Quick Key Facts Wildlife trafficking is the second biggest direct threat to species, following habitat destruction. It’s a huge business with smuggled goods valued at $10 billion a year, and involves tens of thousands of species and millions of wild plants and animals. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that 958 species […]
Sometimes, beauty can be a death sentence. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the demand for decorative feathers devastated the populations of birds like great egrets and birds of paradise. Today, it is the exotic pet trade that threatens bright birds with extinction. A new study published in Current Biology September 15 found that […]
The effects of climate change are outpacing poaching as the No. 1 threat to wildlife. In Zimbabwe, officials are now moving more than 2,500 wild animals from a reserve in the southern part of the country further north due to an ongoing drought. Rangers are relying on trucks, cranes and even helicopters to move the animals from the drought-stricken area.
Weighing just 0.035 pounds (16 grams), it’s understandable why the Subantarctic rayadito has only just been discovered. Scientists recently discovered the species on the Diego Ramírez Islands, off the southern tip of South America.
By John R. Platt A few times a year, wildlife officials in Texas receive excited phone calls. “I just saw something that looks like a really big cat, or maybe a giant weasel,” a caller might say. “Was it a jaguarundi?” No, they’re not reporting a sighting of a mythical beast like the chupacabra. But […]
Endangered sea turtles have hatched on a chain of barrier islands off Louisiana for the first time in 75 years. The Louisiana government announced August 17 that the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) found evidence that endangered Kemp’s ridley turtles had hatched in the […]
Early on the morning of Sunday, August 14, the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries euthanized Freya — the 1,300 pound walrus that became a summer superstar when she took up residence off the capital of Norway in mid-July. The directorate argued in a statement that euthanizing Freya was the only way to protect the crowds of humans […]
By Liz Kimbrough In the mountains of Colombia, an experienced bird-watcher saw an iridescent flash of blue and green. “A hummingbird caught my attention. I got out my binoculars and was shocked to see that it was a Santa Marta sabrewing,” Yurgen Vega said. “This sighting was a complete surprise, but a very welcome one.” […]
By Derrick Z. Jackson The title of supervisory wildlife biologist for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service does little justice to Linda Welch (pictured above). In practice, she is the housing and unusual development secretary for seabirds on Maine’s Petit Manan Island. This was clear as she led me to nesting areas there for Atlantic puffins. Over […]
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