Biodiversity

"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."

"A new legal petition filed by a dozen public health and farm worker groups demands the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stop allowing farms to spray antibiotics on food crops in the US because they are probably causing superbugs to flourish and sickening farm workers."

UPDATE: As of Dec. 1, NPR reports funding for USDA's Beltsville, Md., research center has been resored. No link available. 

"Industry groups and scientists have urged the Trump administration to reconsider its plan to close a renowned Agriculture Department center in Maryland and disperse its work around the country."

"Advocates say a recent settlement is a win in the fight to hold industrial ag giants accountable."

"Scientists searching for novel ways to fight cancer think they may have uncovered a promising new lead tucked away inside the cells of the bowhead whale."

"For the first time, scientists are tracking the migration of monarch butterflies across much of North America, actively monitoring individual insects on journeys from as far away as Ontario all the way to their overwintering colonies in central Mexico."

"Two captive whitetails tied to the Texas “ghost deer” investigation tested positive for chronic wasting disease at a Tom Green County facility owned by breeder Ken Schlaudt, according to records obtained by Public Domain."

"A Washington resident who was the first human case of bird flu in the U.S. since February died on Friday, state health officials said. The person was an older adult with underlying conditions and had been hospitalized since early November with a strain that was previously reported in animals but never before in humans."

"The plan from the Interior Department is one of the president’s most significant steps yet to increase domestic fossil fuel production."

"The Trump administration on Thursday announced a plan to allow new oil and gas drilling across nearly 1.3 billion acres of U.S. coastal waters, including a remote region off Alaska in the northern Arctic where drilling has never before taken place.

The plan is one of President Trump’s most significant steps yet to increase the production of fossil fuels, the burning of which is dangerously heating the planet.

"Despite the Makah Tribe’s success in getting a waiver to carry out their exclusive treaty right for whaling, the permitting process that had dragged on for over 20 years has now been effectively delayed  another year and a half – because of bogged-down federal bureaucracy. The Makah Tribe is the only one in the Lower 48 that has an exclusive treaty right to whaling."