Biodiversity

The media frenzy started by the mass death of some red-winged blackbirds in Arkansas was based on ignorance. Such mass kills of wildlife occur all the time in nature and have natural causes, biologists say.

"Although many shark species are still at risk of extinction, around the world shark conservation advanced last year. In Washington on Tuesday, President Barack Obama signed into law the Shark Conservation Act of 2010, which increases protection for sharks from the practice of shark finning...."

"U.S. customs officials said on Wednesday they had found a beetle considered one of the world's most dangerous agricultural pests in a shipment of rice arriving at Los Angeles International Airport."

"It wasn't a secret government spraying program, Martians or gas seeping out of the New Madrid fault that killed the 5,000 or so blackbirds that died New Year's Eve in Beebe, Ark. It was someone shooting off professional grade fireworks in a residential district, scaring the night-blind birds out of their roost into a 25-mph flight that ran them into houses, signs and even the ground, says Karen Rowe, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission ornithologist."

"Four previously abundant species of bumblebee are close to disappearing in the United States, researchers reported Monday in a study confirming that the agriculturally important bees are being affected worldwide."

"Florida marine conservationists have come up with a simple recipe for fighting the invading lionfish that is gobbling up local reef life -- eat them."

Global warming has brought the mountain pine beetle to whitebark pine trees in the Yellowstone ecosystem -- with wide-ranging repercussions for the ecosystem.

"LAKE TEXOMA -- In a cove on this massive lake on the Texas-Oklahoma border, it doesn't take long to find zebra mussels."

"When you were trying to figure out what to buy for the environmentalist on your holiday list, fur probably didn't cross your mind. But some ecologists and fashion enthusiasts are trying to rekindle a market for fur made from nutria -- rodents that are destroying Louisiana's wetlands."

"Poor data, minimal funding and lax enforcement are undermining the fight to protect endangered species, raising the risks from the spread of pests and diseases, scientists say in a study made public on Friday."