When a ship and a northern right whale collide, the whale loses—on average, a collision with a boat kills at least one right whale every year. But now the whales, and the conservation movement, have scored a significant victory. This story aired on our U.S. cable television program National Geographic Today.
The live animal market in Guang Zhou, China, sprawls for acres, with whole blocks crammed with vats and bins and buckets overflowing with thousands of turtles and tortoises. Dozens of species are represented, and this scene is mirrored in markets across China, in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Experts believe that up to four Chinese species may be extinct in the wild.
Destructive fishing practices and mercury pollution are behind a rapid population decline in the Irrawaddy river dolphin, which lives in coastal and river waters across tropical Asia. The dolphin is known for helping local fishermen fill their nets on Myanmar's Ayeyarwady River.
Britain's woods once welcomed the arrival of spring with a chorus of
birdsong. But now they are falling silent, signaling a dramatic collapse
in woodland bird populations. As ornithologists investigate this decline, a
shy, innocent-looking animal is emerging as the prime suspect. This story
updates the National Geographic BirdWatcher News Index.
The century-old research vessel looks more like it belongs to Barbary pirates than to contemporary scientists. But a Spanish husband-and-wife team of marine biologists refitted the Norwegian fishing vessel to study dolphins, porpoises and whales in the Alboran Sea. This story aired on our U.S. cable television program National Geographic Today.
Florida wildlife managers may shift the manatee's status from endangered to threatened later this year. While this move would not change protections for the manatee, some scientists worry that down-listing the manatee might change public perception of its status.
The highly social and complex world of ants is not void of selfish acts. Worker ants of the species Formica fusca apparently can distinguish who their closest relatives are and kill their more distant relations.
Superstition coupled with greed may be threatening South Africa's embattled vultures. Large numbers are being harvested for their heads, which are believed to be magic charms that can bestow riches by helping gamblers "see" upcoming national lottery numbers.
Catching poisonous snakes comes naturally to India's Irula tribe. For generations these hardy folk earned a living by hunting serpents—until wildlife protection laws made it illegal. But a group of the traditional snake rustlers has formed a cooperative to collect venom and protect their way of life.
Research shows that huge colonies of marauding army ants use simple movement rules to minimize congestion along forest trails. The 200,000 or so foraging ants that make up a prey-seeking raiding party can organize themselves into several different traffic lanes, smoothly speeding in opposite directions.
They survived catastrophic asteroid impacts and outlived the dinosaurs. But leatherback sea turtles are now on the brink of extinction, and scientists question whether the marine species will survive into the next decade.
Elephants communicate with one another in a number of ways, including sound, sight, touch, and scent. But it is the noises they make—a repertoire of rumbles, roars, trumpets, bellows, cries, screams, and snorts that spans almost ten octaves, including sounds that humans cannot hear—that scientists find the most challenging to comprehend. In Disney World, Florida, researchers are listening carefully, trying to decipher what their elephants are saying. With audio files
For thousands of years nomadic tribes of the Middle East have bred a hunting hound called the saluki. A fearless hunter of hare and gazelle, the dog is thought by historians to be the oldest breed in the world with archaeological evidence dating back to the 6th millennium B.C.
For 27 years Joyce Poole has lived among savanna elephants in Kenya's Amboseli National Park studying their behavior and methods of communication. She has found that they use more than 70 kinds of vocal sounds and 160 different visual and tactile displays in their day-to-day interactions.
