A mysterious epidemic of thyroid disease among pet cats in the United States may be linked to exposure to dust shed from flame retardants in household carpeting, furniture, fabrics and pet food, scientists are reporting in a new study.

Panthera leo spelaea is the Latin name for the cave lion. But Diedrich says that animal never existed.

The Asiatic Cheetah, one of the rarest felids in the world, may still be present in Afghanistan, despite proclamations of its extirpation.

Jaguars evolved in North America and still survive in a tiny corner of the Southwest. The jaguar is the largest cat native to the New World and in the past ranged from California to the Carolinas.

The endangered jaguar has languished far too long without protection, and the federal government should do something about it, a nonprofit group said in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Tucson.

Most of the evidence of jaguars in the United States was anecdotal before 1950. About 10 jaguar sightings occurred between 1950 to 2000 in Arizona, and jaguars sightings increased in Sonora, Mexico during the same period.

Last month, FWS officials issued a release saying they had decided to review the lynx ruling and seven others “after questions were raised about the integrity of the scientific information used, and whether the decisions made were consistent with appropriate legal standards.”

Police in north-west China have seized more than 100 furs taken from rare wild animals, including 27 pelts from the highly-endangered snow leopard.

Acting on a tip, police raided the apartment of a suspected illegal fur trader in Gansu province's Linxia city on July 28 and discovered the furs of 104 bears, snow leopards, clouded leopards and lynxes.

Chinese police seized 104 furs of rare wild animals and several skeletons piled up in an apartment, the largest seizure of its kind since 1949.

Recent incidents have brought to light the increasing pressures on wildlife in and around the Gir forest, which is the last resort of the Asiatic lion. Though the wild animal population here, particularly that of lions and leopards has considerably increased in the last decade, so has the human population. This has led to an increase in animal-human conflict.

The highly endangered Iberian lynx roams the cork forests of Spain and Portugal, the global leader in cork production.

A new bill designed to restore land rights to millions of poor tribal people in India is one of the biggest dangers facing India's wild tigers, threatening to destroy their last remaining habitats, conservationists warned Friday.

India's wild tiger population is now between 1,300 and 1,500—less than half of what it was in 2002—according to preliminary estimates from an ongoing government census.

India's tigers are facing their severest crisis with only between 1,300 and 1,500 left in the wild, less than half the population of endangered big cats previously estimated.

Conservationists have long complained that many Indian forestry posts lie vacant, while the staff that do exist have little in the way of funds, making them no match for poachers.

The programs to be carried out would include a program to conserve Sumatran tigers and other endangered species in the wild, efforts to reduce conflicts between tigers and humans, and a program to rehabilitate Sumatran tigers and reintroduce them to their natural habitat.