TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- Biologists have released more than 25,000 masked bobwhite quail in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge since 1985, when the federal government bought a ranch for nearly $9 million and booted cows from the grasslands southwest of Tucson. But within a year of being set free, more than 90 percent of the endangered birds were dead, most of them picked off by hawks. Today, 100 to 200 survive in the wild.
WAIMEA, Hawaii -- Bird calls ricochet among the trees in a patch of native forest on Mauna Loa's lower slopes, but the birds themselves are so evasive we sometimes spend minutes scanning the towering koa canopy to glimpse even a flicker of their small shadows. A phalanx of binoculars goes up as a far-off silhouette wings closer and lands on a high branch overhead. The bright red bird with a slender, curved bill, an i'iwi, matches the coloring of the pom- pom-shaped lehua blossoms whose nectar it sips. The i'iwi perches for less than a minute, then launches off the branch and flits out of view on its black-edged wings.
To visit a newly discovered nesting site for an endangered bird species, David Thorpe doesn't have to don camouflage and stalk off into the wilderness for some remote, pristine spot. All he has to do is hop into his SUV, drive past a locked gate and onto some dusty acreage where murky, slate-colored water spews from a pipe and oozes into ponds that are lined with piles of ash and set against a backdrop of towering smoke stacks.
It's been a tough few weeks for birds on New Jersey's endangered species list. A red-shouldered hawk in Allendale suffered head injuries Tuesday when it flew into a window just yards from its nest. And last month's nor'easter washed a peregrine falcon nest off a cliff in Alpine.
CAPE MAY Feral cats have won a round against endangered birds. A packed house of cat lovers persuaded the Cape May City Council to hold off on a plan to relocate wild cat colonies away from beaches where endangered shore birds nest.
JOHANNESBURG - South African scientists are fitting young penguins raised by humans with satellite transmitters so they can track them once released into the wild, hoping to gather information that might one day lead to new breeding colonies of the endangered birds. Researchers used tape and glue to attach a transmitter the size of a matchbox to a 10-week-old African penguin Friday. The 6.6- pound bird named Richie will be given a week to get used to swimming in a pool with the 1-ounce device before he's released into the ocean from the southern tip of Africa. The first penguin in the project was released last month, and in all, five are to be released over a few months.
The big topwater bait arced into the air and splashed onto the calm surface of Big Muskego Lake in Waukesha County. I reeled in slack and waited for the ripples to disappear. The bright morning air was alive with signs of summer. Dragonflies buzzed overhead and alighted on the bow of my canoe. Stands of cattails, lush and green, lined the shore. A painted turtle dozed on a stump in the shallows.
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