Critically endangered North Atlantic right whales are in the midst of an Unusual Mortality Event (UME), with an estimated 50 whales dying in the last four years. Now, new research published in Oceanography on Tuesday reveals that the climate crisis is the ultimate culprit in their decline as changing conditions have forced them to move […]
The Biden administration has signalled that it will uphold the Trump administration‘s decision to strip gray wolves of Endangered Species Act protections, despite concerns about more aggressive hunting policies being adopted by some states. Administration lawyers asked a federal judge in California Friday to reject a lawsuit brought by environmental groups seeking to restore protections, […]
When a Fraser’s dolphin washed up dead in Maui in 2018, researchers did not suspect that this could be the first sign of a deadly outbreak. But now, a paper published in Scientific Reports on Monday reveals that the dolphin was infected with a previously unknown strain of morbillivirus, a disease related to human measles […]
An extremely rare species of chameleon feared to be extinct has been found alive, for now. Chapman’s pygmy chameleon (Rhampholeon chapmanorum) lives only in the lowland rainforest of the Malawi Hills in southern Malawi, around 80 percent of which have been cleared since 1984. But a study published in Oryx — The International Journal of […]
By Elizabeth Claire Alberts The California condor has been teetering on the brink of extinction for decades. When the species was first assessed in 1994 for the IUCN Red List, the global authority on the conservation statuses of species, it was listed as “critically endangered.” Nearly 30 years later, its status has not changed. But […]
A video released by a conservation group shows in disturbing detail how heat waves fueled by the climate crisis are harming the endangered salmon of the Pacific Northwest. The video, released by Columbia Riverkeeper on Tuesday, shows salmon suffering lesions and fungal infections when water temperatures in the Columbia River Gorge topped 70 degrees Fahrenheit, […]
A golden, thick-billed bird thought to have died more than 1.5 years ago was seen alive on the slopes of a Maui volcano last Wednesday. The discovery is giving researchers hope for the critically endangered species, Newsweek said. The kiwikiu, or Maui parrotbill, is recognized as an endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife […]
What happens to us as the wild world unravels? Vanishing, an occasional essay series, explores some of the human stakes of the wildlife extinction crisis. Our small family knew bobolinks from a bird refuge four hours away. Each spring my partner and I made the trip to Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge with our daughter […]
By Elizabeth Claire Alberts The Mexican government will no longer protect the habitat of the critically endangered vaquita in the Upper Gulf of California, but has opened the area up to fishing, according to a news report. It’s estimated that there are only about nine vaquitas left in the world.The vaquita (Phocoena sinus), a bathtub-sized […]