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The Scottish wildcat is on the way out. There are now too few wildcats to sustain the population, according to a five-study completed by conservation group NatureScot. A separate study recently declared Felis silvestris “functionally extinct.”
A 3-year-old chestnut colt named Mage won the 149th Kentucky Derby, but there were seven losers – that’s the number of horses that died at Churchill Downs in the runup to the big race.
A bear in the north Italian province of Trentino is in lockdown after mauling a jogger last month on Mount Peller. The jogger didn’t survive the attack; the bear, a 17-year-old female, was captured and about to be killed herself, but has won a reprieve while the courts decide her fate.
The Norwegian authorities responsible for killing Freya the walrus can’t be too happy about a new statue of the beloved visitor just unveiled in Oslo. The statue is titled “For Our Sins,” lest anyone forget the rash decision to euthanize Freya for the crime of sunbathing in public.
The future looks shaky for the lesser prairie-chicken, whose federal protections under the Endangered Species Act are under siege. Last week the House Committee on Natural Resources voted to use the Congressional Review Act to reverse the lesser prairie-chicken's listing under the ESA — the first step toward stripping the species of federal protection.
Researchers studying chimpanzees in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park have discovered that, as with humans, the meanest chimps enjoy the most success in life. Primate specialists from the University Edinburgh and Duke observed 28 male chimpanzees in the park and found that the greediest, most irascible bullies among them were the most likely to rise in the ranks of social hierarchy
The eastern hellbender, the largest salamander in North America, faces various threats to its existence. One threat turns out to be the eastern hellbender itself, as researchers have observed an increase in cannibalism in the species.
Following in the flight path of Flaco the owl, a peacock escaped from the Bronx Zoo this week and spent the night hanging out in the city, then (unlike Flaco) returned to its confines the following day. As the New York Times reported, rather ominously, “the Fire Department did not confirm reports it had bitten someone.”
Nzou was only two years old when her family was slaughtered by ivory poachers in Zimbabwe. Rescuers tried to reintroduce Nzou to other elephants, but she never fit in. “Her need for a family never faded,” intones Natalie Portman, narrating National Geographic’s new series, Secrets of the Elephants, “So she took matters into her own hands …”
Researchers at Northeastern University, in collaboration with MIT and the University of Glasgow, taught a group of domesticated birds to call one another on tablets and smartphones. The birds seem to really enjoy it.
How do you keep elephants and humans apart? In Africa it’s an urgent problem, as human populations grow and encroach on elephants’ wild habitat. Now conservationists are trying out a novel form of deterrence: “technologically generated bee sounds.”
A 2-year-old chihuahua named Pearl has been officially recognized as the world’s shortest dog by Guinness World Records.
Scientists have discovered that the great Pacific garbage patch, the 620,000-square-mile vortex of trash in the ocean, is rife with thriving communities of sea creatures, most of them more naturally at home on the coasts.
Murphy is a 31-year-old bald eagle, flightless due to a wing injury, living the bachelor’s life at the World Bird Sanctuary in Valley Park, Missouri. This spring he began sitting on a rock, as one does, in hopes of hatching it.
Australia has a few million too many cats: feral cats, which kill an estimated two billion animals annually; and outdoor house cats, which whack some 83 million native reptiles and 80 million native birds every year. To address the latter carnage, many municipal councils are imposing nighttime curfews on the furry murderers.
The Chester Zoo in England announced the birth of a giant anteater pup this week. The mom, 13-year-old Bliss, and the dad Oso (nine) are first-time parents.
Ya Ya the giant Panda, after twenty years in the Memphis Zoo, is going back to China. This week marked the end of a 20-year loan agreement with the Chinese Association of Zoological Gardens, which had loaned Ya Ya to the Tennessee zoo.
When we last checked in on actor James Cromwell, he was super-glueing himself to a Starbucks counter to protest the inflated price of plant-based milk. This week he is attending to a new cause: a baby pig that had fallen (jumped?) off a truck on the way to the slaughterhouse.
Due to climate change and related factors, a dozen or two bird species have expanded their ranges into New York City. Among them: The black vulture, a grim looking fellow with a five-foot wingspan who, in the old days, never strayed this far north.
Zoe, a new-mom orangutan at the Metro Richmond Zoo in Virginia, didn’t know how to breastfeed her newborn. A lactating human zookeeper showed her how. The zookeepers knew Zoe was not was not up to this basic task in 2021 when her first child was born, a baby boy that Zoe would hold at arm’s length, not close enough to feed or bond with. Because Zoe’s own mother had died unexpectedly when she was just nine months old, she never learned these essential skill sets.
