Award-winning author Eduardo Gonçalves shows killing for fun isn't conservation.

The number of monarch butterflies that showed up at their winter resting grounds in central Mexico decreased by about 26% this year, and four times as many trees were lost to illegal logging, drought and other causes, making 2020 a bad year for the butterflies.

A tooth from a mammoth that roamed the Siberian steppe more than a million years ago has yielded the world's oldest DNA sequence. It's the first time that DNA has been recovered from animal remains more than a million years old. Previously, the most ancient DNA sample was from a horse that lived between 560,000 and 780,000 years ago

Earth saw a lot of commotion when its magnetic poles flipped 42,000 years ago. Scientists have known about the flip since the late 1960s. Earth's magnetic poles aren't static - they're generated by electric currents from the planet's liquid outer core, which is constantly in motion. As of late, Earth's magnetic North pole has wandered considerably on a path toward northern Russia.

Sawfish have lost 59% of their historical distribution and are heading toward complete extinction due to overfishing, a new study says, posing a threat to ocean biodiversity and indicating that policies worldwide to protect the world's largest ray are not being enforced.

Sitting motionless on a fallen tree trunk, Rada Surmach strained to hear the mournful echo of nesting owls, deep in the Tunsha River Valley of the Russian Far East. In the twilight, she finally heard it: The duet of the Blakiston’s fish owl, an endangered species whose six-foot wingspan makes it the world’s biggest owl.

Scientists say sharks and rays are disappearing from the world's oceans at an "alarming" rate. The number of sharks found in the open oceans has plunged by 71% over half a century, mainly due to over-fishing, according to a new study. Three-quarters of the species studied are now threated with extinction.

In botanic gardens, the lineage of a famously smelly plant is threatened. Can a new collaborative program save it?

Chances are, the works of the world’s insects touch your lips every day. The coffee or tea you savor, both are insect pollinated. Apples, oranges, cabbages, cashews, cherries, carrots, broccoli, watermelon, garlic, cinnamon, basil, sunflower seeds, almonds, canola oil — all are insect pollinated. Honey, dyes, even some vaccines require insects to come to fruition.

Dozens of frogs, fish, orchids and other species may no longer exist due to humanity’s effects on the planet

Up to 48 bird and mammal extinctions have been prevented by conservation efforts since a global agreement to protect biodiversity, according to a new study. The Iberian lynx, California condor and pygmy hog are among animals that would have disappeared without reintroduction programmes, zoo-based conservation and formal legal protections since 1993, research led by scientists at Newcastle University and BirdLife International found.

A controversial environment chief in the Trump administration has said he has no intention of leaving his post after a US district court judge deemed his tenure and ongoing occupation of the position illegal. William Perry Pendley, head of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), said this week that the judge’s ruling “has no impact, no impact whatsoever”.

Two major reports released this month paint a grim portrait of the future for our planet’s wildlife. First, the Living Planet Report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), published last week, found that in half a century, human activity has decimated global wildlife populations by an average of 68 percent.

The naturalist looks at the fragile state of the natural world and how human activity drives extinction.

Scientists have rebuilt the population of Burmese roofed turtles to nearly 1,000 individuals and counting.

A number of famous novelists, poets and playwrights including Margaret Atwood and Zadie Smith have lent their support to an Extinction Rebellion campaign against the political influence of rightwing thinktanks fighting against climate action. On Wednesday evening the Writers Rebel group will demonstrate outside 55 Tufton Street in London, a venue known to host meetings of thinktanks and lobbying outfits linked to climate science denial and the oil industry.

Many butterfly watchers across Pennsylvania, even those with pollinator or butterfly gardens or fields packed with butterfly-attracting wildflowers, have reported a noticeable decline in the big showy butterflies like monarchs and swallowtails, this summer. Some have seen a bit of a resurgence in their backyard butterfly numbers later than normally expected in the past couple weeks. But overall summer 2020 has seen fewer butterflies in many parts of Pennsylvania.

Efforts to save the giant panda from extinction have come at the expense of other large mammals, a new study released Monday by the science journal Nature Ecology and Evolution said.

One quarter of the UK’s native mammals are classified as being at “imminent risk of extinction” and conservationists are calling for urgent action to save them, as the first official Red List for British mammals has been published.

The giraffe is nearly down. Two men have stretched a thick black rope in front of the animal, to trip her up. The giraffe hits the rope, and the plan seems to be working until she gains a second wind and breaks into a fresh run. Her body sways backward and forward like a rocking horse being pulled along on a dolly. Six more people grab onto the ends of the rope, and the group runs behind her, holding tight, pitting their meager strength against her weight.