Interbreeding with domestic cats, and also with other wildcat species, is altering the behaviors and genetic profiles of some small wildcats, creating conservation dilemmas about how best to define and protect these species.
Every night, somewhere unseen across the vast, semidesert and dry savanna habitat of Southern Africa, the continent’s deadliest cat emerges to hunt. Black-footed cats (Felis nigripes) are ideally suited for…
The Polynesian tree snail, a tiny mollusk about the size of an aspirin pill, used to be found in abundance on Tahiti, the largest island in French Polynesia. But about 30…
Chimpanzees tend to sleep more on the ground than previously thought, a behavior that has implications for their conservation and could help explain how and when early humans abandoned trees…
More than 30 species of small cats roam Earth today. They control small mammal populations to keep ecosystems in balance while helping farmers reduce rodent numbers. Over a dozen small cat species are hugely at risk.
The U.S. government has denied two petitions to immediately protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales during the species’ calving season, raising concerns that this population of whales will continue…
A resplendent rainbow fish, a frog that looks like chocolate, a Thai tarantula, an anemone that rides on a back of a hermit crab, and the world's largest waterlily are…
For about 70 years, jaguars were absent from Iberá Park in northeastern Argentina’s Corrientes province. To rectify this, conservationists reintroduced three jaguars into the park in 2021, followed by seven…
Diseases affecting domestic animals, such as canine distemper, are increasingly infecting tropical wildlife, including wild felids, presenting a threat to biodiversity; so far solutions are few and funding is scarce.
Everything about the Greenland shark seems to be slow: these long-bodied animals swim slowly, grow slowly and reach maturity slowly. Their maturity rate is so sluggish, in fact, that scientists…
KATHMANDU — Nepal’s tigers hogged the headlines around the world this past July as officials announced that their population had nearly tripled over the past 12 years. The figure of…
Nearly a decade ago, poachers used cyanide to slaughter more than 135 elephants for their ivory in and around Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. In the wake of these poisonings, the…
Gunshots, grassland and a tiny population of critically endangered gorillas coexisting with nearby human populations in southwestern Cameroon: a new study analyzes a complex set of factors to help understand…
DHAKA, Bangladesh — In the early hours of July 19, a herd of wild elephants came down from the hills to a crop field located in Rangunia, in Bangladesh’s Chattogram…
There are moments in researchers’ lives when they realize the significance of something they hadn’t paid much thought to in the past. For primatologist Catherine Hobaiter and her team, one…
TSHOLOTSHO, Zimbabwe – Two men crouch beside a pile of rhino dung, using their bare hands to break apart the drying lumps to search for the remnants of the animal’s…
You’ve heard of smartphones, smart cars, smart cities, even smart refrigerators, but have you heard of Smart Parks? Smart Parks is a Netherlands-based team of technologists dreaming up inventive ways…
When Kristin Laidre began working on a long-term project to study polar bears in eastern Greenland, she didn’t expect to find a new subpopulation of the species — and she certainly…
Generally, the word pollution conjures images of billowing smokestacks, oily water and trash-filled highway medians. But for whales, dolphins and porpoises, a subtler and perhaps more sinister source of pollution…
At times of anguish and confusion we turn to nature to quiet the mind and find healing. We hold on to the miraculous survival of wildlife and ecosystems, to persist…
The cheetah is the world’s fastest land animal, but it’s running out of space. Its range has been reduced dramatically over the past decades, and populations continue to decline. Identifying…
Anything goes in a Laotian “Special Crime Zone,” a haven for illegal wildlife, narcotics and human trafficking. Asia’s wild tigers remain imperiled, say conservationists, as “tiger farming” continues in Asia.
In January 2022, I saw my first wild wolf. Even growing up in Idaho, a wolf sighting is rare, and I had never seen one. But from afar, I watched…
KATHMANDU — The monsoon season in Nepal is expected to begin in the second week of June, which means officials in the country's prime habitats for Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris…
Conservationists in South Africa have translocated four young black rhinoceros bulls to the Bonamanzi Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal province, in an effort to preserve the population’s genetics and expand safe…
In 2019, researchers sailed to a sprawling seamount off the coast of South Africa, and lowered hydrophones to the seafloor. They picked up all kinds of noises: waves, the crackling of…
Serving as the mascot of a world-renowned conservation organization, building diplomatic relationships between China and the world, playing protagonists in blockbuster movies — giant pandas have done it all. The…
KATHMANDU — Nepali conservationist Sonam Tashi Lama from the Red Panda Network is one of the six global conservation leaders to win this year’s prestigious Whitley Awards, which carries a…
With national borders created for geopolitical rather than ecological reasons, it’s unsurprising that the ranges of more than half of all terrestrial mammals, birds and amphibians cross at least one…
Conservationists feared that chimpanzees in Comoé National Park might have been wiped out during a decade of civil conflict in Côte d'Ivoire. But camera-trap footage found a healthy population and…
