Capturing animals encompasses methodological approaches used to physically restrain or confine individual organisms or groups for study, monitoring, or management. Techniques include passive methods such as live traps, mist nets, pitfall traps, and funnel traps, and active methods such as hand capture, noosing, or net-gunning, each selected based on target species’ behavior, size, and habitat. Method design emphasizes minimizing stress, injury, and mortality, adhering to ethical and legal standards, and often incorporates species-specific baiting, timing, and placement strategies. Capture methods are integral to mark–recapture studies, population estimation, health assessments, telemetry deployment, and translocation or removal programs.
A young mountain lion spotted roaming the streets of San Francisco has been located near a park where wildlife officials are trying to capture it, authorities said Tuesday.
Ecology
Jan 27, 2026
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13
What's the value of one animal? When a wild animal is found badly injured, the most humane option is often euthanasia to prevent further suffering. That's what usually happens, and often for good reason. Even when the resources ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 24, 2025
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120
A flutter of blue and yellow darts through a field in late May. Trees, shrubs and summer flowers fill the landscape. A blue-winged warbler is just within reach, with one swift motion it can be gently grasped, banded and studied ...
Ecology
Dec 17, 2025
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16
The thunder of a rifle echoes across the Savannah. Antelope scatter as birds of all feathers take to the air. A dull thud signals that the marksman's shot was true. The horn from the felled rhino will command more money on ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 12, 2025
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39
For 35 years, American zoologist Laurie Marker has been collecting and storing specimens in a cheetah sperm bank in Namibia, hoping conservationists never have to use them.
Ecology
Dec 4, 2025
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14
A growing exotic pet trade has conservationists calling for stronger regulations to protect the reptiles, birds and other animals in the wild that are increasingly showing up for sale on internet marketplaces and becoming ...
Ecology
Dec 2, 2025
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16
The global crisis of diminishing biological diversity is challenging our current ability to monitor changes in ecosystems.
Ecology
Nov 1, 2025
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438
A new international study led by researchers from Aarhus University and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) reveals that small bats can be just as efficient predators as lions—and often more successful.
Plants & Animals
Oct 31, 2025
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77
Off the western coast of the United Kingdom, conservationists attached some bait to an underwater camera, dropped the contraption to the seabed and waited. When they eventually watched the footage, it left them stunned.
Plants & Animals
Jul 30, 2025
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53
How do you catch an invasive fish that's solitary and nocturnal?
Plants & Animals
Jul 8, 2025
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47
