We’ve been watching for news about how Midway Atoll NWR and other Pacific refuges fared after the tsunami passed today. We gather the humans could make it to higher ground, but we know a lot of birds are nesting on the islands now, including the Laysan albatross named Wisdom and the famous short-tailed albatross — [...]

This week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied Endangered Species Act protection to the Mount Charleston blue, a rare Las Vegas butterfly that government scientists have said needs federal protection to avoid extinction. The population of this highly endangered species has declined drastically since 1995, with recent counts resulting in only 17 butterflies found.
As [...]

The St. Petersburg Times reports that the Center for Biological Diversity, the Florida Panther Society and two other groups have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to transplant endangered Florida panthers to Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, parts of which exist in both Georgia and Florida, thus creating a panther colony outside their current range.
As [...]

The Endangered Species Coalition is holding their annual 2011 Endangered Species Day Youth Art Contest. Started in 2006 by Congress, Endangered Species Day recognizes the importance of endangered species and is an occasion to educate the public on how to protect them. The youth art contest lets young people learn more about endangered species and [...]

The endangered Delmarva fox squirrel is named for the location of its historic range on the Delmarva Peninsula, which includes Delaware, the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and eastern Virginia (DEL-MAR-VA). The largest natural population of the Delmarva fox squirrel is located at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland, although a growing population lives at Chincoteague [...]

Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge is located on 50,000 acres in southeastern Indiana — land that was the location of the Jefferson Proving Ground (JPG). JPG was established by the Army in 1940 as an ordnance testing installation and closed in 1995. Beginning in 1996, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service managed the wildlife [...]

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is maintaining a blog — titled “Return of the Red Wolf: Tails from the Swamp” — for their Red Wolf Recovery Program, and some of the recent entries offer an interesting look at how wolves are safely trapped and fitted with radio telemetry collars in order to track their [...]

Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and one of the challenging activities taking place at this beautiful and important refuge is the protection and recovery of the endangered Steller’s eider.
Steller’s eiders are the smallest eiders in size and are restricted to northern latitudes where they breed in freshwater [...]

On December 10, the “Today Show” featured an interesting segment about the manatees at Three Sisters Springs in Florida. As this blog reported on July 29, The Conservation Fund, the National Wildlife Refuge Association, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service completed a major conservation agreement earlier this year that resulted in the protection of [...]

Patoka River National Wildlife Refuge and Management Area is located in southwestern Indiana within the historically important north-south flyway of the Wabash River Basin. Established in 1994, as the 502nd national wildlife refuge in the country, the refuge currently contains just over 6,000 acres.
The refuge has been in the news lately because of a proposed [...]

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. No refuge in the National Wildlife Refuge System is as well known — and as vigorously fought over — as the Arctic Refuge.
While much is written about the Arctic NWR, much bad information continues to circulate. Many in the media get [...]

Defenders of Wildlife, along with several other environmental groups, have grown alarmed over recent reports that Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar “is prepared to agree to, and is actively promoting, legislative language that would eliminate Endangered Species Act protections for all gray wolves in the Northern Rockies, including those in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and portions [...]