Environment in Focus

Health warning on bridge over Herring Run in northeast Baltimore, which has been plagued with sewage overflows.

Cownose rays dining on oysters.  Photo courtesy of Robert Fisher/Virginia Insitute of Marine Science.

Stern of the Tanka, a World War I era cargo ship. Photo: Tom Pelton

Researchers working with Virginia Commonwealth University caught and released this sturgeon in the James River on September 11, 2009. It weighed 300 pounds and was more than seven feet long.  Photo: VCU.

A hotly debated study by Cornell University Professor Robert Howarth concludes that hydraulic fracturing for natural gas is as bad as coal mining--and perhaps worse--from a global warming perspective. Howarth says vast amounts of methane--a potent greenhouse gas--escapes during gas drilling and transportation, and this means that natural gas is not a clean, green bridge fuel to a low-carbon future. The industry strongly disagrees.

American eel. Photo credit: NOAA.

The American eel, or Anguilla rostrada, is one of the strangest and most contrarian fishes in the world, with a migration pattern opposite that of most species.  But its populations are declining, in part because of overfishing for seafood markets in Europe and Asia, and because a growing number of their streams are blocked by dams and development.

Crows.  Credit: iStockphoto.com

When the West Nile Virus spread from Africa to New York 12 years ago, crows became infected with the mosquito-borne disease and started dying by the millions across America. Many people blamed these black carrion eaters for spreading the flu-like illness to about 300,000 Americans. But now researchers say the crows were innocent victims, and West Nile Virus was spread by the more cheerful-looking American Robin and other birds.

Fisheries scientist Bill Goldsborough (right) catching striped bass with host Tom Pelton (left).

Photo: Neil Ever Osborne, International League of Conservation Photographers.