Wild yaks are coming back to at least one area of Tibet after a long period of overhunting, but the future for the species is yet unknown as their periglacial habitat melts because of climate change. Wild yaks (Bos mutus) are among Asia’s largest mammals, second only to elephants and rhinos, and are especially adapted [...]

Two Brazilian researchers doing some recreational bird-watching have made an amazing discovery: the first nest ever found for the critically endangered Stresemann’s bristlefront (Merulaxis stresemanni). One of the world’s rarest birds, the bristlefront has an estimated population of just 15 individuals, all at the 600-hectare Mata do Passarinho Reserve run by Fundação Biodiversitas in the [...]

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 [...]

After coexisting for thousands of years, humans and African lions (Panthera leo) are on a collision course. Lion populations have dropped from 450,000 animals 50 years ago to as few as 20,000 today. Most of that decline has taken place over the past two decades, and experts are now predicting that the big cats could [...]

Reintroducing critically endangered Mexican gray wolves (Canis lupus baileyi) to the U.S. Southwest has never been easy. It hasn’t helped that livestock owners hate the wolves. Every month livestock deaths that might have been caused by a wolf must be thoroughly investigated by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS). If any wolves are found [...]

Looking for the perfect holiday entrée? Something nutritious yet easy on the Earth? Something with a subtle, yet distinctive, je-ne-sais-quoi flavor? Have you considered the humble mealworm? What about the super superworm? Before you click away in disgust, remember that the creeping, shelled, 10-legged crustacean we now so lovingly dip in butter (ahem, the lobster) [...]

Scary antibiotic-resistant infections aren’t just lurking in the hospital anymore. They’re in gyms, at the beach, and increasingly, on the farm. One strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) known as CC398 has been rapidly spreading through poultry and pig farms, infecting people who work with the animals around the world (up to 26.5 percent of [...]

FLAGSTAFF, Arizona—A relatively new type of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus could represent the world’s next bacterial epidemic, an environmental health expert said here today at a conference for science writers. The superbug, called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strain 398, or MRSA ST398, was first identified in an infant in the Netherlands in 1994 and traced back to [...]