There are high mountain lakes in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks that are naturally free of fish and home to yellow-legged frogs. Non-native trout, introduced into the lakes, are now threatening the survival of the frogs, and the question for the National Park Service is what to do about it.

There are 560 lakes and ponds within the parks that contain introduced trout, and removal of these non-native species from up to 15 percent of these sites will be considered. Up to 82 lakes and 56 miles of streams are being considered for trout removal.

In its scoping document, the Park Service says the trout removal project “is needed to preserve and restore aquatic ecosystems and populations of native species, including mountain yellow-legged frogs in high elevation lakes and streams, creating new opportunities for visitors to experience native wildlife yet also maintaining recreational fishing opportunities.”

A preliminary project to eradicate trout from 11 lakes in the two parks since 2001 has allowed the recovery of yellow-legged frogs at these lakes. Now Park Service officials want to broaden the campaign to restore the frogs throughout the two parks - while leaving the fish in many lakes that are popular with anglers.

So the controversy is which lakes to remove the trout from, and how to go about doing it. For more information, and the opportunity to comment if you are so inclined, go to Save The Frogs!

The siamese crocodile was thought to have disappeared and was declared extinct in the 1990’s. But wait a minute.

DNA tests have found 35 pure-bred Siamese crocodiles at a wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia.

There are fewer then 250 of the species left in the wild, but the crocodiles at the sanctuary could now form the basis of a captive-breeding programme.

The discovery continues a remarkable comeback for the species.

Siamese crocodiles were declared extinct in the 1990s - before a small population was discovered in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains.

This is the conservationist equivalent of finding gold in your backyard or a Rembrandt in the attic. The siamese crocodile is still in such low numbers that it remains endangered, but a new population to breed from is a big hope.

Some good news about a species that’s been declining.

With its gleaming red, blue and green feathers, the painted bunting is often described as the most beautiful migratory songbird in North America.

After a 30 year decline and extirpation from parts of its U.S. range, the species appears to be recovering. Now scientists at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington are reaching out to citizen scientists to help them confirm this observation and help advance the bird’s survival.

The eastern population of painted buntings breeds in summer along the Atlantic coast from North Carolina to Florida and migrates south for the winter into southern Florida and the Caribbean. It is this population that is the focus of Painted Bunting Observer Team research.

Helping out can be as simple a matter as keeping track of buntings that visit your bird feeder.

In Florida, the team wants to recruit and maintain an active group of volunteers who can make observations and collect data at backyard bird feeders and can help band and monitor banded buntings, especially during the winter.

So if you’re a backyard bird feeder living from North Carolina to Florida and want to help out with learning more about the painted bunting, click here.

To many people, prairie dogs are a symbol of the Old West. To others, they’re a nuisance animal that gets in the way of grazing cows. It’s a tough call, but the EPA is giving some indications which side they’re going to come down on.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently considering whether to approve a poison, appropriately named Kaput-D, that would be used to exterminate black-tailed prairie dogs.

Kaput-D is an anticoagulant poison. It causes animals to lose blood through various orifices, including eventually the skin membranes, over a period of weeks. During this time, poisoned prairie dogs may wander around as they become weaker and weaker and vulnerable to predation. As that point, animals that prey on prairie dogs or use prairie dog habitat can themselves be poisoned.

The EPA is in charge of regulating rodenticides like Kaput-D and has the power to reject applications, as well as alter or cancel existing permits (known as registrations). The agency is also required to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service anytime a rodenticide may impact an endangered species such as the black-footed ferret. Thus far, however, EPA has refused to do so in regard to not only Kaput-D but also for already existing prairie dog poisons such as Rozol, another anticoagulant.

Not only that, but Kaput-D can spread up through the food, poisoning other prairie animals from black-footed ferrets to owls and bald eagles. yes, prairie dogs can be a nuisance to ranchers, but it’s pretty clear which side the EPA is supposed to be on when it comes to decisions affecting a possibly endangered species.

The plight of the monarch butterfly is well known, deforestation and climate change threaten their winter breeding grounds in Mexico. As if that weren’t enough, the trees the monarch’s depend on are now being threatened themselves.

Environmental officials in Mexico are battling an unprecedented beetle infestation that threatens to destroy the forests of the monarch butterfly’s winter home.

After decades of battling illegal logging in the monarch sanctuary, biologists and park workers have been forced to selectively cut down infected trees in an attempt to stop the beetles from spreading.

Bark beetles have existed for some time in the monarch reserve, usually attacking only a handful of trees at any one time. But drought earlier this year weakened as many as 9,000 oyamel firs, allowing the beetles to burrow in and tap the trees’ nutrients.

One problem is that pesticides used to fight the beetles could also harm the butterflies, so workers are attacking the beetle infestation manually, one tree at a time.

It’s back to the drawing board for the U.S. Forest Service’s plans in California.

