For thirty years, Larry Aumiller lived in close company with the world's largest grouping of brown bears, returning by seaplane every spring to the wilderness side of Cook Inlet, two hundred and fifty miles southwest of Anchorage to work as a manager...

From eminent biologists like Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin to famous authors such as Rudyard Kipling in his "Just So Stories", many people have asked, "Why do zebras have stripes?" There are many explanations, but until now hardly any have...

In recent years, scientific advances in our understanding of animal minds have led to major changes in how we think about, and treat, animals in zoos and aquariums. The general public, it seems, is slowly coming to understand that animals like apes,...

Monkey see, monkey do – or does she? Can the behavior of non-human primates – their sociality, their intelligence, their communication – really be chalked up to simple mimicry? Emphatically, absolutely: no. And as famed primatologist Julia Fischer re...

The National Institute of Health recently announced its plan to retire the fifty remaining chimpanzees held in national research facilities and place them in sanctuaries. This significant decision comes after a lengthy process of examination and deba...

Meet Greg. He's a stocky guy with an outsized swagger. He's been the intimidating yet sociable don of his posse of friends – including Abe, Keith, Mike, Kevin, Torn Trunk, and Willie. But one arid summer the tide begins to shift and the third-ranking...

A life shared with pets brings many emotions. We feel love for our companions, certainly, and happiness at the thought that we're providing them with a safe, healthy life. But there's another emotion, less often acknowledged, that can be nearly as po...

She likes tea, sews, draws on papers and is a self-taught master of tying and untying knots. But she is not a crafty woman of the DIY set: she is Wattana, an orangutan who lives in the Jardin des Plantes Zoo in Paris. And it is in Paris where Chris H...

In the past 30 years the use of assistance dogs for people with various difficulties and disabilities other than blindness and hearing loss has developed enormously, thanks to the inspiration, foresight and hard work of a few key people. Dick Lane, n...

If you are a morani (warrior), you have your spear at the ready – you could be the hero, but you will have to wait until the morning light before you can go out and prove yourself. If it is a lion, you want to be the first to spear it – and if the li...