Wildlife

"CONVERSE COUNTY, Wyo. --  It happens about once a month here, on the barren foothills of one of America's green-energy boomtowns: A soaring golden eagle slams into a wind farm's spinning turbine and falls, mangled and lifeless, to the ground."

"Behold the tiny oyster. No, not on the half-shell, with a squirt of lemon, but in its watery habitat, the Choptank River. Out there on a reef with many other oysters, the bivalve is awesome, a janitor that helps remove pollution with incredible efficiency."

"CANBERRA -- Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus will argue Australia’s whaling case against Japan in a three week hearing before the International Court of Justice in the Hague beginning on June 26."

"EU member states vote in favour of continent-wide suspension of neonicotinoid pesticides."

"The planned ruling would eliminate protection for the top predators, but scientists and conservationists say the proposal is flawed."

Beekeepers in the remote hills of southern Greece are not seeing colony collapse disorder in their hives. The reason may be that the bees are not exposed to pesticides.

"The newly formed group of Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep barreled up rugged Olancha Peak last month, the 10 females and four males becoming the first new herd of the endangered animals reintroduced in California in 25 years."

"Nearly 140,000 whales and dolphins could be injured if the Obama administration allows energy companies to conduct seismic research aimed at identifying oil and gas along the Atlantic Coast, according to a new report issued Tuesday."

"Giant snail invasion puts more than 500 plant species and even stucco and plaster at risk. More than 1,000 giant African land snails caught each week in Miami and invasion expected to spread in upcoming rainy season."

While honey bee die-offs often called "colony collapse disorder" have been increasing for several years, so has scientific evidence that a widely used class of pesticides called neonicotinoids could well be an important contributing cause. In 2011, EPA said it would review its approval on one such pesticide. Now it says it expects to finish in five years.