endangered species

At less than five feet long, the vaquita porpoise is the smallest living cetacean and the rarest marine mammal in the world. It also has the smallest geographical range. The little porpoise with the smiling expression and dark rings around its eyes can be found only in the northern part of Mexico’s Gulf of California, […]

Humans share 98.7 percent of their DNA with two species of endangered great apes: bonobos (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Bonobos — which can only be found in forested regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), south of the Congo River — differ from chimpanzees in appearance and behavior. They are usually smaller, and their societal groups are led by females and are generally more peaceful.

The news came in an update announced last Thursday to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. While tigers (Panthera tigris) are still considered Endangered, there are 40 percent more of them than was indicated by the last population assessment in 2015. 

Migratory monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus plexippus) are now considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The species will now be listed in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species after habitat loss and climate change decimated the population.

A new mine proposed for Queensland, Australia would require 1,023.6 hectares of koala habitat to be cleared for construction. The project would also remove more than 70 hectares of habitat for greater gliders, two species of which were recently listed as endangered earlier this month.

A new survey of 3,331 scientists studying biodiversity across 187 countries has revealed that more species are threatened with extinction than previously thought. As many as 50% of species have been threatened with extinction or driven to extinction since 1500, according to survey results.

Police are investigating the mysterious injuries of more than 30 endangered green sea turtles on the remote Japanese island of Kumejima. The turtles–discovered by locals July 14–had been stabbed in their necks and flippers and were lying motionless on the beach, The Asahi Shimbun reported.

Sometimes all it takes is a single photograph to change someone’s mind or inspire them to take action. For Catherine Collins and her husband Douglas Frantz, that was a photo of a yardstick plunged 32 inches into filth below a salmon farm near Port Mouton, Nova Scotia.