Images

The USGS National Wildlife Health Center works to identify, track, and prevent wildlife disease. A USGS technician works with a prairie dog as part of the center's efforts to protect prairie dogs, and in turn the endangered black-footed ferret, from plague.

A prairie dog stands on alert. The USGS National Wildlife Health Center works to identify, track, and prevent wildlife disease. Better protection of prairie dogs against plague would minimize the risk of disease transfer to endangered black-footed ferrets, aid in prairie dog conservation, and protect public health.

Female pallid sturgeon, PLS11-007, is released back into the Missouri River after an ultrasound evaluation of her reproductive condition. 

Dr. Sasha Reed, research ecologist with the USGS, was one of 94 recipients of the 2011 PECASE award.

A small slough in Suisun Slough in the Suisun Bay, California.

The Golden Gate Bridge seen through Racoon Strait in the San Francisco Bay, California.

Mikhail Malin, visiting IBIW scientist, prepares to deploy a high-resolution sidescan sonar towfish below Bagnell Dam on the Osage River.  The CERC and IBIW collaborated with the Missouri Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Missouri to assess the distribution of paddlefish below the dam using telemetry, sidescan sonar, and DIDSON.

Beau Griffith, a biological technician at CERC, stands at the bottom of one of the newly reconstructed ponds designed to conduct long-term studies with sturgeon and other riverine species.  A divider and circulators can be installed in the sandy-bottomed ponds to create the continuous water current that sturgeon prefer.

This large Burmese python, weighing 162 pounds and more than 15 feet long at the time of its capture in 2009, was caught alive in the Everglades and was found to have eaten an American alligator that measured about 6 feet in length.

In the drier Arizona upland plant communities, pictured here, some species will likely decline with forecasted climate change (such as foothill paloverde, ocotillo and creosote bush) while cacti may well increase in abundance and range.

Dart Poison Frogs are commonly found in Central and South America and are from the Dendrobatidae family.

Songbird finding food for its young.

Drought and climate change are causing extensive forest dieback in the U.S. West as well as worldwide. These photos show dead ponderosa pines in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico killed by a combination of drought stress and attacks by bark beetles on weakened trees.

Drought and climate change are causing extensive forest dieback in the U.S. West as well as worldwide. These photos show dead ponderosa pines in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico killed by a combination of drought stress and attacks by bark beetles on weakened trees.

Turtle in Shenandoah National Park.

Shallow coral reefs in the U.S. Virgin Islands are in jeopardy due to climate warming and ocean acidification.

Schools out !. Bus passing by largest Burr Oak in Missouri.

USA-National Phenology Network citizen-scientist Lucille Tower records the one millionth observation on maple vine in the large nature database.

Picture of Geyser Valley in Olympic National Park in Northwest Washington.

A newly hatched probable sturgeon larvae captured near the spawning site of PLS09-011 in Nebraska.

USGS biologists translocated critically endangered Laysan Teal, such as this one, from Laysan Island to Midway Island in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands to expand the species' population and range and help guard against extinction.