"They didn't even try to fly away. They just feebly made noise," a woman told the Santa Barbara Independent on Saturday after spotting over two dozen dead or dying cormorants near Goleta Beach. "A few were on their stomachs, wings spread [and] gasping for breath.... Heartbreaking."
During major floods, thousands of tiny fish convene at Luvilombo Falls in the upper Congo River Basin to undertake a peculiar vertical migration, described for the first time today in Scientific Reports.
A whale's death offers a unique window and opportunity to study the animal up close and in this particular case, learn more about how this adult female gray whale may have been behaving in San Francisco Bay. We are hopeful that samples taken during the necropsy will shed some further light on the animal's death and help highlight the importance of keeping whales safe while they utilize this urban-wildlife habitat.
Discovered on a ship arriving at the Port of New York & New Jersey from Southampton, England, the red fox was placed in the care of the Bronx Zoo on Feb. 19, one day after it was "safely secured" by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Out of an abundance of caution, access is being paused to give wildlife space and allow for ongoing monitoring. The investigation involves scientists from UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis, along with California State Parks, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the California Department of Public Health, the California Marine Mammal Stranding Network, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and NOAA Fisheries.
In February 2023, an article in the Mexican press announced the capture of a vessel some 195 nautical miles from the port of Lazaro Cardenas in the state of Michoacan. It had been carrying nearly 700 pounds of cocaine packaged in plastic-wrapped bricks, in addition to 1,650 liters of hydrocarbons in 33 plastic containers. Two Ecuadorian fishermen were among the five detainees, and their immigration records showed unusual activity.
Video showed officers Michael Russo and Patrick Memi along with Sargeant Michael Amello and Detective Nicholas Martin in their boat pulling up to the eagle on the river. The bird was screeching in distress as the officers used a pole to keep the ice chunk near their boat and worked to catch the animal. "His claw's bleeding, too," one of the officers said as they grabbed a catch pole and carefully put it over the bird's body.
A boy has been attacked by a shark in Sydney's east and is in a critical condition after suffering serious injuries to both legs. The boy, believed to be aged about 12, was pulled from the water at Shark beach at Neilsen Park, in the eastern suburb of Vaucluse, on Sunday afternoon. He was treated at the scene by first responders with tourniquets, New South Wales police said. Emergency services were first called to the harbourside beach at about 4.20pm, police said.
It looked like the silvery blade of a knife. Peering through his goggles, diver Ted Judah had laid eyes on a deep-sea creature rarely encountered by humans. He and wife Linda were diving off McAbee Beach in Monterey County in late December when, near the surface, he spotted the undulating thing. It was some kind of ribbon fish, he wrote in a post on the Facebook group Monterey County Dive Reports. Kevin Lewand solved the mystery.
Shark attacks returned to near-average levels in 2025 after a dip the previous year, according to the latest report from the Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Attack File, published Wednesday. Researchers recorded 65 unprovoked shark bites worldwide last year, slightly below the 10-year average of 72, but an increase from 2024. Nine of those bites were fatal, higher than the 10-year average of six fatalities.