A recent study confirms alarming declines in raptor populations in Kenya. Incidental poisoning is a major problem for vultures in particular, depriving ecosystems of the birds' vital role as scavengers.…
Vultures were a common sight across the Indian subcontinent until the late 1980s. But the excessive use of some veterinary drugs for cattle, which are toxic to the scavengers, and…
COLOMBO — The Knuckles mountain range in central Sri Lanka is a UNESCO-declared World Heritage Site that’s home to a rich diversity of wildflowers. Among them are plants in the…
It might be surprising to learn that, in a lake as large as Victoria, a single fish could shape so much of East Africa’s history, culture and, now, an uncertain…
On Feb. 3, a new conservation fundraising group called Rewriting Extinction put out a tweet with a video featuring environmental campaigners as well as celebrities not known for their expertise…
The critically endangered estuarine pipefish is known from only two estuaries on the eastern coast of South Africa. Syngnathus watermeyeri was declared extinct in 1994, only to be found again…
“Anywhere you find humans, you find the extinction of species,” says biologist Mathias Pires, a professor of biology at Campinas State University (UNICAMP) in Brazil. The near-eradication of the American…
Birds, bats, elephants, apes, rodents and many other animal species spread plant seeds throughout the world. But as those animal populations diminish, so do the plants that rely on wildlife to shift their range, especially as climate change worsens.
Known only by his identity code, ID#35 was the last individual of a doomed subpopulation of freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris). He was the sole occupant of a deep pool…
Tiger conservation and politics seem two worlds apart, but they are not. In fact, politics is one of the main reasons tiger conservation has become so complicated. On Sep. 5,…
Biodiversity. When you hear this word, what do you picture? Iconic animals like African elephants, gray wolves and humpback whales? Or multicolored coral species that make up a reef system?…
Each morning as the sun rises into the sky, ranger Donovan Wright stands on the outskirts of Blean Woods in the United Kingdom. The ancient woodland in southern England covers…
At a young age, Mekong giant catfish look the same as striped river catfish, their regular-size, widely consumed relatives. But as they mature, the giant catfish quickly eclipse their smaller…
As more people are born onto this great green planet, the demand for food grows. Feeding the nearly 8 billion of us here today is a challenge, not only because…
Midway through a recent documentary called Last of the Right Whales, we get a drone’s-eye view of half a dozen jet-black right whales cuddling and caressing while lolling in an…
For the past 30 years, soaring demand from East Asia has fueled massive poaching of a South African abalone, Haliotis midae, reducing the mollusk’s population to a fraction of its…
“The coming of autumn determined by a red dragonfly.” - Kaya Shirao Dragonflies, as depicted in this haiku, have held a special place in Japanese culture for millennia; so much…
When the Netflix documentary series Tiger King aired in 2020, it sparked widespread discussions about the number of captive tigers in the U.S. Subsequently, many people were startled to find…
On a late November day in the Kampong Seila district of Cambodia’s Preah Sihanouk province, 51 critically endangered freshwater turtles swam into the warm waters of the Sre Ambel River,…
Tiger conservationists in Thailand are reeling following the recent killing of two tigers in Thong Pha Phum National Park. Authorities confiscated the two carcasses and are investigating the incident and…
When scientists described the Popa langur (Trachypithecus popa) as a species new to science in 2020, it was already staring extinction in the face. Fewer than 260 of the fluffy…
Bangladesh’s population of one of the world’s largest tortoise species received a boost last month when researchers and villagers released 10 captive-bred juveniles into the evergreen forests of the Chattogram…
For many people, extinction is a term that refers to the past. It’s meant for dinosaurs, woolly mammoths and so many other species only found in textbooks or on display…
Conservationists using camera traps have obtained evidence that shows mona monkeys on the island of Príncipe off Central Africa are pinching the eggs of the Príncipe thrush, a critically endangered…
Update 2/2022: In late January, correspondence found among the late E.O. Wilson's papers connected him with J. Phillipe Rushton, whose research in the 1980s and 1990s has been linked with…
Acting on a tipoff, Vietnamese police pried open a basement door in Nghe An province and flicked on the light switch. Videos from the August 2021 raid show officers filing…
The story of the American bison is both tragic and uplifting. Once dappling the prairies of North America in the tens of millions, hunting winnowed the number to perhaps a…
Extinction threatens nearly half of all primate species, largely due to human activities. But alongside them, a hidden world of biodiversity also could disappear: parasites. Using computer modeling, researchers discovered…
From above, the Lhaviyani atoll in the Maldives forms a rough oval, encircling a turquoise stretch of the Indian Ocean speckled with islands. But on the ground, populations of insects,…
Have you heard the Taiwanese Indigenous folklore about the island’s clouded leopard species — Lrikulaw — who led two human brothers to a heavenly place 600 years ago? While biologists…
