The week in wildlife – in pictures

An egret passes a tree branch to another during the breeding season at the Daan Forest Park in Taipei

Wild goats on a mountain after Turkish police scattered grass around the mountainside in Gurpinar district of Van, Turkey

The world’s only known albino orangutan has been spotted alive and well in a Borneo rainforest, more than a year after she was released into the wild, conservationists say. Alba, a blue-eyed primate covered in fuzzy white hair – pictured here before she was released – was taken in 2017 from a cage where she was being kept as a pet by villagers in Indonesia’s section of Borneo, known as Kalimantan

A Risso’s dolphin caught up in fishing line. Dolphin numbers in the Indian Ocean may have dropped by more than 80% in recent decades, with an estimated 4 million small cetaceans caught as “by-catch” in commercial tuna fishing nets since 1950, according to a study

A helicopter transports three mule deer to a field clinic where the Division of Wildlife Resources will check their condition to determine how they fared the winter at Hardware Ranch near Hyrum, Utah in the US. The staff collect data to come up with “body condition score”. They measure loin thickness, rump fat and physical size to arrive at an overall score of the percentage of body fat. These deer were captured and measured last fall, so the new data will reveal how well they did during winter, the most difficult time of the year

A mule deer is released by Division of Wildlife Resources employees after a health check at Hardware Ranch, near Hyrum, Utah

A hornbill feeds on banana near Pobitora wildlife sanctuary in the Morigaon district of Assam, India

A coalition of cheetahs struggle to keep their heads above water after heavy storms caused nearby rivers to burst their banks at the Maasai Mara national reserve

A badger is released after TB vaccination. The
controversial cull of badgers across England will begin to be phased out in the next few years, the government has announced, with vaccination of the animals being ramped up instead

Nearly
1,000 hooded vultures have died in a mass poisoning in Guinea-Bissau, pushing the endangered species towards the brink of extinction in Africa, according to conservationists

Cyclamens in bloom at the rock in the Akamas peninsula in Paphos, Cyprus. The Cyclamen Cyprium or Cyprus Cyclamen, and the national flower, is one of 23 known species of cyclamen. It is endemic to the island of Cyprus

A flower blooms amid water lilies, known as Victoria cruziana plants, that have resurfaced in the shallow waters of the Salado River after summer rains following a dry spell in the Piquete Cue community near Limpio on the outskirts of Asuncion, Paraguay. In the Guarani language, the lily is known as y
acare yrupe (the house the crocodile) owing to its size, which can reach up to two metres.

Bats fly out from Linno Gu cave in Hpa-An, Myanmar.

Pangolin scales seized from poachers in 2017 and 2018 and burnt by the Ivory Coast’s waters and forests ministry in the suburb of Abidjan. Between 2016-2019, an estimated 206.4 tonnes of pangolin scales were confiscated from 52 seizures.
The Wildlife Justice Commission believes this is only a fraction of the total being trafficked, as it is likely that a significant proportion of smuggling passes undetected

In the Lower Oder Valley national park in Brandenburg, Germany reddish plants of the species large algae fern, which belong to an invasive species. Dry years have severely affected the park, changing both flora and fauna

A feeding spot captured by surveillance camera on Kangaroo Island in Australia