Animals

Wolves chase an elk in Yellowstone National Park. [Photo by Doug Smith]

This winter licensed hunters in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming have killed 10 wolves that use Yellowstone National Park, including seven collared animals that scientists were tracking. The wolves are protected inside the national park, but they had wandered outside its border, possibly in pursuit of elk. The loss frustrates the scientists who had been tracking them.

Photo courtesy USDA

The lesser prairie chicken—known for its flamboyant courtship behavior, where the fellas display brilliant yellow eyecombs and red air sacs as they dance about—took center stage today when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife proposed listing it as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The bird has suffered an 84% decline in the five states where it lives: Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

Remote lands populated by cannibalistic natives and poisonous snakes set the stage for biologist Tim Flannery’s latest book, Among the Islands. The renowned author delves into his 1980s and ’90s expeditions to catalog unique, elusive species, like a red-gray tree-climbing mouse and a monkey-faced bat. He bounces from the Solomon Islands to Fiji to Bismarck’s Isles, falling into a sinkhole while trying to set a mist net and trudging through thigh-deep guano to get a closer look at an insect-eating bat. 

Photo: Selik1

UPDATE: And the winner is...

Every week we post a funny animal photo that's begging for a caption. Join in the fun and add your suggestion in the Comments section (click "Read more"). You’ve got til 11:59 pm (Eastern time) on Sunday. On Monday we'll choose our three favorite captions and list them under the image.

Firefighters may one day be able to scale tall buildings like Spiderman, thanks to a new adhesive called Geckskin that mimics the clingy surfaces of gecko feet.

Dead bird on pavement. Photo by Adam Bailey / CC BY-ND 2.0

Last week, a justice of the peace in Toronto ruled that a local building owner would’t be penalized for the deaths of 900 birds that had crashed into its gleaming towers over the course of two years.

The suit, brought by the environmental groups Ecojustice, had sought to hold the former owners of the Consilium Place high-rise towers responsible for causing bird deaths in a city that appears to be particularly lethal for winged migrants.

Wild turkeys. Photo: Ethan/CC BY 2.0

UPDATE: Thanksgiving may be over, but these turkeys still need a winning caption. Vote for your favorite!

In honor of Thanksgiving, this week wild turkeys are the stars of our photo caption contest. Join in the fun and add your suggestion in the Comments section (click "Read more"). You’ve got til 11:59 (Eastern time) on Sunday. On Monday we'll choose our three favorite captions and list them under the image.

The cover of Jim Sterba's new book, Nature Wars. Crown Publishers, 368 pages, $26.

Whether it’s deer in the backyard or raccoons in the chimney, nature is making a comeback—in suburbia. In his new book, Nature Wars, reporter Jim Sterba explores how, ironically, many Americans are living closer to nature than ever before—and how ill-equipped we are to deal with it. 

Photo: Stuart Sipahigil/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

UPDATE: Goose captions galore! We narrowed down the entries from last week's caption contest to these four.

The blazing remnants of Deepwater Horizon, April 21, 2010. Courtesy US Coast Guard

More than two years after the disastrous 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP announced today that it will pay $4.5 billion in fines to the U.S. government and plead guilty to 14 criminal charges, including those related to the deaths of 11 Deepwater Horizon rig workers, lying to Congress about the amount of oil pouring out of the ruptured well, and violating of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. “This settlement matches the unprecedented offense BP committed,” says David Yarnold, Audubon president and CEO.