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The sage grouse population has exploded in the last two years, growing by nearly two-thirds from more than 49,000 males in 2013 to more than 80,000 this year. ... This is encouraging news for the bird, and for the people whose lives would be turned upside down by the federal government if it still insists on listing the critter as an endangered species on the brink of extinction. The report considered the population across the bird’s 11-state habitat, with specific news on the growth in Colorado numbers ... The report falls on the heels of a gloom and doom forecast...

GAUTIER -- An endangered South Mississippi frog may be leaping away from extinction and into repopulation, thanks to a program at the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge in Gautier.Fifty-six dusky gopher frogs, a species indigenous to Harrison County, were released Friday into a pond on the refuge in Jackson County, bringing to 1,074 the number of the frogs that have been released since May. The dusky gopher frog, considered a "critically endangered" animal, has been on the endangered-species list since 2001. "We are taking an existing population of the frogs from Saucier in Harrison County and repopulating them elsewhere,"...

A rare and elusive rabbit has been found, held and photographed by a researcher from the University of East Anglia (UEA). The Annamite Striped rabbit, found in the forests of Laos and Vietnam, was first documented by rabbit expert Dr Diana Bell and colleagues from UEA’s School of Biological Sciences in the journal Nature in 1999. It has rarely been seen since. Researcher Sarah Woodfin, who is studying for a Masters in Applied Ecology and Conservation at UEA, set out on a three-month expedition to track the recently-discovered rabbit and study its habitat. But she didn’t expect to see one...

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Klamath Falls Field office of the Lakeview District will be hosting an open house to learn about the Draft Resource Management Plan (RMP)/Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Western Oregon. The open house meeting will be held the evening of May 26, 2015, from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm at the Shilo Inn Suites Hotel located at 2500 Almond Street, Klamath Falls, Oregon. BLM employees will be on hand to answer questions, provide information and listen to concerns. There will also be a demonstration on how to use the interactive maps and other online resources...

The U.S. Department of the Interior should do all it can to keep open the Colowyo coal mine in northwest Colorado, U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton and Sen. Cory Gardner, both Colorado Republicans, said in a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. ... Colowyo Mine employs 220 people in Moffat and Rio Blanco counties and has a payroll of about $20 million, Tipton wrote to Jewell, asking that Interior react quickly to a federal court ruling that could force closure of the mine. “The adverse effects of shutting down this mine go beyond the jobs at the mine that would be...

Garfield County officials said Monday the Bureau of Land Management is considering even-stricter measures to protect greater sage-grouse than previously contemplated, rather than listening to concerns the county and others have raised. As a cooperating agency, the county got an advance look Friday at the revised proposal the agency is now considering. “It is very dramatic in terms of the changes (from a draft BLM proposal) that are being proposed,” Fred Jarman, the county’s community development director, told county commissioners Monday. Jarman and Garfield Commissioner Tom Jankovsky said the proposed measures are the result of directives coming from Washington, D.C....

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Federal authorities say California's $68 billion higher-speed rail could harm the protected kit fox.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) said it is listing the northern long-eared bat as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, securing certain regulatory protections for the mammal and triggering charges of government overreach from some agricultural groups and politicians. ... The bat's range stretches from Maine to North Carolina on the Atlantic Coast, westward to eastern Oklahoma and north through the Dakotas, reaching into eastern Montana and Wyoming. In all, it covers 37 states, the District of Columbia and 13 Canadian provinces. In October 2013, the FWS proposed listing the bat as “endangered,” meaning on the...

Mesa County commissioners have thrown their first jab in a growing fight against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the department’s decision last November to list the Gunnison sage-grouse as a threatened species. Commissioners on Monday approved and signed a notice of intent to sue the federal government for listing the Gunnison sage-grouse as threatened and for designating a critical habitat for the bird in western Colorado and eastern Utah. The notice of intent to sue claims the listings are improper because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service noted the Gunnison sage-grouse population in the Gunnison Basin is “stable...

Even before it begins significant construction on the bullet train route, the California High-Speed Rail Authority has violated federal protections for the endangered San Joaquin kit fox in the Central Valley, federal regulators said in a letter last week. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the authority had set up a nine-acre construction yard outside the approved footprint for the project, affecting habitat and resulting in the destruction of a kit fox den. n a Jan. 26 letter, the service said the rail agency, along with the Federal Railroad Administration and its contractors, had failed to comply with the...

