EJToday is SEJ's selection of new and outstanding stories on environmental topics in print and on the air, updated every weekday. SEJ also offers a free e-mailed digest of the day's EJToday postings, called SEJ-beat. SEJ members are subscribed automatically, but may opt out here. Non-members may subscribe here. EJToday is also available via RSS feed. Please see Editorial Guidelines for EJToday content.
"Wind Farms Considering Detection Systems To Prevent Bird Deaths"
LA Times, 05/29/2012"Adding bird detection systems could protect wind farms from litigation in case of deaths of threatened species."
FWS Plan To Share Bison Refuge Management With Tribes Sparks Lawsuit
Greenwire, 05/23/2012"The Bitterroot Salish, Kootenai and Pen d'Oreilles tribes consider Montana's National Bison Range part of their heritage, a link to the animals their ancestors once hunted and worshipped."
Canada Cruising for Major Oil Spill Crisis in the Arctic, Expert Warns
Postmedia, 05/22/2012"One of Canada's top experts on Arctic issues is warning of the 'near-inevitability' of an Exxon Valdez-scale oil spill at a fragile choke point in Alaskan waters if Canada ends up shipping oilsands fuel to China via pipeline terminals on the British Columbia coast."
"Rocky Mountain Cave Closure Sought Over Bat Disease"
Reuters, 05/17/2012"SALMON, Idaho -- The U.S. government is seeking to close caves in national forests in the Northern Rockies to stem the spread of white-nose bat syndrome, a disease that has killed an estimated 5.5 million bats in 19 states and is spreading westward, officials said on Wednesday."
What is Going on With Peru's Dolphins and Pelicans?
Mother Jones, 05/08/2012"Something awful is happening in the waters off Peru's northern coast, where some 3,000 dolphins have died and washed ashore since January. This rates as one of the worst, if not the worst, Unusual Mortality Event (UME) ever recorded. ...
"Polar Bears Can Swim Vast Distances, Study Finds"
Reuters, 05/02/2012"Polar bears are capable of swimming vast distances, a potential survival skill needed in an Arctic environment where summer sea ice is vanishing, a study led by the U.S. Geological Survey showed on Tuesday."
USDA Wildlife Services' Brutal Methods Leave a Trail of Animal Death
Sacramento Bee, 04/30/2012The US Agriculture Department's Wildlife Services agency, at farmer request, kills predators that may harm farm animals. But critics say it does serious harm to non-target species and uses needlessly cruel and indiscriminate methods.
"Pacific Reef Sharks Have Declined by More Than 90%, New Study Says"
Wash Post, 04/30/2012"Pacific reef shark populations have plummeted by 90 percent or more over the past several decades, according to a new study by a team of American and Canadian researchers, and much of this decline stems from human fishing pressure.
Quantifying the decline for the first time, the analysis, published online Friday in the journal Conservation Biology, shows that shark populations fare worse the closer they are to people — even if the nearest population is an atoll with fewer than 100 residents.
San Francisco Marine Biologists Ponder Return of Harbor Porpoise
Sacramento Bee, 04/24/2012Harbor porpoises began disappearing from San Francisco Bay during the height of Navy ship activity there during World War II. "We don't know why they disappeared. … It's very possible that they just abandoned the place because it became too hard to feed, reproduce and raise their young," said William Keener, a co-investigator and spokesman with the nonprofit Golden Gate Cetacean Research group. "Then all of a sudden, the porpoises were back."
"Migrating Waterfowl Die From Lack of Water"
San Francisco Chronicle, 04/23/2012"The deaths of up to 20,000 migrating birds this year in a wildlife refuge near the Oregon border has renewed debate about resource management on the Klamath River, where myriad competing interests are fighting for water rights."
"A Rough Patch for Western Waterfowl"
Green (NYT), 04/20/2012"Federal Fish and Wildlife Service officials say that a drought-induced bird die-off in the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge along the California-Oregon border has ended. But they warn that unless proposals to reconfigure water distribution along the Klamath River are enacted, the problem could recur."
"For Weed Warriors, the Motto Is Endurance"
Green (NYT), 04/20/2012"To the untrained eye, a weed is just a weed, and few of us can tell a thistle from a teasel. But for Paul Heiple and his team of Weed Warriors, knowing the difference is essential to their work routing out invasive plants that threaten the native species at Edgewood Park, a 500-acre natural preserve that overlooks California’s Silicon Valley."
House Passes Public-Lands Hunting Bill Backing Lead Ammo
AP, 04/20/2012"WASHINGTON — A hunting bill passed by the House on Tuesday makes it harder to restrict hunting and fishing on public lands and ensures that the hunter's arsenal will continue to include lead bullets."
"River Otters Rebounding With Hospitable Habitat"
San Francisco Chronicle, 04/16/2012"It's wild times in the watershed. The most happy-go-lucky denizen of Bay Area creeks is back, after a hiatus of at least three decades: the river otter."
"Restoring Louisiana Coast a National Priority, Report Says"
New Orleans Times-Picayune, 04/13/2012"Louisiana and the nation can't wait 50 years to restore economically and environmentally important coastal wetlands, a task that is likely to cost $50 billion or more, says a new report released Monday by a team of state and national environmental and social scientists and engineers. And the rest of the nation should shoulder part of the cost, the report says."

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