Animals

Adopting certain kittens at a Las Vegas shelter will get you a free Frontier flight

6:15am January 04, 2023

Frontier Airlines is offering vouchers to the people who adopt the kittens named: Frontier, Delta and Spirit. Animal Foundation, which runs the Las Vegas shelter, named the new arrivals.

Pets are being given up by people who can't afford to keep them

5:07am January 04, 2023

by Carmen Molina Acosta

Early in the pandemic, people were rushing to adopt pets. But high prices because of inflation are causing some pet owners to surrender or abandon their pets.

Bison roam outside Yellowstone National Park in Gardiner, Mont., on March 17, 2011. Thirteen bison were killed or had to be euthanized after their herd was struck by a semi-truck involved in an accident with two other vehicles on a dark Montana highway just outside Yellowstone National Park, authorities said Friday, Dec. 30, 2022.

National

13 bison were killed in a road accident near Yellowstone National Park

5:37am January 02, 2023

by Ayana Archie

The bison were hit by a semi truck. In the winter months, bison will move toward paved roads to make their travel easier.

Environment

This 13-year-old border collie is saving the environment, one bottle at a time

5:01am January 02, 2023

Scruff the "eco dog" helps clean up his town in central England by fetching hundreds of discarded plastic bottles.

Takakudjyti Kayapó, better known as Takakre, holds up a matrinxã fish. A community fishing monitor, he will measure and weigh the fish before recording its details in a spreadsheet to be sent to other members of the team studying how the mercury used in illegal mining is affecting fish populations in the Pixaxá River.

Is there mercury in the fish we eat? Amazonians tap WhatsApp to find out

8:46pm December 31, 2022

by Jill Langlois

A community of Indigenous peoples worried that mercury used by gold miners was contaminating the fish they eat. So they created a DIY team to find out more.

Encore: Animals had a lot to say in 2022. Here are some of NPR's favorite stories

4:47pm December 30, 2022

NPR is pulling together some of its favorite stories from 2022 that may have been easy to miss among the year's major news but hard to forget. Friday, a look at the animals who shared the mic.

New father Yappe Pako gets help with his kangaroo care carrier from a midwife. His newborn son is named Ambo Crisostome. They're in the kangaroo care ward at the University Hospital Medical Center at Treichville in the Ivory Coast. A new program teaches the technique to moms and dads. It's especially beneficial for preterm and low birthweight babies.

Editors' picks: Our best global photos of 2022 range from heart-rending to hopeful

6:54am December 30, 2022

by Marc Silver

The eye of the camera told the stories of kangaroo care for human babies, Angola's intrepid female de-miners, Ukrainian refugees who find a warm — and familiar — welcome in Brazil and more.

Christmas came early to the Metro Richmond Zoo with the gift of a pygmy hippo calf.

National

This zoo didn't just get a hippopotamus for Christmas — it got a baby pygmy one

11:58am December 29, 2022

by Emily Olson

The Metro Richmond Zoo announced the birth of a 16-pound baby pygmy hippo, a rare endangered species. The yet-to-be-named calf is nursing and growing quickly.

Hundreds of bats are saved after falling to the ground during Houston's cold snap

6:03am December 29, 2022

The bats nearly froze to death during last week's low temperatures, dropping from the downtown bridge where they live. Rescuers saved them by administering fluids and keeping them warm in incubators.

Queue Listen Now

A group of glassfrogs sleeping together upside down on a leaf, showing their camouflage.

Science

The astonishing vanishing act of the glassfrog, revealed

12:57pm December 26, 2022

by Ari Daniel

A kind of transparent frog achieves near invisibility by hiding its red blood cells during the day, scientists found. "I had never seen anything like that," researcher Carlos Taboada says.