wildlife
Rewilding program ships eggs around the world to restore Raja Ampat zebra sharks
RAJA AMPAT, Indonesia — Nearly a million people visit the Shark Reef Aquarium on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada every year. There’s a chance they see zebra sharks (Stegostoma tigrinum) among the more than 15 shark species roaming the aquarium. But they might not be aware that those zebra sharks are a part of […]
Read MoreThe Global Mining Boom Puts African Great Apes at Greater Risk Than Previously Known
Africa’s great apes—from gorillas to chimpanzees and bonobos—are under far greater threat than scientists previously realized, a new study suggests. While primatologists and conservationists have long tracked great ape populations and the human activities that negatively impact them—from poaching to expanding agriculture and oil drilling—there has historically been a dearth of information on the location […]
Read MoreA River in Flux
This project was originally published in Science magazine. The story was supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Pendleton Mazer Family Fund. MANAUS, Brazil—Jochen Schöngart darts back and forth along an escarpment just above the Amazon River, a short water taxi ride from downtown Manaus, Brazil. It’s still early this October morning in 2023, but […]
Read MoreCambodian official acquitted in trial that exposed monkey-laundering scheme
PHNOM PENH — On March 22, a jury in Miami, Florida, found Cambodian forestry official Kry Masphal not guilty of conspiracy and smuggling in relation to allegations that he was involved in exporting wild-caught monkeys to the United States and falsely labeling them as captive-bred. Masphal, the director of the Cambodian Forestry Administration’s Department of […]
Read MoreBid to mitigate gold mine’s impact on orangutans hit by stonewalling, data secrecy
JAKARTA — A conservation task force trying to help an Indonesian mine operator minimize its impact on the Tapanuli orangutan, the world’s most threatened great ape, says it was the company’s rush to rubber-stamp the process that led to the end of the agreement in 2022. But Agincourt Resources, the operator of the Martabe gold […]
Read MoreUtah Legislature Takes Aim at Rights of Nature Movement
Lawmakers in Utah are advancing legislation aimed at stopping a growing “rights of nature” movement that has coalesced around efforts in the state to save the Great Salt Lake, which is drying up as a combination of climate change, development and agriculture drain on its freshwater sources. With activists promoting legislation recognizing that the Great […]
Read MoreCambodia sea turtle nests spark hope amid coastal development & species decline
PHNOM PENH — In late December 2023, on a remote island in Preah Sihanouk province, off the southwest coast of Cambodia, a team of conservationists uncovered nine nests belonging to sea turtles after more than a decade of searching for them. Cambodia’s marine turtle population has long been declining, but this discovery has sparked hope […]
Read MoreIn Argentina, scientists scramble to study seal colonies hit hard by avian flu
A powerful strain of the avian flu has swept through seal colonies in southern Argentina, wiping out many juveniles and raising concern about a spread to other species. The flu, also known as H5N1, appeared in South America in 2022 and made its way to Patagonian Argentina by August 2023, resulting in extreme mortality among […]
Read MoreEnvironmentalists See Nevada Supreme Court Ruling Bringing State’s Water Management ‘Into the 21st Century’
The Nevada Supreme Court unanimously ruled last week that the state can restrict new groundwater pumping if it will impact other users and wildlife, a decision that strikes a blow to the plan of a developer that at one time hoped to build a new city of 250,000 people in the Mojave Desert and could […]
Read MoreFrogs in the pot: Two in five amphibian species at risk amid climate crisis
A new study published in Nature has found that more than 8,000 amphibian species are at a substantially higher risk of extinction than they were since the last assessment in 2004. Today, two in five amphibians are threatened with extinction, making them among the most imperiled animal groups. Between 2004 and 2022, climate change became […]
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