The elephant poaching epidemic continues to tear across the African continent. It’s even reached remote refuges in recent years, like the Luangwa Valley in Zambia, where poaching deaths began surging…
Scientists have fretted over the expanding masses of plastic in the ocean for decades. Most have seen the rise with their own eyes, and yet the available datasets typically don’t…
Deforestation can reduce communities’ access to clean drinking water, according to a recent study conducted in Malawi. A lot of prior research on how deforestation impacts water dynamics has shown…
Countries should concentrate on outcomes instead of actions when they set aside areas for parks and reserves to shore up the loss of biodiversity, according to a group of scientists.…
The puma family took biologist Mark Elbroch by surprise. They were supposed to be a ways off. But here they were, year-old kittens, bungling the final moments of a baby…
There’s a new record for the tallest tree in the tropics, and the scientists who found it say it could add to our understanding of how and why some trees…
Island-dwelling animals around the globe often face a common threat: alien species that compete with them for food, kill them and their young, and otherwise hamper their ability to survive.…
Whales can behave quite differently in response to sonar depending on where they live and what they’re doing, new research has found. The pair of studies, on different species and…
The chief minister of the Malaysian state of Sabah has called on construction crews working on the multi-billion-dollar Pan Borneo Highway project to avoid breaking up the region’s forests and…
Tapirs may help rainforests recover after destructive human use and increase the amount of carbon they hold, new research has found. The study, based in the Brazilian Amazon, found that…
Animals around the globe are losing ground to farming and ranching, and their numbers are dwindling at the hands of human hunters. But the question of where to direct precious…
WATAMU, Kenya — One Saturday mid-morning in late January, close to 100 people descended on the narrow streets of Watamu village along Kenya’s north coast to clean up the streets.…
Giraffes have to search a wider area for food and water when people live nearby, according to a recent study. “Giraffes are huge browsing animals that live in African savanna…
Hyperbolic headlines can be like catnip for newspaper editors. So when a local fisher hauls in what looks like a record-breaking catch, it often makes news. But a recent study…
Ecologists know that when we humans start tugging at the threads of a food web, the unraveling that results is often catastrophic to the connected species, paving the way for…
Blue whales in the northern Pacific Ocean use their memories to guide them to the best feeding spots, instead of seeking out the locations of shorter-term surges in prey, a…
More young birds survived near a road through a Thai forest than those living deeper in the forest where more predators lurked, researchers found during a recent study. The disruptive…
Wearing nothing more than leaves hanging from belts of woven vegetation, the three scientists stand in the rain with little idea of what to expect. They’ve lived and worked with…
Attitudes toward grasshoppers and other leggy insects were immortalized in popular culture with Disney Pixar’s 1998 animated hit “A Bug’s Life.” “They come, they eat, they leave,” a main character…
Ecosystems in their natural state are disappearing quickly around the globe. On that most scientists agree. But how to stem those losses through conservation is hotly debated. Many believe that…
Whether Asia’s tiger populations bounce back, or they evaporate into the pages of history depends on the decisions humans make about how we live on this planet, new research suggests.…
Engineered by insect intelligence, the hive was a convoluted mesh of waxy secretions and labyrinthine cavities. Worker bees streamed through its recesses. Bulbous pods brimmed with fresh honey. It was…
Baby krill living around Antarctica are struggling to cope with rising sea temperatures, new research suggests. The study, published online Jan. 21 in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows that…
Central Island province in the Solomon Islands has blocked new logging and mining operations in an apparent attempt to halt the degradation of the archipelago’s sensitive ecosystems. “With timber on…
The recent plunge in numbers of Grauer's gorillas in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has lopped off one-fifth of the subspecies’ genetic diversity, leaving it potentially vulnerable to…
A 40-year conservation effort on the remote Juruá River in Brazil’s Amazonas state cut turtle poaching to 2 percent, while also conserving bird, river dolphin and other species too: study.
Pulsating lights placed around llama and alpaca herds warded off puma attacks during a recent experiment in Chile, suggesting the method might help avert conflict between herders and dwindling populations…
The devastation wrought by hurricanes and cyclones, persistent and growing threats in today’s changing climate, can ripple through communities dependent on harvesting food from the sea, a new study has…
It all started in 2008 when scientists started noticing fire salamanders in the Netherlands were disappearing. By 2011, nearly all salamanders in affected Dutch populations had been killed off, as…
Read other stories in this three-part profile of the Ruatāhuna community’s stewardship of its forest. A Māori community leans on tradition to restore its forest What makes a forest healthy?…
