Yellowstone Plans to Remove a Record Amount of Bison This Winter

Yellowstone Plans to Remove a Record Amount of Bison This Winter

Yellowstone National Park officials are preparing for a substantial culling of their wild bison herd this winter, aiming to prevent population growth after last year’s milder conditions limited removal efforts. In a recent report, park managers proposed removing as many as 1,375 bison, a target close to the 2022-2023 winter removal of 1,551 bison, which […]

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Inbreeding adds to growing threats to Africa’s smallest wildcat, study finds

Inbreeding adds to growing threats to Africa’s smallest wildcat, study finds

Populations of the black-footed cat, a little-known feline in Southern Africa, have been declining for the last half a million years and exhibit very high degrees of inbreeding. This could increase their risk of a disease called amyloidosis, according to a new genetic study. “Frequently genomic studies focus on large charismatic cats so that small […]

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Population crash means African penguins are now critically endangered

Population crash means African penguins are now critically endangered

Africa’s only resident penguin species is now officially critically endangered, according to a recent assessment by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Over the past century, the African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) has suffered precipitous declines in its population. In the mid-1950s, there were an estimated 141,000 breeding pairs of African penguins, or 282,000 […]

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