Samuel John Townhill, 39, pleaded guilty in Ashburton District Court yesterday to two charges of destroying the nests of black-billed gulls laid under the Wildlife Act.

A flood of animal abuse cases in the courts has coincided with the launch of a national animal welfare strategy.

Linda Nunn has rescued, rehabilitated and rehomed thousands of animals, and once found homes for 1700 wild chickens being starved and slaughtered in Albany.

Today, more than 70 billion animals are raised and killed for food worldwide annually, the majority in factory farms.

Pressure should be put on any zoo not up to standard, but a zoo like Auckland's needs to be acknowledged for its great work with Burma, writes Shar Carlin.

Orana Wildlife Park vets have today made the "agonising decision'' to put down three newborn cheetah cubs who were abandoned by their mother at birth.

A Canterbury lifestyle block owner is facing animal welfare charges after allegedly beating four pigs with an iron bar.

The last known rhinoceroses in Mozambique have been wiped out by poachers apparently working in cahoots with the game rangers responsible for protecting them.

Environmentalists hailed a "victory for bees" after the European Union voted for a ban on the nerve-agent pesticides blamed for the dramatic decline in global bee populations.

Dog mess: to most of the population it is a bio-hazard about as welcome and useful as syphilis.

Many believe that Burma's needs would be better served by retiring her from Auckland Zoo to a sanctuary overseas, writes Dr Cathy Casey. I do too.

The Department of Conservation (DoC) is on the look-out again for migrating southern right whales and it wants your help.

A couple are planning to move after someone kicked their much-loved pet cat so hard his abdominal wall split open.

A year ago the koala, Australia's iconic marsupial, was officially listed as a threatened species in large parts of the country after two decades of devastating population losses.

Female seahorses have got this pregnancy caper worked out. They place their eggs, sometimes hundreds or thousands, into a special pouch in the male's stomach and let him do all the hard work while they go about their business unencumbered by kids.

An online campaign raising money to catch a Whangarei cat killer looks likely to surpass its $2000 target.

They're now more than 4 months old but three Nepalese panda cubs at Hamilton Zoo are still without names.

Larger than normal rats - some the size of kittens - are being reported following a long dry spell that has caused a population boom.