Conservation Science

This summer, the Trump Administration issued a proposed rule that would drastically change the environmental review and public input process for projects in national forests. This proposal would be the biggest rollback of NEPA regulations affecting forest management in over a decade. If enacted, this new rule would allow commercial logging, the conversion of illegal off-road vehicle routes to official U.S. Forest Service roads, and other activities across large swaths of land without preparation of detailed environmental studies and the opportunity for public input, writes Fellow Nick Jensen.

Abstract

Crews for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power recently bulldozed hundreds of federally endangered plants in Topanga State Park, and both state and city authorities have launched investigations into DWP’s actions, part of a wildfire prevention project aimed at replacing 200 aging wooden power poles with steel ones.

For the Yurok tribe, fishing isn’t a recreational weekend activity to be paired with a cold beer. It’s a way of subsistence, a way of life. Fellow Keith Parker’s groundbreaking biology research regarding a new subspecies of Pacific lamprey, recently published in the science journal Molecular Ecology, may be the key to saving his tribe’s way of life.

Abstract

How much death can a species tolerate? Researchers have estimated the number of North Atlantic right whales that could be killed every year while still maintaining a stable population. “That number is 0.9,” says Sarah Sharp, from the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Six have died this month alone. “The species cannot sustain these kinds of losses. We’re seriously worried that extinction is in the all-too-near future.”

Beekeepers could be fuelling the worrying decline of wild bees, new research suggests. Wild bumblebees can contract diseases from domestic honeybees if they share the same flowers, according to new US research which suggests domestic beehives should be kept out of areas home to particularly vulnerable pollinators.

Wood frogs lie frozen in suspended animation. Salamanders wait below the frost line for the signal to return where they were born. A trifecta of thawing ground, favorable temperature and rain cues them to emerge and migrate to vernal pools for nights of communal courtship and explosive breeding. When they do, Keene, N.H., is committed to making sure they don’t land under the wheels of passing cars.

The National Audubon Society is getting involved in a lawsuit over the future of a national monument in the ocean off New England because of the area's importance to seabirds, especially colorfully beaked puffins. Fishing groups sued in federal court against creation of Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which former President Barack Obama designated in 2016. The case is on appeal. Court documents show Audubon has moved to file a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of keeping the monument.