Biological Threats

Every few days, a fleet of satellites orbiting 700 kilometers above the Earth scans the continental United States to help keep Americans safe. But these eyes in the sky aren’t seeking terrorists or enemy combatants: they scrutinize lakes to locate problems of the microbial variety, namely cyanobacteria.

In late 2006, beekeepers across the United States reported sudden, dramatic losses in honey bee colonies. Similar losses were reported in 2007 and for several subsequent years. The reasons for these losses were unclear.

California's Bay-Delta is facing ongoing drought and declining fish populations. The water in the Delta arrives primarily from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, supplying water for more than 22 million people. This water source supports California’s trillion-dollar economy—the sixth largest in the world—and its $27 billion agricultural industry.

On a windy July morning on Lake Superior’s Whitefish Bay, fisherman Ralph Wilcox of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and his son, Dan, netted 300 pounds of wriggling whitefish. The mild-flavored salmon relative is served in restaurants, in smoked fish spreads, and as gefilte fish at Passover. However, two of the fish in the Michigan fishermen’s nets were badly wounded.

Our Nation works to advance renewable energy and to avoid conflicts with and conserve wildlife.

The sagebrush landscape has long been valued by humans; first by the Native Americans, who lived off the resources in this vast landscape, then the European colonizers, who established large-scale livestock operations. Local economies throughout the West are supported by the many unique aspects of the sagebrush landscape.

Amphibians—the big-eyed, swimming-crawling-jumping-climbing group of water and land animals that includes frogs, toads, salamanders and worm-like caecilians—are the world’s most endangered vertebrates.

On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil. At the time, the spill was the Nation’s largest environmental disaster.

Habitat for the Pacific walrus in the Chukchi Sea is disappearing from beneath them as the warming climate melts away Arctic sea ice in the spring, forcing the large mammals to “haul out” of the ocean and temporarily live on land.

In 2003, wildlife scientists carrying out regular nighttime road surveys in Everglades National Park started to see fewer medium-sized mammals. Over the next few years, rabbits disappeared completely, and populations of foxes, raccoons, possums, bobcats, and white-tailed deer were either small or absent.

Every so often, wildlife managers in Pinedale, Wyoming, discover carcasses of mule deer floating in Fremont Lake, outside of town. The deer drown while crossing thin ice during their spring migration to the mountains. Exactly where they came from was unknown—until recently.