In the last four decades, dugong (Dugong dugon) aggregations have been rarely reported from the geographically isolated, vast seascape of the Andaman Islands, India. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, hunting, coastal development, and habitat loss are the major causes of this change in the social system of dugongs in …
Populations of a rabbit-like animal known as the American pika are vanishing in many mountainous areas of the west as climate change alters its habitat, according to findings released by the US Geological Survey. The range for the mountain-dwelling herbivore is shrinking in southern Utah, north-eastern California and in the …
Fossil remains have been discovered in the Riversleigh World Heritage Area of Queensland, Australia, and appear to belong to a new kind of tiny marsupial lion. The long-extinct species was far more nimble than its bigger counterparts, with researchers suggesting that it would have travelled through the treetops of Australian …
Research reveals that large areas of 'degraded' forest in Southeast Asia can play an important role in conserving mammal diversity. Mammals can be one of the hardest-hit groups by habitat loss, and a lot of research has been carried out to find the best ways to conserve mammal diversity. Much …
The Endangered Species Act was enacted by Congress in 1973 to protect species threatened with extinction. To receive protection, a species must first be listed as endangered or threatened. A two-year timeline for the process was established in 1982 by a Congressional amendment to the ESA. Researchers found that many …
Israel’s flora and fauna are quite diverse in relation to the country’s size, but they are rapidly dwindling, according to a report by the Environmental Protection Ministry. The report, prepared for the United Nations, notes that every five years, an area larger than the municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa is lost …
Biodiversity is greater inside the world’s protected areas, scientists have been able to show for the first time. There are 15% more individual plants and animals and 11% more species inside than outside protected areas, according to the largest analysis of biodiversity in terrestrial globally protected areas to date. The …
The world's largest mammals could go extinct if humans don't do more to protect their ecosystems, according to an international team of conservation scientists. Animals including gorillas, rhinoceroses and bears could be wiped out if challenges such as expanding livestock and crop operations, illegal hunting, deforestation and human population growth …
Research by UCLA biologists published today in the journal Science Advances presents strong evidence that the scientific reason advanced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act is incorrect. A key justification for protection of the gray wolf under …
Zamrud National Park encompasses an area inhabited by a variety of birds, fish and mammals in Riau on the island of Sumatra. More than 40% of Riau’s forests have been cleared for industrial concessions since 2001, according to the World Resources Institute. A wildlife reserve and surrounding areas on Indonesia’s …
From the late Pleistocene to the Holocene and now the so-called Anthropocene, humans have been driving an ongoing series of species declines and extinctions. Large-bodied mammals are typically at a higher risk of extinction than smaller ones. However, in some circumstances, terrestrial megafauna populations have been able to recover some …
Unfortunately, loss of plant and animal habitat leads to local species extinctions and a loss of diversity from ecosystems. Fortunately, not all of the extinctions occur at once. Conservation actions may still be able to save threatened species, according to William Newmark, a vertebrate zoologist at the Natural History Museum …
The locally migratory behavior of the high arctic muskox (Ovibos muschatus) is a central component of the breeding and winter survival strategies applied to cope with the highly seasonal arctic climate. However, altered climate regimes affecting plant growth are likely to affect local migration dynamics of the muskox. In this …
In this scary time of global species extinctions and loss of biodiversity below “safe” levels, The Field Museum recently announced some good news: Luzon Island, an island the size of the Indiana in the Philippines, holds the greatest concentration of mammals. The pressing question now is will we be able …
According to a study published in the journal Frontiers of Biogeography, researchers discovered a plethora of 56 new mammal species, excluding bats, in Luzon, 52 of which are endemic. The reason behind Luzon's rich diversity is the island's topography. Science Daily notes that spanning about 40,000 square miles, Luzon is …
Scientists believe that the meteorite impact blamed for the extinction of most life on Earth at the time, may have actually kicked off a literal "Dark Age" that became the ultimate factor. Massive amounts of soot ejected from rocks following an asteroid impact caused global cooling and drought that may …
Ebola and other filoviruses pose significant public health and conservation threats by causing high mortality in primates, including humans. Preventing future outbreaks of ebolavirus depends on identifying wildlife reservoirs, but extraordinarily high biodiversity of potential hosts in temporally dynamic environments of equatorial Africa contributes to sporadic, unpredictable outbreaks that have …
The US government is set to unleash drones that fire vaccine-covered M&Ms; in a bid to save the endangered black-footed ferret, a species that is facing a plague epidemic across America’s great plains. The US Fish and Wildlife (FWS) has developed a plan to bombard ferret habitat in Montana with …
Two shark species, namely the whale shark and the winghead shark, now inch closer to extinction, after the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reclassified the two species as "endangered" from a "vulnerable" status on the group's Red List. Aside from the two shark species, Bornean orangutans have …
The Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) is now critically endangered according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This change means that both species of orangutan now face an “extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.” “This is full acknowledgement of what has been clear for a long …
The presence of domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) in Brazilian protected areas is fairly frequent. The interaction of such dogs with native animals leads to population declines for many species, particularly carnivores. In this paper the main threats dogs bring about Brazilian biodiversity are assessed with a focus on protected …
