Extinction News

SAMARINDA, Indonesia — The search for a potential mate for a captive female Sumatran rhinoceros in Indonesian Borneo has been put on hold for the year, one of many activities…

In his 2006 book, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, science writer David Quammen says, “Some people admire soldiers, or surgeons, or firemen, or astrophysicists, or medical missionaries, or cowboys. I admire…

There is only one photo of the smooth handfish: an image of a withered, yellowing specimen with pectoral fins that extend like arms, and a triangular crest attached to the…

The 38 species, some found in the Amazon, were logged, milled, and sold in Brazil or exported, likely ending up as high-end decking. Better tracking and protection is needed, say researchers.

A lapsed moratorium protecting the Amazon river dolphin is up for renewal, but the Bolsonaro administration has delayed acting, even as scientists warn it could mean the freshwater mammal’s extinction.

As a young boy living on South Dakota’s Rosebud Indian Reservation, Wizipan Little Elk remembers the first time he saw a buffalo herd. The experience ignited a passion, and at…

The giant panda, tiny tamaraw buffalo, riverine rabbit and Iberian lynx all have something in common: they join a growing list of animals on the brink of extinction. A newly…

COLOMBO — On May 29, a vanishingly rare black leopard — an actual black panther — died at a government wildlife treatment facility in Sri Lanka. It had been brought…

Ironically, the tragedies of the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in some unprecedented improvements to air quality. Levels of nitrogen dioxide have decreased in many parts of the world, including by…

Scraping sounds fill the nights at Mapungubwe, a national park at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers, where the borders of Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa meet. Families…

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — A much-anticipated plan to establish a new rhino-breeding sanctuary in northern Sumatra is one of many that has been put on hold in the wake of…

The statistics capturing the effects that pets have on wildlife are mind-boggling. Cats in the United States alone kill at least 1.3 billion birds and up to 22.3 billion small…

In a 21-second newsreel clip, Benjamin, a thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) who lived at Beaumaris Zoo in Tasmania, paces the length of his concrete enclosure as two men rattle the chain-link…

As climate change impact dramatically alters the world we live in, the biodiversity around us is also experiencing rapid and alarming changes. For dragonflies and damselflies (odonates), having an amphibious…

Life can’t function without insects. At least, not for long. Dutifully, they pollinate, break down waste, cycle nutrients, move seeds, and touch every web of life, filling endless functional niches…

Research measured the impacts of human disruption: bird flocks declined and vanished, seed dispersion changed, while the Rupununi region showed just how bountiful an undisturbed ecosystem can be.

Insects touch nearly every corner of life on this planet, filling endless functional roles and providing services too vast to name — and they are disappearing. According to the largest…

A 66-million-year-old fossil has allowed scientists to describe a bizarre new species of mammal that lived in Madagascar during the time of the dinosaurs. They’ve christened it Adalatherium hui, which in Malagasy…

JAKARTA — The COVID-19 pandemic has become the latest threat to the Tapanuli orangutan in Indonesia, the rarest great ape species of all and one already under severe pressure from…

LA RÉUNION —Giant tortoises and flying foxes once roamed La Réunion, a volcanic island off the eastern coast of Africa. Then humans arrived and decided to stay. Within 150 years…

The COVID-19 pandemic is giving “cancel culture” a new meaning. Weddings, graduations, academic conferences, sports events and birthday parties are all postponed until further notice. Among the laundry list of…

2020 was shaping up to be a good year for global policy on biodiversity. With momentum building from dire reports on biodiversity loss and climate change, policymakers were set for…

During the 1980s, only a few hundred Atlantic Forest tamarins remained. By 2014, conservation efforts boosted that to 3,700. But in 2018, yellow fever wiped out 32%. A vaccine offers hope.

The landscape spanning the border region of the eastern Australian states of New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland is ecologically rich and diverse, and home to ancient rainforest. However, despite…

Patagonia’s huemul is an agile herbivore of which only about 1,500 may remain at 100 or so scattered sites between sea level and the Andes; it is being buffeted by complex interrelated stressors.

The extinction of the Chinese paddlefish, announced by researchers in January 2020, is entirely the result of human impacts on the Yangtze River over the last 50 to 60 years.…

JAKARTA — The acrimonious end to a partnership between WWF and Indonesia’s environment ministry threatens to derail a crucial program to breed Sumatran rhinos in captivity, widely seen as the…

The devastating wildfires in Australia that have claimed the lives of more than a billion animals, by some estimates, are just one of the effects of global climate change the…

We’re not exactly treading lightly on planet Earth. A new study finds more than 20,000 land animal species are experiencing intense pressure from the global human footprint. Of those, 85…

2019 was the year the environment finally broke into the mainstream. Inspired by Greta Thunberg’s youth strikes and Extinction Rebellion, climate activism blossomed around the world, and green concerns were…