"Minnesota declared a state of emergency on Thursday over a fast-spreading strain of avian flu that has led to the extermination of more than 7.3 million birds in the country. It followed Wisconsin's action on Monday."
"As many as 5.3 million hens will be euthanized at a commercial laying facility in northwest Iowa as a result of the presence of H5N2. The United States Department of Agriculture confirmed the presence this highly pathogenic strain avian flu Monday."
"Federal biologists will consider increasing Endangered Species Act protections for the northern spotted owl, reflecting the bird’s continued slide toward extinction despite steep logging cutbacks in the Northwest. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday that there was enough new information in a conservation group’s petition to warrant looking at changing the owl’s listing from threatened to endangered."
"An unprecedented attempt to protect sage grouse habitat across parts of more than 900 square miles of privately owned land in Nevada began under a deal Thursday involving the federal government, an environmental group and the world's largest gold mining company."
"A virulent strain of avian flu that has killed turkeys in the heart of the nation's poultry region has been found through molecular testing to be nearly identical to viruses isolated in migratory ducks."
"After more than a decade of effort by California lawmakers, the Obama administration gave final approval Thursday to a giant expansion of two marine sanctuaries off the coast north of San Francisco that will protect one of the planet’s most prolific ocean ecosystems."
"Leading experts on the greater sage grouse warned the Obama administration today that it must take stronger, more scientifically sound steps to protect the imperiled bird and avoid the need to place it on the endangered species list."
"The virus causing a second wave of bird flu across China has mutated frequently and 'should be considered as a major candidate to emerge as a pandemic strain in humans,' researchers reported Wednesday."
"Despite huge progress made in reducing chemical discharges since the 1960s, many birds nesting across the Great Lakes region still struggle to reproduce or they give birth to chicks with twisted beaks or other deformities — signs that a full recovery is still likely decades away for some of the region’s most historically polluted areas."
"More than two million migratory songbirds were indiscriminately slaughtered over Cyprus last year to be served as delicacies in local restaurants, a conservation society said on Monday."
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