Habitats

The crraaaack! was so loud that James Tolbert looked out his town house window to investigate, and that's when he saw it -- a snowy white head with yellow eyes soaring into the woods across the street, a tree branch the size of a baseball bat locked in its beak. The National Park Service soon confirmed what this blighted community 1.5 miles from the Capitol could scarcely believe: A pair of American bald eagles had built a nest in the nation's capital for the first time since Harry S.

More than a third of native California bird species could vanish from a wide swath of their current range by the end of the 21st century because of global warming, according to a new study by Audubon California.

Los Angeles Zoo keepers Sunday appealed to city officials to complete a $42-million elephant enclosure, saying it would be the best place for Billy, the zoo's lone remaining elephant, to breed and thrive. The exhibit, they said, would allow for more exercise and stimulation than an animal refuge, where critics have suggested the 23-year-old Asian bull be sent. Creation of the 3.

A few weeks ago, 19 Ecuadorean citizens detained on these world-renowned islands were marched onto a plane and sent back to the continent under armed guard. Their crime? Illegal migration. So far this year, the government has expelled 1,000 of its citizens from the Galapagos -- a living laboratory of unique animal and plant species -- who were there without residency and work permits. It has also "normalized" 2,000 others, in effect giving most of them a year to leave.

In the rush to feed the world's growing appetite for climate-friendly fuel and cooking oil that doesn't clog arteries, the Bornean orangutan could get plowed over. Several plantation owners are eyeing Tanjung Puting park, a sanctuary for 6,000 of the endangered animals. It is the world's second-largest population of a primate that experts warn could be extinct in less than two decades if a massive assault on its forest habitat is not stopped.

The Los Angeles Zoo's controversial pachyderm exhibit was hardly the proverbial elephant in the room Wednesday during a packed L.A. City Council meeting. Far from being an unspoken issue, the topic consumed 4 1/2 hours of discussion. People cheered and groaned as wildlife experts, animal welfare activists, impassioned schoolteachers, zoo lovers, a former game show host-cum-animal cause philanthropist (Bob Barker) and council members weighed in on the future of elephants in the city.

Sand dunes, not sugar, attract the endangered Delhi Sands flower-loving fly. Unfortunately for Colton, it has plenty of the former -- and it's costing the blue-collar San Bernardino County city a bundle. A swarm of the endangered fly lives on a habitat-protected swath of dunes in the city's west side. For years, city officials have wanted to join the rest of the rapidly expanding Inland Empire and cash in on the area's growth. But every time the city has tried, the fly has killed the buzz.

State wildlife officials Wednesday said they have forwarded the results of a seven-month investigation into the deaths of hundreds of young seabirds last summer to the Long Beach city attorney's office for prosecution. More than 500 terns -- slim seabirds related to gulls but in this case mostly too young to fly -- plummeted off two privately owned barges in the Long Beach Harbor in late June.

After being sharply criticized for allowing developers to bury gopher tortoises alive, the state wildlife commission has released a plan intended to virtually eliminate the practice and halt the species' decline.

Capping a 10 1/2 -month investigation that came to be known as "Terngate," a tugboat captain and his deckhand are expected to be charged this morning in connection with the deaths last summer of hundreds of seabirds in the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex. The charges in the case that came to light in June when the corpses of newly hatched terns began washing up on local beaches will be announced at a news conference at Long Beach City Hall led by city prosecutor John Fentis.