Biodiversity

"The Interior Department plans to cement into regulation its 2017 opinion that the accidental killing of migratory birds isn’t a criminal act—a reversal of prior federal policy that prosecuted unintentional bird killings as a misdemeanor, Interior officials said Thursday."

"A federal agency has proposed designating habitat areas for two protected crayfish species in the coalfields of Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia."

"There’s a lot of ocean out there, and boats engaging in illegal fishing or human trafficking have good reason to hide." "Researchers outfitted 169 seabirds with radar detectors to pinpoint vessels that had turned off their transponders."

"If Neil Anthony Sims gets his way, he'll make history by opening a fish farm 40 miles off of Florida's west coast, where his company will begin raising 20,000 almaco jack fingerlings in a floating pen 130 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico."

"Twenty-five years ago, the national park attempted to reintroduce wolves – now scientists are celebrating it as one of the greatest rewilding stories ever".

"The western monarch butterfly population wintering along California’s coast remains critically low for the second year in a row, a count by an environmental group released Thursday showed."

"Overharvesting and habitat loss endanger most of the world’s freshwater “megafauna.” But many species may yet be saved." "Some of the most astonishing creatures on Earth hide deep in rivers and lakes: giant catfish weighing over 600 pounds, stingrays the length of Volkswagen Beetles, six-foot-long trout that can swallow a mouse whole."

"Just after sunrise, elk are grazing in a misty field in Washington's Skagit Valley, an hour and a half north of Seattle. ... These elk are at the center of a conflict that's unfolding between Native Americans and farmers in northwest Washington."

"Mayflies, which form swarms in the billions that are visible on weather radar, are in steep decline, mirroring the plight of insects worldwide."