Biodiversity

Saturday Marked Wild Horse and Burro Adoption Day. Will Some of the More Than 30,000 Animals Held by the Federal Government Go To Slaughter?

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture's deregulation of genetically engineered RoundUp Ready sugar beets in 2004 was unlawful, a federal court in California ruled Monday."

"As a species, the endangered Florida panther needs about 4,860 square miles in southern Florida to be protected as critical habitat to save the animal from extinction and recover the species, according to a new scientific petition submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by three nonprofit organizations."

"BILLINGS, Mont. -- Facing the combined pressures of climate change, hunters and lax protections, 600 grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park are going back on the threatened species list under a federal court order issued Monday."

"Alabama is fighting an invasive weed, 'the killer weed, the nearly indestructible weed,' cogongrass."

"A furious row has erupted in Canada with conservationists desperately lobbying the government to suspend the annual bear-hunting season following reports of a sudden drop in the numbers of wild bears spotted on salmon streams and key coastal areas where they would normally be feeding."

"A file cabinet at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland holds some of the center’s six million bird-migration observation cards dating back to the late 1800s. The hand-written cards contain data about sightings of birds such as the ruby-throated hummingbird, often spotted in the 1930s when fruit trees bloomed in spring. Now being digitized, data from these cards will be stored on a U.S. Geological Survey database."

"Montpellier, France -- Pesticides, viruses, industrialised farming, fungus... what on Earth is killing our bees? That's the big question being asked at Apimondia, the 41st world apiculture congress, where 10,000 beekeepers, entomologists and other actors in the honey business are gathered in this southern French city until Sunday."

In recent years, the media has paid a great deal of attention to the loss of European honeybees, the so-called Colony Collapse Disorder. Less well known, but equally troublesome, is the disappearance of bumblebees. As Adam Federman reports in the Autumn edition of Earth Island Journal, bumblebees pollinate about 15 percent of our food crops (valued at $3 billion) and occupy a critical role as native pollinators. Many species are in sharp decline or appear to have gone extinct.