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Tag: Animals

  • Genetic analysis reveals new details on ancient human and Neanderthal couplings

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    NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Humans and Neanderthals cozied up from time to time when they lived in the same areas tens of thousands of years ago. But we don’t know much about who got with whom, or why.

    A new genetic analysis offers some ancient gossip: The pairings were more often female humans with male Neanderthals.

    How exactly this happened remains a huge question mark. Did human women venture into Neanderthal populations, or were the Neanderthal males drawn to larger human enclaves? Were these interactions peaceful, confusing, secretive or even violent?

    “I don’t know if we’ll ever get a definitive answer to how this happened, since we can’t travel back in time,” said population genetics expert Xinjun Zhang with the University of Michigan, commenting on the new analysis.

    But the study, published Thursday in the journal Science, shows “that whenever Neanderthals and modern humans have mated, there has been a preference for male Neanderthals and female modern humans, as opposed to the other way around,” said author Alexander Platt, who studies genetics at the University of Pennsylvania.

    Scientists know that Neanderthals and humans mated because there is a small but important percentage of Neanderthal DNA in most modern humans outside of sub-Saharan Africa — including genes that can help us fight some diseases and make us more susceptible to others.

    But they have also known that the Neanderthal DNA is not distributed evenly throughout the human genome.

    In particular, there is a surprising lack of Neanderthal DNA in the human X chromosome, one of the bundles of genes in each cell known as a sex chromosome, compared with the amount of Neanderthal DNA in the other, non-sex chromosomes in the cell.

    Scientists thought that maybe the genes in those locations were simply not beneficial – or even harmful. Perhaps people with those gene patterns didn’t survive as well so those genes were filtered out by evolution over time.

    Or, they thought, maybe the difference could be explained by how the two species intermingled.

    To try to solve the riddle, Platt and colleagues looked instead at the Neanderthal genome and the human DNA that got interspersed during a “mating event” 250,000 years ago.

    When comparing these genes, they found more of a human fingerprint on the Neanderthal X chromosome – the same chromosome that, in humans, has less Neanderthal DNA than would be expected.

    The most likely explanation for this mirror image pattern is mating behavior. That’s because of the way sex chromosomes are passed from parents to children, explained Platt. Because genetic females have two X chromosomes and genetic males have one X and one Y chromosomes, two out of every three X chromosomes in a population, on average, are inherited from people’s mothers.

    If more human females mated with Neanderthal males than the other way around, over thousands of years you would expect to see just what they found: more human DNA in Neanderthal X chromosomes and less Neanderthal DNA in human X chromosomes.

    “I think that they’ve taken some really important steps in filling missing pieces to the puzzle,” said Joshua Akey, who studies evolutionary genomics at Princeton University and wasn’t involved with the new study.

    The study can’t totally rule out other explanations. For example, Zhang said, it’s possible that the offspring of human males and Neanderthal females just didn’t survive as well.

    But the simplest and most likely, explanation, the study found, is also the most interesting: “It’s not the result of a strictly Darwinian survival of the fittest,” Platt said. “It’s really the result of how we interact with each other, and what our culture and society and behavior is like.”

    —-

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Trump Administration Ends Protections for Rare Dancing Prairie Bird

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    FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — A ground-dwelling bird known for elaborate mating dances on the southern Great Plains will no longer be federally protected after the Trump administration agreed with arguments by three states and the beef and petroleum industries that the species was listed improperly.

    Thursday’s delisting by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service formalized a recent court ruling that acknowledged the federal agency has now sided with opponents of federal protections for the lesser prairie chicken.

    The ruling by a federal judge in Midland, Texas, in effect ended Endangered Species Act protections for the bird last summer. The protections required the energy industry and ranchers to take steps to avoid disrupting the birds’ habitat and especially their mating areas, called leks.

    The crow-sized birds once numbered in the millions. Habitat loss from energy and agriculture development has shrunk their population to about 30,000 across parts of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

    Wildlife watchers delight in the male birds’ spring dances and their warbling, clucking and stomping ruckus to attract mates. Native American tribes mimic the flamboyant displays — also a behavior of the more common greater prairie chicken — in some of their dances.

    The lesser prairie chicken has been federally protected twice in recent years. In 2015, a federal judge in U.S. District Court in Midland reversed the bird’s listing as a threatened species the year before, siding with petroleum developers who argued that sufficient protections were already in place.

    In 2022, President Joe Biden’s administration listed the lesser prairie chicken as threatened in the northern part of its range in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, and as endangered in a “distinct population segment” to the south in New Mexico and Texas.

    The listing prompted a lawsuit filed by Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas and groups including the Permian Basin Petroleum Association and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

    After President Donald Trump took office last year, the Fish and Wildlife Service reevaluated the bird and agreed with the states and groups that it lacked justification to classify the lesser prairie chicken into two distinctly different populations.

    Last August, another judge in U.S. District Court in Midland granted a Fish and Wildlife Service motion to reverse its Biden-era listings for the lesser prairie chicken.

    “Fish and Wildlife’s concession points to serious error at the very foundation of its rule,” District Judge David Counts wrote in his Aug. 12 ruling praised by Texas officials.

    Texas oil and gas regulatory officials including Texas Railroad Commission spokesperson Bryce Dubee and Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham welcomed the delisting.

    “It will ensure American oil and gas production in the Permian Basin remains robust and our economy steadfast,” Buckingham said in an emailed statement.

    Environmentalists vowed to fight on in court.

    “It’s shameful that the Trump administration sees fit to sacrifice these magnificent birds for oil and gas industry profit,” Jason Rylander, legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said in a statement. “Lesser prairie chickens may be lost forever without Endangered Species Act protections.”

    Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – Feb. 2026

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  • Cat experiences Ramadan for the first time, reaction at 4:38am goes viral

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    A Melbourne cat named Violet has become an unexpected Ramadan star after her puzzled early‑morning wanderings were shared on social media. 

    The series of videos posted by owner Jenna, show the nearly‑two‑year‑old British Shorthair mix blinking into the kitchen in the early hours of the morning, confused as to why the whole household is suddenly awake long before sunrise.

