Latest Animals News
Biden administration moves to make conservation an equal to industry on US lands
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration on Thursday finalized a new rule for public land management that's meant to put conservation on more equal footing with oil drilling, grazing and other extractive industries on vast government-owned properties. Officials pushed past...
High mercury levels in some Lake Maurepas fish bring meal restrictions, state officials say
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana residents are being urged to limit their consumption of fish from Lake Maurepas in Livingston and St. John the Baptist parishes where high levels of mercury have been detected. According to a fish consumption advisory issued by the state...
This ancient snake in India might have been longer than a school bus and weighed a ton
WASHINGTON (AP) — A ancient giant snake in India might have been longer than a school bus and weighed a ton, researchers reported Thursday. Fossils found near a coal mine revealed a snake that stretched an estimated 36 feet (11 meters) to 50 feet (15 meters). It's comparable to the...
Cloning makes three: Two more endangered ferrets are gene copies of critter frozen in 1980s
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Two more black-footed ferrets have been cloned from the genes used for the first clone of an endangered species in the U.S., bringing to three the number of slinky predators genetically identical to one of the last such animals found in the wild, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife...
A vehicle backfiring startled a circus elephant into a Montana street. She still performed Tuesday
The sound of a vehicle backfiring spooked a circus elephant while she was getting a pre-show bath in Butte, Montana, leading the pachyderm to break through a fence and take a brief walk, stopping noontime traffic on the city's busiest street before being loaded back into a trailer. ...
UN envoy says of the threat to coral reefs: 'Are we faced with a colossal ecosystem tragedy? Yes'
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The world is not doing enough to protect coral reefs, the United Nations’ special envoy for the ocean said Tuesday in defense of the marine ecosystems that protect biodiversity, sustain underwater life and produce some of the oxygen we breathe. In an...
A 9-year-old boy's dream of a pet octopus is a sensation as thousands follow Terrance's story online
The one thing 9-year-old Cal Clifford wanted more than anything since he was a toddler was a pet octopus. The boy's family in rural Edmond, Oklahoma, humored him with toy versions of an eight-legged mollusk, but as Cal got older it became clear that only the real thing would do. ...
Decades after a US butterfly species vanished, a close relative is released to fill gap
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — More than 80 years ago, a beautiful butterfly called Xerces Blue that once fluttered among San Francisco's coastal dunes went extinct as stately homes, museums and parks ate up its habitat, marking the first butterfly species in the United States to disappear due to human...
Scientists say coral reefs around the world are experiencing mass bleaching in warming oceans
Coral reefs around the world are experiencing global bleaching for the fourth time, top reef scientists declared Monday, a result of warming ocean waters amid human-caused climate change. Coral reef bleaching across at least 53 countries, territories or local economies has been...
How to get rid of NYC rats without brutality? Birth control is one idea
New York lawmakers are proposing rules to humanely drive down the population of rats and other rodents, eyeing contraception and a ban on glue traps as alternatives to poison or a slow, brutal death. Politicians have long come up with creative ways to battle the rodents, but some...
