“North America’s big four terrestrial carnivores—gray wolves, pumas, black bears, and grizzly bears—have seen a strong recovery in recent decades. All four species have significantly expanded their population and range, though they remain far below historic levels,” reports The Doomslayer.
Annual Reviews provides this chart, in an November 2025 article:
The article adds:
Over the past five decades, gray wolves, pumas, black bears, and grizzly bears have made significant spatial and numerical recoveries across North America, enabled by legislative protections, the cessation of predator-eradication campaigns, and changing societal perceptions of large carnivores. Here, we document the recoveries of these large carnivores and synthesize what is known about their direct effects on ungulate prey and mesocarnivores, as well as their indirect effects on vegetation and broader ecosystem processes.
The article is “The Ecological Impacts of Large-Carnivore Recovery in North America,” in Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics
In other news, “The nine-banded armadillo is proliferating and expanding its range across the Eastern US. According to a recently published analysis of armadillo sightings, the species, first recorded in the US in 1849, has now colonized 17 states and has been spotted as far north as Nebraska, Michigan, and Virginia,” reports The Doomslayer. Over the last dozen years, armadillos have come to inhabit the entirety of Missouri, South Carolina, and Georgia, despite being entirely absent from those states in most of the 20th century.
The rate of species going extinct is falling. A rare flightless grasshopper was found in Virginia for the first time in 79 years. Snub-nosed monkeys are making a comeback in China.