    Jenna, who adopted Violet seven months ago, explained that the reaction was immediate once the family began waking early for suhoor, the pre‑dawn meal. 

    “Violet is almost two and will be turning two on the 1st of March. We’re very excited for her birthday coming up,” Jenna told Newsweek. “She was adopted 7 months ago and had a difficult start to life before coming to us, so she’s now incredibly loved and spoiled. It’s also her first Ramadan with us.”

    Ramadan is the ninth and holiest month of the Islamic lunar calendar. Muslims observe Ramadan as a month of fasting, prayer, self‑discipline and spiritual reflection. From dawn to sunset, they abstain from food and drink, including water. The day begins with a pre‑dawn meal called suhoor, and the fast is broken at sunset with iftar, traditionally starting with dates and water.

    Because the Islamic calendar follows the moon, the dates shift each year. In 2026, Ramadan began on February  18 and will last until March 19, subject to the usual one‑day local variation for Shawwal.

    The routine shift caught Violet off guard. “The videos started when we began waking up early for suhoor and she was immediately confused by the change in routine. She’d wander in wondering why everyone was awake, and I started filming because it was funny and relatable,” Jenna explained.

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    The clips quickly gained traction, earning an outpouring of warm reactions. 

    “Ramadan Meowbarak to her,” joked one commenter on the first video that has been viewed over 2.9 million times.

    “I’ve been really grateful for the response online. It’s been overwhelming in the best way,” Jenna said. “Violet is also a bit of a diva and definitely enjoys the attention.”

    Now, the family has leaned into the fun, experimenting slightly with their routine just to see how Violet reacts. 

    “Sometimes we do different things—cook different foods, weekend hours will be different—so sometimes there are variances. Now it has become a bit of a game and we are doing different things to see how she responds,” Jenna said.

    With Ramadan underway and Violet’s second birthday approaching, the “confused Ramadan cat” seems poised to enjoy plenty more attention—whether she understands the early alarms or not.

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  • Utah begins to cull mountain lions to ‘study’ the effect (Opinion)

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    This year, in what it calls a “study,” Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources is killing off mountain lions in an effort to increase mule deer herds. It has hired trappers from the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, authorizing them to dispatch lions with any method, including banned traps and neck snares.

    The study, covering roughly 8.6 million acres in six management units, will run for at least three years with the goal of indiscriminately exterminating “as many (lions) as possible.”

    Buying into this ancient predator-prey superstition are the nonprofits Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife and Utah Wild Sheep Foundation. Each has contributed $150,000 to the cull.

    Wildlife managers have no idea how many mountain lions roam the state because estimating populations is essentially impossible. Lions are solitary, elusive and range over vast territories they defend. Unlike ungulates that compensate for mortality with fecundity, predators don’t “overpopulate,” and they’re much slower to recover from culling or hunting.

    I asked veteran mountain lion researcher Dr. Rick Hopkins, board president of the Cougar Fund, what science supports a claim that killing mountain lions generates more deer. “None,” he replied. “For years, agencies have made such claims, but when pushed to provide evidence, they can’t. Predator control has never worked anywhere.”

    Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources estimates the state’s mule deer population at 295,200–73 percent of the “long-term goal.” That goal is based more on desired hunting-license sales than science. Still, considering the natural ebb and flow of deer populations, 73 percent isn’t bad.

    Mountain lions have little or nothing to do with the decline of Utah’s mule deer. Predator populations are limited by available prey. What we learned in Biology 101–that predators control prey—is incorrect: Prey controls predators. Utah has experienced prolonged drought, which peaked in 2022. Reduced forage starved female deer so that fewer fawns were born, and those fawns were sickly and therefore less likely to survive winters. When record-breaking snowfall occurred during the winter of 2022-2023, there were massive mule deer die-offs.

    Utah’s mountain lion cull follows hard upon a 2023 state law that opened up year-round, mountain lion killing without requiring permits. Both this law and the current cull outrage environmental and animal wellness communities. The Western Wildlife Conservancy and Mountain Lion Foundation have filed a lawsuit (ongoing), asserting that the law violates the state’s Right to Hunt and Fish Act, which requires a “reasonable regulation of hunting.”

    The Mountain Lion Foundation dismisses the mountain lion cull study as a “lethal program without rigorous science,” and reports: “Decades of peer-reviewed research across the West show that intensive predator removal rarely delivers sustained or landscape-scale recovery of prey populations. Instead, it often destabilizes predator populations, leading to younger, transient animals, increased conflict and little long-term benefit for deer.”

    And this from Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action: “The science shows that healthy lion populations create robust and healthier deer herds, with lions selectively removing deer afflicted with the 100-percent fatal and highly contagious brain-wasting scourge known as Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) caused by malformed, self-replicating proteins called ‘prions.’”

    All threats to mule deer pale in comparison with CWD. The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, a hunter-support group, calls it “the number one threat to deer hunting.”

    In Utah, CWD has been detected in 356 of the few mule deer checked. Symptoms include fearlessness and loss of coordination, behaviors inviting lion predation, and thereby removal of disease vectors.

    What’s more, mountain lions are resistant to CWD. They deactivate prions through digestion, removing them from the environment. That further protects mule deer as well as possibly protecting people. In 2022, two hunters who ate venison from a CWD-ravaged deer herd in Texas died from prion disease. Given the rarity of human prion infections, this seems an unlikely coincidence.

    The Idaho Capital Sun quoted Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease at the University of Minnesota, as follows: “We are quite unprepared. If we saw a (CWD) spillover right now, we would be in free fall. There are no contingency plans.”

    Dr. Mark Elbroch of Panthera, a nonprofit dedicated to conserving wild felines, told me this: “Heaps of science show the beneficial contributions of mountain lions. Humans are healthier when we live with mountain lions.”

    So are mule deer.

    Ted Williams, a longtime environmental writer, is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West.

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    Ted Williams

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  • A horse’s neigh may be unique in the animal kingdom. Now scientists know how they do it

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    NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Horses whinny to find new friends, greet old ones and celebrate happy moments like feeding time.

