Biodiversity

"On a jagged coastline in Central California, brown pelicans gather on rock promontories, packed in like edgy commuters as they take flight to feed on a vast school of fish just offshore. The water churns in whitecaps as the big-billed birds plunge beneath the surface in search of northern anchovies, Pacific sardines and mackerel."

"The revised watershed agreement extends pollution-reduction targets and bets on voluntary measures to achieve cleanup goals that have remained elusive for decades."

"Congressional lawmakers on Thursday voted to repeal a Biden-era policy that limited the amount of land in an Alaska wildlife refuge that could be leased for oil and gas development. The U.S. Senate voted 49-45 to approve a resolution that revokes the Interior Department's 2024 rule governing energy development on the 1.56-million-acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."

"How far back in evolutionary history does kissing go? Through phylogenetic analysis, an international team of scientists found that kissing was likely present in the ancestor of all apes – which lived 21 million years ago."

"Visiting a freshly logged forest in western Oregon earlier this fall, retired federal wildlife surveyor Erich Reeder stepped over mangled tree roots and dead limbs scattered across a denuded slope that was once an evergreen forest. He squatted over a foot-tall Douglas fir stump to count its rings: 120 years old."

"Whether people realize it or not, traces of the global wildlife trade are ubiquitous, from expensive reptile-skin boots in department stores to the colorful fish swimming around a tank in your dentist’s office."

"Governments at a wildlife trade conference have adopted greater protections for over 70 species of sharks and rays amid concerns that overfishing is driving some to the brink of extinction."

"Eels are the stuff of nightmares — slimy, snakelike creatures that lay millions of eggs before dying so their offspring can return home to rivers and streams. ... Yet they’re also valuable seafood fish that are declining all over the world, leading to a new push for restrictions on trade to help stave off extinction."

"With dwindling oversight, cattle are grazing where they’re not supposed to and in greater numbers or for longer periods than permitted. This can spread invasive plants, pushing out native species and worsening wildfire risk."