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 …
Amid public protest against animal killing practices, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services killed a total of 3.2 million animals in 2015. The number was revealed in a report conducted by its highly selective arm. Aside from highlighting the numbers, the report also detailed whether the animals were killed, …
The ongoing refugee crisis in Europe has seen many countries rush to construct border security fencing to divert or control the flow of people. This follows a trend of border fence construction across Eurasia during the post-9/11 era. This development has gone largely unnoticed by conservation biologists during an era …
Last year, catastrophe hit saiga antelopes in Kazakhstan. About 200,000 of these critically endangered antelopes died in Betpak-Dala in May, deeply worrying conservationists. The deaths, scientists eventually found, were most likely caused by bacterial infection. But there may be hope for these severely threatened migratory mammals. A recent aerial survey …
Australian researchers say rising sea levels have wiped out a rodent that lived on a tiny outcrop in the Great Barrier Reef, in what they say is the first documented extinction of a mammal species due to man-made climate change. The rodent was known to have lived only on Bramble …
Brazil's Amazon region is under threat because of the construction of 40 major dams in the Tapajós river basin, a report by Greenpeace says. The report suggests that unrestrained economic exploitation could destroy the area. Supported by the government and global engineering companies, the construction of five large dams, along …
As the frequency and prevalence of zoonotic diseases increase worldwide, investigating how mammal host distributions determine patterns of human disease and predicting which regions are at greatest risk for future zoonotic disease emergence are two goals which both require better understanding of the current distributions of zoonotic hosts and pathogens. …
Exclusive: scientists find no trace of the Bramble Cay melomys, a small rodent that was the only mammal endemic to Great Barrier Reef Human-caused climate change appears to have driven the Great Barrier Reef’s only endemic mammal species into the history books, with the Bramble Cay melomys, a small rodent …
Gardeners are being urged to do more to help hedgehogs this summer after new figures showed that fewer people than ever are seeing the once-familiar species. Results from the from the RSPB’s citizen science survey showed that only 25% of people see hedgehogs in their garden at least once a …
U.S. wildlife officials have decided against setting aside protected habitat for the cave dwellings of an imperiled species of bats, saying that doing so might draw the attention of vandals who would do harm to the lairs of the winged mammals. The northern long-eared bat, whose numbers have been decimated …
The latest experiment results from China's SJ-10 recoverable satellite have been sent back with some groundbreaking news. For the first time in human history, it has been proven that the early stages of embryos in mammals can be developed completely in a space environment. China launched the country's first microgravity …
A federal judge on Monday rejected a decision by U.S. wildlife managers to deny wolverines Endangered Species Act protection, ruling the government erred in discounting the threat posed by climate change to the weasel-like predator of the Northern Rockies. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2013 proposed an endangered …
New rules would ban ‘non-subsistence’ killing of bears, wolves and coyotes – some of the ‘most iconic yet persecuted species’– in the state’s 16 wildlife refuges A group of scientists has backed a federal plan to restrict the trapping and gunning down of bears and wolves in Alaska’s wildlife refuges, …
The biggest survey to date of nature along Britain’s coastline has uncovered a host of “wildlife firsts”. More than 3,400 species were recorded at 25 National Trust locations along the coastline of England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the charity’s largest ever wildlife survey. A handful have either been seen …
Conservationists have called for urgent action to stop armed militia and illegal mining in protected central African forests from driving the elusive okapi to extinction. A 10-year plan to save the “forest giraffe” drawn up by a coalition of conservation groups and NGOs calls for government and international commitments to …
Viral discovery studies in bats have increased dramatically over the past decade, yet a rigorous synthesis of the published data is lacking. We extract and analyze data from 93 studies published between 2007–2013 to examine factors that increase success of viral discovery in bats, and specific trends and patterns of …
The pangolin is gifted with a unique defence mechanism of rolling into a ball that protects it against predators, but is helpless against better equipped poachers.The toothless mammal, also called scaly ant-eater, was the most traded species in the country last year. A recent study by TRAFFIC -India, a wildlife …
Extinction rates in the Anthropocene are three orders of magnitude higher than background and disproportionately occur in the tropics, home of half the world’s species. Despite global efforts to combat tropical species extinctions, lack of high-quality, objective information on tropical biodiversity has hampered quantitative evaluation of conservation strategies. In particular, …
TUTICORIN/CHENNAI: At least 45 small whales (short-finned pilot whales), part of the lot which washed ashore in Tiruchendur in Tamil Nadu on Monday evening, have died. More than 100 whales were found on the 16km stretch from Alanthalai to Kallamozhi coastal hamlets on Tuesday morning. Thirty six of them have …
What did African wildlife look like 1,000 years ago? That's exactly what scientists are finding out in a bid to better understand how they have shaped the world we live in. "Animals matter and ecologists across the world are starting to realize that many ecosystems cannot be understood without including …
Experts highlight threat to lesser-known apes and monkeys from large-scale habitat destruction and illegal wildlife trade More than half the world’s primates, including apes, lemurs and monkeys, are facing extinction, international experts warned on Tuesday. The population crunch is the result of large-scale habitat destruction – particularly the burning and …
