Endangered Species

Rare plants are increasingly finding their way outside their normal habitats because of commercial sellers and citizen conservationists, two ecologists warn. Unless the movement of such plants is better regulated, it could spell trouble for endangered species as well as the environments to which they are moved. The caution, written by Patrick Shirey and Gary Lamberti at the University of Notre Dame and published in the journal Nature, warned that rare plants grown outside their native territories can disrupt their new environment, hybridize with related plants and blur their genetic individuality, or carry pathogens them that devastate other plants.

N.Y., as in Not You bozos, too. . . . NBA powers, like Miami, have risen, and some, like Phoenix, have fallen, like the Suns since the Lakers' glory run started four seasons ago. And NBA teams have come out from under rocks, or wherever the Knicks went after 2001, their last finish over .500. Not that Spike Lee would show up here, as he did Sunday, when Pat Riley was the Prince of the City in the '90s and the Knicks contended for titles but neglected to win any. This team was only No. 6 in the East but at 53, Lee can't hold out for a title, having waited 38 years since the last one. So, welcome, Spike!

A kind of family feud has erupted in San Benito County's rich slice of Central California farmland over plans to build a massive solar power facility in a valley shared by 20 ranchers and organic farmers and some of the rarest creatures in the United States. Both sides of the dispute insist they are fighting for the same things ? protecting the environment and growing the local economy. County officials ? some of them farmers themselves ? believe Solargen Energy Inc.'s proposed 400-megawatt solar farm on 5,000 acres just south of San Francisco Bay will be a key part of a new future based, in part, on green technology.

A judge in San Francisco on Tuesday ordered the state to reconsider ? for the third time ? whether to extend endangered species protection to the tiny American pika, a mountain-dwelling mammal whose population may be declining because of climate change. Superior Court Judge Peter Busch ordered the California Fish and Game Commission to review scientific data and determine whether the pika qualifies for listing under the state endangered species law. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined to list the species earlier this year.

U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, who manages a ranch outside Billings, Mont., knows quite literally what it means to have the wolf at the door: Several years ago, a single wolf got into his pasture and killed 51 prized cashmere goats. "'Shoot, shovel and shut up' is a joke in Montana," said Rehberg, referring to a longstanding reference among landowners across the West ? perhaps only half in jest ? to the best way to deal with a federally protected endangered species like the gray wolf. The reintroduction of the wolf in the northern Rocky Mountains has been so contentious that Rehberg, a Republican, is joining a group of congressmen preparing an unusual move to aim their weapons at the Endangered Species Act itself.

Environmentalists have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the San Bernardino flying squirrel, a nocturnal glider native to Southern California mountains, as an endangered species threatened by climate change . The petition , filed Tuesday by the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, is another salvo in the nascent effort to combat global warming through the Endangered Species Act. The move comes after...

A federal appeals court panel has ruled that wild steelhead remain an endangered species and rebuffed Central Valley irrigators' efforts to relax federal government protections on the Pacific salmon. Six irrigation districts had challenged the National Marine Fisheries Service decision to list the oceangoing steelhead separately from more plentiful freshwater rainbow trout on the grounds that the two fish interbreed and the steelhead were therefore protected from extinction. Both types of Pacific salmon are born in fresh water, but steelhead migrate to the ocean whereas rainbow trout remain in rivers and lakes.

A male Rothschild giraffe calf born late last month at the Prague Zoo is gunning for the title of World's Cutest Zoo Baby. He has some tough competition -- an Amur leopard cub in Germany, a red-necked wallaby joey in Australia, a pair of Asian lion cubs in Germany, a parma wallaby joey in Ohio and a koala joey in Germany, to name a few -- but we think the sweet, snuggly relationship he has with his mother Nora just...

A foolish housekeeping mistake ended up costing the life of a beloved giant panda at the Jinan Zoo in China last week. Zoo staff were disinfecting an area that shared a ventilation system with the enclosure for Quan Quan , a 21-year-old panda that had given birth to seven cubs, earning her the title of "heroic mother." Toxic fumes from the cleaning job caused her lungs to collapse. Tragic accidents can befall animals in any setting — at a zoo, in a forest. But there is a special responsibility due to animals when humans hold them in captivity.

Environmental groups filed suit Friday in federal district court arguing that the nation's first offshore wind energy project violates the Endangered Species Act. The suit accuses the Obama administration of failing to protect endangered birds and whales in approving the Cape Wind project, a set of 130 wind turbine generators to be installed on Nantucket Sound off the Massachusetts coast. The suit is first legal challenge to the project since it was approved April 28 by federal officials, who lauded it as a model of renewable energy production.