Cull of animals that eat native shrubs, causing spread of fast-igniting grasses, to go ahead despite fierce opposition

Locals and tourists have long fawned over Catalina Island’s mule deer population. For nearly a century, the ungulates have roamed the land’s waterfronts and woodlands, so comfortable around humans that it is not uncommon to spot deer roaming downtown Avalon.

But that sight will soon disappear, after a judge this week paved the way for the island’s conservancy to kill nearly all the island’s 2,000 deer.

Woman from Reno was swimming near Hidden beach when river otter attacked her, Tahoe’s second incident in a month

A swimmer at Lake Tahoe in Nevada was bitten by a river otter and needed to get 38 stitches for her wounds as well as rabies shots, local media have reported.

Lynnette Bellin from Reno was swimming near Hidden beach on the Nevada side of the popular tourist attraction on Sunday when she was attacked by the creature.

Relatives of Benjamin Halona remember his career as wildlife firefighter and his zeal for selling tamales

Relatives of a New Mexico man who was fatally mauled by a bear inside his home recently say they are choosing to remember his firefighting career and zeal for peddling tamales rather than his rare, brutal manner of death.

As Benjamin Halona’s sister, Gloria Halona, and her daughter, Samantha Vandever, put it, that is the least he deserved after the quiet dignity that he showed becoming a widower in February and subsequently grappling with health problems that required him to use a walker and a wheelchair to move around.

Experts say more bears are wandering into human's homes and shops in search of food, due to drought-driven food shortages across the US west

State to offer up to 5,000 trappers chance to snare reptiles whose numbers have risen to 3m from fewer than 100,000

The first recreational alligator hunt in Louisiana in more than half a century is about to commence in the swamps of that state, with up to 5,000 hopeful trappers facing strict rules in order to snare a reptile.

The state’s fish and wildlife commission banned alligator hunting in 1962 to allow the species to recover after decades of unregulated killings for meat and hides dropped numbers there to below 100,000.

Decision to rescind ‘roadless rule’ opens more than 45m acres of national forests to roads, drilling and logging

More than 400 endangered animal and plant species could face accelerated extinction after the Donald Trump administration’s decision to rescind a rule that has protected old-growth forests for more than two decades.

According to a new report from the Center for Biological Diversity, the rollback of the Bill Clinton-era “roadless rule” could put 7.4m acres (3m hectares) of endangered-species habitat and nearly 1,800 miles (2,900km) of protected rivers and streams at risk, while opening more than 45m acres of national forests to roads, drilling and logging.

Police department for Navajo Nation neither identified the victim nor said what type of bear had killed him

In a rare kind of attack, a bear killed a man in Crystal, New Mexico, on Thursday, local police said.

The police department for the Navajo Nation said officers within its Window Rock district received a call at about 1pm that a bear had attacked a man.