"Bivouacking with sheep high in the mountains around Sun Valley, Idaho, field technicians with the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife are gaining deeper insights into strategies they can use to keep wolves at bay without shooting them."

NOAA is considering the Georgia Aquarium's proposal to import 18 beluga whales from the Sea of Okhotsk for display and breeding at aquariums.

"Officials in Temple Terrace, Fla., are cautioning residents that heavy rains have brought out the toxic, invasive Bufo marinus toad, a huge amphibian that secretes a toxin powerful enough to kill unsuspecting dogs, cats and other animals."

"A team of biologists has just announced the first documented case of bird-to-bird malaria transmission in Alaska. Writing in the journal PLOS ONE, they've shown that this frequently fatal avian illness, which is normally associated with the tropics and temperate areas, may be expanding its range. Fortunately, avian malaria doesn't affect humans, co-author Ravinder Sehgal of San Francisco State University said, but the findings are particularly significant from a bird conservation as well as a climate change standpoint."

"British scientists have shot down a study on declining honeybee populations that triggered a French ban on a pesticide made by Swiss agrochemicals group Syngenta."

"BLOOMING GROVE -- On one side of a gravel road in Navarro County, an overgrazed pasture has been cropped to the dirt. Across the road, a surviving patch of Blackland Prairie that has been reseeded with native grasses is covered with a cornucopia of 170 plant species that together comprise prime habitat for bobwhite quail -- if only they could get there."

"The U.S. Navy can build a $100 million submarine training range off the coast of Southern Georgia and Northern Florida, a federal judge ruled Monday, dismissing a lawsuit by environmental groups claiming the project would harm the already endangered North Atlantic right whale."

"Lawn product company Scotts Miracle-Gro Co will pay $12.5 million in criminal fines and civil penalties for illegally including insecticides in bird food products and for other violations, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday."

"Scientists have found that the aquatic birds are good indicators of toxins in the environment. That's why researchers have taken to the waters of western Maine for what's believed to be the longest-running loon monitoring study in North America."

"CLEVELAND -- The mystery deepens, as several agencies not only look for the reason why tens of thousands of fish washed up dead along the northern shores of Lake Erie, but seagulls as well."

The rising price of ivory -- based on demand from nations like China -- is causing an unprecedented spate of elephant poaching in Africa.

"Before the Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed 40 years ago, early New Englanders had nearly hunted seals to death. They wanted them for their furs and to keep them from eating cod. Massachusetts even paid bounties on seals: $5 per nose. The act has helped gray seals and harbor seals recolonize New England waters, but fishermen off the coast of Cape Cod say they have become a nuisance."

"ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Oil companies operating in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast will have a negligible effect on polar bears and walrus, according to a federal Appeals Court ruling Tuesday that backed U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rules on harassment of the animals."

"The wildlife agency in Wisconsin, the only state that allows people to use dogs while hunting wolves, faces a lawsuit contending that it is permitting state-sanctioned animal fighting."

"The President of the California Fish and Game Commission, who sparked the ire of animal rights groups when he hunted and killed a mountain lion in Idaho in an act prohibited in his home state, was unanimously voted out of his position on Wednesday."