The new study is one of the first to demonstrate fish egg dispersal via avian fecal matter

Recovering the endangered critters will test society’s willingness to let nature reclaim a landscape.

The Earth's biodiversity is decreasing at a faster rate than ever before. Why is this happening?

One of Africa’s largest wildlife preserves is marking a year without a single elephant found killed by poachers, which experts call an extraordinary development in an area larger than Switzerland where thousands of the animals have been slaughtered in recent years.

Study finds elk have the means to adapt to changing climate cues, but migratory shifts may have unknown ripple effects throughout the region

The group of 35 will be shipped Down Under to protect the species from poaching.

More than 70,000 snakes slither out of dens to breed each spring at a Manitoba wildlife area, and thousands of people just can’t keep away from the writhing show. Just don’t call it an orgy.

The number of seabirds on an island in the Bristol Channel has soared following the eradication of rats, conservationists have revealed. There has been a boost in the numbers of Manx shearwater, puffins and guillemots on Lundy Island 15 years after a project to remove rats ended. The RSPB said the number of seabirds on the island, off Devon, had tripled to 21,000.

A previously extinct species of bird has re-evolved back into existence, according to a new study. The Aldabra rail first went extinct around 136,000 years ago. Now, it's reclaimed its home island. According to a study published Wednesday in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, sediments from the Aldabra Atoll in the Indian Ocean show that the island has been completely submerged multiple times, wiping out all species inhabiting it.

Bird populations across the French countryside have fallen by a third over the last decade and a half, researchers have said. Dozens of species have seen their numbers decline, in some cases by two-thirds, the scientists said in a pair of studies – one national in scope and the other covering a large agricultural region in central France.

In 1965, an emaciated male lion attacked and killed a villager in the Darajani region of Tsavo, Kenya. Locals led American hunter John Perrott to the animal, where he shot and killed it. While admiring his trophy shortly thereafter, Perrott noticed something unusual: a sharp quill jutting out of the lion’s left nostril.

The photographer tells CBS News the squirrel was a mother defending its babies – and she persevered

Thousands of adorable but poisonous Bufo toads, which can kill pets and are dangerous to children, have invaded a suburban Florida neighborhood. Cane toads, as they are known, range from 6 to 9 inches in length. Their babies are dime-sized, though, and those are the creatures hopping around in droves.

Karma's a bitch.

An African hunter who claims to have killed more than 5,000 elephants says he is 'totally unrepentant' about the deaths he has caused. Ron Thomson, 77, who worked in Africa's national parks for almost six decades, claims he was not hunting the animals for pure sport but was managing population that would otherwise have got out of control.

When he’s not on the road with his guitar, Texas musician Willie Nelson spends time at his Texas ranch, dubbed “Luck Ranch” by the singer. Some 70 horses roam there, all of which were rescued by Nelson; most of them were slated for the slaughterhouse. The name “Luck” suits the ranch in more ways than one. Nelson likes to say, “When you’re here, you’re in Luck, and when you’re not, you’re out of Luck,” explains Paul Venema from KSAT 12 News, who interviewed the singer.

Ecologists long suspected the rugged mountains of Sailyugemsky National Park -- tucked into the Central Asian notch where Kazakhstan, Russia, China, and Mongolia meet -- were prime habitat for the beautiful, endangered snow leopard. But little was known about the numbers or habits of the elusive creatures. In 2010, American researcher Rodney Jackson of the Snow Leopard Conservancy donated 20 motion-activated camera traps to his Russian colleagues in hopes of learning more.

The gray wolf population in Yellowstone National Park has dropped to about 80 wolves, officials say — less than half of the high population mark in the park. While Yellowstone leaders won’t have an accurate count until the fall after surviving pups are visible, the park’s top biologist doesn’t expect numbers to rise dramatically after litters are included in population estimates.

