Center for Biological Diversity
Endangered Earth
No. 1,167, Nov. 17, 2022
-----------------------------------------------------
View this email with all links online: [link removed]

Crack Down on Mexico's Illegal Pet Trade

Mexico is blessed with rich biodiversity, home to animals found nowhere else on Earth. But many of the country’s native species are threatened with extinction, partly because of wildlife trade. Each year thousands of animals suffer and die, plucked from their native habitats and sold — often through social media — as exotic pets.
A new Center report documents blatant, heartbreaking illegal trade in wildlife in Mexico. Our undercover investigation found howler monkeys, baby sloths, big cats, parrots and other imperiled animals openly offered for sale without permits or papers.
Urge Mexico authorities to crack down on illegal wildlife trade and protect the nation's incredible biodiversity from heartless traffickers.

10 of the Species Threatened by 8 Billion People

In the past 50 years, the human population has doubled while wildlife populations dropped by 70%. In the coming decades, 1 million more species could disappear.
The Center just launched a website on 10 of the U.S. species threatened by our increasingly crowded planet — including Florida panthers, monarch butterflies, and Carolina madtoms (small catfish relatives with stinging spines). Last week we mailed Endangered Species Condoms to the United Nations to encourage it to talk about how runaway population growth hurts biodiversity.
Help us protect wildlife on this crowded planet with a donation — doubled if you give today — to our Saving Life on Earth Fund.

Take Action for the Climate During COP27

Center staff are in Egypt at this year’s UN climate summit, COP27. We're calling on world leaders to stop fossil fuel expansion, pay up for climate damages, and use all tools available to tackle the climate emergency.
In a major breakthrough, the Biden administration just backed calls for a global phasedown of fossil fuels after nearly three decades with no mention of them in these climate agreements. But loopholes in the administration's proposal open a Pandora’s box of false solutions, like carbon capture, that only extend devastating harms.

Suit Aims to Protect Tiger Beetle Habitat

The Center and allies sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wednesday to push the agency to protect lifesaving critical habitat for endangered Miami tiger beetles — at serious risk from a plan to build a strip mall and waterpark in crowded Miami-Dade County.
“These tiny, ferocious beetles are facing an onslaught of development, and they can’t wait any longer for habitat safeguards,” said Ragan Whitlock, a Center attorney. “Critical habitat protections remain one of the most effective means of protecting endangered species like the Miami tiger beetle.”

Historic Win Ends Net-Pen Fish Farms in Washington

Following years of work by the Center and allies, the Washington Department of Natural Resources announced Monday night it won’t be renewing Cooke Aquaculture’s net-pen permits. That means the global seafood corporation — known for a devastating 2017 pen failure at its Cypress Island facility that released some 260,000 Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound, threatening native fish — will stop operating in state waters.
“We’ll have cleaner water and better-protected salmon populations,” said the Center’s Sophia Ressler.
Washington state joins the rest of the U.S. Pacific Coast and British Columbia in banning these facilities in open waters.

Feds Put on Notice: Two Chubs and a Hognose Snake

We launched three new lawsuits this week to make the Fish and Wildlife Service do its job — two for desert fish called chubs, in Nevada and Utah, and one for the Southeast’s hognose snakes.
The Fish Lake Valley tui chub, a Nevada native, ekes out a living in just one spring on a privately owned ranch. It’s in imminent danger of extinction if the spring’s water keeps being pumped out. And the little least chub of Utah’s Bonneville Basin — first described in 1872 and the Southern hognose snakes have already disappeared from Alabama and Mississippi — we’re working to stop them disappearing from Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, too. Nicknamed “hoggies” for the upturned noses they use for digging. they've suffered a 60% decline.

The Reviews Are In! We're a Great Nonprofit

Since we asked for your comments on GreatNonprofits.org last month, we've been delighted by how much you value our work. The Center has been top-rated on the site since 2009 — but this year, with your help, we ranked fifth among 2,500 organizations , with 1,400 raves from the folks who know us best.
“Their track record of winning protections for a wide range of animals, plant life and habitats is a ray of hope in the face of the current extinction crisis," says one reviewer.

Read all the great reviews — and if you haven’t yet, add your own — at the GreatNonprofits website.

Revelator: Black Joy in Nature

Black people like nature, too. But before author Rue Mapp founded Outdoor Afro, you wouldn’t have known it from looking at outdoor magazines.
Check out The Revelator ’s new interview to learn about Mapp’s calling to tell the story of Black folks in nature as “strong, beautiful and free."
And don’t miss our e-newsletter bringing you each week’s best environmental articles and essays.

‘Extinction Is Forever’ T-Shirts Now Available

Every extinct species has a story to tell — and a warning about the plight of others on the brink.

Bring some of them back to life with the Center’s new T-shirts, featuring extinct species from across the United States, including Merriam’s elk, sandhill’s crayfish and Carolina parakeets. These species also star in our new United States of Extinction map.
The shirts are printed on 100% organic cotton. Find them in our web store.

That’s Wild: Primate Caught Pickin’ and Lickin’

Gross-out alert: Aye-ayes just became the 12th documented primate to pick and eat boogers. Yup, the list includes humans. But aye-ayes have a distinct evolutionary advantage over the rest of us. The housecat-sized nocturnal lemurs have a long, skinny middle finger — more than 3 inches — that can reach way back into their nasal cavity (saving them from having to use a twig, as capuchin monkeys do).
These snot-slurping experts inspired a team of evolutionary biologists to explore the seemingly nasty habit for possible advantages. Could booger-eating boost immune systems? Others among the known primate practitioners include gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos.

If you’re not too repulsed, you can watch a video for yourself.
---------------------------------

Donate now to support the Center's work: [link removed]

Follow Us
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]

Center for Biological Diversity [[link removed]]

Update your communications preferences online.
[link removed]

Opt out of this mailing list:
[link removed]

Center for Biological Diversity
P.O. Box 710
Tucson, AZ 85702
United States