In the wake of the U.S. government's watershed decision to propose listing the polar bear as "Threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is launching a bold initiative to save the Earth's largest terrestrial predator, not by following the bears themselves, but the receding sea ice habitat that may drastically shrink as a result of global warming.
Mule deer are giving new meaning to watching out for other mothers' kids. An intriguing study of mule deer and whitetail deer conducted by the University of Alberta and the University of Lethbridge showed that both species responded to the recorded distress calls of fawns, but unlike whitetail deer, the mule deer mothers responded to both whitetail and mule deer calls, even when their own fawn stood next to them.
More than 70 countries are gathered to decide the fate of the world's great whales when the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meets between 28th and 31st of May in Anchorage, Alaska.
On behalf of its territory Greenland, the Danish government has submitted a proposal to the 59th International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting for a renewal of Greenland's Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling (ASW) quota.
A lethal fish virus in the Great Lakes and neighboring waterways is approaching epidemic proportions, according to Paul Bowser, Cornell professor of aquatic animal medicine in the College of Veterinary Medicine. The viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV), which causes anemia and hemorrhaging in fish, has now been identified in 19 species and poses a potential threat to New York's $1.2 billion sport-fishing industry.
Parasites, pathogens and pesticides are all possible suspects in the staggering decline of honeybees, said Cornell associate professor of entomology Nicholas Calderone, during a media teleconference May 10.
Coral reef fish hatchlings dispersed by ocean currents are able to make their way back to their home reefs again to spawn, says a groundbreaking study published today in the journal Science. The study, whose findings are considered a major advance for fish conservation biology, was conducted by an international team of scientists from Australia, France, and the U.S.
The fate of ocean fish larvae has remained a mystery to science until now, but a University of Arkansas researcher and his colleagues have used a novel technique to directly explore their journey from egg to adult for the first time. Their findings, which also may help governments and marine organizations better manage marine protected areas, appear in the May 4 issue of the journal Science.
A new study expands upon previous findings that sex differences in cardiac performance and metabolism exist in fish in general, and have now been found to occur in rainbow trout in particular. The differences are only realized during working conditions.
Because of new imaging technology, researchers are getting a better understanding of a physiological paradox: how insects, which have a respiratory system built to provide quick access to a lot of oxygen, can survive for days without it. Four top researchers weigh in at the 120th Annual Meeting of the American Physiological Society (APS).
Sex makes you fat. If you're a female tick, that is. The "truly gluttonous" female ixodid tick increases her weight an astounding 100 times her original size after she mates, so a University of Alberta researcher investigated what it is about copulation that triggers such a massive weight gain.
The American Lobster, Americanus homarus, can be found from Cape Hatteras, NC to Newfoundland but is most abundant in the Gulf of Maine, from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia. As a result there is a near total overlap with the habitat of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.
Nearly four decades after a fuel oil spill polluted the beaches of Cape Cod, researchers have found the first compelling evidence for lingering, chronic biological effects on a marsh that otherwise appears to have recovered.
Bottlenose dolphins off the southern coast of Spain will now benefit from shipping lane shift recommended by Earthwatch scientists Ana Canadas and Ricardo Sagarminaga van Buiten. When passing through the Alboran Sea, merchant ships and fisherman will now be required to travel 20 miles further south, reducing acoustic and water pollution.
Contrary to popular belief, lemmings do not commit mass suicide by leaping off cliffs into the sea. A bigger threat to the rodents is climate change, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which is launching a study to examine how these tiny but important players in the ecological health of the far North will fare in the age of global warming.
The most recent census of mountain gorillas in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park"”one of only two places in the world where the rare gorillas exist"”has found that the population has increased by 6 percent since the last census in 2002, according to the Uganda Wildlife Authority, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Max Planck Institute of Anthropology and other groups that participated in the effort.
Your bird field guide may be out of date now that University of Florida scientists discovered a new genus of frogmouth bird on a South Pacific island.
There is a scene in the animated blockbuster "Finding Nemo" when a school of fish makes a rapid string of complicated patterns"”an arrow, a portrait of young Nemo and other intricate designs. While the detailed shapes might be a bit outlandish for fish to form, the premise isn't far off.
Soon after humans began domesticating dogs 12,000 to 15,000 years ago, they started breeding small canines. Now, scientists from the University of Utah and seven other institutions have identified a piece of doggy DNA that reduces the activity of a growth gene, ensuring that small breeds stay small.
Hippity, hoppity"¦click! So went the latest appearance of one of the world's rarest rabbits, captured on film by a camera trap in the rain forests of Indonesia, according to researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society.
A new study coordinated by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups found that Central Africa's increasing network of roads "“ which are penetrating deeper and deeper into the wildest areas of the Congo Basin "“ are becoming highways of death for the little known forest elephant.
The world's largest commercial whale hunt is due to commence in Norway this weekend with the highest coastal catch allowance since Norway's return to commercial whaling 14 years ago.
Fewer big sharks in the oceans mean that bay scallops and other shellfish may be harder to find at the market, according to an article in Science, tying two unlikely links in the food web to the same fate. A team ecologists has found that overfishing the largest predatory sharks, such as the bull, great white, dusky, and hammerhead sharks, along the Atlantic Coast of the U.S. has led to an explosion of their ray, skate, and small shark prey species.
