While PFAS impacts on human health are well known, scientists are also finding severe impacts on wildlife, including hawksbill turtles, American alligators, Arctic kittiwakes, hooded seals, striped bass, bottlenose dolphins and other species.
A survey of all five vertebrate groups — mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish — plus insects, found nearly half of populations are shrinking, while just 3% are increasing, overwhelmingly due to human pressures.
A worldwide international collaboration is locating tropical areas with high concentrations of plants not yet identified by science, then working with local communities to conserve those plants and their habitats.
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…
Hurricane Ida’s warpath is the latest in a litany of natural disasters, estimated to have cost the world $210 billion in damage in 2020, that is shining a spotlight on climate change.…
Society has recently become enthralled with bees and the amazing service they provide spreading pollen around and helping to sustain plant populations. From crops to gardens to forests, bees keep…
The Pope, a prince, and a judge walk into a bar... Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. What it represents instead is not a meeting in a bar,…
Today we discuss the tales of two tuna: yellowfin in the Indian Ocean, and bluefin in the Atlantic. These are two tales of overfishing and population collapse that help us…
Humans are driving species to extinction 1,000 times faster than what is considered natural. Now, new research underscores the extent of the planet's impoverishment. Extinctions don't just rob the planet of species…
The growing consensus that the earth is in the throes of a sixth mass extinction has focused attention on a centuries-old ecological puzzle: why do species suddenly disappear by the…
If you prefer to listen to this report, you can click 'play' here to listen to it via Mongabay's podcast: Biodiversity scientists are being urged to “fight the creeping rise…
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…
A proposed update to the global treaty governing plant and animal life on Earth calls for nearly a third of the planet to be designated as protected by 2030. That…
On Nov. 23, the last Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) in Malaysia died. Named Iman, she’d lived in captivity in the Malaysian state of Sabah in Borneo for just over five…
As the Mojave Desert in California and Nevada becomes hotter and drier, birds need more water to stay cool. Species that can’t get enough water are rapidly declining in this…
The scientific imprimatur fell on us just six months ago: Yes, the extinction crisis we are witnessing is only the beginning of a wave of mass ecocide of non-human life…
The natural world that many of us knew as children is slipping away as the environmental crisis escalates and native species we adored move on or perish; while world leaders dither.
Plant and animal species living in wilderness areas are less likely to go extinct, a recent study has found. Defined as intact habitats that haven’t been affected by human use…
The current mass extinction is eliminating whole branches of the mammal tree of life, which will take millions of years to replace, according to a recent study. Some researchers suggest…
A new map plots out the last known refuges of hundreds of highly threatened species around the world. The assessment updates work done by the Alliance for Zero Extinction, or…
Research has shown that a sixth mass extinction event is underway and largely driven by human activities. With the global population set to balloon to 10 billion people by 2050,…
Plants and animals in the tropics are disproportionately threatened by a range of dangers, including habitat loss, overexploitation, and climate change, warn researchers writing in the journal Nature. Conducting an…
Humans have had a massive impact on other forms of life, one that far outweighs how little biomass we represent, according to a recent study. “It is definitely striking, our…
Roads, ranches, mines and cities are spilling into many of the world’s parks, reserves and wilderness sanctuaries, leaving one-third of the world’s total protected area — almost three and a…
Madagascar is known as an ark for biodiversity that's found nowhere else on the planet. Unfortunately, it's also known for the bevy of threats that those distinctive species that live…
At turns haunting, humorous or just downright bizarre, the studio portraits of the thousands of animal species that photographer Joel Sartore has collected are more than just a catalog of…
A team of scientists from Seychelles, the United States and the United Kingdom has found a new caecilian, perhaps the smallest species of the legless amphibian on Earth. "As soon…
The latest update to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, released today, finds that even species once considered so abundant as to…
Many refer to it as the Sixth Mass Extinction, but it isn’t. It’s different. We are not simply in the sixth round of a continuing series of events that have…
Planet Earth is barreling through its sixth mass extinction right now, and there’s little doubt among scientists that we humans are responsible. Despite the challenges we face, the encouraging twist…
