An increase in the number of giant squid being caught along the Sea of Japan coast is leading fisherman to fear it may be some kind of omen.

A group of penguin chicks have taken their first swimming lessons at Auckland's Kelly Tarlton's Sea Life Aquarium.

One of the most "disastrous breeding seasons" in recent years has hit endangered yellow-eyed penguin colonies along Otago's coast.

Marius the giraffe is dead, killed last week in Copenhagen Zoo and then dismembered and fed to lions in front of a crowd of parents and children.

A man has survived being mauled by a pair of white Bengal tigers in a Chinese zoo after he jumped into their enclosure with a bag of rice because he "wanted to feed the animals".

A three-year-old girl has been air-lifted to hospital after being bitten on the back of her head by a farm dog.

A man who almost starved his dog to death because he had "lost interest" in the pet, has been banned from owning animals for five years.

The stranding of nine orca in Southland is only the third such mass stranding of the species recorded in New Zealand, a specialist researcher says.

New Zealand's endangered yellow-eyed penguin have been found to follow the line of swooping seabirds - literally - when it comes to reaping the food stirred up by trawlers.

With only a couple of squeezes of his trigger finger, the two white rhino would be dead and their horns worth more than gold would be his, making him a very rich man.

Condemned to death at the hands of a private extermination company, around 150 of the stray dogs from Sochi's Olympic Park have been saved after the intervention of a Russian billionaire.

A Japanese whaling ship is reported to have tailed an anti-whaling ship into waters off Otago against the wishes of the NZ Govt, which labelled the move 'disrespectful'.

The world has a real chance this week to halt the soaring slaughter of African elephants.

Pet owners are paying hundreds of dollars every year for insurance to ward off expensive vet bills.

Dramatic details of surfer Darren Mills' lucky escape from a shark attack emerged yesterday, as the British immigrant began his recovery from serious injuries.

After weeks of rain and wind in England, miserable penguins at a marine centre are being fed anti-depressants to cheer them up.

Danielle Wright has a close encounter with the South American cotton-top tamarin monkeys at the Auckland Zoo.

Auckland Zoo has bred and reared lesser short-tailed bat twins - the first time the threatened New Zealand species has been bred and hand-reared in a zoo.

'Wow, this guy's a whopper,' said experts of a 1.5m monster jellyfish that washed up on a Hobart beach last month. So what does its sting feel like?

Research by an Otago University geology student has uncovered a strange pre-Ice Age world where primitive porpoises and baleen whales roamed the North Pacific alongside comparatively modern marine mammals.

The Ministry for Primary Industries says it may never know the origin of a neurological strain of equine herpes which has so far killed seven thoroughbred horses.

A 4-week-old kitten found in a tied up plastic bag at Whangarei's Mair Park has shocked the local SPCA which wants people to take unwanted animals to its drop-off boxes.

A neurological strain of equine herpes has struck in New Zealand for the first time - killing six thoroughbred horses and infecting six others.

The flight of the bumblebee - once thought to be aerodynamically impossible - has proven to be even more scientifically astounding than previously believed.