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“World Ends! Amphibians, Cartilaginous Fishes Hardest Hit.” That was the headline yesterday in newspapers all over the country as editors reacted to a press release from Science magazine which described a broad study of species loss. Even the Wall Street Journal, which is not known for overreacting, ran this: “A War Against Extinction: The Number of Species Keeps Falling, but Conservation Racks Up a Few Successes.” Golly! A war! What makes this headline odd is that this same paper, and many others, not one month ago, announced to us: “Census of Marine Life unveils 6,000 new species.” That’s a lot...

A fifth of world's plant species at risk of extinctionThe Irish Times - Thursday, September 30, 2010 LONDON – ONE in five of the world’s 380,000 plant species is threatened with extinction and human activity is doing most of the damage, according to a global study published yesterday. Scientists from Britain’s Botanic Gardens at Kew, London’s Natural History Museum and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), found that more than 22 per cent of species were endangered, critically endangered or vulnerable. “The single greatest threat is conversion of natural habitats to agricultural use, directly impacting 33 per...

Mass extinctions have served as huge reset buttons that dramatically changed the diversity of species found in oceans all over the world, according to a comprehensive study of fossil records. The findings suggest humans will live in a very different future if they drive animals to extinction, because the loss of each species can alter entire ecosystems. Some scientists have speculated that effects of humans - from hunting to climate change - are fueling another great mass extinction. A few go so far as to say we are entering a new geologic epoch, leaving the 10,000-year-old Holocene Epoch behind and...

Idyllwild, Calif. (AP) -- Researchers have released dozens of tadpoles into a Riverside County stream in hopes of reviving a frog species endangered in the region. San Diego Zoo officials say zoo researchers bred the 36 mountain yellow-legged frog tadpoles that were released Tuesday into a stream near the town of Idyllwild. The mountain yellow-legged frog is on the federal Endangered Species List in Southern California and has recently been proposed for listing under the California Endangered Species Act.

A rare basket star, seen riding on its intricate network of arms, is among a haul of strange and previously unknown deep-sea creatures recently found in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, scientists announced Tuesday. Ten potentially new species—including "mountaineering" sea cucumbers and possible "missing links" between invertebrates and backboned animals—were discovered during the six-week expedition. The voyage, which ended July 3, was the last of the MAR-ECO project, a series of biological surveys of unexplored waters along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the underwater mountain range that bisects the Atlantic Ocean from north to south. Star of the Deep Photograph courtesy...

Emergencies: As frustration with the federal response grows, Louisiana's governor lashes out at the feds for doing little except blame BP for the Gulf oil spill. Meanwhile, Congress sees a chance to raise your gas taxes. While the Obama administration continues on its quest to fundamentally transform America, the largely unabated Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico threatens to fundamentally transform the ecosystems and economy of Louisiana and the Gulf region. The federal government's response so far has consisted largely of scapegoating BP and ignoring its own responsibilities and lack of preparation, railing against Big Oil, while Congress...

Immigration: Arizona moves to protect its citizens from a raging border war, and the administration and its activist supporters cry racism. Why is antelope protection more important than protecting American lives?

Island Gray Fox Photograph by George H.H. Huey, Corbis With fewer than a thousand individuals left, the island gray fox (pictured) may not be able to outfox extinction, according to the new Wildlife Conservation Society report "Rarest of the Rare." The island gray—the smallest fox in the United States—is found only on California's Channel Islands (see map). The tiny mammal has succumbed to predation from golden eagles as well as diseases from domestic dogs introduced to the islands, experts say.

Looking like a creature from the Alien movies, this nightmarish "longhead dreamer" anglerfish (Chaenophryne longiceps) was until recently an alien species to Greenland waters

Politics: The water spigots are back on, at least temporarily, in California's Central Valley. Turned off to protect a tiny fish, they happen to be in the districts of two congressmen "undecided" on health care reform. One could chalk it up to good fortune or just good constituent service. But in the middle of a contentious health care debate marked by Cornhusker Kickbacks and Louisiana Purchases, we may be forgiven if we find an announcement by the Department of the Interior regarding California's water supply a tad too coincidental. On Tuesday, the Department of the Interior announced it was increasing...

