Biodiversity

"An aquarium and an engineering firm in Massachusetts are partnering on a project to better protect whales by monitoring them from space."

"Their catch this year has plummeted, while their exports to China have been gutted by the trade war. The government has imposed strict quotas on their primary bait. And they’re facing serious lawsuits that could affect how they fish."

"Officials in Mississippi are trying to force the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Mississippi River Commission to consult with them before opening the Bonnet Carré Spillway in Louisiana again and flooding the region with polluted river water."

"The Interior Department is moving to formally define "habitat" in the Endangered Species Act, part of an anticipated second wave of changes to the bedrock conservation law under the Trump administration."

"As the state of Virginia prepared for a major bridge and tunnel expansion in the tidewaters of the Chesapeake Bay last year, engineers understood that the nesting grounds of 25,000 gulls, black skimmers, royal terns and other seabirds were about to be plowed under."

"Two environmental groups concerned the Trump administration won’t defend an Obama administration-era policy on sage grouse protections are seeking to intervene in a lawsuit filed by Idaho ranchers."

"Harbingers of a diminishing ecosystem, the smelt are almost extinct. Now, forces within the Trump administration could usher them into oblivion".

"The Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, among the rarest and most endangered of the seven species of sea turtles, was found motionless shortly after high tide on Cape Cod’s Skaket Beach. It was in dire straits."

"The people who guard the gulls that nest on Mono Lake’s islets in the eastern Sierra Nevada have used dynamite, electric fences and lawsuits to protect the birds from wily coyotes and diversions of water to Los Angeles."

"The first newborn right whale of the winter calving season has been spotted off the coast of Georgia."