Wildlife

"Officials raise alert as 'zombie' birds fall to earth amid fears city may be in grip of avian ailment Newcastle disease."

"Well-meaning home gardeners who buy plants to attract pollinators might be harming honeybees, according to a study that an environmental group released Wednesday."

"No more than 15 years ago, it would have made a bird watcher's week to see the seldom-seen wood stork. Today, a daily siting is not unusual."

"On John Bassler's 143-acre Piney Run Foxhound Training Preserve in Milford, Va., a densely wooded property lined with electrified fences to keep about 30 wild foxes inside contained, the chase is recreation, he said, part of a Virginia tradition commonly known as 'fox penning.'"

A legislative and regulatory battle over slaughter of wild horses is dividing conservation celebrities and American Indians in the Southwest and Mountain West.

"As fans of 'Duck Dynasty' can attest, hunting for nutria – big, water-loving rodents with bright orange front teeth – is hugely popular in Louisiana. This might not be exclusive to the bayou for long. As winters warm, nutria could migrate across the country, according to new research."

"It’s only a few weeks until the end of summer, a terrible time to be a moose in the New Hampshire wild."

"Federal scientists investigating an unusually high number of dead bottlenose dolphins washing up on the East Coast said on Thursday the carcasses are showing up at a rate that is seven times higher than usual."

"MELBOURNE, Fla. — The first hint that something was amiss here, in the shallow lagoons and brackish streams that buffer inland Florida from the Atlantic’s salt water, came last summer in the Banana River, just south of Kennedy Space Center. Three manatees — the languid, plant-munching, over-upholstered mammals known as sea cows — died suddenly and inexplicably, one after another, in a spot where deaths were rare."

"Dozens of dead or sick Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have washed ashore along beaches from Virginia north to New York, including several baby dolphins in Delaware, since early June."