Six GPS-tracked wild cats wandered closer to Santa Cruz, California, and surrounding towns as human activity died down under shelter-in-place orders last March.
In areas where gray wolf populations have grown, motorists have fewer collisions with deer, likely due to the predators keeping deer away from roadways.
As some conservationists and researchers begin to return large carnivores to areas where they once roamed, scientists intensify efforts to study the ecological roles of predators.
A global decline of large carnivores has motivated scientists to understand the animals’ ecological roles, and consider whether reintroducing them can help restore ecosystems.
The release of gray wolves in Yellowstone decades ago still stands as one of the few examples of a predator reintroduction, and the lessons learned continue to be debated. New projects aim to do it again.
A roughly 99-million-year-old piece of amber from northern Myanmar contains the skull of what appears to represent the smallest known dinosaur of the Mesozoic era.
The invertebrate predators prey on and lay their eggs near emerging tadpoles, potentially threatening the conservation of endangered frogs, researchers find.
