Biodiversity

"Each summer for the last two decades, Jim Parker has readied his small whale watch boat, and made a business out of ferrying tourists out into the cool blue waters of the Gulf of Maine. For years, it was steady work."

"Five decades ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared the polluted Potomac River a “national disgrace.” Although it is now much cleaner, officials in Washington are still not convinced the water is safe for humans to swim in. But many miles downriver, where the Potomac widens to lakelike proportions as it flows toward the Chesapeake Bay, it teems with a different species of swimmers whose presence may signal healthier waters: dolphins."

"A small lizard found among the dunes straddling New Mexico and West Texas in one of the nation’s richest oil basins is at the center of a legal complaint filed Tuesday."

"The U.S. government is keeping details secret about a cattle grazing program in six Western states that could be harming habitat and endangered species, an environmental group says."

"Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the US Fish and Wildlife Service has links to powerful agricultural interests opposed to protections for endangered species she would oversee, the Guardian has learned."

"William Perry Pendley, the sagebrush rebel-turned acting director of the Bureau of Land Management, has identified nearly five dozen organizations, companies and individuals that will trigger his recusal from decisionmaking, according to his ethics filing."

"Attorneys general in 17 states on Wednesday made good on a promise to sue the Trump administration over rule changes that substantially weakened how Endangered Species Act protections are considered and enforced."

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) won’t tweak a recent blog post environmentalists say is inaccurate because the agency argues its blog is not considered public information."