In brief: Grizzlies listed as threatened

Edmonton, Alberta – Grizzly bears have been listed as threatened in the Canadian province of Alberta, and a ban on hunting has been extended by officials who say the animals are suffering from habitat loss and low reproductive success.

While bears elsewhere in the Northern Rockies have been rebounding from near-extermination last century, fewer than 700 roam Alberta outside of Banff and Jasper national parks.

Residential construction, logging and energy development have pushed deeper and deeper into the grizzly’s wilderness refuges, breaking up the province’s bear population into increasingly isolated small groups.

Thursday’s announcement by Alberta’s minister for sustainable resource development follows years of warnings that more protections were needed.

Murder suspect delivered to Peru

Lima, Peru – The young Dutchman long suspected in a U.S. teen’s Caribbean island disappearance was delivered to Peru on Friday to face charges in the murder of a 21-year-old woman found with her neck broken in his Lima hotel room.

Joran van der Sloot told police in Chile – where he was captured on Thursday – that he did not kill Stephany Flores but did say “he met her and at some point they went to a casino,” said Fernando Ovalle, a Chilean police spokesman.

The girl’s father, Ricardo Flores, told the Associated Press that video cameras tracked the couple as they walked before dawn Sunday to van der Sloot’s hotel from the casino in Lima.