For the second time in two weeks, the biologists in Puerto Rico are scrambling to protect the endangered Puerto Rican parrot from intense Hurricane winds.

Has the chilling threat of extinction worn off at last for the long-endangered snow leopard? Not exactly - but the iconic big cats' conservation status has been improved from "endangered" to "vulnerable". The decision was announced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) - the global standard for assessing extinction risk.

A Points South essay from the Summer 2017 issue.

Despite Canada's vast wilderness, populations of half its vertebrate species are shrinking, a new World Wildlife Fund report finds. And endangered species like woodland caribou and St. Lawrence beluga whales continue to disappear even after becoming protected by federal laws. The Living Planet Report Canada, released Thursday morning by the conservation group WWF-Canada, found 451 of 903 mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian and fish species across the country — half the species in the study — declined in number between 1970 and 2014.

Wild tigers are to be reintroduced to Kazakhstan 70 years after they became extinct in the country. The animals will be reintroduced in the Ili-Balkhash region in a project that involves the creation of a nature reserve and the restoration of a forest that is part of the animal’s historical range.

Three rangers have been killed in separate countries in a deadly month for wildlife defenders. A ranger at Serra da Capivara national park, in Brazil’s north-eastern Piaui region, was killed by hunters on 18 August. Edilson Aparecido dos Santos and two other colleagues were patrolling the park when they were ambushed by a group of four armed men who are believed to have been hunting in the park illegally. Dos Santos was killed in the shootout that followed, while the other two rangers were injured.

This year's Wildlife Photographer of the Year award shortlist is out today. Here are some of the finalists from the competition, and the stories behind the photographs.

Armadillos are native to the southern United States, but the animals have slowly been moving north. And, Champaign County recently saw its first armadillo. Armadillos have been in southern Illinois since the 1990s. But, Champaign County saw its first documented armadillo earlier this month at Urbana High School.

Good news out of South Africa (home to a very large rhinoceros population) - poaching numbers seem to be decreasing and poaching related arrests are increasing. 2016 saw 1,054 rhinos poached for the horns, a drop from the 1,174 rhinos taken in South Africa in 2015. At the same time, there were approximately 680 arrests that came as a direct result of park ranger intervention, up from about 315 such arrests in 2015.

Last Friday, Hans Nilsson in Sweden finally caught sight of an elusive creature he'd been trying to capture on film for three years straight.

Grizzly bears have stopped eating salmon in favour of elderberries after being forced to make a choice due to climate change.

A Canadian man had to punch a black bear in the nose to force it outside after it followed a toddler into a British Columbia family's home. Froude was home with her two sons when she heard her two-year-old yell: "Mom, look!" She turned and saw a black bear walking through her home's sliding glass doors. Ms Froude locked herself and her children in a bedroom while a family friend banged pots and chased it with a chair.

‘There are trees where to lay your eggs or where to find a safe cover; trees on which to look for food or, simply, to scratch your back and thus leave behind a trace of your passage’ – Bruno D’Amicis and Umberto Esposito

The first of the bodies was discovered by a hiker who snapped a photo of the suspicious scene with his cellphone. Buried in a nest on the westernmost spit of the Hawaiian island of Oahu was a dead bird the size of a human child… By Brittany Lyte.

Cecil the lion’s oldest cub has been shot dead by trophy hunters. Xanda was killed outside the Hwange National Park in north west Zimbabwe, according to lion guardians at the national park. He was just over six years old and had several young cubs.

A bear that got stuck in a car in the US state of Colorado took a short joyride before crashing, police say. Durango resident Ron Cornelius awoke to find a Subaru SUV crashed at the bottom of the hill at the end of his driveway. "Usually, I don't get up at 5 o'clock unless there is a bear driving a car down the street," he joked to the Durango Herald newspaper.

An Argentinian man has been killed in Namibia after he was trampled by an elephant, local media report. The Namibia Press Agency said the hunter, identified as 46-year-old Jose Monzalvez, was killed on Saturday afternoon in a private wildlife area 70 kilometers (43 miles) northwest of the small town of Kalkfeld.

