"The U.S. Interior Department on Monday launched an overhaul to an Obama-era plan to protect sage grouse that it says aims to both preserve the species of bird while expanding opportunities for oil development in western states where they live."
"It is August, the month when a new generation of black-legged ticks that transmit Lyme and other diseases are hatching. On forest floors, suburban estates and urban parks, they are looking for their first blood meal. And very often, in the large swaths of North America and Europe where tick-borne disease is on the rise, they are feeding on the ubiquitous white-footed mice and other small mammals notorious for harboring pathogens that sicken humans."
"Prominent greater sage grouse conservationists say Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s plan to consider captive breeding of the bird would meet a dead end."
"As someone who has studied bobcats for almost four decades, wildlife ecologist John Litvaitis remembers many times returning from the field without spotting a single one of these solitary and shy creatures that often hunt at dusk. But bobcats are less elusive now as their numbers rise and they become more comfortable around humans. Joining the likes of foxes, coyotes and even mountain lions in rare cases, bobcats are making a home in small towns and suburbs — and realizing there is plenty to eat in the cities."
"LINCOLN, Wis. -- Lee Kinnard’s new barn stretches the length of six football fields. It’s so big he once flew a drone inside to get a bird’s eye view of all the cows."
"On a day of cozy coastal grays — soft cloud cover, a silver foil-wrap sea — a dozen gray fur balls brought visitors the most comfort. Bobbing 20 feet from a harbor walkway, the sea otters were part of a record number in California. They once were believed to be as extinct as the dodo bird or the Tyrannosaurus rex."
"The detection of a highly pathogenic strain of bird flu at a Tennessee chicken farm has poultry farmers stepping up security in an attempt to prevent an outbreak like the one in 2015 that required the destruction of millions of chickens and turkeys in the Midwest. The appearance of milder forms of bird flu at a Wisconsin turkey farm and another Tennessee chicken farm has heightened concern."
"Over several decades in the past century, city populations swelled as Americans moved away from rural forests. Now the forests are moving farther away from Americans."
"For years, when spring rolled around in St. Louis, Mich., songbirds dropped to the ground, dead."
"A small, dark-feathered bird known as the common swift flies for 10 months on end without ever landing, the longest time spent aloft of any known bird, scientists said Thursday."
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