The Obama administration is evaluating a plan to allow a 200-mile corridor for wind energy development from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico that would allow for killing endangered whooping cranes. The government’s environmental review will consider a permit sought by 19 energy developers that would permit turbines and transmission lines on non-federal lands in…

A federal judge on Saturday rejected a plan negotiated between the government and wildlife advocates to remove most wolves in the Northern Rockies from the Endangered Species List. The deal struck earlier this month between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and 10 conservation groups would have lifted federal protections from an estimated 1,200 wolves…

The Idaho House on Tuesday approved a measure that declares the state’s wolves a “disaster emergency” — akin to a flood or wildfire — and gives the governor broad powers to eliminate them. The bill, approved by a 64-5 vote, now heads to the Senate, where a dozen members have signed on as sponsors. The…

Montana’s governor on Tuesday barred Yellowstone buffalo exposed to a livestock disease from entering his state, effectively granting a temporary reprieve for the 217 buffalo targeted for slaughter. The order by Governor Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, cited worries about brucellosis, a bacterial infection that can cause cows to miscarry, to temporarily delay government plans to…

A congenital defect combined with U.S. government plans to kill bison exposed to an infectious cattle disease could doom America’s last wild herd of pure-bred buffalo at Yellowstone National Park, a genetics expert said in a new study. The findings were posted on Monday in Nature Precedings, an online archive for pre-publication research by scientists,…

Less than a week after 25 wild buffalo from the nation’s last purebred herd were permitted to roam into Montana, officials have shot and killed one bison and were debating the fate of 14 others. Government wildlife managers on January 19 drove a trial band of buffalo, or bison, from Yellowstone National Park into nearby…

Conflicts between people and grizzlies in the Yellowstone National Park region are likely to rise this year as more bears try to recolonize areas now inhabited by people, wildlife managers said on Tuesday. The news comes as federal and state agencies gather beginning on Wednesday in Montana to craft measures they hope will reduce the…

A shortage of berries and other foods that hungry bears normally rely on to bulk up before hibernation has sent conflicts with humans spiraling to unprecedented levels in the Rocky Mountain West. Wildlife officials in parts of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming say they are experiencing a record year for so-called problem bears, which wander from…