By Raeanne Raccagno
News Editor
Good News Lions is the Nation & World section’s bi-weekly news segment, highlighting positive news in the country and around the world. The theme of this article is recent animal and land conservation accomplishments.
Eight Rare Socorro Doves hatched from zoo experts' efforts
Socorro doves are extremely rare and have only been present in bird specialists since their extinction in the wild in 1972. Currently, around 200 doves are being cared for throughout Europe and North America, according to Chester Zoo’s website.
Conservationists at Chester Zoo in Chester, United Kingdom, have successfully paired two adult Socorro doves, leading to eight healthy hatches over the summer. The chicks’ parents came to Chester Zoo from London Zoo through an international conservation breeding program, Chester Zoo’s website also said.
“Sadly, the Socorro dove was overlooked by conservationists for many years, and if it wasn’t for the efforts of a group of German aviculturists, who created a breeding programme for the species, it would have been lost forever,” Andrew Owen, head of the bird department at Chester Zoo, said on their website.
16 critically endangered Galapagos Tortoises Hatch at Philadelphia Zoo
A nearly 100-year-old first-time Western Santa Cruz Galapagos tortoise mom gave birth to 16 total babies at the Philadelphia Zoo in August 2025. The mother, or better known as Mommy, one of the zoo’s oldest residents along with the father Abrazzo, gave birth to seven hatchlings earlier in the year, and then gave birth to another nine near the end of the summer, according to the Philadelphia Zoo’s website.
The Philadelphia Zoo reported the babies are a part of the Association of Zoos & Aquariums Species Survival Plan breeding program. Including the newcomers, there are 60 total Galapagos tortoises in the managed AZA population.
“The story of Mommy, Abrazzo and their now 16 babies has captured the imaginations of people around the world,” said President & CEO Dr. Jo-Elle Mogerman, according to the article on the zoo’s website. “It’s made us all think about what legacy means when it comes to conservation and protecting what is precious. It’s Philadelphia Zoo’s mission to make sure these hatchlings are living on a healthy planet 100+ years from now, when they might be having offspring of their own.”
240,000 acres of forest land restored in a rural Chinese county
Youyu County near the city of Shuozhou in China was once described as a heavily desertified area that is unfit for human habitation by visiting environmental scientists, according to Good News Network.
Locals have been determined to make a change in their decades-long efforts to restore the land by hand-planting saplings. The county’s land has an annual precipitation of 400 millimeters and the semi-desert soils also has an incapability to hold water. To combat their surrounding conditions, locals put river mud at the bottom of planting holes and “fish scale pits” innovations to collect mountainside rainwater, according to China Daily.
The county’s forest cover went from 0.3 percent to 57 percent, with around 130 million trees planted, turning it into a “green oasis,” China Daily reported.
