Biologists rediscover endangered frog population

For the first time in nearly 50 years, a population of a nearly extinct frog has been rediscovered in the San Bernardino National Forest's San Jacinto Wilderness. Biologists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) assessing suitability of sites to re-establish frogs and scientists from the San Dieg...

Humans lend a hand to critically endangered waterbird

Human impact on one of the world's most threatened bird species can be beneficial rather than destructive - and could even save it from extinction - according to counterintuitive new findings by the University of East Anglia (UEA). Published today in the peer-reviewed journal Animal Conservati...

Working to conserve endangered 'Playboy' bunnies

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner's legacy will live on with a new University of Central Florida study aimed at saving the endangered bunnies named after him. Rosanna Tursi, a master's student and graduate teaching assistant, is using population genetics to aid in the conservation of the Lower Keys...

T-STAR grant funds genetic studies on shrimp and papaya and endangered cycad rescue

The projects funded will serve aquaculture and papaya farmers as well as work toward the preservation of an endemic cycad species endangered due to attacks by several species of invasive insects. Hui Gong, an aquaculture researcher with WPTRC, was awarded $186,960 for a genetic variability stud...

Jeepers creepers: Climate change threatens endangered honeycreepers

As climate change causes temperatures to increase in Hawaii's mountains, deadly non-native bird diseases will likely also creep up the mountains, invading most of the last disease-free refuges for honeycreepers a group of endangered and remarkable birds. A just-published U.S. Geological Surve...

Australia's most endangered snake might need burning

Conserving Australia's most endangered snake might mean lighting more bush fires, ecologists have proposed. The last remaining populations of broad-headed snakes are being threatened by encroaching woodland that is destroying their habitat, a study by scientists from the University of Sydney an...

Dealing with taxonomic uncertainty for threatened and endangered species

As part of a symposium on "Defining species for threatened and endangered protection" Barbara Taylor, Ph.D., NOAA Fisheries Service, will discuss the need to explicitly consider uncertainty in taxonomy in conservation decisions. Species concepts continue to be a contentious, but largely philosoph...

Scientists call for protected 'swimways' for the endangered leatherback sea turtle

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) World Conservation Congress this week adopted a resolution urging nations to protect the leatherback sea turtle and sharks from the world's industrial fisheries by identifying and creating marine protected areas along the Pacific leat...

Study finds high mortality of endangered loggerhead sea turtles in Baja California

SANTA CRUZ, CA--Along the southern coast of Baja California, Mexico, scientists have been counting the carcasses of endangered sea turtles for a decade as part of an effort to assess and eliminate threats to loggerhead sea turtle populations. Their findings, published this week, are shocking: almo...

In a last 'stronghold' for endangered chimpanzees, survey finds drastic decline

In a population survey of West African chimpanzees living in Cte d'Ivoire, researchers estimate that this endangered subspecies has dropped in numbers by a whopping 90 percent since the last survey was conducted 18 years ago. The few remaining chimpanzees are now highly fragmented, with only one v...

Cryopreservation techniques bring hopes for women cancer victims and endangered species

Emerging cryopreservation techniques are increasing hope of restoring fertility for women after diseases such as ovarian cancer that lead to destruction of reproductive tissue. The same techniques can also be used to maintain stocks of farm animals, and protect against extinction of endangered ani...

Recovery efforts not enough for critically endangered Asian vulture

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Captive breeding colonies of a critically endangered vulture, whose numbers in the wild have dwindled from tens of millions to a few thousand, are too small to protect the species from extinction, a University of Michigan analysis shows. Adding wild birds to the captive colon...

Ecological Society of America criticizes administration's overhaul of the Endangered Species Act

The Ecological Society of America today criticized the Bush administration's Aug. 15 proposal to reinterpret the Endangered Species Act, which would impose regulatory changes eliminating the requirement for federal projects to undergo independent scientific review. The proposal would allow federal...

Pollination habits of endangered Texas rice revealed to help preservation

A type of wild rice that only grows in a small stretch of the San Marcos River is likely so rare because it plays the sexual reproduction game poorly, a study led by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin has revealed. The first study of breeding habits of ...

First successful reverse vasectomy on endangered species performed at the National Zoo

Veterinarians at the Smithsonian's National Zoo have performed the first successful reverse vasectomy on a Przewalski's horse ( E. ferus przewalskii ; E. caballus przewalskii classification debated), pronounced zshah-VAL-skeez. Przewalksi's horses are a horse species native to China and Mongolia...

New CITES quotas allow more caviar export, further jeopardize endangered sturgeon

In a decision that could jeopardize already imperiled sturgeons, more caviar will be exported from Caspian Sea and Amur River states this year as a result of unacceptably permissive new trade quotas announced Thursday by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Most stu...

Relocation of endangered Chinese turtle may save species

There are only four specimens of the Yangtze giant softshell turtle left on Earthone in the wild and three in captivity. In order to save this species from extinction, conservation partners from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA), working in conjunction ...

Great apes endangered by human viruses

This release is available in German . A new study published in the journal Current Biology by researchers of the Robert Koch Institute (Berlin), the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig) and the Centre Suisse des Recherches Scientifiques (Ivory Coast) confirms the ...

Critically endangered porpoise is focus of new research report

An international research team, including biologists from NOAAs Fisheries Service, reported in the scientific journal Conservation Biology, that the estimated population of vaquita, a porpoise found in the Gulf of California, is likely two years away from reaching such low levels that their rate t...

World's most endangered gorilla fights back

NEW YORK (December 5, 2007, 2007) In the wake of a study that documented for the first time the use of weaponry by Cross River gorillas to ward off threats by humans, the Wildlife Conservation Society announced today new field surveys to better protect this most endangered great ape. The study...

