Save the Whales—but Forget the Delta Smelt

And most of them are still undiscovered

(NEWSER) - Humanity shares the planet with roughly 8.7 million species, most of them still undiscovered, according to a new study. Researchers used complex mathematical models to tackle a question that has long puzzled scientists, identifying numerical patterns in data from 1.2 million known species, excluding viruses and microorganisms, reports the Washington Post . Previous estimates ranged from 3 million to 100 million species. Some 86% of terrestrial species and 91% of marine species are still unknown, the researchers believe. More»

Feds not doing enough for wildlife in national forests, judge rules

(NEWSER) - Endangered birds, fish, frogs, butterflies, and even a species of sea lion are set to benefit from a judge's ruling that federal authorities need to do more to protect some 40 species in southern California's national forests. The judge ordered three federal agencies to "take all necessary measures" to devise and implement safeguards for the species, which include the California condor, the San Joaquin fox, and the Santa Ana sucker, reports the Los Angeles Times . More»

Crowd cheers as man pulls endangered fish to shore

(NEWSER) - A man may face charges for failing to help a black sea bass at Newport Beach, Calif. On Jan. 3, the fisherman accidentally caught the bass, which is a protected species. As boaters motored it ashore, he swam out, loosened the line and pulled the fish out of the water to help it—or so officials believed. But after videos of the incident—complete with cheering crowd—surfaced, officials decided to reexamine the case "to determine what, if any, crime occurred," a rep for a district attorney told the LA Times . More»

Some 60K animals believed to be alive today

(NEWSER) - In attempt to determine whether the humpback whales still need to be saved, the government is reviewing the marine mammals' place on the endangered species list for the first time in a decade. The results look promising: “They appear to be coming back pretty strongly in most of the places we are studying,” a marine biologist tells the Wall Street Journal. Scientists believed more than 60,000 humpbacks are out there, up from less than 5,000 in the 1960s. More»

(NEWSER) - The Army plans to evict more than 1,000 endangered desert tortoises to expand a tank training ground in the Mojave Desert, the Los Angeles Times reports. Conservationists warn that the last effort to shift the tortoises proved disastrous: Many were wiped out by predators, and others traveled up to 8 miles to return to their old territory. More»