Center for Biological Diversity
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Endangered Earth
No. 1,084, April 15, 2021
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In Court to Save 19 Species Trump Let Languish
The Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today for failing to take action on 19 imperiled U.S. species under the Trump administration.
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Our lawsuit challenges the agency for blowing off Endangered Species Act deadlines to decide on the fate of nine species that desperately need help, including Franklin's bumblebees in Oregon and Sierra Nevada red foxes in California. It also calls out the agency's failure to designate vital critical habitat protections under the Act for Suwannee moccasinshells, eight Florida plants and pearl darters in Mississippi.
This suit is one more step forward in the crucial work to right the wrongs done to wildlife during the Trump presidency. We're enforcing the mandates of the Endangered Species Act meant to make sure animals and plants get the safeguards they need in time to stop their extinction.
"The Endangered Species Act is incredibly successful at saving species from extinction," said the Center's Noah Greenwald, "but only if they're provided its protections in the first place."
Help us protect species by giving to our Saving Life on Earth Fund now, and your donation will be matched dollar for dollar.
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Help Stop Future Pandemics
In the past 40 years, wildlife trade and habitat destruction have led to the emergence of AIDS, SARS, avian flu, Ebola, Zika and now COVID-19. These and other diseases arising from our exploitation of animals and the wild kill 2.7 million people every year. The path forward is clear: We have to fundamentally change our relationship with nature — and start right here at home, since the United States is responsible for at least 20% of the global wildlife market.
We have the chance to move decisively along that path by supporting the passage of the Preventing Future Pandemics Act. This bipartisan legislation would ban the trade of live wildlife for food or medicine and close all the U.S. live wildlife markets that are engaged in that trade. It would also invest nearly half a billion dollars in a program to reduce the risk of future pandemics.
Urge your members of Congress to support this bold bill and help exploited wildlife worldwide.
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Placer County Agreement Reached to Help Climate, Wildlife
The Center has just secured a landmark legal agreement with a developer in Placer County, California, that will reduce greenhouse gases and conserve biodiversity, dedicating funding to rooftop solar, electric vehicles, habitat acquisition and environmental conservation efforts.
"This agreement will cut the development's greenhouse gas pollution and provide a host of resources to help Placer County's residents and natural landscapes," said Aruna Prabhala, director of our Urban Wildlands program. "We'll keep advocating for the people and wildlife of this county by promoting equitable policies to combat the climate crisis and safeguard biological diversity."
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Lawsuit Seeks Info on Seresto Flea Collars
The Environmental Protection Agency has never given us the documents we asked for back in August, under the Freedom of Information Act, about Seresto flea and tick collars. These chemical-laden collars have generated more than 75,000 reports of harm and are linked to the deaths of 1,700 pets.
So on Tuesday — after petitioning the agency late last week to cancel its approval for these collars to be sold to unsuspecting pet owners — the Center sued to force it to release those documents.
"It shouldn't take a lawsuit to get the EPA to release public documents that could shed light on the deaths of hundreds of family pets," said Lori Ann Burd, the Center's director of environmental health. "It's inexcusable that the agency has refused to even take the precautionary step of warning people about this product."
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Your Utility Payments May Be Funding Anti-Environment Groups
Corporate utilities are using their customers' money for trade groups engaged in political activity — including fighting clean-energy policies in favor of fossil fuels. That means many customers are unknowingly footing the bill for anti-climate lobbying that directly threatens their future and that of the planet.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has the power to demand more transparency and accountability from utilities, so the Center has filed a petition to help make sure shareholders, not customers, pay trade-association dues.
Support our petition by letting the Commission know you don't want your money funneled, without your knowledge or permission, to special interests stifling the transition to clean energy.
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Earth Day Webinar: Resistance, Extinction and Thoreau
Join us next Thursday, April 22 at 4 p.m. PT / 7 p.m. ET for a special Saving Life on Earth webinar. The Center and the Thoreau Society will team up for a special Earth Day event to discuss resistance and extinction. We'll explore the work of the 19th century naturalist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau and how it relates to today's fight to end the extinction crisis. You have to register to join, so sign up and then check your email for a link.
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And if you're free today at 4 p.m. PT / 7 p.m. ET, it's not too late to join our webinar on creating a more just food system, featuring the Center's Senior Food Campaigner Jennifer Molidor, Environmental Health Program Director Lori Ann Burd and Senior Attorney Hannah Connor.
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Popular T-shirt Back in Stock: Wild v. Wall
Our "Wildlife Against the Wall" T-shirt has been restocked and is now available in new colors and two styles.
The U.S.-Mexico border wall cuts through some of North America's most important ecosystems, destroying habitat and blocking migration. By wearing this shirt, you can join us in calling for the end of the wall while celebrating the Southwest's iconic endangered wildlife. Designed by artist and activist Roger Peet, the shirt shows the yellow-billed cuckoo, northern Mexican garter snake, jaguar, cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, Chiricahua leopard frog, southwestern willow flycatcher and Sonoran pronghorn. It's $18 while supplies last.
Find it in our online store.
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Federal Fossil Fuel Programs Must Support U.S. Climate Goals
On Wednesday the Center and hundreds of climate, Native American, religious, business and conservation groups called on President Biden to review the federal fossil fuel programs under the National Environmental Policy Act, and align those programs with U.S. climate goals by ending new fossil fuel leasing and phasing out its production.
Fossil fuels from public lands and oceans cause about a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas pollution. Our climate can't afford any new leases: Pollution from the world's already producing oil and gas fields — even without coal — would push global warming into the even greater danger zone beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius.
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Revelator: Our Last Chance to Save Atlantic Salmon
Dams, pollution and overfishing have almost completely wiped out U.S. Atlantic salmon. Now there are only about 1,000 left in a single Maine population. Thankfully, according to a new article in The Revelator, we can still save these "king of fish" from extinction. The key may be to deep-six a few dams in Maine's two largest watersheds.
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That's Wild: The Delicious Mushroom That Eats Meat
Oyster mushrooms are among the most popular types of culinary fungi. They grow wild in temperate and subtropic forests, and people grow them commercially for a variety of cuisines.
They're also one of the only vegan foods that can eat meat — and in a creepy-cool way, by poisoning and then absorbing roundworms. Though the carnivory of oyster mushrooms was first discovered in the 1980s, scientists only recently figured out how their poison works.
Discover it for yourself at Scientific American.
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Center for Biological Diversity
P.O. Box 710
Tucson, AZ 85702
United States
