Wildlife

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Friday for the San Francisco Bay Area as an oil spill continued to coat some of the state's most storied coastline and imperil marine wildlife. The declaration commits state money and resources for what he vowed would be an exhaustive battle to clean up the 58,000-gallon spill from the container vessel Cosco Busan.

Edom, Texas It was a cool Saturday night in East Texas, and many men were surely someplace warm, swilling beer and watching football. That was not Joe Paddock's idea of good times. Covered in camouflage and carrying an AR-10 assault rifle, night-vision goggles and enough ammo to outfit a small battalion, Paddock was wading through weedy bottomlands, eager to "get up on some hogs," as he excitedly put it. Two packs of wild boars on a retired fire marshal's ranch had eluded his scope for weeks.

A wounded sea gull clung to life Wednesday at a San Pedro bird rescue center, the sole survivor among five gulls found last week in Manhattan Beach after being shot by an unknown assailant. The bird suffered a broken bone in one wing, where X-rays found two pellets, apparently from a shotgun or BB gun, said Cyndie Kam of the International Bird Rescue and Research Center, where the bird is being treated. The five, all with wing injuries, were brought to the center between Nov. 13 and Nov. 15.

Wildlife researchers Patricia Cramer and John Bissonette scanned the bushes and brush amid patches of snow, looking for signs of mule deer. Gleefully, Cramer kicked at a pile of droppings. "There you are," she said. "I like to see that. It means the mule deer are coming through here." It also means, she added, that deer are using a corrugated metal underpass to get to the other side of a four-lane highway splitting Sardine Canyon without becoming part of a growing national statistic -- roadkill.

From Costa Rica to Peru, a fungal epidemic fueled by global warming may have wiped out dozens of frog species in otherwise pristine environments, a new study concludes. Within the last 20 years, about two-thirds of Central and South America's 110 brightly colored harlequin frog species have vanished. A killer fungus with a worldwide range and an affinity for amphibian skin previously had been indicted as a prime suspect in their disappearances.

AS we nudge the raft out into the surging current of the Skagit River, our guide, Jerry Michalec, challenges his six passengers to be the first to spot an eagle. "Sit anywhere on the thwarts or the side of the raft and look any direction," he suggests. "Just don't fall in the river." Not that anyone would want to risk that. For bald eagles, the Skagit is a comparatively balmy winter vacationland, but for humans, it's bundle-up territory where hand warmers are indispensable accessories.

Dark-haired with a toothy grin, she used to be a liberated female, footloose and fond of junk food, long showers and wrestling. She favored Dr Pepper, pizza -- and the two Oregon mountain men who took her in. But the world occupied by the black bear known as Windfall has shrunk to the size of a zoo cage. Home today is the Applegate Park Zoo in this town 109 miles south of Sacramento, far from the thick forest that once served as a playground for the petite 2-year-old.

Frogs exposed to a mix of pesticides at extremely low concentrations like those widely found around farms suffer deadly infections, suggesting that the chemicals could be a major culprit in the global disappearance of amphibians, UC Berkeley scientists reported Tuesday. When tadpoles were exposed in laboratory experiments to each pesticide individually, 4% died before they turned into frogs. But when atrazine and eight other pesticides were mixed to replicate a Nebraska cornfield, 35% died.

In one of the world's most isolated jungles, the Foja Mountains of western New Guinea, naturalists have discovered a vast unexplored preserve of exotic species new to science. During a 15-day expedition in December, the researchers found hundreds of rare birds, more than 20 new species of frogs, five kinds of previously unknown palms, four new breeds of butterflies, and giant rhododendrons with white blossoms the size of bread plates -- believed to be the largest on record.