#mammals
14 segments tagged with mammals on Living on Earth.
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May 22, 2026:
Baby Right Whales Bring Hope
North Atlantic Right Whales were once so thoroughly hunted they nearly went extinct. When hunting these mammals was outlawed, they slowly started to bounce back, but today these Right whales are dealing with newer deadly threats, such as fishing gear entanglement and warming in the Gulf of Maine. So, it’s a relief to advocates to have a successful calving season like this year with 23 new calves, the most since 2009. Amy Warren, the Scientific Program Officer at the New England Aquarium, spoke with Host Aynsley O’Neill.
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May 15, 2026:
Elephant Elder Wisdom
Elephants are social animals like us and pass down to their young knowledge and skills crucial to living a successful life. Researchers have found that elephant youths conduct themselves differently if they were raised without elders. Orphaned elephants have been seen struggling to integrate into broader social groups and inaccurately assessing threats from predators. Lucy Bates, a lecturer with the Center for Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Portsmouth, speaks with Host Aynsley O’Neill about how this important role of elephant elders can help shape conservation priorities.
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May 15, 2026:
Delinquent Elephants
In the 1980’s, a group of orphaned elephants was relocated to a national park in South Africa with the hopes of repopulating the area. But park managers didn’t realize they were creating a juvenile delinquency problem. In the absence of older bulls, the young male elephants matured too soon and ended up killing endangered rhinos. Steve Curwood speaks with elephant researcher Rob Slotow on how the problem was solved.
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May 01, 2026:
Snapping Turtle
Now that it’s spring in the Northern Hemisphere, before long snapping turtles will be laying their eggs. Living on Earth’s Explorer in Residence, Mark Seth Lender shares this encounter with one old mother turtle.
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March 27, 2026:
BirdNote®: Meet the Tiniest Owl in the World
At just six inches tall, the desert-dwelling Elf Owl is the smallest known species of owl in the world. As BirdNote®’s Michael Stein reports, despite its tiny stature the Elf Owl is a fierce predator of crickets, scorpions, and mice.
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January 09, 2026:
An Indigenous Bison Harvest
Efforts to bring back bison are helping to revive Indigenous culture on lands across the US West. And as Colorado Public Radio’s Sam Brasch reports, this revival is taking place right in the city of Denver.
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October 10, 2025:
Science Note: Clever Cockatoos use Drinking Fountains
After observing sulfur-crested cockatoos using a drinking fountain, Australian researchers reported that most of the local population of cockatoos attempted to use the fountains, and around half were successful. Living on Earth’s Don Lyman reports on the research findings and hypotheses for why these clever cockatoos have developed this habit.
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October 03, 2025:
Salmon Run Fattens Bears
The champion of Fat Bear Week 2025 is officially number 32 - “Chunk”, a big male who overcame a broken jaw to take the prize. Mike Fitz, the resident naturalist at explore.org, launched Fat Bear Week as a ranger at Katmai National Park in Alaska. He joins Host Aynsley O’Neill to explain how this year’s strong salmon run in the Brooks River helped the local grizzlies bulk up.
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August 22, 2025:
Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet
The many millions of miles of roads that crisscross our planet block everything from bears to beetles from safely moving through habitats. But new wildlife crossings like overpasses and underpasses are helping reconnect animals with the landscape. Journalist Ben Goldfarb joins Host Jenni Doering to discuss his book Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet.
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August 08, 2025:
Animal Self-Medication
A paper published in the journal Scientific Reports describes the case study of an orangutan who treated and healed his own wound. Zoologists have long seen behaviors of self-medicating in the animal kingdom, but until now it has rarely if ever been documented in scientific literature. Michael Huffman, an ecologist who reviewed the paper joined Host Paloma Beltran to discuss how some animals are known heal themselves.
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July 04, 2025:
Sight": Caribbean Reef Shark
Living on Earth’s Explorer in Residence Mark Seth Lender has photographed animals all over the world, including under the sea. He shared this observation from a dive in the Bahamas where he was photographing Caribbean reef sharks.
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February 28, 2025:
Mother and Son: Sea Otter Bonding
Mother sea otters spend a lot of time grooming their young pups. It’s a bonding experience as well as a matter of survival. Clean and well-groomed fur keeps these sea otters afloat on the coastal waters where they spend their entire lives. Living on Earth’s Explorer-in-Residence Mark Seth Lender narrates a precious scene of an attentive otter mom and her young pup.
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February 07, 2025:
BirdNote®: City Owls
Some owls, like Barred Owls and Great Horned Owls, are happy to call our cities home. There’s plenty of rats and squirrels to eat, and BirdNote’s Michael Stein offers some tips on how to spot these urban owls.
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January 17, 2025:
BirdNote®: Waxwing Nightlight
Waxwings were once believed to glow in the dark, and Pliny the Elder reported that their feathers were said to “shine like flames” in the dark forests of central Europe. That is, until one sixteenth-century Italian birder decided to take a closer look, says BirdNote®’s Mary McCann.
