Seven years ago, Redonda, a volcanic island in the Caribbean Sea, resembled the moon's surface: a dusty, debris-covered, barren terrain. The island, which is part of Antigua and Barbuda, had…
Emperor penguins in the Antarctic are suffering a “catastrophic” breeding failure as the region’s sea ice vanishes, pointing to a grim future for a species highly susceptible to the impacts…
CAPE TOWN — Evidence of mice attacking albatross chicks on Marion Island, midway between South Africa and Antarctica, makes for grim viewing. One video, captured at a colony of endangered…
Fifty years ago, ornithologist Stephen Kress had a bold vision for Eastern Egg Rock, an island off the coast of Maine. He wanted to restore the island’s former colony of…
Picture yourself driving down a local highway, passing familiar street signs and encountering typical traffic. Then, without warning, you find a cow standing in the middle of the road. You…
When flesh-footed shearwater chicks hatch from their eggs, their parents start working to fill the chicks’ stomachs with as much food as possible. They do this for about 80 to…
The Peruvian diving petrel is a tiny, thrush-sized seabird that spends more time in the water than in the air. True to its name, it plunges into the chilly waters…
Since late 2021, a highly pathogenic avian influenza virus of the type H5N1 has wreaked havoc on wild and captive birds across Asia, Africa, Europe and North America, killing millions.…
In spring and summer, visitors flock to Northern Ireland’s Rathlin Island to catch a glimpse of the bright-billed Atlantic puffins that stop there to breed. But in recent years, the…
New research looks beyond the known physical effects of plastic ingestion in seabirds and suggests it can cause on-going harm in various body organs, impacting health.
Antarctic krill — tiny, filter-feeding crustaceans that live in the Southern Ocean — have long existed in mind-boggling numbers. A 2009 study estimated that the species has a biomass of…
Despite some amazing rebounds, six decades after Rachel Carson’s call to curb pesticide use, the world’s birds are in deep trouble — assaulted by toxic chemicals, lost habitat, hunting, invasive species, and climate change.
Tim Beatley will humbly tell you that he’s not a birder. But in his new book, there are enough appearances by obscure members of the class Aves to suggest that…
BUNDALA, Sri Lanka – The glossy ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) is a fairly rare but regular winter visitor to Sri Lanka, seen at the Bundala National Park in the island’s south…
It was one of the worst environmental disasters the world has witnessed. Ten years ago, on April 20, 2010, the BP Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig exploded, killing 11 people and…
Scientists and conservationists have long expressed concern about the consumption of bushmeat, mindful of its impact on wildlife and human health. Yet the marine equivalent has received relatively little attention,…
The camera traps that ecologist Annette Fayet had set up didn’t provide the clues she had hoped to find about puffin diets and nesting behavior. What they did provide, though,…
For seabirds, an Arctic Ocean with less sea ice could provide some tantalizing alternatives to the long-haul flights that some undertake each year. In a recent study, ecologist Manon Clairbaux…
In a classic poem, an ancient mariner finds himself haunted by the albatross he killed. Two hundred years after Samuel Coleridge penned that poem, albatrosses still follow fishing ships. But…
The trade of live birds in South America is down to its lowest levels in years, according to a report released Jan. 16 by conservation NGOs TRAFFIC and WWF. But…
Competition for fish stocks with fisheries to feed humans could be forcing seabirds to go hungry, according to new research. The study, published Dec. 6 in the journal Current Biology,…
Data from GPS-tagged seabirds, as they were swept along in the strong currents of the Irish Sea, could help researchers move a step closer to harnessing the energy in those…
Plant numbers have surged in a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean following the eradication of invasive rats that gobbled up seeds and gnawed away at vegetation, a new…
TOULOUSE, France -- Rats exact a punishing toll on island seabird colonies, decimating their numbers as they eat the birds’ eggs and young. Research has shown that fewer birds, and…
Lighten up We’ve all seen insects fly toward light. Moths, for example, use moonlight to stay upright, fly straight, and remain oriented at night. Other groups of animals, including various…
New research finds that increased sea surface temperatures can affect the survival of juvenile albatross during their first year at sea and lead to reduced population growth rates. Ecologists with…
On today’s episode: the sounds of Buller’s shearwaters in New Zealand’s Poor Knights Islands. Listen here: Our guest today is Megan Friesen, a behavioral ecologist who is currently working with…
Jarrod Hodgson is one of very few scientists who have used rubber ducks as part of their Ph.D. research. Hodgson and colleagues at the University of Adelaide compared the accuracy…
Study: rapidly warming Arctic reduces food supply and stored energy for shorebird, weakening juveniles on long migratory trips, reducing size, survival chances.
In a search to locate the nesting grounds of the ringed storm-petrel (Oceanodroma hornbyi) a team of Chilean biologists didn’t rely on high-tech tracking devices or aerial mapping tools. Instead…
