No. 1233, February 22, 2024

Southern Resident Orcas Win Oregon Protection

Following a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity and allies, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission just voted to protect Southern Resident orcas under the state’s Endangered Species Act. Now state agencies will have to develop concrete actions addressing the major threats to orcas there, including ocean pollution.

ICYMI: Southern Resident orcas are a critically endangered killer whale population off the Pacific Northwest that’s down to 74 individuals. These orcas are genetically unique, communicate in their own dialect, and eat mainly Chinook salmon. They’re also protected by Washington state and, thanks to our work, the federal Endangered Species Act.

“These struggling marine mammals need the entire Pacific Northwest to work together to bring back a healthy wild Chinook salmon population and strengthen the marine ecosystem,” said the Center’s Brady Bradshaw. “With Oregon at the table, the real work can begin.”

Join the fight with a gift to our Saving Life on Earth Fund.

Protect Refuge Wildlife From Pesticides

Every year hundreds of thousands of pounds of dangerous pesticides are sprayed on hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural crops grown in U.S. national wildlife refuges. It’s shocking that these public lands — set aside specifically to protect wildlife — are used in chemical-intensive commercial agriculture.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service just proposed a first-ever rule to ensure that agriculture and pesticide use on refuges don’t harm and actually help fulfill the purposes of the wildlife refuges: to ensure biological integrity, diversity and environmental health. Unfortunately, the rule doesn’t go far enough.

Tell the Service to strengthen its rule to ensure that national wildlife refuges can be what they were intended to be: places where wildlife can flourish without being poisoned by agricultural pesticides.

Petitions Aim to Help Snail and Sea Turtle

The Center filed two petitions this week to help shell-bearers: one tiny, the other giant. 

Freshwater Donner und Blitzen pebblesnails — also called strange pebblesnails — live only in one spring, in southeast Oregon, where they’re threatened by a campground as well as larger forces, like drought and climate change. So this week we asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to protect them under the Endangered Species Act.

And leatherback sea turtles who nest in Puerto Rico — among other places — lack sufficient protected habitat around the island. So we just filed a petition, along with allies, to expand their critical habitat there. Leatherbacks have lived on Earth since the time of dinosaurs, are the world’s largest turtles, and can dive down nearly 4,000 feet.

Be part of our work using the Endangered Species Act to save these and other species: Tell the Biden administration to help them survive and recover. 

Another Right Whale Struck by a Speeding Ship

According to NOAA Fisheries, a young female North Atlantic right whale found dead off Georgia this month had injuries consistent with the blunt-force trauma of a ship strike. Only about 360 of her kind remain, and five have already been reported dead or critically injured in 2024 — most due to vessel strikes or fishing-gear entanglement. Mother-calf pairs are highly vulnerable, but for two years the Biden administration has denied our emergency petitions to expand protections in their calving grounds. 

So now we’re in court, with our allies, seeking a deadline for finalizing a rule that will better protect these whales from deadly crashes. 

You can help: Urge Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to make sure NOAA Fisheries swiftly finishes the rule.

Win: EPA, Florida Must Do More for Wetland Wildlife

A court ruled for the Center, our allies, and endangered species like Florida panthers last Thursday when it decided federal agencies had violated the law in approving Florida’s takeover of the Clean Water Act wetlands permitting program.

The Environmental Protection Agency, Florida and those seeking permits for projects affecting wetlands must follow the Endangered Species Act, the court ordered, to ensure the protection of threatened and endangered species.

Watch panthers, herons, black bears and alligators hanging out in their wetland habitat on Instagram or Facebook.

ExxonMobil Drops Bid to Truck Oil in Santa Barbara

A dangerous scheme to truck large volumes of oil along California highways has finally been dropped: On Friday ExxonMobil relinquished its lawsuit over Santa Barbara County’s refusal to allow the trucking, which would have helped the company restart three offshore drilling platforms shut down since the disastrous 2015 Refugio oil spill.

The Center and allies intervened in the lawsuit in 2022 to defend the area’s vulnerable wildlife, water, and cultural resources from inevitable spills. And with help from our supporters, we’ve been fighting the trucking scheme — with wins along the way — for seven years. If you’re a Californian who took action, thank you.

The Revelator : Cheetah Conservation

Conservationists in Namibia have found that the fates of people and cheetahs are closely intertwined, and so are strategies for protecting them.

Head to The Revelator to learn more — including how dogs can help cheetahs, the risks climate change poses, and why addressing poverty would help with cheetah conservation. 

And if you don't already, subscribe to The Revelator’s free weekly e-newsletter for more conservation news.

That’s Wild: Florida Fish Sex Rocks the House

The thrum is so loud that Tampa Bay residents say it feels like tremors through their homes. So where’s it coming from — construction? Boat parties? Nearby Air Force base activity? 

Marine scientist James Locascio has a different theory: It’s mating black drum fish. And he’s putting microphones in the water to test that theory.

These drums are huge, with powerful teeth, chin beards, and a noisy sex life. Locascio has heard them farther south, where they call the sound — which is caused by drums flexing muscles against swim bladders — the Punta Gorda growl.

Residents would like the mystery solved — even if it means they’ll have to wear earplugs till mating season’s over. Take a listen. 

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Photo credits: Orca by sethakan via Canva; monarch butterfly by Thomas Dunkerton/USFWS; leatherback sea turtle baby courtesy NOAA; North Atlantic right whale with calf courtesy NOAA; screenshot of alligator and great blue heron courtesy USFWS; oi l from spill at Refugio State Park beach courtesy U.S. Coast Guard; cheetah by Mackenzie Mossing; black drum by irin717 via Canva.

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