    How exactly horses produce that distinctive sound — also called a neigh — has long eluded scientists.

    The whinny is an unusual combination of both high and low pitched sounds, like a cross between a grunt and a squeal — that come out at the same time.

    The low-pitched part wasn’t much of a mystery. It comes from air passing over bands of tissue in the voice box that make noise when they vibrate. It’s a technique similar to how humans speak and sing.

    But the high-pitched piece is more puzzling. With some exceptions, larger animals have larger vocal systems and typically make lower sounds. So how do horses do it?

    According to a new study, they whistle.

    Researchers slid a small camera through horses’ noses to film what happened inside while they whinnied and made another common horse sound, the softer, subtler nicker. They also conducted detailed scans and blew air through the isolated voice boxes of dead horses.

    The whinny’s mysterious high-pitched tones, they discovered, are a kind of whistling that starts in the horse’s voice box. Air vibrates the tissues in the voice box while an area just above contracts, leaving a small opening for the whistle to escape.

    That’s different from human whistling, which we do with our mouths.

    “I’d never imagined that there was a whistling component. It’s really interesting, and I can hear that now,” said Jenifer Nadeau, who studies horses at the University of Connecticut. Nadeau was not involved with the study, which was published Monday in the journal Current Biology.

    A few small rodents like rats and mice whistle like this, but horses are the first known large mammal to have a knack for it. They’re also the only animals known to be able to whistle through their voice boxes while they sing.

    “Knowing that a ‘whinny’ is not just a ‘whinny’ but that it is actually composed of two different fundamental frequencies that are created by two different mechanisms is exciting,” said Alisa Herbst with Rutgers University’s Equine Science Center, of the study in an email.

    A big lingering question is how horses’ two-toned calls came to be. Wild Przewalski’s horses can do something similar, as can elks. But more distant horse relatives like donkeys and zebras can’t make the high-pitched sounds.

    The two-toned whinnies could help horses convey multiple messages at the same time. The differently pitched neighs may help them express a more complex range of feelings when socializing, said study author Elodie Mandel-Briefer with the University of Copenhagen.

    “They can express emotions in these two dimensions,” Mandel-Briefer said.

    —-

    Associated Press video journalist James Brooks contributed to this report.

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Dog lovers’ business donates blankets to animal shelters

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    HAVERHILL — What do pet owners love more than their own four-legged friend?

    Now, it’s simple for folks to see that furry face stretched across a blanket, thanks to a Haverhill couple’s business.

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    By Jonah Frangiosa | Staff Writer

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  • These shy, scaly anteaters are the most trafficked mammals in the world

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    CAPE TOWN, South Africa — They are hunted for their unique scales, and the demand makes them the most trafficked mammal in the world.

    Wildlife conservationists are again raising the plight of pangolins, the shy, scaly anteaters found in parts of Africa and Asia, on World Pangolin Day on Saturday.

    Pangolins or pangolin products outstrip any other mammal when it comes to wildlife smuggling, with more than half a million pangolins seized in anti-trafficking operations between 2016 and 2024, according to a report last year by CITES, the global authority on the trading of endangered plant and animal species.

    The World Wildlife Fund estimates that over a million pangolins were taken from the wild over the last decade, including those that were never intercepted.

    Pangolins meat is a delicacy in places, but the driving force behind the illegal trade is their scales, which are made of keratin, the protein also found in human hair and fingernails. The scales are in high demand in China and other parts of Asia due to the unproven belief that they cure a range of ailments when made into traditional medicine.

    There are eight pangolin species, four in Africa and four in Asia. All of them face a high, very high or extremely high risk of extinction.

    While they’re sometimes known as scaly anteaters, pangolins are not related in any way to anteaters or armadillos.

    They are unique in that they are the only mammals covered completely in keratin scales, which overlap and have sharp edges. They are the perfect defense mechanism, allowing a pangolin to roll up into an armored ball that even lions struggle to get to grip with, leaving the nocturnal ant and termite eaters with few natural predators.

    But they have no real defense against human hunters. And in conservation terms, they don’t resonate in the way that elephants, rhinos or tigers do despite their fascinating intricacies — like their sticky insect-nabbing tongues being almost as long as their bodies.

    While some reports indicate a downward trend in pangolin trafficking since the COVID-19 pandemic, they are still being poached at an alarming rate across parts of Africa, according to conservationists.

    Nigeria is one of the global hot spots. There, Dr. Mark Ofua, a wildlife veterinarian and the West Africa representative for the Wild Africa conservation group, has rescued pangolins for more than a decade, which started with him scouring bushmeat markets for animals he could buy and save. He runs an animal rescue center and a pangolin orphanage in Lagos.

    His mission is to raise awareness of pangolins in Nigeria through a wildlife show for kids and a tactic of convincing entertainers, musicians and other celebrities with millions of social media followers to be involved in conservation campaigns — or just be seen with a pangolin.

    Nigeria is home to three of the four African pangolin species, but they are not well known among the country’s 240 million people.

    Ofua’s drive for pangolin publicity stems from an encounter with a group of well-dressed young men while he was once transporting pangolins he had rescued in a cage. The men pointed at them and asked him what they were, Ofua said.

    “Oh, those are baby dragons,” he joked. But it got him thinking.

    “There is a dark side to that admission,” Ofua said. “If people do not even know what a pangolin looks like, how do you protect them?”

    ___

    AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

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  • Hearts melt at 22-year-old dog who can’t contain her excitement at mealtime

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    Hearts have melted at a 22-year-old dog who still has a lust for life—particularly when it comes to food.

    Jess, 33 and from Somerset in the United Kingdom, is the proud owner of Jack Russell terrier mix, Cammy—who she has had for 18 years.

    And while that may already seem an impressive age for a dog, Cammy was already well out of puppyhood by the time she became part of Jess’s family: she is now 22 years old.

