Biodiversity

"Environmental groups have petitioned the Obama administration to add 404 species from rivers in the southeastern United States to the Endangered Species List."

"An ocean census has revealed a 'new world' of richly diverse marine microbe life that could help scientists understand more about key environmental processes on Earth, a study said Sunday."

"The United States is leading an effort by a handful of antiwhaling nations to broker an agreement that would limit and ultimately end whale hunting by Japan, Norway  and Iceland, according to people involved with the negotiations."

Scientists have just discovered a new lizard species -- 6 feet long -- in a remote part of the Philippines. Inhabitants there knew about it all along.
 

"For the first time in more than a century, a California condor chick successfully hatched inside a federal park that once was a domain of the endangered species."

"A genetically engineered pig recently approved for limited production in Canada makes urine and feces that contain up to 65 percent less phosphorous, officials have announced."

"Mass death among baby right whales has experts scrambling to figure out the puzzle behind the largest great whale die-off on record."

"Scientists surveying the area near a planned Navy training range said Tuesday they witnessed an endangered right whale giving birth off the Northeast Florida coast."

"The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says 431 manatee carcasses have been documented in state waters so far this year. The agency on Tuesday said this preliminary data shows manatee deaths has exceeded the highest number on record for an entire calendar year."

Delegates at a meeting in Doha, Qatar, of the parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) neared the March 25 close of the 13-day meeting. They rejected proposals to regulate trade in three shark species, but accepted regulation of a fourth shark species. They held off sales of stockpiled elephant ivory for another three years. They rejected  ban on trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna and polar bears.