The world is eating a smaller variety of vegetables as diets become increasingly uniform, reports contributor Sharmila Vaidyanathan for Mongabay India. In India, Indigenous crops such as the clove bean and the Yerengere white long eggplant have largely vanished from commercial markets as hybrid varieties dominate supply chains. Prabhakar Rao, a natural farmer and founder of Hariyalee Seeds in Bengaluru, conserves hundreds of heirloom seed varieties to prevent their extinction. “People are all eating the same few vegetables, and the loss of vegetable biodiversity has not received a lot of attention,” Rao said. “Sadly, this loss is happening under the radar.” Recent research has confirmed this loss of vegetable diversity is global. In a paper published in PNAS in July, researchers compiled a list of 1,482 vegetable species in a new global data set, though they note the true number of local and wild varieties is substantially higher. Many wild vegetable varieties are threatened, they write: approximately 24% of the wild relatives of 79 major vegetable species are currently at risk of extinction. “A major consideration that prompted this article is that many of the vegetable species are not conserved in national and international gene banks,” said lead author Maarten van Zonneveld, head of the gene bank at the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru. “There are so many vegetables that need to be rescued before they completely disappear. And the end goal is not just conservation, but also ensuring that this diversity is utilised.” Some reasons for the eroding…This article was originally published on Mongabay

A fishing cat found badly injured and malnourished in northern Bangladesh has been returned to the wild following months of intensive rehabilitation. The feline was recently released into a tea estate bordering a large freshwater wetland, after being fitted with a satellite-tracking collar. Fishing cats (Prionailurus viverrinus), one of the larger species of small wildcats, may number as many as 7,500 in the wild, according to the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. They’re found mostly in India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, where roughly 95% of their range falls outside protected areas. They also occur in Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Thailand; and are thought locally extinct in Indonesia and Vietnam. The Bangladesh Forest Department rescued the male fishing cat in February 2026 and transferred it to the Jankichara Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre in the country’s northeast. The odds that it would survive was low, according to the Creative Conservation Alliance (CCA), the conservation nonprofit that runs the center. “His jaw was dislocated, most likely from being beaten by people, and he could not feed himself. He was badly malnourished and weighed barely five kilograms [11 pounds],” Caesar Rahman, CEO of the CCA, told Mongabay by email. “We had very little hope that he would survive.” After weeks of assisted tube feeding and veterinary treatment, the cat’s health improved and it eventually reached 12 kg (26.5 lb). To ensure a smooth transition back into the wild, conservationists kept the cat in a soft-release enclosure at the Ooterbhag and Indanugger…This article was originally published on Mongabay