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It’s been nearly 40 years since killer whales off the west coast of North America were spotted wearing dead salmon on their heads. No one knows why this whacky trend began or why it ended, but we do know it’s back.
US zoos have paid millions to China for the privilege of housing pandas, with the expectation that China invests the money in panda conservation. A New York Times investigation reveals that the funding has been spent on projects unrelated to pandas, while American zookeepers look the other way.
Five years ago a bottlenose dolphin strayed far from his usual habitat and ended up in the chilly waters off the Danish coast. He hung around, the locals named him Delle, and marine biologists at the University of Southern Denmark began studying the 17-year-old loner.
Last week a 34-year-old Asian elephant named Shanti concluded her 21-month pregnancy and 19-hours of labor with a 314-pound bundle of joy: a baby girl. In announcing the birth the Houston Zoo said the baby elephant, named Kirby, is “a trunk-load to be thankful for.”
Four Los Angeles area residents were arrested last week after they allegedly claimed a bear had caused damage to their luxury vehicles – but the real perp turned out to be a human in a bear costume. The four are charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy, and an arrest warrant has been issued for a fifth suspect.
This week the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing four species of giraffes under the Endangered Species Act. Giraffes live in Africa of course, but under the ESA it would be illegal to import any part of a giraffe into the US; the protections would also boost conservation funding for animals in the wild.
Your turkey did not die well, according to philosopher Peter Singer, and its life was no great shakes either. That’s the gist of Singer’s new book, Consider the Turkey, a short account of the bird’s miserable existence.
A baby red panda named Roxie died last week at the Edinburgh Zoo, apparently from stress induced by fireworks on Bonfire Night. Veterinarians at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland say the three-month-old panda choked on her own vomit while pyrotechnics boomed across the city.
During the holiday season, wine consumption spikes (in some households it skyrockets). But those extra glasses or two don’t have to be mere empty calories, not when you’re drinking Rescue Dog Wines from California.
When we last checked in on Björk, she was raising awareness on the environmental impacts of her country’s salmon farms. This week Iceland’s most famous singer announced her “Immersive Auditory Experience,” an art installation to open this month in France, intended to sound the alarm on biodiversity loss and the collapse of ecosystems.
“Why are one of my puppies that my American Pit had ... green?” dog owner Annise Tooley asked Google last week.
There are plenty of anecdotes about animals getting squiffy on fermented fruits in the wild, but we tend to think of these drunken episodes as rare and accidental. New research, which appears in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, challenges this assumption.
A pygmy hippo calf entered the world in Scotland a couple weeks ago, far from its natural stomping grounds of the forests and swamps of West Africa. Born at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland's Edinburgh Zoo, the baby girl has been named after the national dish, Haggis.
The giant pandas Qing Bao and Bao Li arrived in Washington, DC on October 15 after their long journey from Sichuan, China. Now the National Zoo is preparing the pandas and their habitat for the big public debut on January 24, 2025.
A 9-year-old girl who fell in love with the goat she raised for a California county fair was devastated when deputy sheriffs seized, and eventually had butchered, the floppy-eared pet named Cedar. Now the County Sheriff's office must pay $300,000 to settle this atrocity.
Thousands of giant spiders are on the prowl in the UK and that’s a good thing, according to the Chester Zoo, which is responsible for setting the arachnids loose.
A squirrel with a huge social media following was taken into custody last week and euthanized by New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation. The DEC said it had received reports of “unsafe housing of wildlife that could carry rabies and the illegal keeping of wildlife as pets.”
Humans have been kissing each other – for one reason or another – for thousands of years. Evolutionary psychologist Adriano Lameira wants to know why, so he’s been spying on our kissing cousins (other apes) to see if they offer any clues that might reveal the purpose, if any, of a good smooch.
Scientists have identified seven new frog species in Madagascar. The herpetologists who found them happen to be Star Trek fans, so each of the new species are named after characters from the sci-fi show.
