Worldcrunch
From elephant ivory crucifixes to rhino horn handles for Muslim ceremonial daggers, sacred wildlife products fuel an overlooked driver of the illegal trade. This unbridled demand is pushing some species toward extinction, forcing faith leaders to reconcile devotion with biodiversity conservation.
American crayfish, introduced to Spain in the 1970s, have decimated Iberian crayfish populations. However, experts debate reintroducing Iberian crayfish, as they too may not actually be native to the region.
A government mega-project could push the country’s big cats closer to extinction — an outcome that would have devastating ripple effects on the local ecosystem.
Scientists are increasingly seeing evidence of “dark extinction” in museum and botanical garden collections.
Thanks to advances in science, the reintroduction of extinct animal species is now feasible — even inevitable. But beyond possible benefits for biodiversity, these projects raise numerous environmental and ethical dilemmas.
The contemporary crises of our world – climatic, democratic, technological, economic, epidemic – can no longer be understood or contained within the logic of nation states.
Scientists have the technology to bring extinct species back to life, give or take a few missing DNA strands. But should they?
Trappers and traffickers are threatening many endangered species in Indonesia, perhaps none more so than the Bali starling, an exquisitely-feathered songbird that can fetch as much as $400.
Six years ago, people thought the endangered hawksbill sea turtle had become extinct in one of its habitats, the American Pacific coast. But, as it turns out, they haven’t quite yet. After several were spotted months back in Colombia’s Gorgona national park, Colombian investigators and collaborators from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) began searching for […]
The number of wild animals living on our planet has drastically decreased over the past 40 years, according to research by scientists at the World Wildlife Foundation and the Zoological Society of London. “Unsustainable human consumption” is to blame — killing creatures for food, whilst polluting and destroying their habitats. The report suggests populations have […]
The Madagascar pochard, the world’s rarest bird, is at a serious risk of extinction. The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), which led a study on the species, estimates that only 25 individual birds now remain in the wild. Human activity has driven the birds to just one remaining wetland in northeast Madagascar, but even that […]
It may be billions and billions of years away, but right now the annihilation of the Universe is a foregone conclusion. Should scientists try to do something to change that?
War, famine and poaching are taking direct aim at the signature five beasts of Africa’s savannah that Ernest Hemingway once made legendary. What can be done now to save them?
NEW DELHI — The findings of India’s first linguistic census in a century were unveiled earlier this month. Of the 850 languages identified, 300 had never previously been documented, and nearly 200 are considered at risk of extinction because they have fewer than 10,000 speakers. The Sept. 5 ceremony took place at the Gandhi memorial […]
PANTHERA, TIMES LIVE, NAMIBIAN Worldcrunch Warnings came this week that the cheetah, the world’s fastest land creature, may be on its way to rapid extinction. The slender big cat could disappear from the wild by 2030, according to NGO Panthera, which reported that cheetahs have been removed from 77% of their original territory in Africa. […]