Wildlife

"Government scientists say there’s a simple explanation for the surge in starving sea lion pups along the Southern California coast: Their mothers can’t find enough nutritious food."

"A 187,000 square-mile swath of land and sea in Alaska was restored by a federal appeals court as a “critical habitat” for polar bears, a boon for the endangered species and yet another blow to Alaska’s tumbling petroleum industry."

"Chances are, you've never heard of flubendiamide. It's not among the most toxic insecticides, and it's not among the widely used chemicals, either. In recent years, it has been used on about a quarter of the nation's tobacco and 14 percent of almonds, peppers and watermelons. But flubendiamide is now at the center of a public dispute between the Environmental Protection Agency and the company that sells it, Bayer CropScience."

"Federal officials have rejected a complaint by an entomologist who charged that the government has tried to suppress negative research findings about a widely used pesticide, in a complex case involving monarch butterflies, scientific freedom and the safety of the nation’s food supply."

"A coalition of environmental groups has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's sweeping greater sage grouse conservation plans across the West, claiming they are riddled with loopholes, scientific flaws and "political compromises" and won't protect the bird or its habitat."

"A known killer is on its way to the United States, and government officials recently put out a warning to alert the public. When the feared virus known as Bsal lands on the backs of newts and salamanders destined for the pet trade, scientists predict that lots of wild salamanders are expected to die."

The Agriculture Department's Wildlife Services agency kills predators like coyotes, wolves, and bears that conflict with livestock raised by ranchers. Sometimes their methods are extremely cruel. Sometimes they kill endangered species. Oversight, when it exists, is hampered by secrecy.

"Favorable weather conditions at breeding grounds for monarch butterflies in Mexico are expected to help raise their numbers to possibly more than 100 million this year, about triple of a few years ago, a study released on Thursday said."

"Minnesota’s moose continued their long decline in 2015."

"In northwestern India, the Himalaya Mountains rise sharply out of pine and cedar forests. The foothills of the Kullu Valley are blanketed with apple trees beginning to bloom. It’s a cool spring morning, and Lihat Ram, a farmer in Nashala village, shows me a small opening in a log hive propped against his house. Stout black-and-yellow native honeybees — Apis cerana — fly in and out."