"Despite its burly stature, spiked back and bone-crushing bite, the alligator snapping turtle needs protection." "They were almost wiped out in 1960s and ‘70s because so many were harvested for soup".
"Political appointees in the Trump administration relied on faulty science to justify stripping habitat protections for the imperiled northern spotted owl, U.S. wildlife officials said Tuesday as they struck down a rule that would have opened millions of acres of West Coast forest to potential logging."
"A zoo in Indonesia is breeding Komodo dragons in an effort to save the world's largest lizards from extinction, with climate change posing new dangers for the fearsome creatures."
"A new study of hundreds of white-tailed deer infected with the coronavirus in Iowa has found that the animals probably are contracting the virus from humans, and then rapidly spreading it among one another, according to researchers."
The COVID-19 outbreak has left little unchanged — including how environment reporters do their jobs, given that many experts believe the disruption of the human-wild interface could be the source of the next deadly virus. The new Backgrounder makes the case in this analysis, looking at how societies — and journalists — handled this pandemic and must prepare for possible future outbreaks.
"The Biden administration will move to rescind two Trump-era rollbacks of protections for endangered species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced Tuesday."
Plastic waste, already the subject of preliminary international talks, could be increasingly targeted after UN meetings in early 2022. Meanwhile, this ubiquitous product is polluting land, ocean and air in its various forms, as well as through little-understood microplastic particles. The latest TipSheet has the backstory on efforts to forge an international plastics treaty, as well as ideas for how to cover plastic pollution locally.
"The White House announced last night the intention to nominate Martha Williams as director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, capping nine months in which she has already been leading the agency as the administration overhauls key policies."
"A judge on Friday halted Wisconsin’s fall wolf season two weeks before hunters were set to take to the woods, siding with wildlife advocacy groups who argued that holding the hunt would be unconstitutional."
"Researchers say years of civil war and poaching in Mozambique have led to a greater proportion of elephants that will never develop tusks."
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