The Chesapeake Bay Foundation released its annual “State of the Bay” report card, and it gave the bay a D, due in part to this summer’s massive dead zone and growing problems for rockfish.

The bay’s ranking this year is is the same as last year – 27 out of 100. A score of 40 would be enough to meet the 2010 goal of getting the bay off the nation’s “dirty waters” list. 70 would indicate a restored bay, and 100 would represent the pristine estuary that Capt. John Smith explored early in the 17th century.

Read (WTOP)

Tennessee’s hemlock trees are coming under attack by man at the same time that a deadly exotic insect is targeting them. In one case, State park rangers found 2,700 hemlock seedlings and saplings dug from the Grundy State Forest Natural Area.

Read (Dickson Herald)

A change in the diet of seabirds may be making them less intelligent and lowering their chances of survival and breeding, a new study shows.

Read (BBC)

As many as 200 million Monarch butterflies may migrate to Mexico this year – 10 times more than in 2004, when unfavorable weather, pollution and deforestation caused a drastic decline in the population.

The butterflies began reaching Mexico at the end of October and usually continue to stream south until early December. The spectacle of millions of orange and black butterflies carpeting fir trees attracts 200,000 visitors a year. Authorities plan to open four major sanctuaries to tourists on Nov. 19.

Read (AP via The Environmental News Network)

That is a trip I’d like to add to the to-visit-one-day list. I can see it now – the kids are grown up, my wife and I are retired, and we’ve driven to Mexico in our RV to check out the butterfly spectacular. Wow!

The Bush gave local managers the authority to decide where visitors can use off-road vehicles in national forests, a move that could reshape how Americans experience the country’s 155 forests and 20 grasslands.

Rather than specifying criteria for designating routes for motorized vehicles, the rules instruct local officials to base decisions on public input, with the aim of minimizing environmental damage and conflicts with other users. This approach drew praise from riders of motorcycles, four-wheel-drives and other off-road vehicles — whose numbers have risen from 5 million in 1972 to 51 million in 2001 — but drew criticism from environmentalists.

Read (Washington Post)

Unusually warm waters are bleaching coral reefs throughout the Caribbean, raising fears of a die-off of the important organisms.

Read (AP via WTOP)

State and university researchers plan a detailed study on urban neighborhoods that have become hot spots for coyotes.

Read (AP via WTOP)

After years in south Georgia, where they are common road kill and a nuisance to some homeowners, armadillos have spread to the chillier northern half of the state where their digging and burrowing is already generating complaints.

Read (AP via WTOP)

The brown-and-black markings on this year’s crop of woolly bear caterpillars suggest the 2005-2006 winter will be mild.

Read (WTOP)

To assure consumers that the lumber they buy is part of a sustainable-forest plan, timber companies that log public lands have been getting ‘green’ certifications. Now, the Forest Service is looking into the practice.

Read (Wired)

It’s as seasonal as the falling leaves and about as welcome as soaring gas prices, but the arrival of deer-mating season has many motorists girding for what officials predict could be a record year for deer crashes in the D.C. suburbs.

Read (Washington Post)