Extinction | featured news

Mozambique's rhinoceros population was wiped out more than a century ago by big game hunters. Reconstituted several years ago, it has again been driven to extinction, or to the brink of extinction, by poachers seeking their horns for sale in Asia....

It’s not yet light, but Mr Qiu of Foshan in Guangdong is busy transferring king ratsnakes from a cage into a sack. He then tips them into a boiling pot. He’s been running his snake-soup shop for over a decade. In winter, residents of Guangdong province, south China, pay particular attention to diet and nutrition, meaning the shop is constantly busy. A bowl of piping hot snake soup is a breakfast favourite for many locals looking to ward off the cold. “We Cantonese have always believed that snake meat can treat illnesses, plus its nutritious and keeps out the cold,” Qiu says.

First came the polar bear. Now, the federal government has added two other marine mammals to the list of creatures threatened with extinction because of vanishing sea ice in a warming Arctic.

The pygmy right whale, a mysterious and elusive creature that rarely comes to shore, is the last living relative of an ancient group of whales long believed to be extinct, a new study suggests.

Survival International’s Director Stephen Corry states, “The extinction of Brazil’s indigenous peoples is a blot on the country’s history, and it’s shameful that the same cruelties and abuses rife during the colonial era are being endorsed by the Brazilian justice system today. The Pyelito Guarani’s heartrending plea couldn’t be clearer: life without their land is so full of misery and suffering,that it is not worth living. Brazil must act before it allows another of its peoples to be destroyed”.

The last known population of woolly mammoths did not "inevitably" die out because of inbreeding and lack of genetic diversity, a study suggests.

The Western Black Rhino of Africa has been declared officially extinct, and two other subspecies of rhinoceros are close to meeting the same fate, a leading conservation group said Thursday.

The bacteria that caused the Black Death, which wiped out millions in mid-14th century Europe, may be extinct, according to a new study.

A massive, long-ago extinction was once thought to have been caused by a destructive wave of volcanic activity. Scientists now point their fingers at another culprit. A giant, deadly “Earth burp.”

An environmental group says an animal widely believed to be the source of the unicorn legend is back from the brink of extinction after a successful breeding program.