"Since last summer, developers are no longer allowed to use a government website that helps with a basic preliminary task for projects: identifying what endangered species are found in a particular area."
"The U.S. Bureau of Land Management opened a seven-day public comment period on March 31 as part of its proposal to open 336,425 acres of public lands in the Greater Chaco Region in New Mexico to oil and gas drilling. If the proposal moves forward, new oil and gas leasing and development on federal lands will be allowed within 10 miles of Chaco Culture National Historical Park, even on lands directly bordering the park."
"As bears emerge from their dens in early spring, they’re on the search for food. That can lead them to backyard beehives, birdfeeders, compost piles and even chicken coops."
"Birds in the United States are not only declining, but they are declining faster, especially in areas with intensive agriculture, according to new research. Overall drops in bird population, measured from 1987 to 2021, were sharpest in warm and warming areas, suggesting that climate change may play a role."
"The H5N1 bird flu virus that devastated South American elephant seal populations has been confirmed in seals at California's Año Nuevo State Park, researchers from UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz announced Wednesday."
"The Center for Biological Diversity filed suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Feb. 11 for failing to make a preliminary decision about whether to expand protection for the saltmarsh sparrow, a bird whose population is in sharp decline around the Chesapeake Bay and the marshes along the East Coast."
"With the second coming of Donald J. Trump, the first Native American director of the National Park Service packed up his belongings in Washington, D.C., and retreated here to the sagebrush outback of eastern Oregon."
"The Trump administration is planning on making more acres of public land available for energy and mineral development in eight Western states, a move worrying environmentalists watching for the declining population of greater sage-grouse."
"On a jagged coastline in Central California, brown pelicans gather on rock promontories, packed in like edgy commuters as they take flight to feed on a vast school of fish just offshore. The water churns in whitecaps as the big-billed birds plunge beneath the surface in search of northern anchovies, Pacific sardines and mackerel."
"A Washington resident who was the first human case of bird flu in the U.S. since February died on Friday, state health officials said. The person was an older adult with underlying conditions and had been hospitalized since early November with a strain that was previously reported in animals but never before in humans."
