No. 1326, December 4, 2025 |
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Save the National Environmental Policy Act |
As early as next week, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on legislation that would gut the National Environmental Policy Act — NEPA for short — and let developers call the shots on public lands. The so-called SPEED Act would even block the courts from stepping in when an agency breaks the law.
NEPA gives the public a voice in government decision-making and makes sure federal agencies take a hard look at potential environmental harms before letting projects move forward. It’s a crucial tool in the Center for Biological Diversity’s legal fights against uncontrolled development and destruction.
The motive behind this legislation is crystal clear. Anti-environmental members of Congress want to make it easier for the biggest companies to log national forests, mine public lands, and drill in the Arctic — all at the expense of wildlife and frontline communities.
If you live in the United States, tell your representative to oppose the SPEED Act and uphold environmental safeguards. |
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Suit Launched Over National Wolf Recovery Plan |
The Center just launched a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its refusal to develop a national recovery plan for gray wolves — two years after we won a similar lawsuit and the Biden administration agreed to move forward with a plan. Last month the Service announced that protecting the wolves under the Endangered Species Act is “no longer appropriate,” so it won’t be preparing a nationwide plan.
“We’re challenging the Trump administration’s unlawful decision to once again abandon wolf recovery, and we’ll win,” said Collette Adkins, the Center’s carnivore conservation director. “The Fish and Wildlife Service must live up to the reality of what science and the law demand.”
But we need you by our side to win for wolves. Give now to the Center’s Future for the Wild Fund to get your donation doubled. |
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Trade Protections for Imperiled Ocean Life, Birds |
The Center is in Uzbekistan for this year’s global Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, and a few good steps have been taken there.
Last week nations voted to adopt landmark trade protections for dozens of sharks and rays whose numbers are sharply declining — including oceanic whitetip sharks, manta and devil rays, and whale sharks. These animals have never had this level of international protection before and are under serious threat worldwide from overfishing and bycatch. Ecologically important sea cucumbers also won protections, though imperiled eels used in sushi didn’t.
And this Wednesday governments adopted critical international trade safeguards for hornbills and songbirds: seven species of African hornbills — essential seed dispersers — and six species of seed-finch songbirds. They’re all suffering steep declines due to rampant illegal and unsustainable trade.
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New Film Exposes Fracking’s Burden on New Mexico |
The Land of Sacrifice, by Las Cruces filmmaker Annie Ersinghaus, documents how a fracking explosion has heaped health and environmental burdens on frontline communities across New Mexico.
The film highlights plaintiffs — including the Center — in a groundbreaking lawsuit known as Atencio v. State, which seeks to hold New Mexico accountable for how uncontrolled, state-permitted oil and gas pollution harms people and the environment. Learn more and watch it for free online. |
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Salmon Return to Bay Area Stream After 70 Years |
After 25 years of advocacy by the Center and local partners and completion of 18 fish-passage projects, Chinook salmon and steelhead trout are returning to Alameda Creek, the largest local tributary to San Francisco Bay. In November dozens of salmon passed through two new “fish ladders” in the lower creek into Niles Canyon, helping migrating fish bypass barriers that had excluded them for more than 50 years.
Two adult salmon reached Sunol Valley 20 miles from the Bay — the farthest upstream salmon since the 1950s. The pair was seen where a concrete barrier had been removed from the stream just weeks before. These salmon are mostly stray hatchery fish benefiting from fish-passage projects, but restoration efforts and recently improved flows are also returning threatened steelhead trout to the watershed. The Center and Alameda Creek Alliance secured an agreement with local quarry operator Oliver De Silva that directed $3 million to Alameda Creek fish-passage projects. |
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New Podcast Episode: Wolves’ Long Journey Home |
A century ago gray wolves roamed much of California, Oregon, and Washington, playing a vital role in these wild landscapes. Urbanization, ranching, and government extermination programs wiped them out. But wolves have been making an epic return on the West Coast.
In the last 2025 episode of our Sounds Wild podcast, host Vanessa Barchfield talks with the Center’s Amaroq Weiss about how wolves made their comeback and what the future looks like for this iconic species.
Listen to the latest episode on our website or find it on Apple or Spotify.
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The Revelator: Saving Pygmy Hogs |
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That's Wild: These Toads Give Birth Like Us |
Toads and frogs who give birth to fully formed toadlets and froglets — rather than laying eggs that hatch into tadpoles outside their bodies — are rare but not unknown. Now three live-bearing species have been newly described based on specimens from museum collections — all of them “pustular” tree toads, with colorful bumps on their bodies, native to Tanzania’s Eastern Arc Mountains.
Habitat loss and fragmentation threaten the region where these species live, and closely related tree toads in the area have already fallen to extinction. All the more reason to conserve their habitat. |
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Center for Biological Diversity
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United States
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