For the first time in more than 30 years an American hunter has been allowed to import a trophy from a black rhino he shot in Africa back into the country. Animal-rights groups argue that this is a precedent-setting setback for efforts to preserve the endangered species. Hunters, on the other hand, argue that this [...]

History books tell us that the last wild Barbary lion (Panthera leo leo) was probably killed in 1922 by a French colonial hunter in Morocco. But in repeating the tale of this well-documented death, the history books may have left a chapter or two out of the story. Barbary, or Atlas, lions once roamed throughout [...]

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced this week that African lions (Panthera leo leo) may deserve protected status under the Endangered Species Act. The decision, published November 27 in the Federal Register, comes in response to a petition (pdf) filed in March 2011 by five conservation groups that argued that American hunters pose a [...]

You see that drawing to the left there? It appears to be the world’s only public domain image of the tamaraw, or Mindoro dwarf buffalo (Bubalus mindorensis), a species endemic to a single island in the Philippines that is down to its last 300 or so wild individuals. Oh sure, I could show you plenty [...]

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 [...]