More Than 200 Lawsuits Against the Trump Administration

We knew we'd be in a tough fight with the Trump administration – and we've never backed down.

The Center for Biological Diversity has now filed more than 200 lawsuits against the administration, including one on Monday to fight smog pollution in California's Imperial County.

And it's working. We've won 9 out of every 10 cases that have been resolved.

We've fought off some of the most egregious environmental rollbacks and secured protection for imperiled wildlife and plants in the face of unprecedented hostility to endangered species. We've also cast daylight on the most secretive government operations we've ever seen using the Freedom of Information Act, and we've halted destructive projects like the massive Rosemont copper mine in Arizona.

The Trump administration serves corporate profits over people — so its attacks on the environment won't stop until its last day. But every single day until then, we'll be battling it ferociously to protect our health and our planet.

Learn more about all our lawsuits against the Trump administration and support our fight by making a donation to our Saving Life on Earth Fund.

COVID-19 has made it clear that our health is deeply connected to the ecosystems we're a part of. But the pandemic's link to the destructive wildlife trade is only one example of how environmental damage drives human disease. Watch this new video on Facebook or YouTube, and learn more at The Revelator.

Latest Success: A Lovely Flower in the Southeast

Ready for good news?

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week announced the recovery of the Cumberland sandwort, a small, white flowering plant mainly found in the Big South Fork National Recreation Area in Kentucky and Tennessee. It's now being proposed to come off the endangered species list, where it has been protected since 1988.

"Thanks to the Endangered Species Act, this delicate little flower has made quite the comeback," said the Center's Stephanie Kurose. "This amazing success story is proof that the Act works and shows why it remains one of the most popular laws among the American people."

Read more.

Protection Sought for Vanishing Cuckoo Bumblebee

You may have never seen it, but it's there: the rare Suckley's cuckoo bumblebee.

This parasitic pollinator was once common to prairies, grasslands and meadows across the West. Now it has lost more than half its historic range to grazing, pesticides, habitat loss and global warming.

The nearly inch-long, black-and-yellow bee is unusual in that it's a "cuckoo" or social parasite that takes over the nests of other bumblebees. It subdues their resident queen and makes the worker bees feed and care for its own young.

But this bee may not survive its recent steep declines. That's why this week the Center petitioned to protect it under the Endangered Species Act.

Read more.

How Fiction Can Fight Climate Change

"All the most beautiful and terrible things we do as human beings, we do with words: law, policy, religion, art — also the bomb. The first atomic bomb was made of words. Math is a language too. … We can end ourselves with words, but we can also save ourselves."

In an Earth Day conversation for NPR, Pulitzer Prize–nominated author and Center staffer Lydia Millet talks about the power of fiction to address the global crises of climate change and extinction.

Tune in to hear from Lydia as well as authors Amy Brady and Jenny Offill.

Wild & Weird: Male Lemurs Use Body Odor as Pick-up Line

A new study has discovered that during breeding season, male ring-tailed lemurs secrete a combination of chemicals similar to pheromones from glands on their wrists to attract potential mates.

The males rub their smelly wrists on their tails and then shake their tails to waft the vaporized perfume toward the objects of their affection. The secretions seem to pique the interest of females, who lick places where droplets of the chemicals settle. Scientists have dubbed the process "stink flirting."

According to researchers one of these chemicals produced by the males smells like pear.

Read more — and watch video of a lemur stink flirting — at Smithsonian Magazine.