The week in wildlife – in pictures

A flock of starlings fly in the light of the setting sun in the village of Popielarze, near Warsaw, Poland.

Arabian oryx – an antelope species that became extinct in the wild in the early 1970s, but has since been reintroduced – seen in the desert near Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

A tiger comes for tea: a deer desperately runs into the water, but is unable to escape the big cat.

Storks rest on their seasonal migration near Karadut, in the Akdeniz area of Mersin, southern Turkey.

Takaya, a well known wolf who spent years living alone on Discovery Island, British Colombia, Canada, has been killed. Conservation photographer Cheryl Alexander, who has been following him for years, said he was shot by a hunter.

A kite flies over a deserted roundabout in New Delhi, India, during the first day of a 21-day nationwide lockdown to try to limit the spread of coronavirus.

A puma, believed to be about one year old, in Santiago, Chile. According to the country’s Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG), it came down from the nearby mountains in search of food after seeing fewer people in the streets due to the coronavirus pandemic.

A deer walks across a pedestrian crossing in Nara, the ancient capital city of Japan, where more than 1,000 of the animals roam free. A local deer protection group says they are doing well without ‘treats’ from tourists, who are staying away during the coronavirus pandemic.

A mountain gorilla in the Virunga national park, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). WWF-UK has welcomed decisions to
close protected areas for mountain gorillas to eco-tourism during the pandemic. Cath Lawson, the Africa conservation manager, said: ‘Mountain gorillas are known to be susceptible to other human respiratory illnesses, so we have to assume that they are susceptible to the virus which causes the disease Covid-19 in humans. That means that right now, minimising human-mountain gorilla interaction, and the opportunity for disease transmission, is the priority.’

An osprey catches a rainbow trout in a loch near Aviemore in the Cairngorms, Scotland.

Birds gather on the usually busy Chowpatty beach, Mumbai, on the first day of lockdown in India.

A fox pounces on a mouse in the snowy hills on the border of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The ancient Broadwells Wood, Warwickshire, from where soil will be taken to try to establish new habitats on the HS2 railway line. Conservationists have criticised the ‘translocating’ of seeds, insects, larvae and fungi found in the earth and tree stumps.

Thirteen rescued slow loris have been released in the Batutegi protected forest conservation area in Lampung, Sumatra, after undergoing medical care and rehabilitation at a specialist primate centre in Bogor, West Java.

A black bear at Chengdu zoo in Sichuan province, China. The Chinese government is said to have recommended an injection containing bear bile to treat severe and critical coronavirus cases.

Coral bleaching on Heron Island, Queensland, Australia. The Great Barrier Reef has experienced its
third mass coral bleaching event in five years, according to a scientist carrying out aerial surveys. Prof Terry Hughes told Guardian Australia: ‘We know this is a mass bleaching event and it’s a severe one.’ The
Great Barrier Reef authority has confirmed the event, describing the damage as ‘very widespread’.

An immature bald eagle tries to hunt a plastic duck on the frozen Quidi Vidi lake in St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. It was seen picking up and trying to take a bite out of the bath toy, before tossing it away.

African manatees are classed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of threatened species. Once branded ‘rogue animals’, these elusive creatures were on the brink of extinction, but hope is rising for their survival.

Andean or spectacled bears were in decline across South America, but records suggest their numbers are growing in Ecuador.

African elephants in the Murchison Falls national park, north-west Uganda.

A peacock butterfly gathers pollen on a blooming branch of an apricot tree, near Pristina, Kosovo.

A seven-month-old lion cub in the Spasi Menya animal shelter in Chelyabinsk, Russia. He had been kept in a shed in Izberbash, Dagestan, until a vet intervened and had him flown to Chelyabinsk, where he is awaiting spinal and stomach surgeries.

New photos, including this one of Kuark Forest, show the devastating impact of bushfires in Australia’s East Gippsland forests. They are sparking renewed calls for the Victorian government to rethink its approach to logging, and bring forward the promised 2030 phase-out of the native timber industry.
A series of before-and-after pictures by Rob Blakers shows the impact of last summer’s fires on the slopes of Mount Kuark, one of the few places in Australia where cool and warm temperate rainforests grow together.