A Canterbury lifestyle block owner is facing animal welfare charges after allegedly beating four pigs with an iron bar.

The last known rhinoceroses in Mozambique have been wiped out by poachers apparently working in cahoots with the game rangers responsible for protecting them.

South Dunedin cat owners are being warned to keep their pets indoors as police investigate an alleged feline serial killer stalking the suburb.

Eight tennis players surrounded a woman and a poodle and fought off a bull terrier that was attacking them in Christchurch at the weekend.

Environmentalists hailed a "victory for bees" after the European Union voted for a ban on the nerve-agent pesticides blamed for the dramatic decline in global bee populations.

Dog mess: to most of the population it is a bio-hazard about as welcome and useful as syphilis.

A couple are planning to move after someone kicked their much-loved pet cat so hard his abdominal wall split open.

A year ago the koala, Australia's iconic marsupial, was officially listed as a threatened species in large parts of the country after two decades of devastating population losses.

Worried about shark attacks off the pristine beaches in Australia's tropical north?

Before NZ's Parliament had even finished the last line of Pokarekare Ana after passing the Marriage Equality Bill, my inbox started to blink with missives from friends back in Australia.

Female seahorses have got this pregnancy caper worked out. They place their eggs, sometimes hundreds or thousands, into a special pouch in the male's stomach and let him do all the hard work while they go about their business unencumbered by kids.

They're now more than 4 months old but three Nepalese panda cubs at Hamilton Zoo are still without names.

Larger than normal rats - some the size of kittens - are being reported following a long dry spell that has caused a population boom.

Thousands of birds perished in the black tide that followed the MV Rena's grounding. A year and a half on, we check on the recovery of the disaster's forgotten victims.

Nakuru the giraffe spent nearly six days in a box as she crossed the Tasman by sea to find her new home in Melbourne.

Christchurch's Orana Wildlife Park has welcomed two new South African girls. The arrival of two-year-old Lusi and three-year-old Kiana take the park's cheetah population to 13.

A three-metre tall giraffe bound for Australia from New Zealand has been caught up in the search for a solo sailor in rough seas off Victoria's far east coast.

A Taranaki sharemilker says an outbreak of facial eczema is hitting cows hard and fast.

For a group of young people on a night out in Napier last weekend a 14-week-old kitten was the perfect target for violence.