Wildlife

"A rare baleen whale found in the Gulf of Mexico has gained protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Gulf of Mexico Bryde’s whale is a subspecies of the Bryde’s whale and one of the most endangered whales in the world, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."

"As a boy, Francisco Ramirez Cruz loved hiking with his grandfather up into the mountains of central Mexico. While the old man grazed sheep or hunted for wild mushrooms, Ramirez would play amid the throngs of monarch butterflies that migrated 3,000 miles to this forest each autumn, turning the blue sky into a sea of orange."

"More Mexican gray wolves are roaming the American Southwest now than at any time since federal biologists began reintroducing the predators more than two decades ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Monday."

"As Mississippi’s governor toured massive flooding in the state, the Trump administration said Wednesday that it is giving another look to a long-dead flood control and drainage project in the Mississippi Delta that had been killed by the George W. Bush administration because of its potential impact on wetlands and wildlife."

"Western Washington has its first wolf pack in decades, an indication that wolf recovery is on track and a sign that the canines are expanding their range in a healthier ecosystem, wildlife officials say."

"Singapore has seized 12.9 tonnes of pangolin scales found in a shipping container destined for Vietnam, the biggest seizure of its kind globally in five years, authorities said on Thursday."

"The Makah tribe could soon be hunting gray whales again, under a proposal from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that would grant a waiver to federal marine-mammal protections."

"Senate Democrats are requesting the Interior Department’s watchdog investigate what role President Trump’s pick to lead the agency played in preventing the release of a government report on toxic pesticides and endangered species."

"Tourists to Indonesia will likely be barred from the popular Komodo Island in January 2020 — a decision seemingly impelled by recent reports of Komodo dragons being stolen and smuggled overseas, potentially for dubious medicinal purposes, according to local media."

"Over the federal government’s 30-year effort to revive endangered red wolves in North Carolina, there have been many attempts by opponents to get rid of them. But to argue that the wolves engaged in so much sex with coyotes that the two species somehow became one? That was a novel approach."