California News

In his acceptance speech for Best Actor at last night's Academy Awards, Leonardo DiCaprio made a case for taking action to address climate change. "Making The Revenant was about man's…

Tarantulas in the genus Aphonopelma are some of the most unique spiders in the United States, but it turns out they haven’t been the subject of too much scientific inquiry.…

An ongoing methane gas leak at a facility in Southern California — what’s been called “the nation’s biggest environmental disaster since the BP oil spill” — has officially been declared…

Private-sector plans to biofabricate rhino horns to be carved into luxury items or resold into medicinal markets has raised controversy among conservationists who believe it will fuel the demand for the real thing.

id-November marks the start of California’s commercial Dungeness crab season and in the month that follows, crab fishermen spend long hours along the coast checking their crab pots, repairing gear,…

On November 22, Nola -- a 41-year old, critically endangered female northern white rhino -- died at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in California. With just three northern white rhinos…

Scientists have observed declining snowpack accumulation across the globe, with snowfields that were once considered permanent shrinking from the Rocky Mountains to the Himalayas. Snowpack in California’s Sierra Nevadas was…

The terminator has joined the fight against ivory poaching. Former movie star and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger is now a part of the 96 Elephants campaign — an anti-poaching initiative by…

Some key findings from a recent technology meeting identifying challenges and opportunities for applying new technologies to monitoring forests and preventing illegal logging.

By combining wildlife tracking data with information from satellites, Mark Hebblewhite pushes the boundaries of wildlife biology to uncover new information about the complex interplay among wolves, large ungulates such as elk and caribou and the ever-expanding human footprint.

Solar power generation is booming in the U.S. In 2014, for example, big solar facilities or the utility-scale solar energy installations generating at least 1 megawatt (MW) — enough to power around…

The state of California has officially banned the sale of virtually all elephant ivory and rhino horn. On Sunday California governor Jerry Brown signed state assembly bill AB 96 into…

On April 1, California Governor Jerry Brown stood in a Sierra Nevada meadow atop parched, brown grass — at an elevation of 6,800 feet, where there would normally be five…

The Conservation Drones Summit hosted by the California Academy of Sciences is being streamed live on Periscope by Bryson Voirin. You can watch here. You can also follow the event…

hrough years of effort, scientists have assessed the conservation status of some 77,000 species of plants and animals via the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species. Scientific records on the…

Today the California Senate approved legislation that would ban the ivory and rhinoceros horn across the state. AB 96 passed 26-13, reflecting widespread support for the measure, which aims to…

The Wilmers Lab, based out of University of California Santa Cruz, has published a pair of papers in Science and Movement Ecology detailing the instantaneous energetics of wild pumas as they hunt and kill prey. The findings give insight into how their hunting techniques may have evolved over time.

As you may have noticed, over the weekend Mongabay.com changed. This is the first phase of a roll-out that will take place over the next few weeks.

An aerial view of part of the spill on Wednesday, May 20, 2015. Photo credit: Refugio Response Information website. On Tuesday, an underground oil pipeline burst near Goleta, California, spilling…

Redwoods in Big Basin State Park, California. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. If you Google "rainforest," you're almost assured to get a page of search results mostly about the tropics.…

Researchers find 80 percent chance of megadrought in American West due to climate change this century Dust storm in Texas during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. New research finds…

Sierra Nevada fox caught on camera trap in Yosemite National Park. Photo by: National Park Service. For years, biologists believed the Sierra Nevada fox (Vulpes vulpes necator) was down to…

A new study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examines how California’s forests have changed since the 1930s--and, according to its authors, can help us understand…

Baby elephant in South Africa. California congresswoman, Toni G. Atkins, introduced a bill yesterday (AB 96) that would close a major loophole allowing ivory to be sold all over the…

The most important environmental and wildlife stories from the last year Also see our Top 10 HAPPY Environmental Stories of 2014 1. The Year of Zero Deforestation Pledges: In 2014,…

Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink I moved to San Francisco six months ago and my umbrella hasn’t left its dusty sleeve yet. Scientists and politicians, everyone…

Last week I received the Parker/Gentry Award for Conservation from the Field Museum. Several people have asked about my award acceptance speech, so I've included the introduction and the conclusion…

Scientists discover that Graneledone boreopacifica has the longest brooding time of any animal on the planet The ultimate goal of all species on the planet is procreation, the act of…

Animation: The 2013-2014 California drought. By Rhett A. Butler using NASA imagery. A pair of satellite images released this week by NASA reveal the shocking impact of California's drought, which…

Courtesy of Jintai Lin et al. (2014) Twenty percent of China's air pollution can be attributed to goods exported to America, with some of those emissions drifting back to the…