Massive prehistoric stone structures found in desert landscapes from Saudi Arabia to Kazakhstan have baffled archaeologists for decades. Each can stretch for up to a few miles, and resembles a kite with tail strings in overall shape. Recent studies have built a consensus that the so-called desert kites were used to trap and kill wild […]
Read More
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, commercial hunting was devastating populations of ducks, geese and other water birds. In response, Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1918, granting the United States Fish and Wildlife Service authority to regulate the killing of migratory birds nationwide. Now waterfowl are thriving in North America, […]
Read More
A hunting contest in rural New Zealand where children were to compete to kill the greatest number of feral cats for a cash prize has been canceled after a backlash from animal rights organizations. New Zealand, an island nation, has aggressively tried to control invasive species from overwhelming its native wildlife. But culling feral cats […]
Read More
In the early 1970s, things looked grim for India’s tigers. A wild population estimated in the tens of thousands at the time of independence in 1947 had shrunk to around 1,800. The tigers’ decline also held worrying implications for the nation’s environment because the apex predator is part of a complex but fragile ecosystem. Something […]
Read More
HELENA, Mont. — An unusually harsh winter that buried Yellowstone National Park under a heavy blanket of snow and ice this year pushed a large portion of the park’s bison herd down to lower elevations and out of the park in search of milder climes and food. Many were stopped from migrating even farther. For […]
Read More
WARWICKSHIRE, England — The S.U.V. trundled along the winding English country road at dawn, its five masked occupants decked head to toe in black as the hills of the Warwickshire countryside rolled past. Squinting through the rain-flecked windows, they spotted their target in the distance: hunters on horseback on the grounds of a grand 18th-century […]
Read More
In his 1931 book, “How to Tell Your Friends From the Apes,” the American satirist Will Cuppy noted that Neanderthals had fires, caves, marrow bones, mosquitoes, love and arthritis. “What more can you ask?” he mused. If you answered “bush meat block parties,” you might be on to something. That is essentially the conclusion of […]
Read More