"Fresh off a wave of success in the California Capitol last year, animal welfare groups are taking aim at a new target this year: hunting with lead ammunition."

"A thaw of sea ice floating on the Arctic Ocean last year sent extra plant food to exotic creatures on the deep sea floor in a shift that might leave polar bears hungry at the surface, scientists said on Thursday."

"Millions of birds have descended on a small Kentucky city this winter, fouling the landscape, scaring pets and raising the risk for disease in a real-life version of Alfred Hitchcock's horror film, The Birds."

"It's legal to catch the animals outside the national park. But critics say the trappers are after bobcats that often crisscross the invisible park boundaries."

"Two new bills introduced in the Montana legislature would usher in a zero-tolerance policy for wild bison, potentially opening the way for a return to the shoot-on-sight practices of years past."

"Butterflies from the southern US that used to be rare in the northeast are now appearing there on a regular basis. The trend correlates to a warming climate report the authors of a paper in Nature Climate Change."

"Changes in the climate are happening much faster than animals are able to respond."

"The Obama administration is proposing to allow the Navy to harm more than 30 million marine mammals while conducting exercises in two training ranges over the next five years."

"In south Texas, where the Rio Grande divides the United States from Mexico, three of the last remaining sections of border fence -- approved more than five years ago -- remain unbuilt."

"Last month Fox News reported on the 'grizzly deaths' of 500 songbirds in West Virginia. Behind the fell deed: a wind farm, caught red-turbined. 'To date, the Obama administration... has not prosecuted a single case against the wind industry,' the Fox reporter laments. Opponents of renewable energy love to trot out the risk wind turbines pose to birds, and some engineering work has gone into making them more avian-friendly. But a new study released today in Nature shows that if you really want to protect birds, forget about wind: You need to lock up Kitty."

"Pesticides blamed for killing bees have been removed from the shelves of Britain's biggest gardening chains, prompting calls for similar chemicals widely-used on farms to be banned completely."

"When Groundhog Day arrives Saturday, don't waste much time expecting to see your local groundhog. It's too early. Normal emergence in the Washington area is late February or early March — but a steadily warming world might change that."

"Last fall, remote cameras in a rugged expanse of desert grasslands in Southern Arizona captured arresting images of a jaguar slinking through the underbrush, its yellow eyes fixed on some distant sight. The photos add to the dozen or so documented sightings of the endangered cat on American soil in the last century."

"A bat from Mammoth Cave National Park has been confirmed to have developed the deadly white-nose syndrome, authorities announced today."

"The world's most widely used insecticide has for the first time been officially labelled an 'unacceptable' danger to bees feeding on flowering crops. Environmental campaigners say the conclusion, by Europe's leading food safety authority, sounds the 'death knell' for the insect nerve agent."