Biodiversity

"Conservationists are accusing federal land managers of illegally withholding information about environmental assessments used to justify plans to create fuel breaks to slow wildfires by clearing forests and shrubs across six western states with little if any public oversight."

"For thousands of years, the gray whales of the eastern Pacific have undertaken one of the longest annual migrations of any mammal — starting in the cold waters of the Arctic, then down past the densely populated coasts and beaches of California before finally finding refuge in the warm, shallow estuaries of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula. ... Starting in December 2018, this magnificent migration took a fatal turn."

"Globally, numerous infectious diseases are being transmitted between wildlife, livestock and humans at escalating rates, including outbreaks of COVID-19, Ebola, dengue, HIV and others, as the threat of new emergent zoonotic diseases grows ever greater. The cost is huge in lives lost and ruined economies. The driver: human activities, particularly intrusion into wild landscapes and eating and trading wild animals."

"Agricultural pesticides sold to farmers ready-mixed into "cocktails" can kill twice as many bees, according to an analysis of 90 studies."

"Surrounded by fires, parched by drought, and shut down by the pandemic – residents of California’s scenic South Lake Tahoe thought they’d endured everything. That was until this week, when the US Forest Service announced it was closing several popular sites after discovering bubonic plague in the chipmunk population."

"This summer's low-oxygen dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico along the Louisiana coast covered 6,334 square miles - 10 times the size of Lake Pontchartrain and well above the average size for the past five years, researchers said Tuesday."

"The Interior Department today said it will restart an environmental review of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s oil and gas program, following its determination earlier this year that the Trump administration’s assessment was flawed."

"Washington's endangered orca whales received new habitat protections from the federal government on Friday. The National Marine Fisheries Service finalized rules to expand the orca's critical habitat from the Canadian border all the way down to Point Sur in California, adding 15,910 square miles of foraging areas, river mouths and migratory pathways."

"The Biden administration laid out plans today [Friday] for scrapping and replacing a contentious Trump-era Clean Water Act rule that pulled back federal protections for millions of streams and wetlands."