Biodiversity

New York state legislators are considering banning shark fin sales, something several other states have done.

"A slew of pathogens typically found in livestock and domestic animals is increasingly being found in marine mammals, including in the Strait of Georgia off Vancouver."

"Bird flu experts meeting in Geneva ruled that controversial research on a mutant form of the virus potentially capable of being spread among humans should be made public."

"Maryland biologists study­ing box turtles rescued from the bulldozers on the Intercounty Connector construction site have made a grisly find: An alarming number of the tiny turtles later died, and biologists say their demise appears to be unrelated to the highway."

"The California Department of Fish and Game intends to sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over its policy banning trees on levees."

"Three U.S. consumer groups petitioned the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday to subject a new genetically engineered salmon to a more rigorous review process than is now in place before the fish can be approved as safe to eat."

"Silent in flannel shirts and ponytails, farmers from Saskatchewan and South Dakota, Mississippi and Massachusetts lined the walls of a packed federal courtroom in Manhattan last week, as their lawyers told a judge that they were no longer able to keep genetically modified crops from their fields."

"In the village of Pithauli, surrounded by ripening mustard fields, a woman hauls a cow carcass on a trolley, drops it in an open field, then runs and hides in a nearby hut as dozens of vultures swoop down."