New, secretly obtained photos show that elephants snatched from the wild in Zimbabwe months ago and airlifted recently to China are malnourished, sunken-looking, and scarred by wounds. “These calves look really horrible,” says Joyce Poole, co-founder of ElephantVoices, a Kenya-based research and advocacy organization. Poole reviewed the photos, which were sent exclusively to National Geographic. […]
Tag: endangered species
Scientists: we are ‘condemning’ forest elephants by ignoring evidence
How do you tell two species apart? Let’s say you’re investigating a bird with two populations. One lives in the savanna, the other in the forest. The savanna population eats grasshoppers, but the one in the forest eats beetles. The savanna bird is big-bodied with a curvy beak; the forest bird is smaller with a […]
POLL: Should the ban on South Africa’s horn trade be lifted?
Amid mixed responses from conservationists and animal activists, a group of rhino breeders and game reserve owners in South Africa is taking legal action to overturn a domestic ban on the trade of rhino horn. Arguing that horns are a renewable resource, the group has filed a case in a civil court claiming that selling […]
Lion among 23,000 species threatened with extinction
The mighty lion, reclusive cave crabs and the world’s rarest sea lion are among nearly 23,000 species at risk of dying out, a top conservation body warned on Tuesday. In an update to its “Red List” of threatened species, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) hailed some clear advances in saving endangered […]
Vaquita porpoise going extinct right before our eyes
If you’ve never heard of the vaquita, then picture a porpoise about the size of a small human with black-lined, expressive eyes and a rounded mouth. The smallest members of the porpoise family, vaquitas are today found only in the waters of Mexico’s northern Gulf of California – and pretty soon, you won’t find them […]
Chimpanzees Deemed Endangered by U.S. – What’s It Mean?
All chimpanzees are now listed as endangered by the United States, a ruling meant to better protect those apes in captivity, the government announced Friday. The decision, which goes into effect September 14, follows a 2013 proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to toss out the legal distinction between wild and captive chimpanzees. […]
Eastern Cougar extinct, no longer needs protection, says US conservation agency
Eastern cougars that once roamed North America from Canada to South Carolina are extinct and no longer warrant federal Endangered Species Act protections, US wildlife managers have said. The proposal to remove so-called eastern cougars from the list of endangered and threatened species comes nearly 80 years after the last of those mountain lions was […]
Can Sage-Grouse Be Saved Without Shutting Down the West?
It struts around, it puffs its chest, but its numbers are plummeting. Governments are struggling to preserve enough habitat to save the bird. When scientist Michael Schroeder was looking for a place to live in eastern Washington State, he chose to be within an hour and a half drive of seven species of grouse, the […]