Free Republic

Wildlife officials have killed a grizzly bear in Wyoming and a grizzly bear in Montana to head-off potential lawsuits. The Montana grizzly killed and partially consumed Kevin Kammer at a Gallatin National Forest campground near Cooke City, Mont. on July 29. The Wyoming grizzly killed 70 year-old botanist Erwin Evert on June 17 on the Shoshone National Forest near the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The circumstances were quite different, but the decision to kill the bears was undoubtedly influenced by a 1996 court case over the terrible bear mauling of 16 year-old Anna Knochel at a U.S. Forest...

Work on a West Virginia wind power project has been halted by a federal judge who sided with environmentalists' claim that the project would harm an endangered bat. U.S. District Judge Roger Titus issued the order Tuesday, citing potential harm to the federally endangered Indiana bat. John Stroud, co-chairman of one of the environmental groups that filed the lawsuit, Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy, said group members were "really delighted with the ruling." "We've been working on this for a while and the judge saw things our way, and we're really pleased," said Stroud, a rare book dealer who owns...

Friends of the missing Virginia Tech student will be walking in the Vinton Christmas parade, which starts at 7 p.m......The 20 year old disappeared after going to a Metallica concert in Charlottesville on October 17.....Harrington was well known at the Roanoke office of Mental Health America, where she was a volunteer with the Forgotten Victims Group, which helps children of domestic violence. Harrington started volunteering there when she was in the eighth grade.....Some of the very people Harrington helped will be marching in the parade and passing out fliers about her disappearance. The group plans to pass out about 2,000...

Conservation Groups Again Seek Endangered Species Protection For Giant, Spitting Worm In Wash. (AP) Fans of the giant Palouse earthworm are once again seeking federal protection for the rare, sweet-smelling species that spits at predators. They filed a petition Tuesday with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requesting the worm be protected as an endangered species.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - It's called a white-crested laughing thrush and it's bringing smiles to zookeepers in Syracuse. The Rosamond Gifford Zoo greeted a new bird March 7. The chick is named Zephyr.

Whoever said that money doesn’t grow on trees was dead wrong. For years, my grandfather harvested and sold old-growth Redwood timbers to saw mills scattered throughout California’s Santa Cruz mountains. But that was before environmentalism went mainstream and the state introduced some of the world’s toughest rules and regulations to govern the logging industry. Gone are the monstrous bulldozers of my grandfather’s years that dragged felled virgin trees over the forest floor, destroying habitats and neglecting streams and rivers in their paths. Today, California’s timber harvest operations rely on a system of checks and balances. Registered foresters, technology-savvy loggers and...

The Sumatran Striped Rabbit (Nesolagus netscheri), also known as the Sumatra Short-eared Rabbit or Sumatran Rabbit, is a rabbit found only in forest in the Barisan Mountains in western Sumatra, Indonesia. It is listed as a critically endangered species — its rarity may be due to deforestation and habitat loss.

The Perija Parakeet is listed as critically endangered and is a threatened species. The area of forest in Colombia were the bird was sighted in 2005 was declared an Important Bird Area. Redone with wife's voice!

This video is created from a rare photo of the Perija Parakeet (Pyrrhura caeruleiceps) in the wild is one of the first ever. The colorful parakeet species has a distinctive blue nape and white breast, is threatened by illegal bird traders and habitat disturbance and loss, according to the American Bird Conservancy. The Perija Parakeet is listed as critically endangered and is a threatened species.

It is time, says a U of T biologist, that we began 'to think of humans as part of the natural world' July 13, 2008 Murray Whyte Staff Reporter Consider the Jefferson salamander. About average-finger length, its grey skin mottled with black. Amphibious, spawning in Southern Ontario's quickly vanishing woodland vernal pools. Prognosis: Dying. Now, the urban raccoon. Plump and furry, not so adept at fishing as its rural cousins, perhaps, but expert at garbage-tipping. An adaptable squatter in buildings both abandoned and, as homeowners near High Park well know, occupied. Prognosis: Thriving. The tiny Jefferson, its numbers dwindling to...