    “Day to day, caring for her now is much slower and more intentional but she’s still very much herself,” Jess told Newsweek. “Routine plays a huge role in that. Predictable days help her feel secure and reduce stress, which becomes increasingly important as dogs age.”

    Cammy has a large following on TikTok, where Jess regularly posts about her elderly pet to her account @walkieswithcammy, and one recent video has shown the importance of routine when it comes to dinner time.

    In a clip posted on February 15, Cammy trots slowly up to the kitchen, where Jess calls out the magic word: “Dindins!”

    And it’s clear Cammy is still full of energy when it comes to food, as she begins bouncing up and down on the spot, and even rushes towards where Jess is preparing the food. She knows, however, that she’s supposed to wait by the door, and quickly rushes back—though she can’t help but creep forward a little bit at a time.

    When the food has been prepared, and Jess places Cammy’s food bowl down, the tiny mixed-breed bounds into the room looking like a much younger dog.

    “Cammy did very well,” Jess wrote in the caption. “Her impulse control gets the better of her in herold age, especially when it comes to dinner.”

    TikTok users had a big reaction, liking the video more than 7,000 times, as viewers flocked to the comments to share their awe at Cammy’s age.

    “Mine reached 17 but 22 is crazy how,” one asked, as another pointed out that Cammy is “104 years in dog terms.”

    “I didn’t know dogs can live till they are 22 years old,” another admitted, while one asked: “Mine’s 18 and struggling, what meds you got yours on please?”

    Jess told Newsweek that her adored pet receives monthly injections at the vet, including for joint pain and itch control, and while they don’t work for every dog, “for Cammy, they’ve been carefully monitored by our vet and have helped maintain her comfort and quality of life for years.”

    It’s not just medically that Jess helps her dog, however, as she explained: “We also focus heavily on mental stimulation rather than physical exertion.”

    “Cammy is a Jack Russell mix, so providing appropriate outlets for her brain has always mattered. These days that looks like daily sniffing in the garden, gentle forage games and a cardboard box to shred. We do this every morning. It keeps her engaged without putting unnecessary strain on her body.”

    Cammy’s owners also take care to minimize stress as much as possible, paying close attention to how she responds to different situations.”

    “She isn’t bathed unless she genuinely needs it, we avoid anything overly stimulating and we don’t dress her up unless she’s cold. Comfort and calm always come first,” Jess said.

    “She does have age-related changes, as you’d expect at 22, but overall she’s comfortable, content, safe and still enjoys life in her own way!

    “Seeing how many people have connected with her and shared their own hopes for their dogs has been incredibly touching. I think older dogs remind people how meaningful the everyday moments are.”

    Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@newsweek.com with some details about your best friend and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.

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  • Letters: Aisha Wahab’s BART anger is campaign theater

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    Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.

    Wahab’s BART anger is campaign theater

    Re: “Irvington station project delays irk area officials” (Page A1, Feb. 5).

    The frustration around the Irvington BART station is understandable, but what rings hollow is the sudden outrage from Aisha Wahab, who has been absent from the regional transportation conversation until launching a campaign for Congress.

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  • Scots police dog helps bust over 10,000 illegal cigarettes during raids

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    The heroic dog was pictured sitting proudly among bags of illegal cigarettes that were seized during various raids.

    A Scots police dog has helped bust more than 10,000 illicit cigarettes during raids in West Lothian. A total of 10,340 illicit cigs and 43 pouches of hand rolling tobacco were discovered during joint raids in Armadale and Whitburn.

    The premises were targeted after tip offs from the public. The local authority trading standards team alongside officers from Police Scotland tracked down the illegal goods during several searches, reports Edinburgh Live.

    But it was a tobacco detection spaniel who stole the show sniffing out the harmful products. West Lothian Council said they got “a little help from their four-legged friend” who helped the team while carrying our their warrants.

    An adorable photo posted on social media shows the heroic police dog, who name is unfortunately not known, sitting proudly in the back of a police van among four bags of illicit cigarettes that were seized during the raids.

    A spokesperson for West Lothian Council said: “Our Trading Standards Team have been getting a little help from a four-legged friend.

    “The council’s Trading Standards Team have been involved in joint raids with officers from Police Scotland and tobacco detection dogs, with illicit tobacco being seized from premises in Armadale and Whitburn following information from the local community.

    “A total of 10,340 cigarettes and 43 pouches of hand rolling tobacco were removed from sale. The premises have also been reported to HMRC.”

    The council spokesperson explained how illicit tobacco can contain a higher amount of harmful or unknown substances, as well as poor unregulated factory conditions where they are produced.

    Setting out more of the dangers, they went on: “Illicit cigarettes may also have an increased fire risk as they are unlikely to have not been manufactured using fire retardant paper, which means such cigarettes will not go out quickly if left unattended, potentially causing a dangerous fire.

    “Underage sales of tobacco may be more likely due to the lower sale price being appealing to children, and lack of age verification by the sellers. The income generated from the sale of illicit tobacco has also been linked to funding serious and organised crime. Local legitimate businesses are impacted due to unfair competition.”

    If you have any concerns about illicit tobacco being sold in your local area, you can report this anonymously online to Trading Standards here.

    Get more Daily Record exclusives by signing up for free to Google’s preferred sources. Click HERE.

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  • US ocean regulator faces criticism over changes to right whale protection rule

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    PORTLAND, Maine — The U.S.’s ocean regulator plans to make industry-friendly changes to a longstanding rule designed to protect vanishing whales, prompting criticism from environmental groups who cite the recent death of an endangered whale.

    The rules protect the North Atlantic right whale, which numbers less than 400 and lives off the East Coast. The giant animals are protected by a vessel speed rule that requires large ships to slow down at certain times to avoid collisions, which is a leading cause of death for the whales.

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a Thursday statement to The Associated Press that it plans to soon announce proposed new rules designed to “modernize” the whale protections. The proposal will be a “deregulatory-focused action” that will seek to “reduce unnecessary regulatory and economic burdens while ensuring responsible conservation practices for endangered North Atlantic right whales,” the statement said.