Competitiveness: The latest index of economic freedom shows America falling fast, being ranked for the first time as "mostly free." We've fallen behind Canada, and it's look out below. Our accelerating descent into a command-and-control economy with government pulling the strings is taking its toll. The Heritage Foundation's 2010 index of leading economic indicators shows that the land of the free is only mostly free, falling to eighth in the world from sixth last year, now sandwiched between Canada and Denmark. That Canada, long considered a bastion of socialized medicine, is ranked as economically freer may surprise some. But our...

Global Warming: The Alaskan governor who knew polar bears weren't endangered says the planet isn't either and challenges the oracle of climate change. Al Gore says despite the CRU e-mails, the situation is of the utmost gravity. In a Dec. 9 Washington Post op-ed, Sarah Palin noted that the Climate-gate e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia "reveal that leading climate 'experts' deliberately destroyed records, manipulated data to 'hide the decline' in global temperatures and tried to silence their critics from publishing in peer-reviewed journals." This did not sit well with Gore. "The entire North...

NEW SPECIES PICTURES: 850 Underground Creatures Found The newfound blind cave fish Milyeringa veritas, seen above, inhabits the same Cape Range aquifers as a blind cave eel found during the same survey of Australia's underground habitats. The only blind cave fish known in Australia, the 2-inch-long (5.1-centimeter-long) species is "remarkably versatile," living in freshwater or seawater in underground coastal regions during various stages of its life, researchers say."

Ecology: The administration creates the mother of all protected habitats for a species whose numbers have increased since Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." It's our hopes for energy independence that are drowning. When filmmaker Phelim McAleer, whose documentary "Not Evil Just Wrong" takes apart the myths of global warming, got to ask Gore a question at the annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists, McAleer brought up the nine critical errors in Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth." A British court two years ago listed them and said they must be righted before the film could be shown in schools...

BEIJING (AFP) – Paleontologists in east China may have discovered the remains of a new species of dinosaur at what is said to be the world's largest group of fossilised dinosaur bones, state media said Wednesday. Scientists in Zhucheng city, Shandong province, have for months been exploring a gully over 500 metres (1,650 feet) long and 26 metres deep that is strewn with thousands of dinosaur bones, the Jilu Evening News said. Paleontologists believe that a fossilised skeleton dug up in Zhucheng and shipped to the China Academy of Sciences in Beijing last week could be a new species of...

Environmentalism: Sen. Dianne Feinstein votes to deny water to California's drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley. Farmers, families and food are being held hostage to an endangered fish called the delta smelt. (snip) The Senate rejected the amendment by a largely party-line 61-36 margin, with Feinstein opposing the restoration of water deliveries to farmers. The California senator claimed she was blindsided by the amendment to the bill she was managing in the Senate, bizarrely comparing the move to a "Pearl Harbor." "No one from California has called, written or indicated they wanted this on the calendar," Feinstein protested.

A bird-eating frog, a technicolour gecko with orange eyes and a bird that flies only when it is frightened are among dozens of new species discovered in an ecologically fragile part of Asia. Researchers in the Greater Mekong area of South-East Asia also found a tiger-striped pitviper, a new wild banana and, even rarer, two new types of mammal, a report for the wildlife charity WWF says. However, conservationists fear that the discoveries, many of which are unique to small areas of jungle, river or mountains, are under threat from destructive development and climate change. The most colourful of the...

Delta smelts: Preferred over humans. Environmentalism: Sen. Dianne Feinstein votes to deny water to California's drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley. Farmers, families and food are being held hostage to an endangered fish called the delta smelt.There was a time when the San Joaquin Valley was the most productive agricultural region in the world. It was a large part of what made the Golden State golden.Now it's a place where farmers no longer farm, but instead line up at food banks to feed the families of those who once fed the rest of the country and a good chunk of the...

Over 350 new species including the world’s smallest deer, a “flying frog” and a 100 million-year old gecko have been discovered in the Eastern Himalayas, a biological treasure trove now threatened by climate change. A decade of research carried out by scientists in remote mountain areas endangered by rising global temperatures brought exciting discoveries such as a bright green frog that uses its red and long webbed feet to glide in the air.

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.