Good news out of South Africa (home to a very large rhinoceros population) - poaching numbers seem to be decreasing and poaching related arrests are increasing. 2016 saw 1,054 rhinos poached for the horns, a drop from the 1,174 rhinos taken in South Africa in 2015. At the same time, there were approximately 680 arrests that came as a direct result of park ranger intervention, up from about 315 such arrests in 2015.

A dirt bike rider in Oregon came just inches from a potentially dangerous run-in with a mountain lion. The video, seen below, was captured on a camera mounted just behind Drew Terteling’s helmet. The video …

Scientists in Denmark say that the country now has its first pack of wolves in over 200 years. Wolves hadn't been seen in the country in two centuries until one was spotted in Jutland five years ago. Since then, there have been concerns that male and female animals would meet and eventually mate, the Copenhagen Post reports. That now appears to have happened. DNA evidence from faeces has confirmed a female has settled in west Jutland, and CCTV images have shown a pair of wolves moving together in the region.

'Extinction rates for birds, mammals and amphibians are similar to the five global mass-extinction events of the past 500 million years that probably resulted from meteorite impacts, massive volcanism and other cataclysmic forces'

Scientists reporting in the Journal of Mammalogy on May 30 have identified a new species of flying squirrel living in the Pacific Coast region of North America.

Mule deer, pronghorn and other animals rely on unbroken migration routes for food and survival, a necessity now in jeopardy as Trump pushes for development. By Oliver Milman.

Latest estimates show that there are 104 tigers in the Kaziranga National Park and Burachapori, about 250 km from here. In 2014, there were 83 tigers in Kaziranga. While 95 adult tigers were found in Kaziranga National Park, two adult tigers and their cubs were found in Burachapori. Both the parks are located within the Kaziranga Tiger Reserve, sprawling over an area of 860 sq km.

To see how far we've come in restoring grizzly bear populations in and around Yellowstone National Park, consider: There are five times more grizzlies now than there were in 1975, when they were first protected under the Endangered Species Act. The area grizzlies roam has increased by half. And conflicts with bears attracted to landowners’ chicken coops now pose a greater threat than hunting.

Erin Johnson, 27, of Anchorage, was killed Monday by a black bear while she was doing contract work for Pogo Mine in Interior Alaska.This was the second fatal bear attack in a two day span.

A WWF appeal aims to highlight the threat of habitat destruction and climate change on wild populations

Two lions who were rescued from circuses in Colombia and Peru last year and transported to South African wild have been killed by poachers in Emoya Big Cat Sanctuary.

Thousands of elephants being used for entertainment across Asia are kept in cruel, abusive conditions fuelled by the growing tourism industry, World Animal Protection has found. Three out of four elephants surveyed in south-east Asia’s popular tourist destinations are living in harsh conditions where they are being used for rides, with mostly steel or wooden saddles, and tied in chains less than three metres long.

The pit organ is part of the snake's somatosensory system — which detects touch, temperature and pain — and does not receive signals from the eyes, confirming that snakes 'see' infrared by detecting heat, not photons of light.

Carcasses found off Canada in recent weeks in what may be biggest single die-off of one of world’s most endangered whale species, expert says. By Ashifa Kassam.

The calf in this video was separated from the rest of its herd and tries to keep up with nearby vehicles instead. By Heather Brady.

Endangered big cats - a mother and two cubs - frolic in front of the lens, before stopping the show by removing the memory card with paw.

A camp staffer at a Christian summer camp in Colorado received medical care after he was made awake early Sunday by a bear chewing on his head. The 19-year-old said that he thought he was dreaming as he heard a "crunching sound," only to wake up in "immense pain" as the black bear attempted to drag him away from the Glacier View Ranch campsite, Colorado Parks & Wildlife spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill told CNN.

A teen staffer at a Colorado camp fought off a bear after waking up Sunday to find the animal biting his head and trying to drag him away.