
New species galore in discoveries around the world
I usually write about species that we're about to see for the last time, but the past few weeks have brought news of literally hundreds of newly discovered species.
News and research about endangered species from around the world
I usually write about species that we're about to see for the last time, but the past few weeks have brought news of literally hundreds of newly discovered species.
For nearly 20 years, the critically endangered Siamese crocodile ( Crocodylus siamensis ) has been considered nearly extinct in the wild, victimized by habitat loss and poaching.
It has been 22 years since the last 22 California condors ( Gymnogyps californianus ) were collected from the wild and placed in captive breeding programs.
The common skate ( Dipturus batis ), a type of ray, isn't common at all. The rare fish species is already critically endangered, but now new research indicates that the common skate is actually two species, so both are more at risk than previously thought.According to a paper to be published this week in the journal Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems , the common skate is really two similar-looking species, the flapper skate ( D...
Bluefin tuna fishing in the Atlantic will be reduced nearly 40 percent in 2010, but will that be enough to save this threatened species from extinction?
The rarest of the nine giraffe subspecies, the West African giraffe ( Giraffa camelopardalis peralta ), almost didn't make it to the 21st century. After years of being poached and losing habitat to development, only 50 of these animals were left in Niger in 1996, and the subspecies's future seemed bleak...
Every time you open a can of tuna, an albatross dies.Okay, that's not exactly true, but albatrosses and other seabirds are increasingly endangered by commercial tuna fishing, according to a new report from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and BirdLife International...
This is a crucial time for the critically endangered vaquita porpoise ( Phocoena sinus ). Despite conservation efforts, the vaquita population has dropped more than 50 percent in the past three years as hundreds of porpoises have died in commercial fishing nets...
What do comic books, a reggae band and alternative fuels have in common? They are all part of a project to help save critically endangered mountain gorillas ( Gorilla beringei beringei ) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).Last April, I wrote about a project in the DRC that aimed to save mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park, which is home to half of the world's 720 or so members of the species, by convincing locals to stop using forest-destroying charcoal as fuel...
The 2009 edition of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species was released today, and the news isn't good: 17,291 species out of 47,677 assessed species, or 36 percent, are threatened with extinction.Science currently recognizes around 1.8 million species on Earth (out of an estimated five million to 30 million total species—the true total remains unknown)...