Biodiversity

"Environmentalists sued the Obama administration on Wednesday seeking federal safeguards for seals that rely on vanishing Arctic sea ice and accusing the government of dragging its feet in listing the marine mammals under the Endangered Species Act."

New techniques may allow purebred bison calves bearing the genes of the animals that originally populated North America to be reproduced disease-free. Most of today's bison descended from animals cross-bred with domestic cattle.

Ancient chestnut trees in Europe are vanishing. "The culprits: a moth that produces leaf-eating larvae and a bacterium that makes trunks bleed and die. ... A cure? Not immediately in sight."

"Gray wolves in Wyoming, the last still federally protected in the northern Rockies, will lose endangered species status at the end of next month, opening them to unregulated killing in most of the state, the U.S. government said on Friday."

"KALISPELL, Mont. -- A man dressed in a military-style 'ghillie' suit and apparently trying to provoke reports of a Bigfoot sighting in northwest Montana was struck by two cars and killed, authorities said."

"A floating robot has been deployed to track great white sharks in the Pacific as part of efforts to understand the giant predators."

"Wildfires sparked by lightning near Canada's Hudson Bay are threatening the habitat of polar bears, encroaching on the old tree roots and frozen soil where females make their dens, a conservation expert on the big, white bears said on Thursday."