Wildlife

"There is a man among us who talks to the bees. They spoke recently on a warm Sunday morning in my driveway. Nick Wigle was standing with his hands on his hips, squinting down at a small gas-meter vault packed with 3,000 stinging residents. “All right, guys,” he said. “We’re going to take this nice and easy.” The hive buzzed back, its low tone telegraphing the gentleness unique to Santa Barbara's bees."

"Yet another floating mass of microscopic plastic has been discovered in the ocean, and it is mind-blowingly vast."

"The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee [Wednesday] quickly approved a conservation package whose potential reach extends from the Chesapeake Bay and Western state wetlands to hunters and anglers everywhere."

"A federal appeals court on Monday ruled in favor of a wildlife activist who said his free speech rights were violated when a sheriff's deputy barred him from watching livestock agents herd wild bison into Yellowstone National Park."

"Congressional Republicans launched efforts Wednesday aimed at reforming the Endangered Species Act to make it more friendly for states, landowners, industry and others."

"If the levee wall is constructed, it will essentially destroy the refuge, a federal official told the Observer."

"North America hosts the richest variety of freshwater mussels in the world, and the epicenter for this biodiversity is in the southeastern United States."

"A 'biological annihilation' of wildlife in recent decades means a sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history is already well underway and is more severe than previously feared, according to new research."

"Amid renewed concern about whether chronic wasting disease can jump from deer to people, a fatal human brain condition in the same family is showing up more often in Wisconsin and nationally."