Biodiversity

"President Joe Biden on Tuesday will designate two landscapes — Nevada’s Spirit Mountain, an area that is sacred to a dozen Native American tribes, and Castner Range, a former military weapon testing facility in West Texas — as America’s newest national monuments."

"Tickborne disease has been on the rise in the US, with the number of cases growing 25% from 2011 to 2019. Among them is babesiosis, which has become significantly more prevalent in the Northeast in recent years."

"Alarmed by plummeting stocks of commercial fisheries in the Chesapeake Bay, officials in Maryland and Virginia are scrambling to control invasive fish species that are causing at least part of the problem."

"A study from the U.S. Geological Survey called the state’s python problem “one of the most intractable invasive-species management issues across the globe.”"

"Sunflower sea stars, huge starfish that until recently thrived in waters up and down the west coast of North America, are threatened with extinction and should be protected under the Endangered Species Act, federal officials said Wednesday."

"The forests around the epicenter of the world’s worst Ebola outbreak are getting patchier. The next pandemic could emerge from the edges around these patches, where wildlife and humans mix."

"Last summer, the highly contagious strain of avian influenza that had been spreading through North American birds made its way into marine mammals, causing a spike in seal strandings along the coast of Maine. In June and July, more than 150 dead or ailing seals washed ashore."

"Federal regulators overseeing West Coast fisheries have effectively called off California’s entire 2023 ocean salmon fishing season, in an effort to protect fish populations that have dwindled during the ongoing drought."

"Few spiders in the United States have a more fearsome reputation than black widows. But throughout the South, the bulbous arachnids with red hourglasses on their bellies are engaged in a lethal competition with the brown widow, a relative from abroad — and they’re losing."

"Nike said it will stop using kangaroo skins for its shoes this year, weeks after a similar step from German rival Puma, which would end a highly controversial practice that has drawn ire from consumers and animal rights activists."