There are no wild penguins in the U.S. But many penguin species worldwide are in danger—some dramatically—and all populations are dropping fast. What to do, what to do?

Last December, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) proposed protecting seven penguin species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Six of the species would be declared "threatened," whereas the seventh, the African penguin (Spheniscus demersus), would be listed as "endangered." The action followed a lawsuit, and resulting court order, to review the penguins' need for protection.

That proposal is still pending (under the law, the FWS has a year to act on its proposals), but meanwhile the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has announced plans to file another lawsuit to protect three penguin species not covered in the December proposal.

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Protecting endangered species is an expensive proposition. The U.S. federal and state governments spent $1,537,283,091 toward conserving threatened and endangered species in 2007, plus another $126,086,999 in land purchases for habitat preservation, according to a new report from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS).

The 202-page report (PDF) covers species protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and includes money spent in fiscal year 2007 (October 2006 to September 2007).

"Conservation" includes a wide variety of activities such as "research, census, law enforcement, habitat acquisition and maintenance, propagation, live trapping, and transplantation." On a broader note, the report defines conservation to incorporate "any and all actions taken by Federal and State agencies on behalf of threatened or endangered species listed pursuant to the Act."

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Heading into the jungles of Madagascar in search of the world's rarest lemur—the greater bamboo lemur (Prolemur simus)—was a gamble that paid off, said Damian Aspinall of The Aspinall Foundation. An expedition of scientists from the foundation, Conservation International (CI), Association Mitsinjo, and GERP (Groupe d'Etude et de Recherche sur les Primates de Madagascar) searched hundreds of miles of Madagascan forests and found evidence that the bamboo lemur lives in at least 11 sites previously unknown to science.

For a species that was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered in the 1980s, and whose population was previously estimated at fewer than 100 animals in the wild, this discovery is a victory and "another milestone in saving one of the world's most threatened primates," said Russ Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, in a prepared statement.

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For the first time in more than 70 years, black-footed ferrets (Mustela nigripes) are now living wild on Canadian soil. Last Friday, the Toronto Zoo released 34 black-footed ferrets into the prairies of Grasslands National Park in southern Saskatchewan near the U.S. border. The endangered species—once "probably the rarest mammals on Earth," according to the Black-Footed Ferret Recovery Program—disappeared from Canada in 1937, and was thought to have gone completely extinct around 1974.

About half of this batch of released ferrets were born in the Toronto Zoo's ferret breeding program, and then temporarily transferred to a similar facility in the U.S., where they had a chance to practice their hunting and survival skills in a controlled environment before being released into the Canadian wild.

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As goes the water, so go the dragonflies. That's the finding of a new report from the IUCN concluding that one fifth of dragonflies and damselflies in the Mediterranean region are threatened with extinction as a result of increasing freshwater scarcity. Threats facing the insects include habitat degradation, pollution and climate change.

According to the IUCN report, "The Status and Distribution of Dragonflies of the Mediterranean Basin" (pdf), the assessment of 163 Mediterranean dragonflies and damselflies shows that five species are Critically Endangered, 13 are Endangered and 13 are Vulnerable under the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species classification system. In addition, 27 species are considered Near Threatened. Six more species were so rare that the IUCN Dragonfly Specialist Group could not collect enough data to properly assess their status.

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Since its discovery in January 2007 the lethal fungal infection known as white-nose syndrome (WNS) has killed at many as 1.5 million bats in the U.S. Northeast. Now, as temperatures start to drop this autumn into the range where WNS operates at its optimal killing capacity, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) has drafted a plan to respond to the problem.

The draft report, "A Plan for Assisting States, Federal Agencies, and Tribes in Managing White-Nose Syndrome in Bats" (download the PDF here), calls for a highly coordinated interagency effort to manage WNS and conserve the bat species it affects. The report isn't final, but it is an important step to take before winter, when the WNS-causing fungus will be at its strongest.

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Travel to the African nation of Angola and you'll see representations of the giant sable antelope (Hippotragus niger variani) everywhere you turn: on the country's currency, on stamps, and on company logos. But unless you look really hard, you probably won't find any actual giant sable antelopes. Fewer than 100 of the iconic animals are believed to exist following the devastation of Angola's bloody 27-year civil war. Now a new project hopes to reverse that and create some hope for this critically endangered species.

It took six years of careful monitoring and tracking, but scientists at the Catholic University of Angola in Luanda have finally managed to capture 10 purebred antelopes, which will now form the core of a breeding program to save the species from extinction.

Finding purebred sable antelopes wasn't easy. The species became so rare that it started mating with roan antelopes (Hippotragus equinus), creating hybrid beasts that are genetically useless for conservation purposes.

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Koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) may be one of the world's cuter critters, but that doesn't mean they have it easy. Not only have koala populations become heavily fragmented due to habitat loss, they face numerous threats that they never encountered before: household cats and dogs frequently kill koalas; hundreds die every year after being run over by cars and trucks; and now a deadly virus is spreading to koalas throughout Australia.

The koala retrovirus, which infects and alters the animal's DNA, has been linked to a variety of diseases and medical problems, including leukemia, bone marrow failure, cancer and AIDS-like immune deficiencies. First found in 2000, the retrovirus is already forcing some smaller koala populations into extinction, says Jon Hanger, director of research and ecological services at the Australian Wildlife Hospital. Hanger was the first person to genetically sequence the koala retrovirus after its discovery.

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Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) may be the world's fastest land mammal, but that hasn't helped them escape their worst enemy: humans. The big cats have been hunted to extinction in 15 countries, and their remaining African and Asian populations currently face genetic weaknesses, such as low sperm counts and deformed tails, because of inbreeding.

Now, controversial efforts are underway to return the cheetah to India, the nation that gave the species its name (citrakaya in Sanskrit). Minister of Environment & Forests Jairam Ramesh has vowed to reintroduce the cats, which were hunted to extinction in India 60 years ago. "The only mammal to go extinct since independence in India is [the] cheetah," Ramesh recently said during a Parliamentany meeting. "We plan to bring the cheetah back."

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Goose Creek milkvetch (Astragalus anserinus), a rare plant that only exists in a 25-square-kilometer area straddling the borders of Idaho, Nevada and Utah, "warrants protection under the Endangered Species Act" (ESA) but it won't get it, because other species have "higher priorities," according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS).

The FWS announced its decision on the plant Thursday. The species remains on the FWS's "candidate list," although there is no prediction of when, or if, it will actually receive ESA protection.

It took more than five years for the FWS to come up with this decision. More than 25 conservation organizations first petitioned them in 2004 to protect this species of milkvetch. The service then spent several years collecting data on the plant to see if it deserved protection under the act.

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