The population of endangered California condors (Gymnogyps californianus) hit an important milestone last month, reaching a high of 405 birds—quite an achievement for a species that was down to its last 22 individuals just 25 years ago. California condors—North America’s largest birds, with a wingspan of up to 2.8 meters—were almost wiped out by poaching, [...]

They are mostly forgotten today, but Asiatic lions (Panthera leo persica) once roamed in vast numbers across the Indian subcontinent, Mediterranean and Middle East until overhunting brought them to within a hair’s breadth of extinction. By 1907, when an Indian prince finally banned hunting and protected the last lions, only 13 members of the subspecies [...]

Chinese officials added an extra 50,000 carp to the waters of Poyang Lake this week to help feed the endangered Yangtze finless porpoises (Neophocaena phocaenoides asiaeorientalis) that live there, according to a report from the Xinhua news agency. Around 300 to 500 porpoises live in Poyang Lake in northern Jiangxi Province, representing between one third [...]

Human greed is being blamed for the near-extinction of the spectacularly spiral-horned markhor (Capra falconeri cashmiriensis) in the northern Indian state Jammu and Kashmir. The critically endangered goat has faced years of population decline from illegal trophy hunting, competition with livestock for habitat and other man-made threats. The subspecies is now down to its last [...]

A few weeks ago, the director of wildlife for Nunavut, Canada, made an unexpected declaration, claiming that the number of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in the western Hudson Bay region is increasing, even though scientists say the population is declining. Western Hudson Bay is one of 19 distinct polar bear subpopulations, and previous research has [...]

Very few people have ever seen a Cross River gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli), the rarest and most endangered of the world’s four gorilla subspecies. Only about 250 to 300 of these animals exist in the world, and they have almost never been photographed in the wild. Well, you’re in for a treat. The Wildlife Conservation [...]

The governments of Kenya and Ethiopia agreed last week to develop a new action plan to help protect the endangered Grevy’s zebra (Equus grevyi), the rarest zebra species and the largest equid species on the planet. The previous five-year conservation strategy for the species expired last year. Grevy’s zebra populations have declined from an estimated [...]

In 2009 four of the world’s last seven northern white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) were moved from a zoo in the Czech Republic to Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. At the time conservationists expressed hope that returning the rhinos to semi-wild lives under their native African skies would help inspire the animals to mate and, [...]

Smile, you’re on endangered-species camera. The world’s last 35 Javan rhinoceroses (Rhinoceros sondaicus) are a little bit safer this week as 120 new camera traps have been installed in Ujung Kulon National Park, located on the western corner of the island of Java, in Indonesia. The new video cameras were donated by the World Wildlife [...]

One of the world’s rarest birds has a little bit more breathing room this week. The Giles–Fuertesi Nature Reserve in the Colombian Andes, home to the critically endangered Fuertes’s parrot (Hapalopsittaca fuertesi), has doubled in size following the acquisition of an additional 144 hectares of neighboring land. The acquisition was a joint effort by Fundación [...]