According to a 14-year study, adult elephants in northern Kenya are more likely to die at the hands of humans than from natural causes. George Wittemyer, a wildlife biologist at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, and lead author of the study, published the findings in the journal PLOS ONE. The Scientists began the study in [...]

US fisheries scientists are claiming that a supervisor threatened to eliminate their research division after the team had produced controversial model predictions of the survival and recovery of the threatened coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch). The threatened O. kisutch reside in the Klamath River Basin in Oregon. The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a complaint [...]

In the past few years, the Amazon rainforest in Peru’s Ucayali region has been hit by two severe droughts, one in 2005 and another in 2010. These dry spells could become more frequent as temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean continue to rise and as thousands of square kilometers of forest are burnt to [...]

Trees in Costa Rica, as well as a number of plant species, in the tropical cloud forests quench their thirst by directly ingesting fog droplets through their leaves. These forests are in danger because of climate change, and a new study indicates that they’re even more fragile than previously thought. The scientists published their findings [...]

If current carbon dioxide emission trends continue, nearly every coral reef would be decimated by 2100, according to a new review of major climate models. The only way to maintain the current chemical environment in which reefs need to live, would be to deeply cut emissions worldwide. The scientists presented their findings at the American [...]

A six-week survey of the Yangtze River’s middle and lower stretches by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB) in Wuhan and the conservation group WWF in China has concluded that the Yangtze finless porpoises (Neophocaena phocaenoides asiaeorientalis) are being driven to the brink of extinction by fishing, pollution and other human activities. [...]

A new study indicates that the megadrought that struck the Amazon in 2010 devastated millions of hectares of rainforest, shedding a new light over the debate over the effects of recent climatic events. The initial findings were presented at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. They indicate that as many as one in [...]

At a meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, which is the governing body for international fisheries agreement seeking to ensure the conservation and sustainability of highly migratory fish, complaints were issued that big fishing nations had blocked efforts to curb tuna overfishing and ignored scientific advice. Nanette Malsol, chair of the Parties [...]

For two years in the Panamanian tropics, entomologists have been laboring in cranes, gliding amongst treetops using helium-filled balloons, hiking through the jungle at night and setting traps that used light as bait in order to come up with en estimate on the biodiversity of arthropods. The scientists published their findings in the journal Science. [...]

Scallops cough to expel feces and water from their central cavities. The friction between the mollusk’s two valves makes a sharp crack, followed by a drawn-out puffing sound as the valves close. Biologists think that these coughs could serve as an early warning system for worsening water quality. The scientists published their findings in the [...]

The global population of hammerhead sharks, a group of sharks in the family Sphyrnidae, has plummeted by 89% in the last 20 years, largely due to illegal poaching and accidental fishing. Scientists have come up with a way to reduce the bycatch of hammerhead sharks. The scientists published their findings in the journal Fisheries Research. [...]

Researchers estimate that 10 wolves from Yellowstone National Park have been killed by hunters this month, severely affecting the park’s wolf research programs, one of the longest studies of its kind. The wolves have been tracked since their reintroduction in 1995. The killings came just as the scientists were set to begin the wolf project’s [...]