Wildlife

"Scientists believe the dwindling axolotl, or Mexican salamander, holds secrets of aging and regeneration"

"For the past five weeks, volunteers have been desperately trying to nurse back to health more than a hundred sea lions found stranded along the state's beaches in a mystery that's threatening one of California's most lovable sea creatures."

"The number of imperiled wolves found only in the American Southwest climbed to 109 in 2014, marking the fourth consecutive year that the population of Mexican gray wolves has risen by at least 10 percent, federal wildlife managers said Friday."

"A federal judge has granted two animal protection groups a unusual preliminary injunction to stop the Bureau of Land Management’s roundup of more than 330 wild horses in northern Nevada, saying the government cannot rely on a five-year-old environmental analysis that ignores claims the herd would be harmed by a pesticide given as a form of birth control."

"Hoping to stem illegal wildlife trafficking, the Obama administration on Wednesday introduced an aggressive plan for taking on traffickers that will include using American intelligence agencies to track and target those who benefit from the estimated $20-billion-a-year market."

"The Fish and Wildlife Service advised its fellow land management agencies to impose the most stringent protections on roughly 16.5 million acres of high-value sage grouse habitat in order to save the bird from the threat of extinction."

"Native American activists gathered in Montana's capital on Tuesday to protest the deaths of hundreds of Yellowstone National Park bison killed this year to ease the worries of Montana ranchers about a cattle disease carried by many park buffalo."

"Grizzly bears at Yellowstone National Park are emerging from winter hibernation weeks earlier than normal because of the arrival of spring-like weather, with warmer-than-usual temperatures and rain instead of snow, a park spokesman said on Tuesday."

"The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service and conservation groups launched a $3.2 million campaign on Monday to save the habitat of the embattled orange-and-black spotted monarch butterfly, whose numbers have plummeted in recent years."

"Washington state senators held a hearing on Thursday to consider banning the increasingly controversial capture or holding of killer whales for entertainment."