Biodiversity

"The country’s most-visited national park site, the Blue Ridge Parkway, will remain closed indefinitely, the National Park Service (NPS) said Wednesday. The closure affects the entire length of the Blue Ridge Parkway, though some parts were hit harder than others by storm damage. It comes right as the region and scenic road typically see a boom in tourism, as weather cools and the leaves change colors."

"Voting started Wednesday in the annual Fat Bear Week contest at Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve, with viewers picking their favorite among a dozen brown bears fattened up to survive the winter."

"Bethany Beach firefly, found in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, faces dangers to habitat because of climate change"

"Climate change is exacerbating the risk of potentially dangerous mosquito-borne diseases in California. Dengue, the world’s most common mosquito-borne illness, is not transmitted directly from insect to insect."

"Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bipartisan bill Friday making it a crime to farm octopuses for human consumption in California."

"Stubborn drought in Ohio and the shifting weather patterns influenced by climate change appear to be affecting North America’s largest native fruit: the pawpaw."

"The project, which could expand wind power, was supposed to be done by 2018. The holdup? The American burying beetle."

"As one of the world's most biodiverse countries, Colombia is determined to lead by example when it hosts an upcoming UN summit to save nature, Environment Minister Susana Muhamad told AFP on Monday."

"A lawsuit filed by Mississippi Gulf Coast local governments, representatives of its tourism industry and Mississippi fishers against the Army Corps of Engineers to protect bottlenose dolphins from death or injury caused by openings of the Bonnet Carre Spillway has been thrown out by a federal judge in Gulfport."

"Pope Francis on Sunday condemned the slaying of an environmental activist in Honduras, adding to a growing number of international voices that have raised concern over the killing."