“Pest” bird species such as crows, woodpigeons and jays can no longer be freely killed in England after the government’s conservation watchdog revoked the licence permitting it. The move by Natural England came after a challenge to the legality of the “general licence” by a new environmental group, Wild Justice, created by conservationists Mark Avery, Ruth Tingay and Chris Packham.

Give a mouse a wheel, and he’ll be sure to run. Lots of scientific studies have depended on that behavior to test the effects of exercise on health. There’s been some concern, though, that wheel running is not a natural behavior and thus not a good stand-in for human exercise. Maybe the captive mice are just acting out a neurosis, the thinking goes.

Federal wildlife officials said Thursday that they would officially consider listing the giraffe as an endangered species, a move long sought by conservationists alarmed by the African mammal’s precipitous decline and a growing domestic market for giraffe products.

It took a decade of stalking his prey — the perfect shot — but photographer Mark Nui of Natuashish finally brought his catch home. After scoping out the coast for a month, he was rewarded on a recent snowmobile trip to the islands outside of Natuashish when he spotted three polar bears — a mother and two cubs.

A petition signed by 350,000 people calls for "netting" of trees and hedges to be a criminal offence.

Playful Photos of Polar Bears Frolicking in Flower Fields During Summer

Scientists estimate there are now 235 wild bengal tigers in Nepal, a huge leap from 2009, when there were only about 120 of the endangered animals. In just the last four years, the population jumped nearly 20 percent, up from 198 of the animals, according to analysis performed by Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, along with conservation groups including Panthera and the Zoological Society of London.

In the face of global warming, polar bears continue to lose ground. The gradual withdrawal of the ice could lead to periods of scarcity with worrying repercussions. Among the victims of global warming, polar bears are probably the most iconic. These creatures have probably survived previous warm periods in the Arctic with stranded whale carcasses. However, this source of power may no longer suffice with the gradual removal of ice, reducing the number of platforms on the surface of which they can hunt seals.

As drones become smaller and cheaper, experts urge people to use caution when flying near wild animals like this brown bear and her cub.

The oldest elephants wandering Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park bear the indelible markings of the civil war that gripped the country for 15 years: Many are tuskless. They’re the lone survivors of a conflict that killed about 90 percent of these beleaguered animals, slaughtered for ivory to finance weapons and for meat to feed the fighters.

Two hundred million mounds of dirt dot an area about the size of Great Britain in a tropical forest in northeastern Brazil. The cone-shaped dirt piles are roughly twice as tall as the average American man and stretch 30 feet across at the base. The mounds, the work of countless generations of termites, rise from the earth every 65 feet or so and are visible from space.

Climate change has enabled the recent expansion of beavers into northwestern Alaska, a trend that could have major ecological consequences for the region in the coming decades.

One of the most popular wolves in Yellowstone National Park was killed by a trophy hunter after wandering just outside the park last weekend. By Aris Folley.

Photographer Mads Nordsvee describes the sighting as a "fairytale moment".

You can give your cat the flu. You can also pass pneumonia to a chimpanzee or tuberculosis to a bird. This kind of human-to-animal disease transmission, known as reverse zoonosis, has been seen on every continent except one: Antarctica. Now, human-linked pathogens in bird poop reveal, for the first time, that even animals on this isolated, ice-bound landmass can pick up a bug from tourists or visiting scientists. This newly identified infection route could have devastating consequences for Antarctic bird colonies, including population collapse and even extinction.

The population of wild reindeer, or caribou, in the Arctic has crashed by more than half in the last two decades. A new report on the impact of climate change in the Arctic revealed that numbers fell from almost 5 million to around 2.1 million animals. The report was released at the American Geophysical Research Union meeting.

They've been on our planet for millions of years, but 2018 was the year several species officially vanished forever. Three bird species went completely extinct this year, scientists say, two of which are songbirds from northeastern Brazil: The Cryptic Treehunter (Cichlocolaptes mazarbarnetti) and Alagoas Foliage-gleaner (Philydor novaesi), according to a recent report from the conservation group BirdLife International.