BEIJING – A Chinese businessman was sentenced to 13 years in prison for eating three tigers, one of the most endangered species on earth, reported the official news agency Xinhua. The ruling was made Monday by the Qinzhou Intermediate People’s Court in Guangxi. The condemned, a real estate magnate, known only as Xu, bought the three tigers that were killed in the months of March, April and May in 2013, at a price of around $70,900 each. The first tiger was killed by electric shocks on March 13 last year after which he prepared a banquet in a hotel where...

Wolves across the Great Lakes region are back under full protection of the federal Endangered Species Act as a result of a ruling by a federal judge Friday in Washington. Judge Beryl A. Howell sided with animal rights groups in a 111-page decision stating the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service went too far in removing federal protections for wolves in nine Great Lakes states in 2012. The judge ruled that wolves in the Great Lakes states be immediately placed under the protections of the government’s 1978 ruling to protect the animals, which had been hunted, trapped and harassed to near...

Sales of leases on 8.1 million acres of federal oil and gas parcels — an area larger than Massachusetts and Rhode Island combined — are on hold because of worries that drilling could harm greater sage grouse... the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s delay on the parcels underscores just how much is at stake for an industry that finds its future inextricably intertwined with a bird once known primarily for its elaborate mating display. The grouse’s huge range, covering portions of 11 states and an area more than four times as big as New England, includes vast oil, gas and...

Federal wildlife officials have granted protection to the Gunnison sage grouse, a move that could to bring restrictions on oil and gas drilling and other land uses to preserve the bird's habitat in Colorado and Utah. ... They're related to the greater sage grouse, which is at the center of a separate and larger debate over federal protection across 11 Western states.

Public Enemy No. 1 for rural Utah sheriffs just happens to be a fellow peace officer: Dan Love, the Bureau of Land Management’s special agent in charge. Elected law enforcement officers from Nephi to Blanding call him an arrogant and dishonest bully who has little regard for local authority and dodges accountability, derailing a collaborative approach to police work on the state’s federal lands. Love reportedly just laughed when Garfield County Sheriff James "Danny" Perkins relayed ranchers’ complaints about federal officers removing plastic feed tubs from the range and threatening the ranchers with litter citations. He drew early controversy during...

Two Utah congressmen say the public needs more time to weigh in on a "sweeping" proposal to designate more than a half-million acres as critical habitat for the Western yellow-billed cuckoo. Republican Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Chris Stewart are among 17 members of Congress who urged U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe to extend the comment period on the designation beyond Oct. 14. "While we oppose this listing proposal, we find it completely unacceptable that the (agency) has proposed only 60 days of public comment with no public hearings, effectively shutting out meaningful comment on a sweeping critical...

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead issued a statement Tuesday saying that he expects the state to seek a stay of Jackson’s decision. He said the state will seek an emergency rule from the Fish and Wildlife Service to allow continued state wolf management. ... Wyoming took over wolf management in late 2012 after the federal government ruled that wolves no longer needed protection under the federal Endangered Species Act.

With the public hearing in Soldotna last night, the public comment period on the proposal to close the Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 Brown Bear hunting season on the Kenai Peninsula comes to an end. In a release yesterday, the Governor’s office said, “Federal land managers have again proposed limiting Alaskans’ access to a state resource, the proposed closure is not justified by either resource protection concerns or federal policy. I strongly urge the Service to reconsider this action and allow state-authorized hunting to continue on the refuge.” ... The decision to temporarily close the Brown Bear season on the...

As they do whenever they visit Florida, Greg Groff and his young daughter stopped by the manatee pool at Miami Seaquarium, where the speed bump-shaped marine mammals placidly swim in circles. They noted the pink scars and disfigured tail on one manatee, damage from a boat propeller that left it unable to survive in the wild. Florida’s manatees need even more stringent protections than their listing on the federal endangered species list, Groff said, adding that boaters should go elsewhere if they don't like speed limits in waters where manatees swim. […] The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is reviewing...

The Endangered Species Act has wreaked havoc for decades on rural communities, but a newly filed lawsuit could force San Francisco urbanites like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to share their pain. A federal complaint filed this week contends that the Hetch Hetchy Project, which supplies water to San Francisco and the Bay Area, has unfairly enjoyed an exemption from the “severe cutbacks” required in rural California in order to save endangered fish species. Craig Manson, who heads the Center for Environmental Science, Accuracy and Reliability (CESAR) in Fresno, said the lawsuit is aimed at addressing the “double standard” that...