https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Female turkeys could be running the roost for years to come. New research from the University of Georgia published in the Journal of Avian Biology found that the gender of turkey offspring may depend on whether the birds are living in an area full of hunters. And that trend could have big implications for the future of turkey populations. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-pressure-female-turkeys-daughters.html Plants & Animals Tue, 23 Dec 2025 12:31:17 EST news685715461 Florida's first statewide black bear hunt in a decade is more than halfway over but state wildlife leaders have offered no information on its progress, not even a death count. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-halfway-florida-state-wont-dead.html Plants & Animals Mon, 22 Dec 2025 19:10:02 EST news685616518 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 the black market than the hunter could otherwise make in a year. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-africa-snaring-crisis-sustainable-solutions.html Plants & Animals Fri, 12 Dec 2025 09:14:51 EST news684753242 Extinct relatives of modern humans, like Neanderthals and Homo erectus, that lived in the Levant around 120,000 years ago, did not engage in mass hunting but preferred selective and strategic hunting of wild cattle. Scientists suggest that this way of life might have put them at a disadvantage when living alongside modern humans (Homo sapiens) in the same areas. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-archaic-humans-strategic-picky-hunters.html Archaeology Thu, 04 Dec 2025 06:50:01 EST news683988672 Scientists have discovered evidence of stone megastructures on the Karst Plateau on the border of Slovenia and Italy that were most likely built before the Late Bronze Age. These enormous structures have long, low walls that lead to a pit and are believed to have been used as large-scale traps for herds of wild animals such as red deer. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-discovery-stone-megastructures-view-prehistoric.html Archaeology Wed, 15 Oct 2025 12:40:01 EDT news679750285 A century ago, half a million rhinos roamed Africa and Asia. Today, just 27,000 remain. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-extinction-rhinos.html Plants & Animals Mon, 22 Sep 2025 13:52:04 EDT news677767922 Wolf hunting has prevented livestock loss in a measurable way, but it is by no means a silver bullet, according to an international research team led by the University of Michigan. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-wolves-livestock-deaths-minimally.html Plants & Animals Wed, 20 Aug 2025 14:00:02 EDT news674910370 Kruger National Park is a flagship South African conservation area home to lions, elephants, rhinos, and leopards. Tourists from all over the world flock to the park to see wildlife. But people living nearby deal with the daily realities of living close to dangerous animals that might eat their livestock or damage their crops. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-communities-south-africa-kruger-national.html Economics & Business Mon, 04 Aug 2025 10:35:04 EDT news673522502 Since its lowest point in the 1970s, the Baltic ringed seal population has grown from about 5,000 to 25,000 individuals. Behind this increase are hunting bans and the phasing out of environmentally hazardous substances such as PCB and DDT. The decline in environmental toxins has allowed the reproductive ability of ringed seals to recover to normal levels, typical in a healthy environment. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-accurate-baltic-reveals-population-growth.html Plants & Animals Wed, 16 Jul 2025 06:59:58 EDT news671867993 Some dolphins in Australia have a special technique to flush fish from the seafloor. They hunt with a sponge on their beak, like a clown nose. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-australian-dolphins-sponges-fish-harder.html Plants & Animals Wed, 16 Jul 2025 04:42:15 EDT news671859729 Population III (PopIII) stars represent astronomy's ultimate prize: the first generation of stars born from the pristine hydrogen and helium created in the Big Bang. These theoretical giants, potentially hundreds of times more massive than our sun, should have been fundamentally different from any stars we see today. They contained virtually no "metals," astronomy's term for elements heavier than helium, because none existed yet in the universe. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-stars-galaxies.html Astronomy Fri, 27 Jun 2025 09:13:03 EDT news670234382 This portrait from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope puts the nearby galaxy NGC 4449 in the spotlight. The galaxy is situated just 12.5 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs). It is a member of the M94 galaxy group, which is near the Local Group of galaxies, of which the Milky Way is a part. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-hubble-small-mighty-galaxy.html Astronomy Mon, 23 Jun 2025 15:27:03 EDT news669911222 Given their abundance in American backyards, gardens and highway corridors these days, it may be surprising to learn that white-tailed deer were nearly extinct about a century ago. While they currently number somewhere in the range of 30 million to 35 million, at the turn of the 20th century, there were as few as 300,000 whitetails across the entire continent: just 1% of the current population. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-fall-white-tailed-deer.html Evolution Thu, 29 May 2025 11:50:04 EDT news667738202 A University of Tennessee researcher documented an immature Cooper's hawk using vehicle traffic and pedestrian signal patterns as concealment during hunting behavior at a suburban intersection. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-street-smarts-cooper-hawk-pedestrian.html Plants & Animals Mon, 26 May 2025 10:30:01 EDT news667471295 While sneaking up on prey, cuttlefish employ a dynamic skin display to avoid detection in the last moments of approach, researchers at the University of Bristol have found. