Scientists trying to determine why killer whales are dying off are getting help from dogs; specifically, their keen sense of smell. In Washington State’s Puget Sound, scientists are examining the feces of killer whales to determine if factors such as pollution, boat traffic, and eating habits are to blame for the mammals’ declining population.
It’s the real thing – and much better than anything you can see at a marine circus like SeaWorld. These orcas were among dozens seen along the Southern California coast over the last week as they migrate south to Mexico.
Elephants gathered around 3-month-old Lola after she had died from a pulmonary embolism at Germany’s Hellabrunn Zoo.
Lola had been taken to the hospital, but she died during a cat scan prior to going into surgery.
After seeing our report on the U.S. Navy once again deploying its dolphin conscripts to the Persian Gulf, a reader wrote in to remind us about a 60 Minutes story from back in 1973, when Morley Safer interviewed various dolphin trainers and military personnel.
Who stole Camera 11? The scientists had left 11 cameras in a remote area of Tajikistan, hoping to take photos and video of rare, elusive snow leopards. When they went to retrieve them three months later … only 10 cameras.
NASA’s chief climate scientist used to present his research inside the White House. But nobody took any notice. Now he stands outside in the cold, protesting the lack of action – and getting arrested for it.
New data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA show that for the 35th year in a row, the globe was warmer than average during 2011, and about the 10th-warmest year on record since 1880.
Who exactly has been invading whose territory? A slideshow in Huffington Post presents 10 of “the invasive species threatening North America.”
Many species interact in the wild, most often as predator and prey. But recent encounters between humpback whales and bottlenose dolphins reveal a playful side to interspecies interaction.
Uncle Chichi, the toy poodle who lived in the West Village and was at least 24 (maybe even 26 years old) has gone to doggie heaven.
The remains of a dog, discovered in Siberia, show that humans and dogs were living and working together at least 33,000 years ago.
When eight capuchin monkeys decided to make a break for it at the zoo in Parana, Brazil, they used the tools they had at hand to open the door of the cage. (Another example of how the old conventional wisdom that “using tools is a uniquely human ability” is completely wrong.)
Last week, the British Daily Mail reported that people are paying tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of taking a family expedition to Africa to kill giraffes.
Shaba was 2 years old when she was placed with Connie. Elephants have very close family bonds, and, far from their original families and homes, the two have basically known only each other.
Snowy owls (like Hedwig in the Harry Potter stories) are having a busy winter all across the country. Denver Holt, director of the Owl Research Institute in Charlo, Montana, tells the New York Times their numbers are unusually high this year.
Time lapse photography onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011.
It’s been a dry winter so far here in canyon country, but it snowed a bit a couple of days ago, so I drove over to Zion National Park for a few hours yesterday afternoon.
Three hundred dolphins in Wellfleet harbor on Cape Cod were successfully guided out to safety in the ocean by volunteers with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).
A few days before police raided the Butterball turkey factory farm in North Carolina, an official at the N.C. Department of Agriculture called the factory farm to give them advance warning that trouble was on the way.
The department of agriculture projects that our meat and poultry consumption will fall again this year, to about 12.2 percent less in 2012 than it was in 2007.