"The ice of Antarctica doesn’t faze birds. Nor does the heat of the tropics. They thrive in the desert, in swamps, on the open ocean, on sheer rock faces, on treeless tundra, atop airless mountaintops and burrowed into barren soil."

"Nearly four decades after grizzly bears were declared threatened in the Lower 48 states, long-stalled efforts to bring the species back to Washington's North Cascades are rolling again."

"Michigan State University environmental toxicology professor Matt Zwiernik presented part two of the results from the 2013 dead bird collection in St. Louis to the Pine River Superfund Taskforce Wednesday. Zwiernik’s team monitored 60 active nests not only in the nine-block residential area surrounding the former Velsicol plant site but also 15 kilometers downstream. As was the case with the first batch of results, American robins eggs collected contained DDx levels far above those found to induce death in laboratory settings."

"The National Park Service has banned drones from flying over the Appalachian Trail."

"For the better part of a century, from 1840 to around 1940, the U.S. was the world's biggest buyer of ivory. Hunters killed hundreds of thousands of elephants, and uncounted numbers of Africans were enslaved to carry the tusks to ships bound for America. Most of that ivory went to a tiny town in Connecticut — a town that's now grappling with this dark part of its past."

"NAIROBI, Kenya — Poachers killed an estimated 100,000 elephants across Africa between 2010 and 2012, a huge spike in the continent's death rate of the world's largest mammals because of an increased demand for ivory in China and other Asian nations, a new study published Monday found."

"Conservationists said on Wednesday they will sue the Obama administration over its decision to deny federal protections for rare wolverines in the mountains of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming."

"COROLLA, N.C. — Retired Washington, D.C., police Officer E.T. Smith patrolled the beach in his four-wheel-drive truck on a recent morning, keeping an eye out for wild mustangs and the drunks who like to harass them."

"U.S. wildlife managers on Tuesday denied federal protections for rare wolverines, outraging conservationists but pleasing Western states that opposed adding the reclusive but feisty member of the weasel family to the endangered and threatened species list."

"Seventy miles off Ocean City, scientists aboard the federal research vessel Henry B. Bigelow are exploring a lush underwater landscape that until recently few would have imagined — colorful corals clinging to the rocky slopes of deep-sea canyons."