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-cuttlefish-mesmerize-prey-skin-pattern.html Plants & Animals Wed, 26 Mar 2025 14:00:02 EDT news662196781 Spanish lawmakers on Thursday voted to end a ban on hunting wolves in the north of the country, three years after its introduction by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's minority leftist government. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-spain-reverses-wolves-north.html Ecology Thu, 20 Mar 2025 13:51:31 EDT news661697487 Public posts on social media platforms shed light on the extent and nature of prolific illegal wildlife hunting in Lebanon, research in Oryx, published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora, has found. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-poachers-social-media-reveal-alarming.html Plants & Animals Mon, 10 Feb 2025 20:00:01 EST news658400821 A remarkable sight will appear in the southwestern sky an hour after sunset Saturday evening when Venus appears very close to a thin crescent moon. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-stunning-conjunction-venus-crescent-moon.html Space Exploration Thu, 30 Jan 2025 08:31:03 EST news657448259 Geese appear to understand when and where hunting takes place but are willing to risk the danger to stay close to resources and their primary habitats, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-people-canada-geese-dont.html Ecology Tue, 21 Jan 2025 11:17:11 EST news656680627 Advances in data availability and accessibility have resulted in a new study on wild animal hunting in African tropical forests. It suggests that the commercial trade in wild-sourced meat is increasing, and highlights the urgent need for countries to develop robust frameworks to ensure hunting and trade is sustainable in a growing commercialized sector. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-database-paves-wild-animal-patterns.html Ecology Thu, 09 Jan 2025 12:36:34 EST news655648585 With its vivid plumage and sweet trill, the goldfinch has long been revered in Algeria, but the national obsession has also driven illegal hunting, prompting calls to protect the songbird. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-algerians-campaign-treasured-songbird-hunters.html Ecology Mon, 06 Jan 2025 07:59:27 EST news655372761 A ground squirrel with cheeks stuffed with nuts, seeds or grains is a common sight. But a new study provides the first evidence that California ground squirrels also hunt, kill and eat voles. The study, led by the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and University of California, Davis, is the first to chronicle widespread carnivorous behavior among squirrels. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-carnivorous-squirrels-documented-california.html Plants & Animals Wed, 18 Dec 2024 04:00:01 EST news653653014 Missouri's bear population is growing. With it brings added challenges of living in bear country. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-missouri-species-comeback.html Plants & Animals Thu, 05 Dec 2024 07:50:01 EST news652607099 Killer whales can feed on marine mammals, turtles, and fish. In the Gulf of California, a pod might have picked up new skills that help them hunt whale sharks—the world's largest fish, growing up to 18 meters long. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-unique-killer-whale-pod-special.html Plants & Animals Fri, 29 Nov 2024 00:00:01 EST news651922941 The turkey may be the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving dinner table now, but harvesting the iconic holiday bird could become harder in the holidays to come. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-thanksgiving-favorite-bird-tougher.html Plants & Animals Wed, 27 Nov 2024 15:42:57 EST news651944574 At a bear sanctuary in the heart of Romania's Carpathians, several cubs believed to have been orphaned have just arrived. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-romania-sanctuary-resumes.html Ecology Thu, 21 Nov 2024 04:40:01 EST news651386217 Research led by the University of New Hampshire sheds light on how coyotes, North America's most successful predators, are responding to various environmental pressures, including human development, hunting and competition with larger carnivores. Surprisingly, the study's findings suggest that human hunting practices may actually contribute to increasing the number of coyotes. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-coyotes-human-predator-pressures-large.html Plants & Animals Wed, 06 Nov 2024 16:30:04 EST news650133001 Why do animals actually hunt in groups when they have to share the prey afterwards? Researchers from the Cluster of Excellence Science of Intelligence (SCIoI), in which Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU Berlin) and the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) are involved, have shown in a field study in the ocean off Mexico that the faster the prey school moves, the higher the capture rate of the striped marlin. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-fast-prey-predatory-fish-benefit.html Plants & Animals Thu, 24 Oct 2024 14:39:25 EDT news648999559 Wildlife conservation is an exercise in human persuasion. It may seem counterintuitive that we hold the keys to the survival of wildlife, but 98% of all threatened species are threatened exclusively by human activities such as pollution, invasive species or habitat loss. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-indian-village-amur-falcons-biggest.html Ecology Thu, 24 Oct 2024 12:00:01 EDT news648987336 A recent experimental study led by Kent State University and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History suggests that hunting from elevated positions significantly increases the performance of thrown javelins while potentially decreasing the effectiveness of atlatl-thrown darts. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-paleolithic-hunters-benefited-high.html Archaeology Wed, 16 Oct 2024 16:20:02 EDT news648312971