Biodiversity

"The Trump administration is moving closer to opening up U.S. waters for deep-sea mining—a contentious and largely untested industry focused on extracting mineral-rich deposits from the ocean floor containing cobalt, copper, nickel and manganese." "If the sale moves forward, mining activities could begin in federal waters near American Samoa. The proposed site is directly adjacent to a national wildlife refuge."

"At the request of the Trump administration, a federal judge in Texas has stripped endangered species protections from a small lizard whose habitat overlaps with the largest oil-producing region in the United States." "The dunes sagebrush lizard, found only in the oil-rich Permian Basin, was classified as endangered two years ago."

"Transmissible tumors have been reported in a handful of animal species, but never before among fish. Is it possible in humans?"

"Recent studies show that microplastics are already present in a variety of Amazonian environments: Major rivers such as the Amazon, urban streams, floodplain areas and mangroves in the Amazon’s Mouth."

"New protections for endangered right whales in the North Atlantic would be postponed for nearly a decade under a plan that cleared a key hurdle in Washington last week with the full-throated support of the fishing and lobster industries."

"A federal court temporarily blocked the sale of more than 2,000 acres of public land in and around a polluted former copper mine to a multi-national petroleum company on Thursday while a lawsuit against the sale is decided in court."

"The United States is going through the largest cyclosporiasis outbreak on record." "Warming is expected to fuel the spread of food-borne pathogens. We might not be prepared."

"On a pristine Rhode Island beach teeming with noisy seabirds, a group of biologists armed with nets sneak up on a pair of American oystercatcher chicks."

"For decades, fishers, swimmers and environmental groups have complained that mud and silt from dredging operations in the Mobile Bay shipping channel have been smothering seagrasses, choking out oysters and clouding water that was once pristine." "A measure to permanently ban the practice of “thin-layer disposal” of dredged sediment nationwide has advanced through a House committee with bipartisan support."

"The U.S. government plans to auction off massive sections of water surrounding American Samoa for potential deep-sea mining in an unprecedented move that is expected to draw criticism from many countries."