Much hangs on whether the Japanese Government sides with its future-focused Foreign Ministry or its inwards-looking pro-whaling fisheries agency, writes John Armstrong.

We're all a kaleidoscope of contradictions about our treatment and consumption of living creatures, writes Bob Jones.

Even the first sunshine of spring is not enough to prevent the lion enclosure at Copenhagen Zoo from looking forlorn.

After being Awol for half a decade Randy the cat was recently reunited with his owners - thanks to a trusty microchip, a caring stranger, and the Auckland SPCA.

Many's the time the dubious claim "sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind" has been used to justify some act of petty tyranny, writes Paul Thomas.

I want to believe in the inter-connectedness of things, I really do.

For the past 15 years, a Kiwi marine explorer has been tracking great white sharks around the world, helping answer one of the biggest questions concerning great whites — their home range.

In a blind taste test, eight out of eight pandas agree - sugar is delicious.

Russian forces have completed their takeover of the Ukrainian navy's assets in Crimea with the storming of the minesweeper Cherkessy.

The owners of four dogs which mauled a young girl in their back garden have been charged.

Horses, birds, calves, even crocs - there are many ways kids can get hands-on experience with animals, says Dionne Christian.

The Adelie penguin population in Antarctica's Ross Sea has boomed to an estimated 30-year high, despite signs that climate change is driving population declines elsewhere on the continent.

The 7-year-old mauled by dogs in Murupara has had a 10-hour operation to begin to repair the facial wounds she received during the attack.

The familiar scent of its owner lingers like perfume in a dog's brain, US scientists claim.

A rampaging elephant smashed a house to bits in an Indian village, but turned back and rescued a baby trapped in the rubble, a couple have claimed.

Chickens starved to death, dead and decaying bobby calves and the carcasses of four goats were found by SPCA inspectors at a rural West Auckland property.

“If I'm going to cark it, I'm going to have a beer," Australian man Rod Sommerville told himself after being bitten by a deadly snake.

Said to be the largest show of its kind in the world, the Crufts Dog Show is a annual four-day event, features thousands of dogs, with competitors travelling from countries across the globe to take part.

A lifestyle block farmer who bashed two pigs with a heavy steel bar in a "prolonged and violent attack" in front of an upset teenage boy has been jailed today.

The man accused of spraying oven cleaner into a dog's face has been found guilty by a jury in the Wellington District Court.

A man has been jailed for a year and banned from owning animals for a decade after beating and drowning a dog in an attempt to euthanise it, the SPCA said.

A man sprayed oven cleaner into a dog's face several times while walking in an off-lead area of a park, a jury at Wellington District Court has been told.

An otter has been photographed attacking and eating an alligator at a US wildlife sanctuary.

The Green Party has called for a moratorium on the use of trawl nets around the Auckland Islands, following the Government's announcement this morning of a new threat management plan for the endangered New Zealand sea lion.