In a tragic role reversal above the Serengeti, a helicopter pilot who was tracking the activities of hunters in a wildlife reserve was shot down by those same poachers.

Hey! We’ve got some not bad news here! Not bad news! Here!

Sad news out of San Diego today. Nola, the adorable old rhino living at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, has died, reports the Los Angeles Times. There are now three Northern White Rhinos left in the whole world.

Animal rights activists have sued Dixie Landin’ park in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to have a soda-guzzling, cigarette-smoking chimpanzee named Candy removed to an animal sanctuary, reports the Associated Press.

There’s endangered, and then there’s critically endangered, and then there’s the northern white rhino. There are just four—four!—northern white rhinos left on earth. The population has been cut nearly in half—from seven to four—in just the last 12 months. Even using the word “endangered” to describe their predicament seems dishonest—if left to nature, they are gone. Their conservation status should read “hopeless.”

Well, here’s something depressing as hell: the Associated Press has the story of Congolese rangers engaged in violent conflict with armed outlaw groups who are targeting African elephants for slaughter. Damn.

Authorities have charged an Oregon man with using a motorized vehicle to harass or molest game after he allegedly accelerated through a group of bald eagles in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, killing two, the Associated Press reports.

John Muir was the founder of the Sierra Club and the inventor of the modern American conservation movement. He was instrumental in preserving some of our nation's natural wonders. And now, some top environmental thinkers say John Muir's legacy is stupid.

Now this just doesn't make any damn sense: A hunting group based in Dallas will be auctioning off a permit to kill an endangered black rhinoceros, to raise money to save the endangered black rhinoceros.

If Gareth Morgan gets his way, the entire country of New Zealand could be cat-free within a matter of years.

According to a new conservation study, one-fifth of all plant and animal species qualify for the Red List of Threatened Species, meaning they are "facing wipeout." So, basically, if we work hard, we can probably finish them off by 2100.