From the end of this week, Britain's minister for wildlife is sending men to destroy the nests of wild buzzards by blasting them with shotguns.

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Game shooting – the blasting of large numbers of pheasants and other birds out of the sky for enjoyment – has so far escaped the widespread opprobrium attached to fox hunting, largely because it takes place out of the public gaze. But that may be about to change.

Glyndebourne's dreadlocks-and-driftwood Janacek misses the Slavic touch, while Harrison Birtwistle's 'opera' is simply loathsome

Three newly hatched peregrine falcon chicks have been stolen from their nest on top of a building in Kingston.

A hospital in Kent has launched an investigation into how a woman suffering from the deadly disease rabies was apparently turned away from its emergency department twice before her case was confirmed.

Conservationists have condemned plans that would allow buzzard nests to be destroyed and the birds of prey taken into captivity to protect pheasant shoots.

A rare case of rabies, a potentially fatal disease, was confirmed in the UK yesterday.

Street lighting is changing insect ecosystems in towns and cities, a study has found.

A man who urged his dog to attack and kill badgers kept footage of the brutal fights on his phone, a court heard today.

Vietnam's rare mammals may be sliding towards extinction, but Britain's rarest butterfly is going from strength to strength, a series of contrasting announcements makes clear today.

After 100 years of the new, modern dance is still fizzing

As an actor I have toured the world, but always with the hard shell of a play around me. Five years ago I was invited to travel to the Galapagos with my childhood acquaintance, the artist Dorothy Cross. We share zoologist brothers; they are friends and we were treading in their dream world, our strange symmetry!

A couple had a surprise when they found a tree frog nestling in some asparagus tips they bought in a supermarket.