Almost 160 animals died at Fota Wildlife Park in Cork in 2015, including a significant number of endangered species.

The formidable, but harmless, basking shark is one of 58 species on a new list of endangered fish in Irish waters.

Life, is ‘poor nasty brutish and short’ said Thomas Hobbes. Certainly, it’s no bed of roses. Natural selection should have equipped us to deal with fear and anxiety, but has it?

THE European eel is in trouble. 

THE OTHER evening I took a group of about 50 people for a nature walk along the banks of the River Liffey as part of the Newbridge Junefest. 

Rhinos are in the news and for all the wrong reasons. Suni, a northern white rhino, was found dead at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya on October 17. 

I WENT ‘cage-diving’ with great white sharks off South Africa’s Dyer Island last month. The giant fish are lured to the boat by a smelly concoction of offal and the head of a large tuna, suspended from a line in the water.

This West African black-crowned crane is keeping a beady eye on her young offspring as it takes its first few steps at Chester Zoo.

IN 1855 David Livingstone, a Scottish missionary, became the first European to set eyes on Tokalaya Tunya, the ‘thundering smoke’.

WESTERN religions seem indifferent, even hostile, to nature conservation. Perhaps they see environmentalism as too secularist in outlook.

Wild boar may not be that wild after all, with DNA analysis showing that boars in Ireland are mostly pig.

A DELIGHTFUL sight in the Irish countryside, seen rarely enough these days, is that of a hare bounding along ears up at great speed, especially after being surprised by human, or canine, presence.

VISIT the African Plains exhibit at Dublin Zoo and you will see scimitar horned oryx, a creature classified as ‘extinct’ by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

WARSAW Zoo has a pair of Indian rhinos.

A DELIGHTFUL sight in the Irish countryside, seen rarely enough these days, is that of a hare bounding along ears up at great speed, especially after being surprised by human, or canine, presence.

MORE than a fifth of the world’s plant species faces the threat of extinction, a trend with potentially catastrophic effects for life on Earth, according to research.

CLIMATE change threatens the survival of dozens of animal species, from the emperor penguin to Australian koalas, according to a report released at the UN climate summit.

IN RECENT years we’ve heard a lot about the decline in stocks of salmon and sea trout in Ireland and abroad, but less about the plight of the humble eel.

IN recent weeks Canada has once again brought shame upon itself.

More than half the world's amphibians and more than a third of birds could be put at a greater risk of extinction by climate change, a study warned today.

Heavily armed poaching gangs in Congo have been slaughtering the world’s minuscule population of northern white rhinoceroses, reversing recent hopes for the species’ survival, a major conservation body said yesterday.