At first, I put it down to the February heat. Somewhere between Graaff-Reinet and Cradock in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, I spotted a pair of Sable Antelope — their elegant scimitar horns unmistakable — grazing next to the road. It’s not uncommon to see springbok or kudu in this otherwise featureless expanse of South Africa’s semi-desert Karoo region, but sable were long a near-endangered species confined to the great wilderness areas. Until now.

One fine Hawaiian day in 2015, Geoff Zahn and Anthony Amend set off on an eight-hour hike.

In listing 32 wild animal species as farm animals under the Animal Improvement Act in 2019, the Department of Agriculture went against the recommendations of the government’s own scientific authority.

Wildlife species will die out and natural ecosystems collapse in the near future if the climate crisis goes unchecked, scientists have warned, as new research shows that the natural world is at far greater risk from climate breakdown than previously thought.

A big search is under way for a small, enigmatic creature that burrows in the sand dunes of the West Coast, which was last seen more than 80 years ago.