Dippy the injured axolotl rescued from Welsh river

Family found creature under a bridge and are documenting its recovery in a fish tank on TikTok

An injured axolotl is on the road to recovery after being rescued from a river in Wales. “Dippy” was found under Dipping Bridge on the River Ogmore near Bridgend, south Wales, by a family who had stopped for a break while travelling on holiday last week.

Evie Hill, 10, told the BBC she lifted up a discarded mat in the shallows of the river, and nestled in the rocks was a 9in (22cm) axolotl, an aquatic salamander native to Mexico. It was pale in colour, with speckles, and had injuries to its tail and stomach believed to have been caused by a predator.

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Mouse plague hits WA grain farmers as numbers surge in SA: ‘You literally can’t get away from them’

CSIRO researcher says there are reports of up to 4,000 mouse burrows per hectare in parts of Western Australia

Grain growers are on high alert as mouse numbers in Western Australia reach plague proportions and numbers surge in South Australia.

Steve Henry, who researches mice and their impact on the grain industry at CSIRO, says more than 800 mice per hectare is considered a plague.

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Two US army soldiers injured by brown bear during training exercise in Alaska

Soldiers were participating in ‘land navigation training’ when bear injured them in a ‘defensive attack’

Two US army soldiers have been injured after encountering a brown bear in a mountainous training area in Anchorage, Alaska, the military said on Friday.

The incident happened on Thursday as the soldiers were participating in a “land navigation training event” in Arctic valley, part of the joint base Elmendorf-Richardson’s training area.

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Ant smuggler sentenced to a year in jail by Kenyan court

More than 2,200 ants were found in Zhang Kequn’s luggage at Nairobi airport, with baggage destined for China

A Chinese national has been sentenced to a year in prison and fined by a Nairobi court for attempting to smuggle thousands of ants out of Kenya, a lucrative trade in east Africa that was exposed last year.

The insects are mostly destined for China, the US and Europe, where they become pets and can be worth about $100 each.

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Colombia to cull up to 80 hippos descended from Pablo Escobar zoo

Dozens of feral pachyderms linked to drug kingpin to be killed because of threat to native species and villagers

Colombian officials have authorized a plan to cull dozens of hippos descended from animals brought to the country in the 1980s by Pablo Escobar, after the feral beasts displaced native species and threatened local villagers.

The environment minister, Irene Vélez, said the decision was reached because other methods to control their population had been expensive and unsuccessful, including neutering some of the animals or moving them to zoos. Vélez said that up to 80 hippos would be affected by the measure. She did not say when the hunting would begin.

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Woman, 19, killed in Essex dog attack named as Jamie-Lea Biscoe

Police arrest man, 37, on suspicion of being in charge of dog dangerously out of control and causing injury resulting in death

A 19-year-old woman who died after a dog attack in Essex has been named by police as Jamie-Lea Biscoe.

Police said the victim was found with serious injuries by emergency services after they were called to a property in Long Hide, in the village of Leaden Roding, at 10.45pm on Friday. Biscoe was pronounced dead at the scene.

A 37-year-old man from Dunmow, who was arrested on suspicion of being in charge of a dog dangerously out of control and causing injury resulting in death, has been bailed until July while inquiries continue, Essex police said on Sunday.

The canine, which was a family pet and believed to be a lurcher cross, was seized and tests are under way to formally establish the dog’s breed, the force added.

Assistant chief constable Stuart Hooper said: “Our thoughts remain with all those who knew and loved Jamie-Lea. Her young life has been so tragically cut short.

“Our detectives are continuing to work around the clock to establish exactly what happened and specialist officers are continuing to support Jamie-Lea’s family.

“This is unimaginable for her loved ones and friends and, as such, I would ask people to respect their grief and privacy at this extremely difficult time.

“Our officers remain at the scene and anyone with concerns or information can speak with them there or contact us in the usual way.”