    A notice of rulemaking about the right whale rules is listed on the U.S. Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website, but it does not include any details about the proposal. NOAA said in its statement that more information about the rules was forthcoming and that the agency was focused on “implementing new technologies, engineering approaches, and other advanced tools” to protect the whales.

    Several environmental groups criticized the move away from vessel speed rules. Some cited the Feb. 10 confirmation of the death of a 3-year-old female whale off Virginia. The cause of the animal’s death was not yet determined, but it died at a far younger age than typical.

    “Another female right whale — the future of this species — has lost her life. We urgently need more right whale protections, not fewer. The Trump administration’s apparent determination to weaken the vessel speed rule could not come at a worse time,” said Jane Davenport, senior attorney at conservation group Defenders of Wildlife.

    Right whales migrate every year from calving grounds off Florida and Georgia to feeding grounds off New England and Canada. Along the way, they are vulnerable to collisions with ships and entanglement in commercial fishing gear. They were once numerous off the East Coast but were decimated during the commercial whaling era and have been federally protected for decades.

    The Biden administration planned to expand slow zones off the East Coast to protect the whales. It also planned to expand the classes of boats required to slow down. However, the federal government withdrew the proposal in the final days of the administration, with officials saying it didn’t have time to finalize the regulations due to the scope and volume of public comments.

    Some shipping businesses and other marine industries have long pushed back at vessel speed rules. The National Marine Manufacturers Association has described speed restrictions as “archaic” and advocated for solutions that rely on technology.

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  • DC’s new baby elephant has a name – WTOP News

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    After 10 days of voting that raised nearly $60,000 for the zoo’s elephant care program, fans chose the name Linh Mai, which is Vietnamese for spirit blossom.

    The Asian elephant calf that was born to female Asian elephant Nhi Linh on Feb. 2, 2026 at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. (Courtesy Roshan Patel, Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute)

    The vote is in, and the Smithsonian National Zoo’s new baby Asian elephant has a name.

    After 10 days of voting that raised nearly $60,000 for the zoo’s elephant care program, fans chose the name Linh Mai, which is Vietnamese for “spirit blossom.”

    Linh means “spirit” or “soul,” and Mai refers to the apricot blossom, a flower associated with the Lunar New Year, which begins Feb. 17 this year.

    The name was one of four offered for a public online vote from Feb. 3 to Feb. 12. Fans were invited to vote for their favorite name by making a donation of $5 of more, with $1 representing one vote.

    Here’s a breakdown of the results:

    • Linh Mai (spirit blossom) — $22,885 (39%)
    • Tú Ahn (talented, gifted, bright and intelligent) — $20,627 (35%)
    • Tuyết (snow) — $8,153.70 (14%)
    • Thảo Nhi (gentle and beloved) — $7,227 (12%)

    Linh Mai is the first Asian elephant born at the D.C. zoo in nearly 25 years.

    “Her birth is a significant conservation success for the Zoo and this endangered species, as fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants are left in the world,” the zoo said in a news release announcing the name.

    The 11-day-old calf will make her public debut and her first appearance on the zoo’s Elephant Cam in the spring.

    Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

    © 2026 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Thomas Robertson

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  • You love your dog too much. Blame the broken American Dream and loss of purpose since the pandemic | Fortune

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    Americans love dogs.

    Nearly half of U.S. households have one, and practically all owners see pets as part of the family – 51% say pets belong “as much as a human member.” The pet industry keeps generating more and more jobs, from vets to trainers, to influencers. Schools cannot keep up with the demand for veterinarians.

    It all seems part of what Mark Cushing, a lawyer and lobbyist for veterinary issues, calls “the pet revolution”: the more and more privileged place that pets occupy in American society. In his 2020 book “Pet Nation,” he argues that the internet has caused people to become more lonely, and this has made them focus more intensely on their pets – filling in for human relationships.

    I would argue that something different is happening, however, particularly since the COVID-19 lockdown: Loving dogs has become an expression not of loneliness but of how unhappy many Americans are with society and other people.

    In my own book, “Rescue Me,” I explore how today’s dog culture is more a symptom of our suffering as a society than a cure for it. Dogs aren’t just being used as a substitute for people. As a philosopher who studies the relationships between animals, humans and the environment, I believe Americans are turning to dogs to alleviate the erosion of social life itself. For some owners, dogs simply offer more satisfying relationships than other people do.

    And I am no different. I live with three dogs, and my love for them has driven me to research the culture of dog ownership in an effort to understand myself and other humans better. By nature, dogs are masters of social life who can communicate beyond the boundaries of their species. But I believe many Americans are expecting their pets to address problems that they cannot fix.

    Dogs over people

    During the pandemic, people often struggled with the monotony of spending too much time cooped up with other humans – children, romantic partners, roommates. Meanwhile, relationships with their dogs seemed to flourish.

    Rescuing shelter animals grew in popularity, and on social media people celebrated being at home with their pets. Dog content on Instagram and Pinterest now commonly includes hashtags like #DogsAreBetterThanPeople and #IPreferDogsToPeople.

    “The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog” appears on merchandise all over e-commerce sites such as Etsy, Amazon and Redbubble.

    One 2025 study found that dog owners tend to rate their pets more highly than their human loved ones in several areas, such as companionship and support. They also experienced fewer negative interactions with their dogs than with the closest people in their lives, including children, romantic partners and relatives.

    The late primatologist Jane Goodall celebrated her 90th birthday with 90 dogs. She stated in an interview with Stephen Colbert that she preferred dogs to chimps, because chimps were too much like people. https://www.youtube.com/embed/3xGvLApNrFQ?wmode=transparent&start=0 Jane Goodall said she appreciates dogs for their “unconditional love.”

    Fraying fabric

    This passion for dogs seems to be growing as America’s social fabric unravels – which began long before the pandemic.

    In 1972, 46% of Americans said “most people can be trusted.” By 2018, that percentage dropped to 34%. Americans report seeing their friends less than they used to, a phenomenon called the “friendship recession,” and avoid having conversations with strangers because they expect the conversation to go badly. People are spending more time at home.

