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Endangered Species

The native westslope cutthroat trout (named for the slash of red on its throat) is staging a comeback after decades of losing ground to its immigrant cousins in the Rocky Mountains.

Native Trout Are Returning to America’s Rivers

Native trout are returning to America’s rivers and streams, thanks to new thinking by scientists and conservationists

"If we want to ensure free-ranging devil populations that are disease free, putting them on offshore islands is the only alternative we've got," says wildlife researcher Hamish McCallum.

Tasmanian Tailspin

Can a new plan to relocate the Tasmanian devil save the species?

Among the best hunters in Africa, wild dogs have a higher kill rate than lions and can take down antelope that weigh as much as 500 pounds. They are notorious for a grisly efficiency that has made some people fear and hate them, if not shoot them on sight.

Curse of the Devil’s Dogs

Viewed as pests, Africa’s wild dogs have nearly been wiped out. But thanks to new conservation efforts, the canines appear ready to make a comeback

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

Is there room in the Terai Arc for people and wildlife? One win-win solution helped villagers replace forest-foraging cattle with a breed that produces more milk and is kept close to home.

Building An Arc

Despite poachers, insurgents and political upheaval, India and Nepal’s bold approach to saving wildlife in the Terai Arc just may succeed

35 Who Made a Difference: Daphne Sheldrick

When feelings of kinship transcend the species boundary

Green turtle swimming over coral reefs in Kona

Back from the Brink

Not every endangered species is doomed. Thanks to tough laws, dedicated researchers, and plenty of money and effort, success stories abound

Footprints and dung are often the only evidence of their route.

Saving Mali’s Migratory Elephants

A new photo library of West Africa’s desert elephants is helping researchers track the dwindling herd and protect their imperiled migration routes.

Bison do roam, up to tens of miles per day. Their ranging and even wallowing habits can shape plant and animal life on the prairie.

Back Home On The Range

When a group of Native Americans took up bison ranching, they brought a prairie back to life

Greer's efforts have led to the arrest of 20 poachers (rangers apprehend a suspect in Dzanga-Ndoki National Park). Still, hunters continue to slaughter western lowland gorillas in the Congo basin.

Stop the Carnage

A pistol-packing American scientist puts his life on the line to reduce “the most serious threat to African wildlife”—

Fighting For Foxes

A disastrous chain of events nearly wiped out California’s diminutive island fox. Scientists hope it’s not too late to undo the damage

Chestnutty

Wielding cutting-edge science and lots of patience. James Hill Craddock hopes to restore the ravaged American chestnut tree to its former glory

Converting the Magazine Mine, above (Bat Conservation International's Sheryl Ducummon, the Forest Service's Ray Smith and UNIMIN's Siebert Crowley in 1996), cost $130,000.

A Mine of Its Own

Where miners used to dig, an endangered bat now flourishes, highlighting a new use for abandoned mineral sites

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Saving the Music Tree

Artists and instrument makers have banded together to rescue Brazil’s imperiled pernambuco, the source of bows for violins, violas and cellos

Some boaters complain of too many manatees. But biologists (such as Cathy Beck, with some of the 100,000 manatee photos in the U.S.G.S.'s archive) say there may be too few.

Fury Over a Gentle Giant

Floridians raise a ruckus over manatees as biologists weigh prospects for the endangered species’ survival

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To Catch A Thief

When biologists study food theft among endangered roseate terns, they find that crime most definitely pays

Having stopped a mother bear with a tranquilizer dart shot from the helicopter, Derocher (with Andersen, left, and Instanes, on Spitsbergen Island) tethers the cubs and takes tissue samples to gauge the mother's exposure to industrial chemicals like PCBs.

Bear Trouble

Only hundreds of miles from the North Pole, industrial chemicals threaten the Arctic’s greatest predator

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Requiem for a Heavyweight

Science meets shamanism at a gathering to ponder the fate of the Pacific Ocean leatherback

Kakapos eat many fruits but particularly enjoy rimu fruit, which seems to encourage breeding.

Going to Extremes

Without the extraordinary dedication of a few conservationists, New Zealand’s kakapo would likely have gone the way of the dodo

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Not a Lot of Ocelots

Once thought to have vanished from North America victims of hunting and habitat loss the cats maintain a slender pawhold in the thickets of South Texas

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