A post-mortem examination is due to take place on Sunday, police said.

Anyone with information that could assist the investigation has been asked to contact Essex police through their website or anonymously through independent charity Crimestoppers.

On Thursday, a three-month-old baby died in a suspected dog attack at a property in Redcar, North Yorkshire.

The baby girl is believed to have died as a result of a dog bite in the Dormanstown area and a woman, aged 31, was treated in hospital for an injury to her arm from a bite, police said.

Armed officers destroyed one dog that had gone on to the street and a second recovered by police has since been destroyed.

A man, aged 45, was arrested on suspicion of being in charge of a dog dangerously out of control causing injury resulting in death and was released on conditional bail.

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Golden eagles could be reintroduced to England after more than 150 years

Study identified eight areas that can sustain a population and government has given £1m for recovery programme

“The world is grown so bad that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.” So wrote Shakespeare in Richard III, in a line of social commentary that feels ever more relevant with age.

A note of good news then, in a world of so much bad, that the eagles the Bard was probably referring to could finally be reintroduced to England after more than 150 years.

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Washington officials say 21 dead canines that washed ashore were foxes, solving local mystery

Animals were used legally as fishing bait, sheriff’s office confirms after incident shook locals in Guemes Island

A Washington state sheriff’s office says it has solved the mystery of nearly two dozen dead canines who washed ashore recently.

The animals were foxes being used legally as bait for fishing operations, the Skagit county sheriff’s office said on Friday.

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Wild chimpanzees recorded waging ‘civil war’ with coordinated attacks between two groups

New study describes what may be the first case of a unified community of chimps, in Uganda, turning on itself

On a June day in 2015, primatologist Aaron Sandel was quietly observing a small cluster of the Ngogo chimpanzee group in Uganda’s Kibale national park when he noticed something strange. As other members of the chimpanzees’ wider group moved closer through the forest, the chimpanzees in front of him began to display nervous behaviour. They grimaced and touched each other for reassurance, acting more like they were about to meet strangers than close companions.

In hindsight, Sandel said, that moment was the first sign of what would become a years-long bloody conflict between a once close-knit group of chimps.

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Bitten by snakes 200 times – on purpose: US man’s quest to help deliver new antivenom

Tim Friede put his ‘ass on the line’ to help stop snakebite deaths – whose numbers appear to be rising amid the climate crisis

As we overheat and degrade our planet, more people are set to come into contact, sometimes fatally, with venomous snakes. One man hopes to provide an unusual solution to this, after subjecting himself to 200 intentional snakebites to his body.

For nearly 20 years, Tim Friede, 58, allowed some of the most lethal snakes in the world to bite him so he could build up an immunity that could one day be developed into a universal antivenom.

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Hundreds search for wolf that escaped from zoo in South Korea

Local school closes in Daejeon city as hundreds of emergency service and military personnel scour area around O-World theme park where the wolf escaped from

Authorities are hunting for a wolf after it escaped from a zoo in Daejeon, a South Korean city with a population of 1.5million.

More than 300 people – including firefighters, police and military personnel – are taking part in the search operation, an official from the Daejeon fire headquarters said.

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‘It’s not AI, it’s real’: shock as RSPCA releases images of 250 dogs found at property

Dozens of dogs were found crammed into single living room space at property in undisclosed location in UK

More than 250 dogs have been found at a property in scenes so shocking that the RSPCA was forced to deny allegations that the images were faked by artificial intelligence.

The animal welfare charity said it took in 87 dogs from the property at an undisclosed location in the UK and the remainder went to the Dogs Trust, another charity.

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Oil slick from bombed Iranian ship threatens protected wetland

Shahid Bagheri leaking fuel towards Hara mangrove forest, home to migrating birds and endangered turtles

An oil slick from a stricken Iranian ship threatens to contaminate one of the Middle East’s most important wetlands, satellite image analysis suggests, making it one of a number of spills posing a risk to the livelihoods of coastal communities in the Gulf.