    Today, millennials make up the largest percentage of pet owners. Some cultural commentators argue dogs are especially important for this generation because other traditional markers of stability and adulthood – a mortgage, a child – feel out of reach or simply undesirable. According to the Harris Poll, a marketing research firm, 43% of Americans would prefer a pet to a child.

    Amid those pressures, many people turn to the comfort of a pet – but the expectations for what dogs can bring to our lives are becoming increasingly unreasonable.

    For some people, dogs are a way to feel loved, to relieve pressures to have kids, to fight the drudgery of their job, to reduce the stress of the rat race and to connect with the outdoors. Some expect pet ownership to improve their physical and mental health.

    Even years after the pandemic lockdown, many people are spending more time at home – often with pets. curtoicurto/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    And it works, to a degree. Studies have found dog people to be “warmer” and happier than cat people. Interacting with pets can improve your health and may even offer some protection against cognitive decline. Dog-training programs in prisons appear to reduce recidivism rates.

    Unreasonable expectations

    But expecting that dogs will fill the social and emotional gaps in our lives is actually an obstacle to dogs’ flourishing, and human flourishing as well.

    In philosophical terms, we could call this an extractive relationship: Humans are using dogs for their emotional labor, extracting things from them that they cannot get elsewhere or simply no longer wish to. Just like natural resource extraction, extractive relationships eventually become unsustainable.

    The late cultural theorist Lauren Berlant argued that the present stage of capitalism creates a dynamic called “slow death,” a cycle in which “life building and the attrition of life are indistinguishable.” Keeping up is so exhausting that, in order to maintain that life, we need to do things that result in our slow degradation: Work becomes drudgery under unsustainable workloads, and the experience of dating suffers under the unhealthy pressure to have a partner.

    Similarly, today’s dog culture is leading to unhealthy and unsustainable dynamics. Veterinarians are concerned that the rise of the “fur baby” lifestyle, in which people treat pets like human children, can harm animals, as owners seek unnecessary veterinary care, tests and medications. Pets staying at home alone while owners work suffer from boredom, which can cause chronic psychological distress and health problems. And as the number of pets goes up, many people wind up giving up their animal, overcrowding shelters.

    So what should be done? Some philosophers and activists advocate for pet abolition, arguing that treating any animals as property is ethically indefensible.

    This is a hard case to make – especially with dog lovers. Dogs were the first animal that humans domesticated. They have evolved beside us for as long as 40,000 years, and are a central piece of the human story. Some scientists argue that dogs made us human, not the other way around.

    Perhaps we can reconfigure aspects of home, family and society to be better for dogs and humans alike – more accessible health care and higher-quality food, for example. A world more focused on human thriving would be more focused on pets’ thriving, too. But that would make for a very different America than this one.

    Margret Grebowicz, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, Missouri University of Science and Technology

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    The Conversation

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    Margret Grebowicz, The Conversation

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  • Shelter plays matchmaker for Valentine’s Day

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    METHUEN — There’s a different type of matchmaking planned for some longtime furry adoption center residents that are hopeful their forever families will walk through the door this Valentine’s Day weekend.

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    By Angelina Berube | Staff Writer

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  • Thailand uses a birth control vaccine to curb its elephant population

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    BANGKOK — BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand has begun using a birth control vaccine on elephants in the wild to try and curb a growing problem where human and animal populations encroach on each other — an issue in areas where farms spread into forests and elephants are squeezed out of their natural habitat.

    The initiative is part of efforts to address confrontations that can turn deadly. As farmers cut down forests to make more farmland, elephants are forced to venture out of their shrinking habitats in search of food.

    Last year, wild elephants killed 30 people and injured 29 in Thailand, according to official figures, which also noted more than 2,000 incidents of elephants damaging crops.

    Sukhee Boonsang, director of the Wildlife Conservation Office, recently told The Associated Press that controlling the wild elephant population has become necessary as numbers of elephants living near residential areas rises sharply, increasing the risk of confrontations.

    The office obtained 25 doses of a U.S.-made vaccine and conducted a two-year trial on seven domesticated elephants — using up seven doses of the vaccine — which yielded promising results, he said. He explained the vaccine doesn’t stop female elephants from ovulating but prevents eggs from being fertilized.

    Then, in late January, the vaccine was administered to three wild elephants in eastern Trat province, he said, adding that authorities are now determining which areas to target next as they prepare to use up the remaining 15 doses.

    The vaccine can prevent pregnancy for seven years and the elephants will be able to reproduce again if they don’t receive a booster after that time expires. Experts will closely monitor the vaccinated elephants throughout the seven-year period.

    The vaccination drive has drawn criticism that it might undermine conservation efforts. Thailand has a centuries-old tradition of using domesticated elephants in farming and transportation. Elephants are also a big part of Thailand’s national identity — and have been officially proclaimed a symbol of the nation.

    Sukhee said the program targets only wild elephants in areas with the highest rates of violent human-elephant conflict. Official statistics show a birth rate of wild elephants in these regions at approximately 8.2% per year, more than double the national average of around 3.5%.

    About 800 out of the nation’s approximately 4,400 wild elephants live in these conflict-prone areas, Sukhee said.

    “If we don’t take action, the impact on people living in these areas will continue to grow until it becomes unmanageable,” he said.

    In addition to the contraception vaccine, authorities have implemented other measures to reduce conflict, Sukhee said, such as creating additional water and food sources within the forests where elephants live, constructing protective fencing, and deploying rangers to guide elephants that stray into residential areas back into the wild.

    A court-ordered operation earlier this month to remove wild elephants that have repeatedly clashed with locals in northeastern Khon Kaen province sparked a public outcry after one elephant died during the relocation process.

    An initial autopsy revealed that the elephant died from choking after anesthesia was administered ahead of the move, officials said.

    The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation carried out the relocation effort, and its director general, Athapol Charoenshunsa, expressed regret over the incident while insisting that protocol was followed properly. He said an investigation was underway to prevent such incidents from happening again.

