Protection Sought for Nevada Butterfly |
An extremely rare butterfly called the bleached sandhill skipper, surviving only in a single wetland in Nevada, faces extinction if a poorly sited geothermal plant goes forward. So on Monday the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the butterfly — less than 2 inches long and lighter in color than its closest cousins — under the Endangered Species Act.
Geothermal energy is an important part of the clean energy transition, but it has a well-documented history of drying up nearby springs when projects are built where they shouldn’t be.
“The bleached sandhill skipper is a unique piece of Nevada’s phenomenal biodiversity, and we’re doing everything we can to save it,” said Patrick Donnelly, our Great Basin director. “Geothermal energy can’t come at the cost of extinction.” |
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The Latest on Our Work for Wolves |
August has already been a big month for the Center’s unrelenting fight to save gray wolves nationwide.
Last Thursday the Center and allies filed a petition to stop federal wildlife money from flowing to Montana and Idaho while they conduct their vicious war on wolves. Also with a coalition of wolf-protectors, the next day we challenged Washington state’s failure to pass rules that limit when wolves can be killed over conflicts with livestock. And this Tuesday we sued the Fish and Wildlife Service for missing its deadline to decide whether to restore Endangered Species Act protection to wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains.
There have been happy tidings, too — California just announced that two of the state’s three wild wolf families have newborn pups. Thanks to a 2012 petition by the Center and allies, they’re protected by California’s Endangered Species Act (as well as the federal Act). Help our fight with a gift to the Wolf Defense Fund. |
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6 Billion Tons of Coal Kept in the Ground |
Following a lawsuit by the Center and allies, a judge just struck down federal plans to extract massive amounts of fossil fuels from public lands in Montana and Wyoming — including 6 billion tons of coal over 20 years.
Originally made in the Trump era, the plans ignored the environmental and human health consequences of extracting all that coal, oil and gas from the Powder River Basin, the largest U.S. coal-producing region and home to wildlife like pronghorns and imperiled greater sage grouse. |
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Feds Must Decide on Helping 7 Foreign Species |
Many people don’t realize that the U.S. Endangered Species Act offers protection to species outside the country, as well as within it. Benefits to those species include money for conservation and bans on their import and sale in the United States. Some 600 foreign species are covered by the Act.
But that help can only come if the species get listed. Now, at long last, an agreement secured by the Center will bring decisions on lifelines for four butterflies and three birds — from Brazil and Jamaica to Japan and the high Himalayas — who’ve been waiting on the federal “candidate” list for 30 years. |
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Lawsuit Launched to Save Arizona Creek |
The Center and allies just filed a notice of intent to sue the Environmental Protection Agency over Arizona’s decades-long failure to curb pollution in Queen Creek, which runs through the town of Superior. The creek is urgently threatened by a proposed mine that would cause even more pollution while also destroying Oak Flat, a deeply sacred site to Native Americans and habitat for endangered Arizona hedgehog cactuses.
“The EPA has to step up and protect the creek as the Clean Water Act requires,” said Center attorney Allison Melton. “This beautiful high-desert waterway has been a dumping ground for copper mines for far too long.”
Meanwhile we’re helping keep up the fight to protect Oak Flat. |
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Our ‘Protect the Pisgah’ Rally Was a Big Success |
Last week the Center coordinated a rally in Asheville, North Carolina, supporting stronger safeguards for the Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest, a beautiful recreation spot home to more salamander species than any other national forest. The rally was the largest in state history, drawing almost 500 people (and at least one passionate dog). Attendees decorated a “We Heart Pisgah” banner with 34,000 hearts: one for each public comment urging the Forest Service to improve its plan for managing the Pisgah for the next two decades. As rally organizer and Center biologist Will Harlan explained, the rally had a simple message: “We love Pisgah, and we want to see more of it protected.”
Check out our video on Facebook and YouTube. |
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LA Times: This Bill Will Save Mountain Lions |
This summer a 2-year-old mountain lion called P-89 was fatally hit by a car on Southern California’s 101 freeway. Born during the 2020 “Summer of Kittens,” he’s the fourth radio-collared mountain lion in the area to die from a vehicle collision this year. If P-89 had a way to cross the road safely, he might still be alive.
As this new editorial in the Los Angeles Times highlights, the Safe Roads and Wildlife Protection Act — cosponsored by the Center — would require California to create wildlife crossings when it builds new highways and improves old ones. The bill is about to come up for a vote in the state’s Senate Appropriations Committee.{{ if equals(StateOrProvince,'CA') }}
You can help: Tell state officials to pass this bill to protect people and wildlife.{{ end }} |
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Anti-Consumerist Author Mourns Monarchs |
Author and illustrator Kay Sather, now 69 years old, has loved monarch butterflies her whole life. In a recent post on her website New Stuff Sucks, she describes how, as children, she and her brother scoured the urban wild for monarch caterpillars. She tells the story of taking home a chrysalis to watch the caterpillar transform into a butterfly — as so many other kids have long done (and still do).
This summer, it hit her hard when monarchs were declared internationally endangered. It helped knowing that others — including her daughter (full disclosure: that’s the Center’s Digital Communications Editor Anna Mirocha) — were also worried and sad, whether or not they’d had a “monarch childhood.” Kay hasn’t lost hope. We haven’t either. |
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Revelator: This Tiny Topminnow Is on the Brink |
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That’s Wild: Belugas and Bears — Swimming Buddies? |
Generally polar bears don’t interact much with other animals … except to kill and eat them. Beluga whales are no exception — the bears prey on them when they wander into ice-covered water and surface to breathe at a hole in the ice.
But as we can see in some fascinating footage of both species from the Center’s Brett Hartl, who recently visited their habitat, the situation’s very different in open water. Is this bear trying to chase the belugas? They sure don’t look worried. Whatever’s happening here, it’s marvelous to witness.
Check out Facebook or YouTube to see a great white bear cooling off with some little white whales. |
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Photo credits: Bleached sandhill skipper by Patrick Donnelly/Center for Biological Diversity; wolf pup courtesy USFS; sage grouse by Tatiana Gettelman/USGS; Okinawa woodpecker by Patrick Randall/Flickr; Arizona hedgehog cactus by Monique Dinkel/Wikimedia; screenshot from Pisgah rally video used with permission; mountain lion courtesy NPS; monarch illustration by Kay Sather; Barrens topminnow by J.R. Shute/Conservation Fisheries, Inc.; screenshot of polar bear and beluga video by Brett Hartl/Center for Biological Diversity.
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