Biodiversity

"The first newborn right whale of the winter calving season has been spotted off the coast of Georgia."

"From the bulging peak of Rabbit Mountain, at 6,000 feet on the edge of the foothills north of Boulder, Colorado, you can watch a transition unfold. To the east, a tabletop of pasture and farmland spreads out to the horizon. To the west, the Rocky Mountains rise impenetrably."

"In a world where warming seas, pollution, and predation are killing coral around the world, an extensive survey of French Polynesia has found a ray of hope. On some atolls there, live coral covers 70% of the reef’s surface; on others, big fish such as grouper and barracuda that have almost disappeared elsewhere are thriving."

"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wants to restore seven reefs along the Keys reef tract from Key Largo to Key West."

"The Senate today [Thursday] confirmed Aurelia Skipwith as director of the Fish and Wildlife Service on a mostly party-line vote of 52 to 39."

"It came as a bittersweet surprise to biologists and government agencies monitoring the steadily shrinking Salton Sea’s slide toward death by choking dust storms and salt."

"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with seven partners, unveiled a $97 million plan Monday to restore coral on seven reefs in the Florida Keys."

"Federal officials will review whether enough is being done to protect grizzly bears in the contiguous U.S. states after environmentalists sued the government to try to restore the fearsome animals to more areas, according to a court settlement approved Monday."

"Around the world, humans are fracturing vast forests. Highways snake through the Amazon’s rain forests, and Indonesia plans an ambitious transportation grid in Borneo, through some of the largest untouched expanses of tropical forests. ... Conservation biologists have intensely debated the dangers that the fracturing of woodlands poses to animals."

"On 'good' bad days, the shells lay open at the bottom of the river, shimmering in the refracted sunlight. Their insides, pearl white and picked clean of flesh, flicker against the dark riverbed like a beacon, alerting the world above to a problem below."