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  • A California photographer is on a quest to photograph hundreds of native bees

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    LOS ANGELES — In the arid, cracked desert ground in Southern California, a tiny bee pokes its head out of a hole no larger than the tip of a crayon.

    Krystle Hickman crouches over with her specialized camera fitted to capture the minute details of the bee’s antennae and fuzzy behind.

    “Oh my gosh, you are so cute,” Hickman murmurs before the female sweat bee flies away.

    Hickman is on a quest to document hundreds of species of native bees, which are under threat by climate change and habitat loss, some of it caused by the more recognizable and agriculturally valued honey bee — an invasive species. Of the roughly 4,000 types of bees native to North America, Hickman has photographed over 300. For about 20 of them, she’s the first to ever photograph them alive.

    Through photography, she wants to raise awareness about the importance of native bees to the survival of the flora and fauna around them.

    “Saving the bees means saving their entire ecosystems,” Hickman said.

    On a Saturday in January, Hickman walked among the early wildflower bloom at Anza Borrego Desert State Park a few hundred miles east of Los Angeles, where clumps of purple verbena and patches of white primrose were blooming unusually early due to a wet winter.

    Where there are flowers, there are bees.

    Hickman has no formal science education and dropped out of a business program that she hated. But her passion for bees and keen observation skills made her a good community scientist, she said. In October, she published a book documenting California’s native bees, partly supported by National Geographic. She’s conducted research supported by the University of California, Irvine, and hopes to publish research notes this year on some of her discoveries.

    “We’re filling in a lot of gaps,” she said of the role community scientists play in contributing knowledge alongside academics.

    On a given day, she might spend 16 hours waiting beside a plant, watching as bees wake up and go about their business. They pay her no attention.

    Originally from Nebraska, Hickman moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. She began photographing honey bees in 2018, but soon realized native bees were in greater danger.

    Now, she’s a bee scientist full time.

    “I really think anyone could do this,” Hickman said.

    Melittologists, or people who study bees, have traditionally used pan trapping to collect and examine dead bee specimens. To officially log a new species, scientists usually must submit several bees to labs, Hickman said.

    There can be small anatomical differences between species that can’t be photographed, such as the underside of a bee, Hickman said.

    But Hickman is vehemently against capturing bees. She worries about harming already threatened species. Unofficially, she thinks she’s photographed at least four previously undescribed species.

    Hickman said she’s angered “a few melittologists before because I won’t tell them where things are.”

    Her approach has helped her forge a path as a bee behavior expert.

    During her trip to Anza Borrego, Hickman noted that the bees won’t emerge from their hideouts until around 10 a.m., when the desert begins to heat up. They generally spend 20 minutes foraging and 10 minutes back in their burrows to offload pollen, she said.

    “It’s really shockingly easy to make new behavioral discoveries just because no one’s looking at insects alive,” she said.

    Hickman still works closely with other melittologists, often sending them photos for identification and discussing research ideas.

    Christine Wilkinson, assistant curator of community science at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, said Hickman was a perfect example of why it’s important to incorporate different perspectives in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

    “There are so many different ways of knowing and relating to the world,” Wilkinson said. “Getting engaged as a community scientist can also get people interested in and passionate about really making change.”

    There’s a critically endangered bee that Hickman is particularly determined to find – Bombus franklini, or Franklin’s bumblebee, last seen in 2006.

    Since 2021, she’s traveled annually to the Oregon-California border to look for it.

    “There’s quite a few people who think it’s extinct, but I’m being really optimistic about it,” she said.

    Habitat loss, as well as competition from honey bees, have made it harder for native bees to survive. Many native bees will only drink the nectar or eat the pollen of a specific plant.

    Because of her success in tracking down bees, she’s now working with various universities and community groups to help find lost species, which are bees that haven’t been documented in the wild for at least a decade.

    Hickman often finds herself explaining to audiences why native bees are important. They don’t make honey, and the disappearance of a few bees might not have an apparent impact on humans.

    “But things that live here, they deserve to live here. And that should be a good enough reason to protect them,” she said.

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  • Can apes play pretend? Scientists use an imaginary tea party to find out

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    NEW YORK — By age 2, most kids know how to play pretend. They turn their bedrooms into faraway castles and hold make-believe tea parties.

    The ability to make something out of nothing may seem uniquely human — a bedrock of creativity that’s led to new kinds of art, music and more.

    Now, for the first time, an experiment hints that an ape in captivity can have an imagination.

    “What’s really exciting about this work is that it suggests that the roots of this capacity for imagination are not unique to our species,” said study co-author Christopher Krupenye with Johns Hopkins University.

    Enter Kanzi, a bonobo who was raised in a lab and became a whiz at communicating with humans using graphic symbols. He combined different symbols to make them mean new things and learned how to create simple stone tools.

    Scientists wondered whether Kanzi had the capacity to play pretend — that is, act like something is real while knowing it’s not. They’d heard reports of female chimpanzees in the wild holding sticks as though they were babies and chimps in captivity dragging imaginary blocks on the ground after playing with real ones.

    But imagination is abstract, so it’s hard to know what’s going on in the apes’ heads. They could just be imitating researchers or mistaking imaginary objects for the real thing.

    Researchers adapted the playbook for studying young children to stage a juice party for Kanzi. They poured imaginary juice from a pitcher into two cups, then pretended to empty just one. They asked Kanzi which cup he wanted and he pointed to the cup still containing pretend juice 68% of the time.

    To make sure Kanzi wasn’t confusing real with fake, they also ran a test with actual juice. Kanzi chose the real juice over the pretend almost 80% of the time, “which suggests that he really can tell the difference between real juice and imaginary juice,” said Amalia Bastos, a study co-author from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

    A third experiment placing fake grapes into two jars had similar positive results.

    But not all scientists are convinced that Kanzi is playing pretend like humans do. There’s a difference between envisioning juice being poured into a cup and maintaining the pretense that it’s real, said Duke University comparative psychologist Michael Tomasello.

    “To be convinced of that I would need to see Kanzi actually pretend to pour water into a container himself,” Tomasello wrote in an email. He had no role in the study, which was published Thursday in the journal Science.