U.S. Forest Service management plans for four Southern California national forests do not adequately protect those forests’ wildest landscapes, a federal district court judge has ruled.

U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel sided with seven environmental groups, ruling that the Forest Service failed to assess cumulative damage to those national forests that would be caused by road building and other development in most of the forests’ roadless areas, in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.

Surrounded by some of the most rapidly urbanizing land in the United States, these forests are the last remaining refuge for the region’s imperiled species such as the steelhead trout, the California condor and the California spotted owl.

The proposed plan would have left only 79,000 roadless acres out what is currently nearly a million. In other words, the wilderness character of these forests would have been nearly erased. Hikers, campers, trout fishermen, and just plain lovers of wilderness all owe a big thank you to Judge Patel, who understands that the laws governing wilderness and forest management actually mean what they say, and are not just minor nuisances to be avoided in favor of the desires of land developers and their allies in the U.S. Forest Service.

The plight of salmon in the Pacific Northwest and along the coast is well known, what hasn’t been quite as evident is what, if anything can be done about it. Restoring an historic salmon breeding ground certainly couldn’t hurt, and a possible agreement reached today regarding dams on Oregon’s Klamath River would be a big step in that direction.

Dams along the Klamath River that are blocking salmon could be removed by 2020, in an agreement announced Wednesday.

The 28 parties that have been negotiating the fate of the four Klamath River Dams released the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement. In coming weeks Klamath Basin Tribes, counties, conservation groups, fishing groups, and farming and ranching organizations will consider the pros and cons of the agreement and decide whether or not to support it.

That means there are still a large number of people who have to agree to pay for and do this, but the importance of salmon to the economies of the area would make you think that this is a move that pretty much everyone will support.

“Once we decided to stop fighting and start talking, we realized the opportunities provided by collaboration and coalition building,” said Jeff Mitchell, council member for the Klamath Tribes of Oregon. “We haven’t seen salmon in our country for 90 years; this agreement represents our best chance of finally bringing the salmon home to the Upper Basin.”

Whether you call it critical habitat or an Important Bird Area, the idea is the same, provide a place that’s protected and can support the species who live there.

Lake Nakuru National Park in central Kenya, internationally known for its concentration of bright pink flamingos, has been designated as an international bird sanctuary.

It becomes the first national park in Africa to be recognized as an Important Bird Area under the international IBA program established by the UK-based global organization BirdLife International and its worldwide network of partners.

Lake Nakuru National Park was created in 1961 as a bird sanctuary. At that time, the famous American bird artist and author Roger Tory Peterson called the massed flamingos on the lake “the world’s greatest ornithological spectacle.”

In the world of environmentalism, conservationism, and endangered species, realpolitik rears its ugly head.

Conservationists should “pull the plug” on giant pandas and let them die out, according to BBC presenter and naturalist Chris Packham.

“Here’s a species that, of its own accord, has gone down an evolutionary cul-de-sac,” Packham told Radio Times magazine.

Packham believes that money spent on conserving the panda would be better invested in other animals as the species is not strong enough to survive alone.

Fortunately for scientists, unlike politicians, there is a tradition of standing up and saying what you really thing, instead of what merely may be expedient.

“It is a daft thing for Chris to say, and an irresponsible one,” Mark Wright, a WWF conservation science advisor, told British media.

“Pandas have adapted to where they live. They live in the mountains where there is plenty of the bamboo they want to eat.

For anyone who respects and loves these magnificent animals, news out of Canada concerning grizzly bears can only be described as shocking, and sad.

It’s called the Great Bear Rainforest, but few grizzly bears have been seen on British Columbia’s north and central coast this year. Conservationists and bear viewing guides are blaming the disappearance of the bears on the overfishing of salmon, their main food source.

“I have not observed a single mother and cub-of-the-year in our traditional territory,” said Douglas Neasloss, a bear viewing guide of the Kitasoo-Xaixais First Nation on the central coast. “We are extremely concerned about the status of our bears right now.”

According to records kept by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, DFO, the British Columbia north coast has experienced four years of extremely low chum salmon returns. Chum are the mainstay salmon species for grizzlies because they have a high fat content, last a long time in the fresh water environment and are large in size.

“DFO has once again ignored conservation concerns and permitted overfishing in Area 6 on the B.C. North Coast,” said Ian McAllister of the BC-based wildlife conservation group, Pacific Wild.

That the Pacific Coast salmon fisheries are being depleted has been evident for several years now, so it should come as no surprise that there are consequences for any animal that depends on salmon for its main food source. But that quote about seeing no mothers with cubs at all shows how fast those consequences can happen. It’s up to Canadian officials now, but if they don’t act to protect the salmon, the days of grizzly bears in the area will be numbered and the name of the Great Bear Rainforest will live on only as an ironic reminder of what used to be.