Animals, 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.

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.

Current extinction rate projections may be overestimating the role of habitat loss on species, a study suggest... Writing in the journal Nature, they said present figures overestimated rates by up to 160%, and called for updated, more accurate calculations.

China's panda population is booming this year thanks to a record number of births in captivity, a rare accomplishment for the endangered species ...

Environmental experts have warned that the world's tiger population could soon be extinct because of illegal trophy hunting, deteriorating habitats and the use of tiger parts in eastern medicine.

Conservationists say rate of new species slower than diversity loss caused by the destruction of habitats and climate change.

The number of tigers in the wild has dwindled to 3,200, the World Wildlife Fund said Wednesday as it launched a campaign to save them.