Animals

"No one ever found any dead vultures," says McGrath. "There were simply less and less of them."

Fantastically Repulsive

In this interview, Susan McGrath, author of "The Vanishing," describes getting up close and personal with vultures

In the past decade or so, over 95 percent of India's vultures have died.

Soaring Hopes

The first two Asian vultures breed in captivity

Zion's dwindling cougar population traces its roots to the late 1920s, when the park's management made efforts to increase visitation.

It All Falls Down

A plummeting cougar population alters the ecosystem at Zion National Park

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Wild Things: Life as We Know It

Parasitic plants, zebra tarantulas and wobbles in Earth's orbit

Claudine Andre, founder of Lola Ya Bonobo (Bonobo Paradise) sanctuary, rescues about ten of the endangered animals per year.

Bonobo Paradise

"Bonobo Paradise" is an 86-acre sanctuary set in verdant hills 20 miles south of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

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Wild Things: Life as We Know It

Killer whales, trap-jaw ants and dinosaurs

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Interview with Steve Kemper, Author of "Cougars on the Move"

Kemper talks about how cougars have been hated throughout history and what surprised him while researching the animals

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Wild Things: Life As We Know It

Figs, canary songs, whales with legs, ancient flowering shrubs and beaver dams

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Interview with John Seidensticker and Susan Lumpkin

The authors of "Building an Arc" talk about wildlife conservation and what drew them to work with tigers.

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Wild Things: Life as We Know It

Monkey talk, reptilian altruism, anemone stings, aquatic crabs, and Thyrohyrax

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Q&A with Laura Tangley

An interview with Laura Tangley, author of "Learning from Tai Shan" in the June 2006 issue of SMITHSONIAN.

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Wild Things: Life as We Know It

Rediscovery of a Laotian rodent, orangutan culture and crossing the Bering Strait

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Wild Things: Life as We Know It

Coyotes in densely populated areas (a Los Angeles suburb) can be alarming. But wildlife experts say they fill a niche in the urban ecology.

City Slinkers

Why are coyotes, those cunning denizens of the plains and rural west, moving into urban centers like Chicago and Washington DC?

Phoenix, a life-size model of a North Atlantic right whale, at the center of the new Sant Ocean Hall, 2008

A Whale Called Phoenix

A very large mammal will help tell an even weightier tale—about the ocean in this crowded, challenging century

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Noxious Bogs & Amorous Elephants

Smithsonian's birth, 35 years ago, only hinted at the splendors to follow

35 Who Made a Difference: Daphne Sheldrick

When feelings of kinship transcend the species boundary

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35 Who Made a Difference: Janis Carter

The primate who taught other primates how to survive in the wild

Raymond Tritt, 52, dresses a fallen bull on the spring caribou hunt. Like virtually every Gwich'in man, he still remembers every detail of his first successful hunt, four decades later. The 100,000-plus caribou of the Porcupine River herd are a focal point for the Gwich'in people: they are a main source of sustenance as well as the key element in the group's rituals, dances and stories. "If we lose the caribou," says a tribal elder, "we lose our way of life."

ANWR: The Great Divide

The renewed debate over drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge hits home for the two Native groups nearest the nature preserve

The artifacts of the Pig War speak of peace: even these British Minié balls were discarded without having been fired.

Boar War

A marauding hog bites the dust in a border dispute between the United States and Britain that fails to turn ugly

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