Biodiversity

"More than 4,000 species around the world are being targeted by wildlife traffickers, causing “untold harm upon nature”, a UN report has warned."

"An unknown number of orcas have sunk a sailing yacht after ramming it in Moroccan waters in the Strait of Gibraltar, Spain's maritime rescue service said on Monday, a new attack in what has become a trend in the past four years."

"Giant blue-grey sei whales that vanished from Argentina's Patagonian coast a century ago due to hunting are starting to flourish once again, demonstrating how species can recover when measures to protect them are put in place."

Climate journalist Zoë Schlanger says a new wave of research suggests that plants are indeed "intelligent" in complex ways that challenge our understanding of agency and consciousness.

"Researchers say reducing emissions and biodiversity loss and preventing invasive species could control disease".

"State officials reported the presence of deadly chronic wasting disease in two wild California deer earlier this week. This is the first time the disease, which has plagued other areas of the nation for years, has appeared in the state’s deer or elk population."

"May Day dawns cold and breezy, with sullen grey clouds promising rain. Hope seems very far away. But then, a distant dark streak scythes through the skies over the Avalon Marshes, stiff-winged, direct and determined. A single swift, my first of the year."

"Scores of emaciated brown pelicans, too weak to fly, have been found on Southern California beaches in the last month and taken to an Orange County rescue center, according to its director."

"The tropical shrubs have been spreading north and growing more abundantly as climate change makes temperatures warmer. Scientists are unravelling what that means for coastal habitats."

"Scientists studying the sperm whales that live around the Caribbean island of Dominica have described for the first time the basic elements of how they might be talking to each other, in an effort that could one day help better protect them."