Fewer big sharks in the oceans led to the destruction of North Carolina's bay scallop fishery and inhibits the recovery of depressed scallop, oyster and clam populations along the U.S. Atlantic Coast, according to an article in the March 30 issue of the journal Science.
The US is reporting a massive sudden decline in honeybee colonies across 22 states "“ a potential disaster for agriculture since bees pollinate crops worth $14 billion each year. The precise cause remains elusive, but researchers are investigating all culprits from pathogens and pesticides to the nature of beekeeping.
The first example of an animal making sophisticated decisions about the danger posed by a predator from the information contained in the alarm calls of another species has been discovered.
Since the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound 18 years ago, dozens of studies have looked at the wildlife in the area to assess its recovery from the spill. The latest study has determined that residual oil from local beaches poses an extremely low threat to pink eggs. The study is published in the latest issue of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.
University of Arkansas researchers are using cutting-edge spatial technologies to study the aftermath of an insect infestation that has devastated red oak populations in Arkansas and Missouri. By combining this research with field work, they seek patterns that might help explain what trees are vulnerable to infestation, thus helping forestry professionals determine future forest management practices.
Earthwatch-supported scientist Dr. Luke Dollar (Pfeiffer University) receives a National Geographic Emerging Explorer award in recognition of his far-reaching research in Madagascar. Dollar's work with unique predators at remote sites is supported by volunteers willing to go the extra mile for conservation.
In two species of whip spiders, or amblypygids, mothers caress their young with long feelers, siblings stick together until they reach sexual maturity, and all mix in social groups. This is surprising behavior for these arachnids long-thought to be purely aggressive and anti-social.
For decades, the concept of the "Big 4" Snakes of Medical Importance has reflected the view that four species are responsible for Indian snakebite mortality. The recent recognition of a snake in India, previously considered harmless, as a species capable of causing life-threatening envenoming brings the value of the "Big 4" into question.
Cinereous vultures have been declining throughout Europe and Asia, and conservation plans are hampered by a lack of knowledge about their ecology. Earthwatch-supported researchers in Mongolia tagged several young vultures in 2006, which were recently sighted in various parts of South Korea, providing vital evidence of their migratory patterns.
Most of us would know our mother's voice on the phone from the first syllable uttered. A recent Cornell study suggests that crows also can recognize the voices of their relatives.
An international team of scientists led by the Wildlife Conservation Society working in Iran has successfully fitted two Asiatic cheetahs with Global Positioning System (GPS) collars, marking the first time this highly endangered population of big cats can be tracked by conservationists.
Using a variety of new approaches, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego are forging a new understanding of the largest mammals on Earth.
New research shows African elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory at a rate unprecedented since an international convention banning ivory trade took effect in 1989.
A team of biologists with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have recorded for the first time the call of the extremely rare Sumatran ground cuckoo, found only on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.
The beaver, the state mammal of New York, and whose image adorns the official seal of New York City, has returned to the Big Apple after an absence that dates to colonial times, when the animal was hunted to local extinction.
WDCS is launching its 100 Days to Save the Whale campaign highlighting the urgent need to protect whales from an industry which is increasingly aggressive in its approach to international conventions in pursuit of both the numbers and different species it kills.
Cornell is partnering on a wildlife conservation project in Zambia that saves animals' lives by addressing a powerful threat: Poverty and hunger that force families to poach or clear-cut forests to create temporary farm fields.
There's no such thing as picky grizzly bears"”they'll eat almost anything they can find. A new University of Alberta study that tracked food habits of the Alberta grizzly bear living in the foothills sheds some light on the animal's varied diet and their activity pattern.
Shark attacks edged up slightly in 2006 but continued an overall long-term decline as overfishing and more cautious swimmers helped take a bite out of the aggressive encounters, new University of Florida research finds.
People from all ages and places can participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count, Feb. 16-19, 2007. It is a joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. Now in its 10th year, this fun, free event helps create a long-term record scientists can use to learn how environmental changes "“ such as urbanization and global climate change "“ are affecting birds.
On the 10th anniversary of their capture, people are asked to remember the 10 orcas (killer whales) trapped and removed from the wild near the coastal town of Taiji, Japan, and to ask the Japanese authorities to refuse permission for further orca captures in Japanese waters.
Working in the remote forests of Cambodia, conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have just discovered Southeast Asia's only known breeding colony of slender-billed vultures, one of the world's most threatened bird species.
Returning from a recent 1,000-mile expedition across Tibet's remote Chang Tang region, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) biologist George Schaller reports that the Tibetan antelope "“ once the target of rampant poaching "“ may be increasing in numbers due to a combination of better enforcement and a growing conservation ethic in local communities.
Scientists have long struggled to figure out how the brain guides the complex movement of our limbs, from the graceful leaps of ballerinas to the simple everyday act of picking up a cup of coffee. Using tools from robotics and neuroscience, researchers have found some tantalizing clues in an unlikely mode of motion: the undulations of tropical fish.
For the first time, a fish identified as endangered has been shown to have recovered -- and in the Hudson River near New York City, report Cornell's Mark Bain and colleagues in the online publication PLoS ONE.
Human preferences probably will play a major role in determining which other species survive in a changing world, and new research shows those preferences could be governed by subtle factors.
An ichthyologist from the Wildlife Conservation Society's New York Aquarium received the ultimate honor recently, when a freshwater fish discovered on the African island nation of Madagascar was named after him.
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