    Kanzi grew up among humans, so it’s hard to say whether his abilities extend to all apes or are because of his special upbringing. He died last year at the age of 44.

    Many great ape species in the wild are critically endangered and it’ll take more research to understand what their minds are capable of.

    “Kanzi opened this path for a lot of future studies,” Bastos said.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Dog trainer charged with animal cruelty faced past scrutiny

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    METHUEN — An animal control officer was investigating a dog trainer months before an online video went viral appearing to show the trainer beating two German shepherds with a PVC pipe.

    Last month, Methuen police filed two animal cruelty charges against Madison Eastman, 26, and her ex-boyfriend, Christian Duran, stemming from the video. A lengthy police report, however, also reveals Eastman had been ordered to stop operating a kennel out of her home in May, resulting in her moving her operation out of the city.

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    By Teddy Tauscher | Staff Writer

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  • Groundhog Day puts Punxsutawney Phil’s forecast about winter’s length in spotlight

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    PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. — It’s already been a long, cold winter across much of the United States, and on Monday, Punxsutawney Phil’s handlers will announce whether the weather-predicting groundhog says there’s more of the same to come.

    When Phil is said to have seen his shadow upon emergence from a tree stump in rural Pennsylvania, that’s considered a forecast for six more weeks of winter. If he doesn’t see his shadow, an early spring is said to be on the way.

    Tens of thousands of people will be on hand at Gobbler’s Knob for the annual ritual that goes back more than a century, with ties to ancient farming traditions in Europe. Punxsutawney’s festivities have grown considerably since the 1993 movie “Groundhog Day,” starring Bill Murray.

    Last year’s announcement was six more weeks of winter, by far Phil’s more common assessment and not much of a surprise during the first week of February. His top-hatted handlers in the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club insist Phil’s “groundhogese” of winks, purrs, chatters and nods are being interpreted when they relate the meterological marmot’s muses about the days ahead.

    Phil isn’t the only animal being consulted for long-term weather forecasts Monday. There are formal and informal Groundhog Day events in many places in the U.S., Canada and beyond.

    Groundhog Day falls on Feb. 2, the midpoint between the shortest, darkest day of the year on the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It’s a time of year that also figures in the Celtic calendar and the Christian holiday of Candlemas.

    ___

    Scolforo reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

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  • Collar cams offer a bear’s eye view into the lives of grizzlies on Alaska’s desolate North Slope

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    ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The life of one of the most remote grizzly bear populations in the world is being documented by the animals themselves, with collar cameras that provide a rare glimpse of how they survive on Alaska’s rugged and desolate North Slope.

    Twelve of the 200 or so grizzlies that roam the frigid, treeless terrain near the Arctic Ocean have been outfitted with the cameras as part of a research project by Washington State University and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

    The videos they record — many partially obscured by the undersides of whiskery muzzles — show the bears playing or fighting with companions, gnawing on a caribou, snarfing up berries, napping on a beach, and swimming in a pond looking for fish.

    The bears hibernate about eight months of the year.

    “They really have a really short window to obtain enough food resources to pack on enough fat to survive that period,” said Washington State doctoral student Ellery Vincent, who is leading the project with state wildlife biologist Jordan Pruszenski.

    “We’re interested in looking at kind of a broad scale of how they’re obtaining the food that allows them to survive through the year and what exactly they’re choosing to eat,” Vincent said.

    Among other things, the state is interested in learning to what extent the bears hunt musk oxen. There are about 300 of the shaggy ice-age survivors on the North Slope, according to Pruszenski, but the population is not flourishing.

    Videos from the first year of the project show that after emerging from hibernation, the bears eat the carcasses of caribou or musk ox that have died over the winter. Then they attack caribou calves. As soon as the tundra greens up, the bears shift their menu toward vegetation, especially blueberries and soapberries, also called buffaloberries.

    They don’t fatten up the way salmon-eating bears do. Those bears can reach up to 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms). These Arctic grizzlies are small in comparison, reaching up to 350 pounds (159 kilograms), Vincent said.

    To initially fit the bears with the collar cams, the researchers tracked them through the snow by helicopter last May. Pruszenski fired tranquilizer darts from the air, with Vincent keeping track of injection times and helping determine when the bear was safe to approach on the ground.

    They placed the collars on the bears, keeping them loose enough that the bears could grow into them as they put on weight, but not so loose that they would fall off as the bears go about their rough-and-tumble lives.

    “It is not difficult, but there is a lot of thought that goes into making sure the collar is adjusted properly,” Vincent said.

    The researchers darted the bears again in August to replace the collars and in September to download data. The researchers also measured the bears’ weight gain and body fat.

    When those collars came off, the state wildlife department replaced them with GPS collars.

    That data could determine how oil-field development is impacting bears and help identify where they den during the winter, areas that oil companies must avoid when they build winter roads between drill sites.

    The cameras can record up to 17 hours of video. In the spring and summer, they took a short video clip — four to six seconds — every 10 minutes. In the fall, due to the encroaching darkness, they recorded clips every five minutes during daylight.

    Despite their brevity, the clips provide a rare perspective of how the bears thrive on the desolate North Slope, an area that covers about 94,000 square miles (243,459 square kilometers) but is home to only about 11,000 people. Nearly half of the residents live in Utqiagvik, the nation’s most northern community, formerly known as Barrow.

    “One thing that’s really nice about these bears is that when they’re foraging on a particular food they tend to do that one thing for a long period of time, so these bears will spend pretty much their entire day eating, so the chances of us actually seeing what they’re doing are pretty high,” Vincent said.

    The cameras also caught an encounter between a bear and pack of wolves.

    It occurred after the bear had emerged from hibernation in May. He was not eating yet, so there was no adverse interaction with the wolves over food, she said. There were no wolves visible in the next clip, indicating it was a peaceful exchange.

    “I think they both decided that it wasn’t worth it, so they just looked at each other, then moved on,” Vincent said.

    The study will continue for another two years, with plans to add collars to 24 more bears.

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