The Shahid Bagheri, a drone carrier, began leaking heavy fuel oil in Iranian territorial waters near the strait of Hormuz after it was hit by a US warplane in the first few days of the US-Israel attack on Iran.

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California county records sixth person bitten by rattlesnake in under a month

Two fatalities reported in southern California so far, with warmer spring bringing reptiles out on trails earlier

A sixth person has been bitten by a rattlesnake in southern California’s Ventura county in just under a month, two-thirds of the number of people bitten in all of 2025.

Andrew Dowd, a Ventura county fire department spokesperson, said paramedics responded to a call on Sunday for a man who had been bitten by a rattlesnake. The victim said he had been bitten near California State University Channel Islands.

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Hatchings of two California bald eagle chicks delight vast livestream audience

Jackie and Shadow’s eaglets emerged from eggs on Easter weekend in Big Bear Valley as watched by thousands online

Over Easter weekend, thousands of people tuned in to celebrate something spectacular unfolding 145 feet up a pine tree in southern California’s San Bernardino national forest – the hatchings of two bald eagle chicks.

Two eaglets were born to Jackie and Shadow, the southern California pair that have become avian celebrities thanks to the webcam that has livestreamed their activities since 2018.

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German mayors call for night-time ban on robot lawnmowers to protect hedgehogs

Leaders say automated mowers’ blades threaten nocturnal animals as studies highlight risks to wildlife

German mayors have called for a nationwide ban on night-time use of robot lawnmowers to protect hedgehogs and other small nocturnal animals from being killed or maimed in the dark.

Recent studies have highlighted the threat lawnmower blades pose to wildlife active between dusk and dawn, prompting growing calls for regulation. Hedgehogs also tend to curl into a ball when threatened rather than running away, making them harder for a robot mower’s sensors to detect.

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Labour to back down on foie gras and fur bans to ease EU trade deal

Exclusive: Animal welfare charities ‘bitterly disappointed’ UK government plans to backtrack on manifesto promises

  • This article contains an image of a duck being force-fed that some readers may find upsetting

The UK government is to break a manifesto commitment to ban foie gras imports, and has declined to stop fur imports, after the EU made these red lines in its discussions for a trade deal.

Animal welfare charities say they are “bitterly disappointed” that ministers are failing to use powers granted by Brexit to restrict the import of these “cruel” items.

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Bilby boom: breeding trial to reintroduce species to Mallee Cliffs national park shows signs of success

Fifty ‘founder’ bilbies were released in fenced breeding area in 2019 with the aim of establishing first wild population there in a century

Efforts to reintroduce bilbies in the far south-west of New South Wales are showing signs of success, with numbers climbing to almost 2,000, seven years after the first breeding trial at Mallee Cliffs national park.

Fifty “founder” bilbies, including 30 from Thistle Island off the coast of South Australia, were released in a fenced breeding area in 2019 with the aim of establishing a wild population in the Mallee Cliffs habitat for the first time in a century.

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Unsuspecting windsurfer collides with gray whale in the San Francisco Bay

Footage shows a man windsurfing being forcefully thrown from his board as a whale breaches off the California coast

An unsuspecting windsurfer collided with a gray whale on the San Francisco Bay in a startling and rare encounter captured on video.

The footage shows the moment the surfer is forcefully thrown from his board as a gray whale breaches off the California coast, plunging him into the water.

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Chesney the kangaroo found three days after hopping away from farm

Marsupial escaped from enclosure at Wisconsin’s Sunshine Farm on Wednesday after he was spooked by stray dogs

How does a kangaroo escape a petting zoo?

It’s not the opening line to a dad joke. If you’re Chesney the kangaroo, you scale an 8ft (2.5-meter) fence and go on the lam for three days, giving your keeper sleepless nights and sending residents of a small Wisconsin town on a search that would end happily on Saturday.

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