Information about animals
Four days of extreme rain in Indonesia killed 7% of world’s rarest great apes, study finds
Critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan population falls after heavy rain and landslides, fuelled by climate crisis, in North Sumatra
Extreme rainfall and landslides fuelled by the climate crisis killed 7% of the remaining population of the world’s rarest great ape, a study has found, prompting fears for the species’ survival.
The research suggests 58 out of the remaining 800 critically endangered Tapanuli orangutans (Pongo tapanuliensis) were killed after more than 1,000mm (39in) of rain fell over four days in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province in November 2025. This equates to 11% of the local population and 7% of the entire species.
Continue reading...Big agriculture is killing our bees. We’ll all pay the price | Jennie Durant
We’re thinking about the crisis facing pollinators all wrong. And we’ve come to a crucial moment
Last winter, commercial beekeepers lost more than 60% of their colonies – their worst losses on record. We tend to blame bee losses on separate, singular threats: pests, pesticides, habitat loss or extreme weather. But we’ve been thinking about bee losses wrong.
The real culprit is our industrial food system.
Continue reading...Country diary: A late-night nightingale serenade | Nic Wilson
Strawberry Hill, Bedfordshire: After an evening round the campfire, we head into the wonderfully, chaotically alive scrub, to hear the headline act
“Now I walk in beauty / Beauty is before me”. Earlier this evening we learned the simple melody to this Navajo prayer, and sang it as a round in the hawthorn clearing, adding our voices to the chorus of chiffchaff, blackcap and garden warbler. Afterwards we sat for a few moments, listening, newly aware of the beauty before us. Across the meadow, a cuckoo began to call.
Now night has fallen, and all is silent as we follow a narrow track through scrub and young woodland on the 150-hectare Strawberry Hill Wildlife Trust reserve. Our music around the campfire was merely a warm-up to an evening of Singing With Nightingales, and tonight’s event is part of Exeter University’s research into the effects of nature connection on chronic pain.
Continue reading...Bycatch has ‘shocking’ toll on British marine life, first-ever analysis reveals
Conservationists say cherished creatures such as whales, dolphins and seabirds are being killed in large numbers by fishing tackle
Thousands of Britain’s most charismatic and protected marine wildlife, including whales, porpoises, dolphins, seals and seabirds are being killed as “collateral damage” by fishing vessels every year, according to the first-ever analysis of bycatch data.
The analysis, by the Wildlife and Countryside Link, a coalition of voluntary conservation groups, reveals the devastating toll bycatch, the accidental capture and killing of non-target species by fishing vessels, is having on marine species.
Continue reading...Cattle in England to get tuberculosis vaccine from 2030 as badger cull to end
Targeted vaccination and improved testing planned as part of drive to eradicate disease by 2038
Cattle will be vaccinated against tuberculosis from 2030 as a “gamechanging” part of a new strategy to drive eradication of the disease in England by 2038. In parallel, the last badger culls are expected to end by 2029, with vaccination of badgers expanded.
More than 20,000 infected cattle are slaughtered each year, costing taxpayers £100m and inflicting a heavy toll on affected farmers’ livelihoods and mental health. Mass culling of badgers began in 2013 and has killed about 250,000 animals, at a cost of about £60m.
Continue reading...‘This is it’: mauled US hiker recalls moment grizzly locked eyes with him
Daniel Crago says he feels ‘extremely lucky’ after encounter with bear at Glacier national park last month
As the large roaring grizzly bear charged down at him from across a snow field in Montana and mauled him, hiker Daniel Crago had just enough time to put his arm up and think: “This is it.”
But two weeks after that perilous, exceedingly rare encounter in Glacier national park, Crago, 32, is still alive, recovering after three surgeries and feeling “extremely lucky”, he said on Monday in an interview with ABC News.
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