No. 1287, March 6, 2025

Two New Lawsuits Filed Against DOGE

In our vigorous legal campaign to stop President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency from gutting the federal systems that safeguard wildlife and wild places, the Center for Biological Diversity sued five cabinet-level agencies Monday. The suit aims to protect vital institutions — like the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency — along with the endangered species that depend on them, from manatees to whooping cranes.

This week we also sued the Trump administration and Musk to obtain public records on DOGE’s activities — apparently the first suit contending that DOGE itself is an “agency” for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act.

“The public has every right to know what kind of rogue outfit Elon Musk and his tech-bro army have created,” said Brett Hartl, our government affairs director. “Rebuilding functioning federal agencies will cost far more in the long run than any trivial savings gained.”

Be part of our fight with a gift to the Center’s Future for the Wild Fund. If you do it now, your donation will be matched.

Last Chance to Help Protect Monarchs, Rare Orchids

Two struggling species are at a crossroads, and you can help save them — but the comment-submission deadlines are almost here.

Ute ladies' tresses are rare, beautiful orchids of the U.S. West with spirally flower stalks resembling braided hair. Since they gained Endangered Species Act protection in 1992, threats have only escalated — but the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed stripping safeguards anyway. Tell the agency to keep protecting these fragile flowers.

Meanwhile monarch butterflies haven’t gotten protection in the first place. A decade after we petitioned, last year the Service proposed to safeguard these iconic flutterers — just in time for the Trump administration to swoop in. But if the agency hears from enough people who care, it may still protect the species. Demand final monarch protection now.

Suits Filed to Save Sharks and Dune-Dwelling Moths

This week the Center filed suit against the Trump administration over its failure to take action on Endangered Species Act protection for two imperiled species — smalltail sharks, who live in shallow, nearshore waters of the western Atlantic from Brazil to the northern Gulf of Mexico, and sand-verbena moths, native to the dunes of Washington state and British Columbia, now threatened by sea-level rise.

NOAA Fisheries announced in 2023 that the sharks might deserve protection but missed its deadline that year to decide whether to grant it. And sand-verbena moths were wrongly denied protection in 2019, when Trump was first in office.

Trump Order Unleashes Chainsaws on National Forests

With yet another devastating and irrational executive order, Trump now aims to undermine environmental protections by radically increasing logging and roadbuilding on hundreds of millions of acres of national forests and other public lands.

More logging will pollute water and air, increase fire risk, and wreak havoc on habitat for federally protected species like grizzly bears, spotted owls, and salmon.

“We’ll fight this order tooth and nail,” said the Center’s Public Lands Director Randi Spivak. “And the public won’t stand for it.”

New Book: The Strange History of Starlings

Did you know that European starlings are one of the world’s most despised bird species? After their introduction in Central Park in the late 1800s, starlings marched across the North American continent, growing into millions as they feasted on crops and noisily roosted in cities. Nothing has worked to shoo them away. And yet they fascinate us with their survival skills, brilliant mimicry, and great, twisting murmurations in the sky.

A new book by Mike Stark, the Center’s creative director, explores it all. Order a copy of Starlings: The Curious Odyssey of a Most Hated Bird.

Revelator: Conservation Comics

Eight great new comics collections and graphic novels use satire, poetry, and science (not to mention science fiction) to shine a light on human failures — and who and what we need to save.

Read about them in The Revelator. And if you don’t already, subscribe to the free weekly e-newsletter for more wildlife and conservation news.

That’s Wild: Hawaiian Crows Fly Free Over Maui

Hawai‘i has a higher percentage of endangered native species than any other state, and conservation biologists there are increasingly resorting to captive-breeding efforts to stave off extinction.

Hawaiian crows, or ʻalalā, went extinct in the wild in 2002, when some were taken into captivity to try to save and recover these highly intelligent, tool-using birds. About 110 now survive, but reintroduction has proven difficult. Human-raised birds are more vulnerable than their wild predecessors — one group of ʻalalā, released on their native Big Island, fell to hawks along with other misfortunes.

So now biologists are trying a different tack and in November released five of the birds on Maui, where they didn’t evolve. Biologists are closely monitoring them — and so far, they’re doing well.

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Photo credits: Whooping crane by Ryan Hagerty/USFWS, manatee by Keith Ramos/USFWS; monarch butterfly by Krista Lundgren/USFWS, flowering Ute ladies' tresses plant by B. Hotze/USFWS; sand-verbena moth by Jeremy Gatten/LGL; grizzly bear and cubs by E. Johnston/NPS; Mike Stark and book cover courtesy the publisher; Earth courtesy NASA, book covers courtesy the publishers; Hawaiian crow courtesy USFWS.

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