Biodiversity

"TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — The Environmental Protection Agency proposed stricter requirements Wednesday for cleaning ballast water that keeps ships upright in rolling seas but enables invasive species to reach U.S. waters, where they have ravaged ecosystems and caused billions of dollars in economic losses."

"Marine scientists are trying to find out why previously unknown blooms of toxic algae are suddenly proliferating along the California coast, killing wildlife and increasing the risk of human sickness."

"Congress has restored funding for US inspectors to oversee horse slaughter, paving the way for slaughter and processing to resume for the first time since 2006. Animal rights groups are livid."

"For 17 years, the Hendra virus smoldered in its host bat population, only rarely crossing to humans. Then it exploded, likely triggered by heavy rains and floods in Australia earlier this year. And that has public health doctors nervous about climate change. "

Nancy Bazilchuk reports for the Daily Climate November 29, 2011.
 

"TUCSON -- For the first time since 2009, a jaguar has been found roaming the wilds of southern Arizona. The jaguar was photographed by a hunter on Saturday and confirmed by the Arizona Game and Fish Department to be a roughly 200-pound male in good condition."

"Conservationists touted a major victory Tuesday in their battle to protect Yellowstone grizzly bears when a federal appeals court ruled that wildlife managers erred when they removed Endangered Species Act protection from 'one of the American West's most iconic wild animals.'"

"The acidification of the world’s oceans from an excess of CO2 emissions has already begun, as evidenced recently by the widespread mortality of oyster larvae in the Pacific Northwest. Scientists say this is just a harbinger of things to come if greenhouse gas emissions continue to soar."

"ANCHORAGE, Alaska  — Alaska's Cook Inlet beluga whales were correctly listed as endangered, a federal judge ruled Monday, rejecting a state lawsuit that claimed the listing will hurt economic development."

"The nonnative amphibians pose a threat, but efforts to ban them pit environmentalists against Asian Americans, who relish them."