Critically endangered Amur leopard captured

A rare Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis), one of only an estimated 30 left in the wild has been captured and health-checked by experts from a consortium of conservation organizations, before being released. Representatives from a group of organizations, including the Russian Academy of...

Researchers discover forests of endangered tropical kelp

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- A research team led by San Jose State University and the University of California, Santa Barbara has discovered forests of a species of kelp previously thought endangered or extinct in deep waters near the Galapagos Islands. The discovery has important implications for ...

Student study bolsters case for adding a rare sunflower to the endangered species list

For several months last spring, the Vanderbilt greenhouse held more members of a rare species of native sunflower than are known to exist in the wild. This unusual bounty was the result of research being conducted by Jennifer Ellis, a doctoral student in the biological sciences department, worki...

Student study bolsters case for adding a rare sunflower to the endangered species list

For several months last spring, the Vanderbilt greenhouse held more members of a rare species of native sunflower than are known to exist in the wild. This unusual bounty was the result of research being conducted by Jennifer Ellis, a doctoral student in the biological sciences department, worki...

Legal ruling may put endangered species in danger

Ecologists and philosophers across the nation are protesting a new and narrowed definition of "endangered species." In a letter sent Monday to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and the House Committee on Natural Resources, they ...

Saving endangered whales at no cost

By comparing the productivity of lobster fishing operations in American and Canadian waters of the Gulf of Maine, researchers have identified ways in which cost-saving alterations in fishing strategies can substantially reduce fishing-gear entanglements of the critically endangered North Atlantic r...

Update on census of world's most endangered cat -- Female Amur leopard found dead

Following the April 18 announcement that only 25 to 34 of the Amur or Far Eastern leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) remain in the wild, World Wildlife Fund says the number must now be revised because a female Amur leopard was killed. Anonymous tips led officers of two leopard anti-poaching sq...

Climate change has surprising effect on endangered naked carp

Forthcoming in the January/February 2007 issue of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, a groundbreaking study reveals an unanticipated way freshwater fish may respond to water diversion and climate change. Endangered naked carp migrate annually between freshwater rivers, where they spawn, and a l...

A human taste for rarity spells disaster for endangered species

The shady pursuit of endangered bird eggs made international headlines in May 2006 when Colin Watson, widely considered Britain's most notorious illegal egg collector, died after falling from a 12-meter tree, allegedly while hunting a rare egg. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds estimate...

Race to halt global amphibian crisis boosted by rediscovery of endangered Colombian frogs

The rediscovery of two frog species feared extinct has made a new Colombian protected area the focal point for efforts to save amphibians from a deadly fungus decimating their populations in Central and South America. Scientists recently found the two Critically Endangered frogs ?the Santa Marta ...

How satellite tracking revealed the migratory mysteries of endangered Atlantic loggerhead turtles

Their journeys are among the longest in the animal kingdom and they have largely remained a mystery until now. An international team of scientists led by the University of Exeter have uncovered the migratory secrets of endangered loggerhead turtles in West Africa and the results could have huge imp...

Underwater listening devices yield discoveries about endangered large whales

Why whales emit their characteristic calls remains largely a biological mystery, but listening for the distinctive underwater sounds provides a valuable way to track the movements of endangered large whales. Autonomous data-recording devices equipped with hydrophones (underwater microphones), depl...

Crucial site for endangered frogs and birds saved

Fast action by an alliance of conservation groups battling global extinctions has saved one of the world's most important sites for endangered species. American Bird Conservancy (ABC), Conservation International (CI), and Fundación ProAves of Colombia stepped in to protect the 1,600-acre site on ...

Scientist warns of threat to last stronghold of endangered turtle

A major conservation effort, led by Dr Brendan Godley of the University of Exeter, has just got underway to help protect endangered leatherback turtles which nest in Gabon, West Africa. The region is thought to be the animals' last global stronghold, as pacific populations dwindle precariously. I...

Protecting endangered species helps reduce poverty

Saving endangered species like pandas, gorillas and tigers helps reduce poverty and improve the lives of local communities, according to a new World Wildlife Fund report. Now as the eighth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity opens today in Curitiba, Brazil, WWF urges...

Seal rookeries could provide a reliable food source for endangered California condors, study finds

A team of scientists is proposing that endangered California condors raised in captivity be released near seal and sea lion rookeries so that the birds can once again feast on the carcasses of marine mammals as their ancestors did centuries ago. The researchers from Stanford University and four o...

Overfishing may drive endangered seabird to rely upon lower quality food

The effects of overfishing may have driven marbled murrelets, an endangered seabird found along the Pacific coast, to increasingly rely upon less nutritious food sources, according to a new study by biologists at the University of California, Berkeley. The results, to be published online by early...

Envisat radar surveillance protects endangered prehistoric fish

A satellite surveillance zone within the southern Indian Ocean is helping protect the endangered Patagonian toothfish from pirate fishing vessels. Perched between Africa, India, Australia and Antarctica, the windswept French territory of the Kerguelen Islands is one of the remotest places on Eart...

Cattle grazing may help rather than hurt endangered species

An article published in the latest issue of Conservation Biology finds that cattle grazing plays an important role in maintaining wetland habitat necessary for some endangered species. Removing cattle from grazing lands in the Central Valley of California could, inadvertently, degrade the vernal p...

Removing egg from nest may help save endangered whooping crane

Removing an egg from the endangered whooping crane's nest increases the species chances of survival despite governmental concerns about tampering with nature, says a University of Alberta scientist. Dr. Mark Boyce, from the Faculty of Science, studied the policy of removing from Wood Buffalo Nat...