Category Archives: Endangered species

Greater gliders not as great at gliding as thought – but still look like magic carpets, experts say

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While new study challenges assumptions about how far they travel, witnessing them in action still takes your breath away, scientists say

They may look like a fluffy flying carpet, but greater gliders are not as great at gliding as previously thought, Australian researchers have discovered.

The first study to measure the aerial ability of Australia’s largest gliding marsupial has found they soar across an average distance of 19 metres – far shorter than the 100 metres suggested in an 85-year-old study.

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‘Death sentence’: Trump’s EPA to open habitats of endangered species to logging and mining

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Habitat destruction strongest driver of species loss, with legislation keeping 99% of listed species from going extinct

The Trump administration repealed a crucial part of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on Friday, finalizing a new rule that will open habitats of imperiled wildlife to development, logging, mining and other uses.

For the last 50 years, the landmark environmental law included a broader understanding of the word “harm”, which ensured that not just the plants and animals themselves were protected but also the places that are critical to their survival. The inclusion of habitat in the “harm” definition was upheld by the supreme court in 1995, which ruled in support of old-growth forest protections relied on by endangered spotted owls.

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Pacific gray whales facing ‘catastrophic’ die-off as climate crisis hits food supply

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Trump administration urged to relist a species in ‘very, very serious trouble’ under Endangered Species Act

Climate change is driving a gray whale “catastrophic mortality event” in the Pacific Ocean as melting sea ice depletes food sources and the animals starve, environmental groups warn.

Meanwhile, a range of other issues, like ship strikes, oil spills, microplastic pollution, algal blooms and Russian harvesting are also probably contributing to the die-off that has nearly halved the whales’ estimated population. It fell from 20,000 in 2019 to fewer than 13,000 this year, and the deaths appear to be accelerating.

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Species’ ingenious survival strategies no match for human destruction, red list reveals

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Newly endangered animals include desert frogs and snails in extreme ocean depths, both threatened by mining

Life has colonised every corner of the planet by evolving ingenious survival strategies but these are increasingly being overwhelmed by destructive human activities, this year’s red list of endangered species has revealed.

Many snails, limpets and clams have adapted to life at crushing depths in the oceans on hydrothermal vents where water temperatures can reach 450C (842F). But an assessment for the red list found that two-thirds of the hundreds of mollusc species found only on deep sea vents were at risk of extinction because of deep-sea mining.

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Gee, whiz: elephant relieves itself on floor of Texas Republican convention

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Four-ton Paige, brought in as surprise for attenders, made gushing debut after governor finished keynote speech

An African elephant weighing roughly 4 tons that was brought to the Texas Republican party’s annual convention to excite attenders ended up drawing widespread attention for the wrong reasons after she urinated on the convention floor and became the focus of animal welfare concerns.

Inside the George R Brown convention center in Houston on Friday, attenders had been told to prepare for a “larger-than-life surprise” after governor Greg Abbott finished his keynote speech. Organizers also displayed a message asking people to keep the aisles clear.

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Tourist accused of hurling rock at endangered Hawaiian seal was trying to protect sea turtles, lawyer says

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Igor Lytvynchuk is scheduled to appear in court on charges of harassing and attempting to harass a protected animal

The lawyer for a tourist accused of hurling a rock at an endangered Hawaiian monk seal says his client was trying to protect sea turtles and has since been assaulted, threatened and doxed.

Igor Lytvynchuk, 38, of Covington, Washington, is scheduled to appear in court in Honolulu on Wednesday on charges of harassing and attempting to harass a protected animal.

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Federal government accused of watering down proposal to protect Australia’s threatened species and ecosystems

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Wilderness Society says changes undermined intent of national standards intended to reverse decline of plants, animals and ecosystems

Green groups have accused the Albanese government of watering down a proposal to protect threatened species and ecosystems.

National environmental standards were the key plank of reforms to Australia’s nature laws, passed by the parliament in November.

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

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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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Using AI to speed up Australia’s environmental approvals risks ‘robodebt-style’ failures, scientists say

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Conservationists say move could push species closer to extinction and clearer environmental rules are needed instead

Conservationists and scientists have warned a mining lobby proposal to use artificial intelligence to speed up national environmental approvals could generate “robodebt-style” failures, putting threatened species at further risk.

The Minerals Council of Australia has asked the government to spend $13m to trial the use of AI to help companies prepare applications and help the federal government make decisions.

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

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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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‘God squad’ waives endangered species law to allow US drilling in Gulf of Mexico

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Critics say exemption for fossil fuels exploits White House’s ‘self-made gas crisis’, and could doom the rare Rice’s whale

A US government panel on Tuesday exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a move which critics say could doom a rare whale species and harm other marine life.

The Endangered Species Committee – which had not convened in more than three decades – voted to approve the request for the ESA exemption at the request of the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.

