Urbanization is one of the most important forms of human-driven landscape change, altering wildlife populations in unprecedented ways. In terms of beh…

RSPB, Aviemore, Inverness-shire, Scottish Highlands, £34,018 - £36,319 pa

Pair are offspring of two beavers who mysteriously arrived in Pensthorpe nature reserve near Fakenham in December Wild beaver kits have been born in Norfolk for the first time in more than 500 years. The pair of newborns are the offspring of two free-living beavers who mysteriously arrived in Pensthorpe nature reserve near Fakenham in December. Continue reading...

Fauna & Flora, Cambridge, £39,640 pa

If you’re a black-tailed deer on the Olympic Peninsula in the U.S. state of Washington, you’re always surrounded by friends and family. You are free-range, with abundant food to forage in familiar…

NGOs say agreement held back by tenuous human health commitments and lobbying from plastic industry The latest version of the long overdue plastic treaty is even less ambitious than the previous one, according to experts. A year after UN plastics treaty negotiations collapsed in Geneva in 2025, diplomats met informally in Nairobi between 30 June and 3 July, aiming to flesh out a new “no surprises” document. Continue reading...

Numbering fewer than 25,000, lions remain vulnerable to extinction. These big cats have suffered catastrophic declines and today occupy roughly 6% of their historical range. Living with lions…

From Bengalese finches to humpback whales, researchers are finding that animals may use some of the same patterns that help humans learn and structure language.

Nature - Countries such as Spain and France can expect fire regimes more like those of California as climate change favours hot, dry conditions, scientists suggest.

The voice of some of the most stunning nature documentaries ever made is pessimistic about the future of wildlife on earth.

Devon Wildlife Trust, Doddiscombsleigh, Exeter, Devon, £19,831 pa (£33,053 FTE) plus 7% pension

Camera traps generate large volumes of wildlife footage, but identifying animals to the individual level remains challenging and time-consuming. Using European pine martens in the Forest of Dean as a....

This year Scotland signed off on the Natural Environment Act, setting up a framework to create nature recovery targets. Now, it’s up to the new government to create targets that will lead to the…

99% of plant distributions in Europe show signs of disequilibrium. The surprise? Climate change was only part of the story. Disturbance emerged as an even more pervasive force shaping where species oc...

Guardian recreates audio landscape of past filled by loud morning symphony before 73m wild birds were lost

Monkeys bring their own skills to the city. Urban animals are often seen as especially flexible or innovative—but do urban environments make them that way?

Frequent and positive wildlife experiences can strengthen people’s physical and mental connection with nature, potentially improving public health and pro-environmental behaviors. Red foxes are the...

As populations rebound, attacks on livestock and humans are fueling debate over the limits of coexistence

sDrive

Long-awaited course to examine human effects on natural world and explore everyday ways to aid biodiversity

Background Rhythms in human activity create patterns of opportunities and disturbances for wildlife, influencing their behaviour and spatial ecology. The weekend effect hypothesis posits that weekday-weekend routines in human activity can impact wildlife in creating cyclic conditions. At our study site – an outdoor wildlife park – free-flying ravens opportunistically exploit food intended for captive animals on a routine basis. While disturbances from visitor activity levels are typically low on weekdays and high on weekends, they can also vary day-to-day. Our access to data detailing visitor numbers makes our context well-suited to test whether ravens anticipate and respond to predictable weekday-weekend patterns following (1) a ‘5 + 2’ structure, or if they respond (2) flexibly to fluctuations in direct human activity levels. By testing the weekend effect hypothesis from the perspective of a ‘5 + 2’ pattern versus flexibly responding to fluctuations in human activity, we better understand wildlife response strategies to human activity. Methods Using long-term GPS tracking data, we investigated the weekend effect hypothesis by examining raven foraging probability and space use across two temporal scales: (1) daily patterns over five years, encompassing periods of Covid-19 pandemic-related restrictions, and (2) bihourly patterns over six weeks. We hypothesized that increased human activity levels would result in lower foraging probabilities and higher space use in ravens, varying between weekdays and weekends. Results Our findings provided limited support for the weekend effect hypothesis, considering a ‘5 + 2’ pattern in human activity. However, ravens consistently avoided elevated human activity by decreasing in their probability of foraging at the site and increasing space use on a daily level. Conclusions Our study reveals that ravens are behaviourally flexible in their movement responses to disturbance when exploiting anthropogenically created foraging opportunities. Changes influencing anthropogenic resources and disturbances at resources should consider the potential knock-on effects to wildlife.

Our results imply that hunting not only targets areas used as refuges by wildlife, but also reduces recolonisation potential and may therefore alter source–sink dynamics. We recommend spatially targe...

Despite growing recognition that spatial factors such as urbanisation and geographic region shape human-wildlife interactions, few studies have examin…

Sustainable human–wildlife coexistence requires a mechanistic understanding of the many ways that humans affect animals. However, progress is hampered by the lack of accessible data measuring the dyna...

The University of Exeter’s Centre for Ecology and Conservation, Penryn Campus, Cornwall, is inviting applications for a 4-year PhD studentship (UK fees), ideally commencing Sept 2026.