New ways to kill wolves sought despite species' return to endangered list. Government agencies are seeking broad new authority to ramp up killings and removals of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes, despite two recent court actions that restored the animal's endangered status in every state except Alaska and Minnesota.

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Idaho game officials said on Friday they would seek federal approval to kill off hundreds of wolves in their state despite a court ruling that restored protection of the animals under the Endangered Species Act.

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Idaho game officials said on Friday they would seek federal approval to kill off hundreds of wolves in their state despite a court ruling that restored protection of the animals under the Endangered Species Act.

Government scientists recommend fishery closures to help Alaska's endangered sea lions. Atka mackerel and Pacific cod fisheries in far western Alaska should close so that endangered sea lions can get enough to eat, government scientists said Monday.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters Life!) - A dead whale has been discovered pinned to the bow of a Princess Cruises luxury liner near Juneau, the third such incident for the company's Alaska fleet in a decade, officials said on Thursday.

Judge orders federal government to re-evaluate environmental harm of fire retardant drops. A federal judge Wednesday ordered the U.S. Forest Service to take a tougher look at the possibility that routinely dropping toxic fire retardant on wildfires from airplanes will kill endangered fish and plants.

Salazar task force finds big obstacles remain to logging in Western Oregon. A federal task force said Thursday that major obstacles ? from deep mistrust to policies demanding protection of threatened species ? still stand in the way of increasing logging in Western Oregon.

Scientific petition cries wolf; seeks fed protection for the predators across historic range. Tens of thousands of gray wolves would be returned to the woods of New England, the mountains of California, the wide open Great Plains and the desert West under a scientific petition filed Tuesday with the federal government.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Justice Department has started interviewing witnesses as part of the criminal and civil investigation of the oil spill that has sullied the Gulf of Mexico, Attorney General Eric Holder said in a television interview broadcast on Sunday.

Biologists say salmon, steelhead returns on Columbia River above 10-year average. The numbers of salmon and steelhead heading up the Columbia River are well above average, including a record run of sockeye, biologists say.

Montana sets 2010 hunt quota at 186 wolves; increase could lead to decline in wolf population. Montana wildlife regulators have set this year's wolf-hunt quota at 186, more than doubling last year's quota, with the aim of reducing the state's wolf population for the first time since they were reintroduced to the Northern Rockies in 1995.

Wildlife regulators found potential Gulf oil spills posed low risk to endangered species. Less than three years before the Gulf oil spill erupted, federal regulators concluded several offshore drilling projects posed a low risk to endangered wildlife ? a determination that contrasts sharply with recent scenes of birds struggling to survive the slick.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Environmental groups, BP and the U.S. Coast Guard reached tentative agreement on Friday on measures to prevent sea turtles from being incinerated alive in controlled burns of spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

Deal being finalized in lawsuit alleging turtles were killed when BP burned oil from Gulf well. BP and several wildlife protection groups are working out the final details of an agreement to resolve a lawsuit alleging turtles were being killed as BP burned oil from its blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico, attorneys said Friday.

In an ambitious and unprecedented plan to save wildlife, volunteers in coming weeks will move tens of thousands of turtle eggs from oil-soaked Gulf of Mexico beaches to safety on Florida's Atlantic coast.

Animal welfare groups sued BP for burning endangered sea turtles and asked a federal court to stop the oil giant's "controlled burns" on the Gulf of Mexico spill.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Environmental groups filed suit against BP Plc on Wednesday seeking to halt controlled burnings of spilled oil on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico because they say endangered sea turtles are being burned alive in the process.

Scientists to whisk some 70,000 turtle eggs away from oil spill in rare effort to save species. An effort to scoop thousands of turtle eggs from their nests to save them from death in the oily Gulf of Mexico will begin in the coming weeks in a desperate attempt to keep an entire generation of threatened species from vanishing.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - From a legal perspective, BP's Deepwater Horizon blowout and the 1989 grounding of the Exxon Valdez are in many respects night and day.

US polar bear regulator acknowledges there's little to do to stop loss of animals' ice habitat. Polar bear policy in America can be summed up succinctly: The iconic bears are threatened with extinction, and so far nothing much is being done.