Biodiversity

"The devastation that bark beetles and fungus have wreaked on hundreds of thousands of acres of whitebark pine trees in the northern Rockies has been tracked and chronicled for 30 years. Now the Fish and Wildlife Service has weighed in with a finding that climate change threatens the long-term survival of the species."

"A bat killed by a wind turbine in Somerset can lead to higher tomato prices at the Wichita farmers market."

"Everybody knows what the tea party members oppose. High taxes. Big government. Obama's health care plan. High-speed rail. Now, for at least some local tea party members, there's one more to add: manatee protection."

"Japan intends to send its whaling fleet back to the Antarctic this year, a senior official has told BBC News."

"A one-of-a-kind pod of about 200 'resident' eastern Pacific grey whales, which spends every summer feeding near Vancouver Island while the 20,000 other members of the species continue their epic annual migration between Mexico and Alaska, could hold the key to the evolutionary history of the majestic mammal -- and to its future in the age of climate change -- according to a new study."
 

"The United Nations [Thursday] added 18 new sites to its global list of biosphere reserves, bringing the total to 581 in 114 countries."

"A federal judge [Thursday] upheld the George W. Bush administration's decision to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act."

"At least 1,060 new species were discovered on the island of New Guinea from 1998 to 2008, but unsustainable logging and plantation agriculture are putting many of these creatures at risk, finds a new study by the global conservation organization WWF."

"Like the vast African plains, two huge expanses of the North Pacific Ocean are major corridors of life, attracting an array of marine predators in predictable seasonal patterns, according to final results from the Census of Marine Life Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP) project published in the journal Nature."