Wildlife

"Almost 50 years ago, conservationists reintroduced white-tailed eagles to Scotland. It’s gone well. Some say too well."

"A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take another look at its 2019 decision denying endangered status protection for the eastern hellbender, the nation’s largest aquatic salamander that is found in low numbers in all Chesapeake Bay drainage states."

"The Biden administration’s recent endangered species rules are vulnerable to court challenges by both environmentalists and industry groups because the proposals keep some Trump-era provisions while providing safeguards that anger developers."

"Fireflies — whose shimmering, magical glows light up summer nights — are in trouble, threatened by habitat destruction, light pollution, and pesticide use. With 18 species now considered at risk of extinction in North America alone, recovery efforts are only just beginning."

"A new court settlement will put the Environmental Protection Agency on track to regulate pesticides more tightly."

"Call it a win for the little species, though all kinds of endangered animals and plants stand to benefit.

A sweeping legal settlement approved this week has put the Environmental Protection Agency on a binding path to do something it has barely done before, by its own acknowledgment: Adequately consider the effects on imperiled species when it evaluates pesticides and take steps to protect them.

"Expanded development on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, viewed as a climate refuge, is encroaching on prime wildlife habitat. As big cats find it harder to avoid people, many are winding up dead."

"I was sitting in solitude earlier this summer in an Adirondack chair in my backyard, when I realized I wasn’t as alone as I’d thought. Thanks to the app I’d just downloaded on my phone — the popular and free Merlin Bird ID — I learned just from listening that I was surrounded by more than a dozen species of birds."

"GIANT SEQUOIA NATIONAL MONUMENT, Calif. — On the morning of July 6, Michelle Harris saw a huge canid with yellow eyes dash across a fire road lined with charred snags and giant sequoias blackened by recent wildfires."

"America’s birds are in trouble. Since 1970, nearly 3 billion birds have vanished from the skies over North America. Most of those losses have been in migratory species, which may breed in the United States or Canada in the summer before heading elsewhere for the winter."