Shooting of endangered Red Wolves halts N.C.’s coyote hunt

And with damn good reason. Controlling coyote populations, like controlling the population size of white-tailed deer herds, has little to do hunting and hunting ethics and the Endangered Species Act. Read about the halt to the hunting of coyotes in N.C.

No end to legal battle aver Nevada forest road and fish

Journalist Scott Sonner has been writing about conservation and fish and wildlife for a lot of years. I remember seeing his byline on stories moving on the Associated Press wire during my tenure at a Pennsylvania daily newspaper. In any case, the battle he writes about in this article has been going on just as long and it highlights what a road can do to fish and wildlife habitat.

Black-footed ferrets found in S.D. prairie dog town

This is quite a tale. And the photos re remarkable. Ah, the value of a big telephoto lens. In any case, this finding, hopefully, shows the resiliency of wild nature.

Building a bat cave to battle a deadly bat-killing fungus

The killer is the well-known, now, whitenose fungus. It started killing bats here in the Green Mountain State and across Lake Champlain in New York a bunch of years ago now. And still it marches on. It has apparently jumped the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Read about the human-made bat cave here.

Conservation could save sage grouce and ranchers from ESA listing

Well, gosh, just what is the chief problem that’s driving the Sage Grouse into potential Endangered Species Act listing? Duh?

The world does indeed need wolves

To thinking conservationists, conservation biologists, and ecologists, the facts explained in this p-ed article are hardly a surprise. Wolves do indeed belong in the oftentimes struggling wild of North America. They are part of the Web of Life. Yet, politicians tend often to listen only to livestock ranchers (growing cows and sheep on public land!) and out come the rifles and traps. When will they learn?

The passing of a conservation giant: Russell E. Train

Mr. Train was the founding father of the EPA and was a big player in getting laws like the National Environmental Policy Act past the jaws of  Congress. Read his obituary here.

Yes, new Gulf ‘oil spill is BP’s petroleum

Tests performed on Thursday confirmed that the oil found on the Louisiana shoreline after Hurricane Isaac was in fact from the BP spill in 2010. This piece offers some details.

Endangered Schaus swallowtail but be all but gone

That’s a wordy way of saying the species, a Florida endemic, is, by all accounts, gone from the face of the Earth. This article has more info.

Citizens or government scientists: Who does better in selecting candidates for Endangered Species Act protection?

American citizens seem to do as good a job as government scientists in selecting candidates for federal protection. That’s the gist of this article. The statistics may say one thing, but that’s hardly the whole story. Still absent from most mainstream media reporting is this: What led to a given species’ population dive? In the balance of things, more imperiled flora and fauna benefits through citizen participation. After all, there are only so many fisheries and wildlife biologists on the staff of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And Republicans’ non-ending desire to de-fund, as much as possible, agencies like Fish and Wildlife, only makes the campaign that much harder.