How do Moose get so big just eating plants? Carnivores may be at the top of the food chain, but herbivores are often the bigger guns (or guts) on the ladder. What makes them so big? For Weird Animal Question of the Week, I took the author's prerogative to ask how plant-eaters grow so massive [...]
Polar Bear Numbers Down in Alaska A large population of polar bears in Alaska and Canada has decreased by 40 percent since the start of the new millennium, new research shows. The number of the large predators living in the southern Beaufort Sea (map) plummeted from 1,500 animals in 2001 to just 900 in 2010, [...]
Coyotes of Downtown Chicago An extreme breed of coyote is finding there's no finer place than downtown Chicago, where the predator has learned to lurk under the radar of city life, new data show. The versatile carnivore, native to middle America, has spread into nearly every corner of the U.S. in the past few decades, [...]
How Did Manatees Inspire Mermaid Legends? It's that time of year when manatees, the slow-moving aquatic mammals of the southeast coast of North America, start to migrate south into warmer waters—and often run into trouble. In Florida, many of the languid giants—also called sea cows—are killed each year in boating collisions. That's why November is [...]
Circus Lions Rescued in Peru By early next year Jan Creamer, co-founder and president of Animal Defenders International (ADI), intends to see 30 lions rescued from circuses in Peru and Colombia running free in a permanent new home in Colorado. London-based ADI, which is dedicated to stopping animal abuse and saving animals in distress, now [...]
Should Grizzly Bears Be Restored to the North Cascades? NORTH CASCADES NATIONAL PARK—The grizzly bear looms large in the traditions of Pacific Northwest Indians, a creature both revered and almost human. It was a fixture of the natural world: a powerful predator and a source of food and stories. Today the grizzlies of the Northwest [...]
Killing wolves does not save livestock In late August, a government sharpshooter in a helicopter hovering above a wooded eastern Washington hillside killed the lead female wolf of the Huckleberry Pack. The aim was to end attacks by the wolf pack, which had killed more than two dozen sheep. But in the long run, a [...]
What is the most toxic snake? Snakes are sneaky-even questions about them can wiggle right out of your grasp. When Arocha Musa of Kampala, Uganda, wrote in asking, "What makes the cobra the most dangerous snake?" we quickly realized two things: Cobras aren't considered the most dangerous snake, and finding out which is poses a [...]
Can Elephants Survive South Sudans Civil War? Southern Sudan knows violence. After being wracked by modern Africa's longest civil war, from 1983 to 2005, in which millions of people were displaced or died, South Sudan gained independence in 2011. The region's elephants, originally estimated after the war to number about 5,000, suffered extreme losses too—but [...]
Can The Gray Wolf Survive? On a recent evening not long after dusk, Natalie Ertz stood in a meadow near the Grand Canyon's north rim and howled like a wolf. There was a good reason for the howl. Ertz, the executive director of a nonprofit group called Wildlands Defense, was hoping to catch a glimpse [...]