determinations and recovery planning.

ABSTRACT Assessing connectivity among protected areas (PAs) is vital for conserving species movement in fragmented landscapes; yet, most studies consider only a few taxa and ignore interactions between protection levels. We combined a recently developed framework to identify ecological continuities with a multilayer spatial network approach to quantify connectivity among strict and non‐strict PAs, and their synergies, across metropolitan France. This was carried out for 397 vertebrate, invertebrate, and plant species from the national PA plan at an ecologically relevant 1‐km 2 resolution. Results emphasized that non‐strict PAs largely contribute to protected habitat accessibility across taxa, though connectivity patterns varied between taxonomic groups. Importantly, we showed that non‐strict protections can synergize with strict protections to substantially enhance the amount of accessible protected suitable habitats. Our findings highlight the need for coherent PA expansion, strategically improving connectivity. Synergistic PA planning and corridor designation, leveraging new conservation tools, should notably provide viable solutions.

Abstract Marine megafauna populations face global decline from human impacts, making early detection of demographic tipping points essential for effective conservation. Traditional viability analyses rely on Capture‐Mark‐Recapture data, logistically impractical for highly mobile pelagic cetaceans. Stranding data provide an alternative to conventional monitoring. This study presents the first evidence of declining viability in the most abundant cetacean of the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, the common dolphin ( Delphinus delphis ) in the Bay of Biscay. Using a novel cross‐sectional framework with stratified random sampling, we analyzed age‐at‐death data from 759 specimens collected between 1997 and 2019. Female longevity declined dramatically from 24 to 17 years, corresponding to a 2.4% reduction in population growth rate. This demographic decline highlights the Bay of Biscay as a demographic sink despite stable abundance estimates. Our findings demonstrate that stranding data can provide acute demographic signals for wide‐ranging cetacean species, offering critical early warning indicators for proactive conservation management.

ABSTRACT Invasive species disrupt biological communities, but lethal control of invaders often meets staunch resistance, posing a conundrum for policymakers. For instance, the human‐mediated spread of barred owls from eastern to western North America threatens numerous native species—including the iconic and listed spotted owl—spurring intense debate about whether to lethally control this charismatic but invasive species. A recent US Fish and Wildlife Service strategy, in particular, has drawn strong criticism based on untested claims that barred owl control is unscalable and doomed to failure. Contrary to such claims, we conducted successful lethal controls across >50,000 km 2 in California, removing 3373 barred owls—around one third of the state's current population. Critically, monitoring revealed that removals stabilized spotted owl populations and halted the establishment of barred owls. Our work provides direct support for the federal strategy to address this pressing issue and highlights general strategies to maximize conservation while minimizing invader killing.

ABSTRACTUsing military‐type strategies and equipment to conserve wildlife, also known as militarized conservation, is highly contested. In sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA), one acutely controversial aspect of militarized conservation is when armed rangers shoot at suspected criminals inside protected and conserved areas (PCAs). We quantified perceptions among members of eight international publics on the acceptability of this particularly contentious aspect of militarized conservation, testing whether acceptability depended on the specific crime rangers suspect people of committing. Overall, acceptability of rangers shooting at suspected criminals inside PCAs in SSA was low across all eight publics, but acceptability was generally higher among participants living further away from PCAs in SSA than those living closer to PCAs in SSA. Shooting in self‐defense and to prevent poaching were consistently most acceptable across all eight publics. Our findings contribute new comparative evidence about international public perceptions of a very sensitive aspect of PCA management in SSA. This evidence may be useful to decision‐makers balancing competing pressures to protect biodiversity, respect local values, and operate with legitimacy in an international context. Our findings are especially relevant in light of international aspirations to simultaneously increase PCAs while respecting the rights and interests of people living in high‐biodiversity areas.