Biodiversity

"The Interior Department said Friday that the greater sage grouse, a dweller of the high plains of the American West, was facing extinction but would not be designated an endangered species for now."

"Environmentalists filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on Monday accusing the service of illegally allowing farmers to grow genetically modified crops in a national wildlife refuge."

"The mysterious pelican malady that left hundreds of the birds sick and stranded along the Oregon and California coasts this winter was probably caused by a combination of bad weather and fish shortages related to El Nino, state Fish and Game officials said Monday."

"During his first year in office, President Barack Obama won praise from environmental groups for a wide range of decisions, ... But now there's grumbling on his green flank. A growing number of environmentalists are clashing with the administration over its management of America's struggling wildlife populations and what they call its reluctance to use the nation's most powerful environmental law, the Endangered Species Act, to stand up to industry."

"A landmark agreement to protect shark species threatened with extinction was reached Friday as 113 countries signed up to a United Nations-backed wildlife treaty to conserve migratory sharks."

"While lawmakers and the White House ratchet up efforts to keep Asian carp out of Lake Michigan, boating and fishing communities along the Illinois River are under siege."

"The Obama administration will consider federal protection for 82 coral species threatened by warming water temperatures."

"Despite a backlog of endangered species issues and a host of current lawsuits, the Fish and Wildlife Service plans to focus firmly on the future."

The bright-golden spray toads, small as a dime, once lived in the spray of a waterfall on the Kihansi River in Tanzania. A dam funded by the World Bank destroyed the species habitat, and they are now extinct in the wild. They now live only in captivity.

"Federal land managers said Monday they'll delay a roundup of most of the nearly 600 wild horses in a range in eastern Nevada, at least until after the herd's spring foaling season."