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‘Extraordinary event’ for mountain gorillas as new twins born in DRC

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Conservationists celebrate second twin birth just two months after another found in Virunga national park

A second set of mountain gorilla twins has been born in Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in what conservationists are celebrating as an “extraordinary” event for the endangered primates.

Just two months after tiny twin mountain gorillas were discovered by rangers in the Virunga massif, in eastern DRC, another rare twin birth has been found by park wardens. This time, an infant male and female have been spotted in the Baraka family, a troop of 19 mountain gorillas that roam the region’s high-altitude rainforests.

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Mexico’s monarch butterfly population jumps 64%, offering hope for at-risk species

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The insects covered its largest area since 2018, despite threats from habitat loss, climate crisis and pesticides

The population of monarch butterflies in Mexico increased 64% this winter, compared with the same period in 2025, offering a glimmer of hope for an insect considered at risk of extinction.

The figures, released this week by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Mexico, showed that the area occupied by monarchs expanded to 2.93 hectares (7.24 acres) of forest from 1.79 hectares (4.42 acres) the previous winter, the largest coverage since 2018.

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Biodiversity offsets failed to protect habitat in NSW. Now federal Labor is about to make the same mistakes, critics warn

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Offsets were meant to be a last resort for mitigating environmental damage from development projects, but rapidly became the default

The federal government risks repeating grievous mistakes made in NSW with its proposals to change the way developers compensate for damage to the environment, scientists and legal experts have warned.

As the Coalition tears itself apart again over climate, Labor’s plan to overhaul biodiversity offsets – and nature laws more broadly – has coasted under the radar with comparatively little scrutiny.

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Rare white Iberian lynx captured on film in Spain by amateur photographer

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Researchers to investigate whether environmental factors may have affected female animal’s pigmentation

An amateur photographer in southern Spain has captured unprecedented images of a white Iberian lynx, prompting researchers to investigate whether environmental factors could be at play as wildlife watchers revelled in the rare sighting.

Ángel Hidalgo published the images on social media, describing the singular animal as the “white ghost of the Mediterranean forest”.

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The not-so-little Murray cod that could: fish tracked swimming 900km along Australia’s biggest river system

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Fish named after Olympic swimming champion Ariarne Titmus was most recently tracked at a section of the mid-Murray, near Belsar Island

A young Murray cod has swum one of the longest ever recorded journeys for the species, travelling about 900km through the Murray River, its streams and backchannels.

Murray cod, Australia’s largest freshwater fish, grow up to 1.5 metres and can live for half a century. Research by Victoria’s Arthur Rylah Institute has shown the species, listed as vulnerable under federal environment laws, is capable of covering extreme distances.

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Baby numbats spotted at two wildlife sanctuaries in hopeful sign for one of Australia’s rarest marsupials

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Video shows some of the juveniles exploring outside their den at Mallee Cliffs national park in south-western NSW

Baby numbats have been spotted at two wildlife sanctuaries in south-western New South Wales, sparking hope for one of Australia’s rarest marsupials.

Video captured by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) shows some of the juveniles exploring outside their den at Mallee Cliffs national park.

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Fiery Senate exchange reveals investigation into coal firm allegedly clearing endangered greater glider habitat

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Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young called environment department bureaucrats ‘weak’ - though later withdrew the remark

Australian government officials are investigating whether a coal mining company is putting threatened greater gliders and koalas at risk by illegally clearing bushland in central Queensland without approval under federal law.

The revelation came in a fiery Senate estimates hearing in which the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young criticised the Albanese government for not doing more to stop the clearing and described environment department bureaucrats as “weak” – an allegation she later withdrew.

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‘Baudin’s or bauxite?’ Stark warning black cockatoo won’t survive mining expansion

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BirdLife WA calls consequences of Alcoa’s proposals to clear 11,000ha of jarrah forest ‘irreversible and catastrophic’ for endangered bird

The destruction of Western Australia’s northern jarrah forests for bauxite mining will push a threatened black cockatoo “to and beyond the brink of extinction” if governments allowed it to continue, conservationists have warned.

Mark Henryon, a volunteer with Birdlife Western Australia, said there was a clear choice that would decide whether the endangered Baudin’s black cockatoo would survive. “Baudin’s or bauxite – we can’t have both,” he said.

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Government required to create plan to protect greater glider in major legal win for Wilderness Society

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Murray Watt agrees recovery plans for greater glider, ghost bat, lungfish and sandhill dunnart were not made by successive governments

The federal environment minister, Murray Watt, has conceded that successive governments acted unlawfully when they failed to create mandatory recovery plans for native species threatened with extinction in a major legal win for one of Australia’s largest environmental organisations.

The Wilderness Society has been successful in federal court proceedings it launched in March that sought to compel the minister to make recovery plans for species including the greater glider and the ghost bat.

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