NEW YORK (June 5, 2018)—The lowly sea cucumber strikes observers as a simple sausage-like creature, one that is far less interesting than brightly colored reef fish or color-changing octopi that share its coastal habitat. The sea cucumber’s unimpressive appearance belies the outsized role these creatures play in converting decomposing organic matter into recyclable nutrients and keeping coastal ecosystems healthy and clean, and overfishing them can have negative impacts on coastal marine environments, according to a new study focusing on a species of sea cucumber called a sandfish in the journal PeerJ.

NEW YORK (May 23, 2018) – The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) kicked off its Give a Sip campaign today to support a bill introduced by Councilman Rafael Espinal that will eliminate the use of most single-use plastic straws in New York City.

WASHINGTON (May 22, 2018) – Today, the Senate Commerce Committee voted to advance S.2764, the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act, to the full Senate for consideration.

New York (April 6, 2018) – A group of teens led by inaugural New York Aquarium artist-in-residence Christy Gast has produced a video that provides a cautionary tale of a future dominated by an artificially produced and frequently discarded material—plastic.

SANTIAGO, Chile (March 16, 2018) – The Government of Chile has officially designated Admiralty Sound (Seno Almirantazgo)—a scenic and biologically diverse 80-kilometer-long (49 miles) fjord—Tierra del Fuego’s first marine protected area (MPA), according to WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society).

WCS is pleased to announce that two of its conservationists, Dr. Nyawira Muthiga and Dr.Tim McClanahan, have been awarded the 2018 Award for Conservation Excellence (ACE). Drs. Muthiga and McClanahan were nominated together as one finalist. The Award for Conservation Excellence (ACE) was created to recognize the extraordinary contributions made to wildlife conservation by the world’s leading scientists. Along with the other four finalists—Dr. Joel Berger and Dr. Ul...

January 19, 2018 – Just in time for Penguin Awareness Day this Saturday January 20^th, WCS has released an incredibly cute video shot by WCS’s Graham Harris on Isla Martillo in the Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.

December 21, 2017 — A group of scientists now considers a little-known dolphin that only lives along the Atlantic coasts of Western Africa to be among the continent’s most endangered mammals, a list that includes widely recognized species such as gorillas, African wild dogs, and black rhinos, according to WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) and the IUCN’s (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Cetacean Specialist Group.

September 26, 2017 – A new WCS study published in the journal Ecosystem Health and Sustainability of fish traders in coastal Kenya shows that women largely occupied fisheries with the lowest profits and are not saving money while working in these fisheries. Management actions that intend to increase profits and sustainability, such as restrictions on use of gear that catch the smallest fish, have the potential to exclude female traders unless management also promotes social equity and gender coexistence.  

August 29, 2017 – Dramatic video released today by the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Marine Program shows a group of Bangladeshi fishermen rescuing a pantropical spotted dolphin (Stenella attenuata) that became entangled in their net in the Bay of Bengal.