"State officials reported the presence of deadly chronic wasting disease in two wild California deer earlier this week. This is the first time the disease, which has plagued other areas of the nation for years, has appeared in the state’s deer or elk population."

"May Day dawns cold and breezy, with sullen grey clouds promising rain. Hope seems very far away. But then, a distant dark streak scythes through the skies over the Avalon Marshes, stiff-winged, direct and determined. A single swift, my first of the year."

"Scores of emaciated brown pelicans, too weak to fly, have been found on Southern California beaches in the last month and taken to an Orange County rescue center, according to its director."

"Scientists studying the sperm whales that live around the Caribbean island of Dominica have described for the first time the basic elements of how they might be talking to each other, in an effort that could one day help better protect them."

"Environmental organized crime is a massive global enterprise, bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars each year — and the U.S. financial system appears to be helping conceal its profits."

"Gardeners are inadvertently killing scores of earthworms with soil conditioners marketed as “organic”, experts fear, as they call for tighter regulation on products that poison the invertebrates."

"The bird flu virus sweeping across dairy farms in multiple states has acquired dozens of new mutations, including some that may make it more adept at spreading between species and less susceptible to antiviral drugs, according to a new study."

"More than 1,000 sea lions have gathered at San Francisco’s Pier 39 this spring, the largest herd in at least 15 years. Mounds of floppy, delightfully ungraceful marine mammals have plopped themselves on to rafts along the city’s pier, displaying themselves to the thousands of tourists who pass by the area each day."

"An orangutan appeared to treat a wound with medicine from a tropical plant— the latest example of how some animals attempt to soothe their own ills with remedies found in the wild, scientists reported Thursday."