SPECIES STATUS: Unreliable data, threat to energy development cited. By DAN JOLING The Associated Press The State of Alaska will sue to challenge the recent listing of polar bears as a threatened species, Gov. Sarah Palin said Wednesday. She and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear habitat off the state's northern and northwestern coasts.

PITTSBURGH - To the list of simple childhood pleasures whose safety has been questioned, add this: eating snow. A recent study found that snow — even in relatively pristine spots like Montana and the Yukon — contains large amounts of bacteria. Parents who warn their kids not to eat dirty snow (especially the yellow variety) are left wondering whether to stop them from tasting the new-fallen stuff, too, because of Pseudomonas syringae, bacteria that can cause diseases in bean and tomato plants. But experts say there's no need to banish snow-eating along with dodgeball, unchaperoned trick-or-treating and riding a bike...

Interior Department Removes Northern Rocky Mountain Wolves from Endangered Species List Contacts Ed Bangs (406) 449-5225, x 204 Joan Jewett (503) 231-6211 Sharon Rose (303) 236-4580 Joshua Winchell (703) 358-2279 The gray wolf population in the Northern Rocky Mountains is thriving and no longer requires the protection of the Endangered Species Act, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett announced today. As a result, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will remove the species from the federal list of threatened and endangered species. "The wolf population in the Northern Rockies has far exceeded its recovery goal and continues to expand...

The state Fish and Game Commission made the longfin smelt a candidate for the state's endangered species list Thursday, setting off alarms statewide among both water agencies and construction contractors. The three commissioners voted unanimously to list the tiny fish that ranges from California to Alaska as a candidate species for one year. After a year of study, the fish could be added to the state's list of endangered or threatened species. During that year-long study, however, the commission will limit the amount of water that can be pumped south out of the fish's habitat in the San Francisco Bay-Delta...

Good Neighbor Forum is proud to announce Mr. Lyle Laverty, US Department of the Interior's Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, will speak at the: 2nd Annual Good Neighbor Forum Topic: Food in the 21st Century How policies including conservation easements, ESA, Water, Roadless, EU, precautionary principles and trade will impact your food supply. March 15, 2008 9:00 am - 4:00 pm For more information contact: Roni 970-284-6874 Featured Speakers include Mr. Lawrence Kogan, Esq. - N.J. Will address Precautionary Principle, European Union and more. Dr. Corey Ciochhetti - CO Will address Ethics and Essence of being a...

DHAKA (AFP) — An extremely rare river dolphin has been beaten to death by fishermen in southern Bangladesh. Fishermen at Mongla, near the Sunderbans mangrove forest, netted a Ganges river dolphin on Monday and beat it to death as they had not seen this kind of creature before, the state-run BSS news agency said Tuesday. A group then tried to sell it as a rare fish, before giving up and dumping it outside a museum. The Sunderbans area straddles the borders of Bangladesh and India's West Bengal state and lies on the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta. According to the World Wildlife Fund,...

This striped rabbit is critically endangered. When being raised as a child I hunted and ate many rabbits. I feel I should take a plight for the endangered and God given beautiful creatures. Revski

This photo video of the Perija Parakeet (Pyrrhura caeruleiceps) in the wild is one of the first ever. The colorful parakeet species has a distinctive blue nape and white breast, is threatened by illegal bird traders and habitat disturbance and loss, according to the American Bird Conservancy. The Perija Parakeet is listed as critically endangered and is a threatened species.

PRAY - For rancher Randy Petrich, the removal of gray wolves from the endangered-species list - a move that would open up the animals to hunting in the Northern Rockies for the first time in decades - couldn't come soon enough. Petrich has seen fresh wolf tracks almost every morning this fall - close enough to threaten his cattle. "I believe that any wolf on any given night, if there happens to be a calf there, they will kill it," ... Just 12 years since the wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park ... federal officials say the sharp rise...

Governor Sarah Palin on Friday called on Congressman Brad Miller to use scientific information, not political rhetoric, to set important public policy issues. Miller recently tried to undermine the State of Alaska's April 2007 comments on the proposed listing of polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. He attempted to discredit one of 54 studies the State had cited. The study was one of many supporting Alaska's position that polar bears should not be listed. The State concluded the best available scientific and commercial data do not demonstrate that the polar bear is likely to become endangered in...