In a practice that goes back hundreds of thousands of years, hunter-gatherer groups today light fires at night to keep wild animals, and predators especially, at bay – animals are afraid of fire, the reasoning goes, and a campfire will keep you safe while you sleep. But not all predators, it seems. A new paper published in […]
Tag: Wolves
Is it a bear? Is it a dog? No, it’s something in between…
Despite being known as ‘bear dogs‘, amphicyonids are neither bears nor dogs. Instead they’re a distinct family of distantly related carnivores that, for several million years, were among the largest and deadliest mammals alive. What are bear dogs? The term ‘bear dogs’ refers to a family of extinct, terrestrial mammals known as the amphicyonids, which means […]
“He was dragged down to the riverbed and was rapidly running out of air…” 8 animals that deliberately drag their prey underwater to drown them
How predators kill their prey is a fascinating subject. Big cats typically either asphyxiate by pressing down on an animal’s trachea with paws and mouth, though lions will also stop its prey from breathing by covering its mouth and nose with their jaws. Jaguars deliver the coup de grace with a bite to the skull. […]
Nepal’s high-altitude wildernesses & wildlife are increasingly under threat (commentary)
Changes like increasing geological and glacial instability driven by the warming climate are a growing concern across the Himalayas. Our hearts go out to the thousands of families across Nepal, China, and around the world grieving their loved ones and searching for those missing after the recent catastrophic flash flood at the Nepal-China border. Though […]
As British Columbia mulls continued wolf-killing to save caribou, critics say habitat loss is the real threat
The government of the Canadian province of British Columbia is in talks to extend its decade-long wolf cull program by another five years. Since 2015, the province has killed wolves in areas with declining populations of endangered woodland caribou as part of its Caribou Recovery Program. In April 2026, provincial authorities began engaging key stakeholders about […]
First Nations in Canada call for emergency order to protect southern mountain caribou
“Under our Syilx Okanagan law, everything is sacred to us. We believe that Mother Earth is alive, all of kʷuləncutn, the creator’s creation, that it’s all alive,” Chief Dan Wilson of the Okanagan Indian Band, a Syilx Okanagan Nation, told Mongabay in a phone call. “That’s why the caribou are so important to us … […]
Cougars cut deadly vehicle-deer collisions in the US by up to 76%, study shows
If you’re a black-tailed deer on the Olympic Peninsula in the U.S. state of Washington, you’re always surrounded by friends and family. You are free-range, with abundant food to forage in familiar woods and meadows. But you’re also vigilant because you’re a prey species and your ideal habitat is also home to your top predators: […]
How to stitch a massive wildlife corridor through the Rocky Mountains
BRITISH COLUMBIA, Canada — On a sunny Thursday in May, Kent Kebe had to scrape yet another bighorn sheep carcass off Highway 93/95 running through Radium, British Columbia. The necropsy confirmed what Kebe, the village’s protective service manager, already knew: A car collision killed the ram. Roadkill deaths hit this community hard. Residents love their […]