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Reward for Washington Wolf-Killer Info Up to $20K
After a mother wolf was illegally shot to death last month in northeastern Washington, the Center for Biological Diversity joined other groups in raising the reward for information leading to her killer — first to $15,000, then to $20,000.
“Poachers have killed far too many of Washington’s state-endangered wolves without consequence,” said Center wolf advocate Amaroq Weiss. “We urge state officials to take action against those responsible before more gray wolves meet the same tragic fate.”
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Suit Filed to Save 7 Species Overseas
The Center filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s failure to protect seven imperiled animals found outside U.S. borders. Even after acknowledging the species need Endangered Species Act safeguards to avoid extinction, the Service parked them on a waitlist. The species include two beautiful Brazilian butterflies and the Okinawa woodpecker, threatened by U.S. jungle-warfare training in Japan.
“As we suffer a heartbreaking extinction crisis, U.S. leadership can help save wildlife around the world,” said Sarah Uhlemann, a Center attorney and the director of our International program. “The Biden administration can reverse Trump’s dismal record and protect these and other deserving creatures before it’s too late.”
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Rare Minnow, Legless Lizard Closer to Protection
Thanks to Center petitions, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced last Wednesday that two scaly species are now on the path toward Endangered Species Act protection.
First, a fish: the Santa Ana speckled dace, a small Southern California minnow that’s been pushed out of three quarters of its former stream habitats by dams, water diversions and urbanization. Even more threats, from drought to wildfires to invasive species, have made life tough for the surviving populations.
Next, a reptile: the Temblor legless lizard, a slinky, sand-swimming lizard that lives in just one small area of habitat near Southern California’s Temblor Range — surrounded by oil and gas drilling, the most imminent threat to its survival.
Now things are looking up for the swimmer and the sand-swimmer as the Service moves on to study their status and plight.
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We Need a 100% Renewable Energy Standard
Congress is working on a historic infrastructure package. Now’s our chance for bold action to tackle the climate emergency and promote environmental justice by shifting away from fossil fuels. Unfortunately current proposals for a “clean energy standard” include gas, biomass and other technologies that cause major pollution and carry a host of health and safety risks. These dirty sources are barriers to the just renewable energy transition we urgently need.
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Butterfly, Wildflower Officially Recovering
The Fender’s blue butterfly and smooth coneflower could be the next Endangered Species Act success stories. Recognizing these species’ recovery, this week the Fish and Wildlife Service rightly proposed changing their status from “endangered” to “threatened” under the lifesaving law.
With a one-inch wingspan, the Fender’s blue lays eggs no larger than a pinhead and lives only in the prairie and oak savannah of Oregon’s Willamette Valley. When it was first protected in 2000, fewer than 4,000 butterflies were known in the wild, but by 2016 — after it won critical habitat protection too — populations had grown to 29,000.
The smooth coneflower, named for its smooth stem and drooping pink petals, lives only in small pockets of open sunny areas in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. When this pink beauty first won protection in 1992, there were only 21 surviving populations; today there are 44.
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Center Report From the Frontlines of Line 3
Recently Center staff joined Indigenous leaders and climate activists in Minnesota to protest construction of the Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline. If completed, Line 3 will carry hundreds of thousands of barrels of toxic tar sands oil every day — violating treaty rights, threatening ecosystems and wildlife, and releasing as much greenhouse gas pollution as 50 coal-fired power plants.
Learn more about why we're fighting Line 3, groups to follow, and how you can support the cause in this report from the Center’s Theo LeQuesne about his time at the Treaty People Gathering earlier this month.
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The Revelator: One-Pound Monkeys Face Peril in Brazil
Tiny buffy-headed marmosets — who live only in the Atlantic rainforests of southeastern Brazil — weigh in at about a pound, with wonderfully charismatic faces topped by pointed, clownish eyebrows. But disease, invasive species, and agriculture destroying their forest home have driven some populations down by 90%.
Learn more at The Revelator and subscribe to the e-newsletter.
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Nevada’s Renewable Economy Needs to Be Green
As Nevada moves forward to harness its remarkable potential for renewable energy, it’s crucial that the progress be closely tied to conserving the state’s precious biodiversity, write the Center’s Patrick Donnelly and Jean Su in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Its development of renewable resources must be paired with the protection of wild places, ecosystems, and the animals and plants they harbor — and not sited where that development will drive species extinct, as is happening with Tiehm’s buckwheat.
Equally crucial, Nevada must seek the full participation of affected communities, including those that are rural and Indigenous. “Smart from the start” planning has been proven effective elsewhere and should be embraced now in Nevada.
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Sign Up for Our New Food Justice Newsletter
The Center’s Population and Sustainability program just launched Food X, a monthly e-newsletter about creating a just food system that protects people, wildlife and the environment. Every month we’ll take a deeper dive into the complex world of sustainable food: exploring issues around how we grow food, what we buy, who can access healthy food, how food is wasted, and food solutions to help stop the extinction crisis.
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That’s Wild: Baby Elephants Don’t Like Naps Either
A brigade of wildland firefighters in southwestern China recently captured amazing drone footage of a famous herd of wild elephants taking a jumbo-sized nap in the forest. If you've never seen a sleeping pile of pachyderms before, now’s your chance. Our favorite is the squirmy youngster.
Take a look on Facebook and YouTube; then learn more about China’s wandering elephants from NPR.
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Center for Biological Diversity | Saving Life on Earth
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Photo credits: Gray wolf in Washington by belen bilgic schneider/Flickr; Okinawa woodpecker by Amateras7777/Wikimedia; Temblor legless lizard by Alex Krohn; solar panels by andreas160578/Pixabay; Fender's blue butterfly courtesy Oregon Department of Transportation;
loon puppet at the Treaty People Gathering by Gladys Delgadillo/Center for Biological Diversity; buffy-headed marmoset courtesy Mountain Marmosets Conservation Program; Tiehm's buckwheat by Patrick Donnelly/Center for Biological Diversity; Food X graphic courtesy Center for Biological Diversity; screenshot of Asian elephants from footage by Yunnan Forest Fire Brigade.
Center for Biological Diversity
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United States