No. 1313, September 4, 2025

Tell This County to Turn Off Lights for Turtles

Every summer in Glynn County, Georgia, thousands of imperiled loggerhead sea turtles leave their nests and struggle across the sand to the ocean for their first swim. Then they start an epic, awe-inspiring migration — if they make it down the beach.

Their journey to the water is challenging at the best of times. Now bright, stadium-like lighting at a nearby highway exit has changed it from difficult to deadly. Besides driving female sea turtles from their nests, the lights divert hatchlings from the sea, drawing them inland to become exhausted and die.

There’s an easy solution: Glynn County could switch off these lights and use the safer, wildlife-friendly streetlights already installed along the highway. But the county refuses to act — despite depending on sea turtles for tourism. It has also failed to implement beachfront lighting ordinances to protect sea turtles.

They don’t deserve to be shell-shocked by artificial lighting. Tell Glynn County to turn off the lights, for turtles’ sake.

Trump Blows Up Protections for Greater Sage Grouse

On Tuesday President Donald Trump’s Bureau of Land Management proposed devastating changes to plans for managing greater sage grouse on about 50 million acres of public lands. The changes would let state officials and their corporate cronies call the shots on grouse habitat across BLM lands — allowing more mining, oil and gas, transmission lines, and other threats to harm these sensitive dancing birds and their mating grounds, called leks.

“The Trump administration wants to obliterate the only thing standing between greater sage grouse and extinction,” said the Center’s Randi Spivak. “We intend to stop him.”

Help us defend sage grouse and other species from Trump’s annihilation agenda with a gift to the Future for the Wild Fund.

Bill Amended for Colorado Wolves Goes to Governor

After urging from many Center supporters, among others, Colorado lawmakers have passed dramatically amended fiscal legislation that will now allow the continued reintroduction and release of wolves this year.

“This bill was about derailing gray wolf restoration and ignoring the will of the voters,” said Alli Henderson, the Center’s southern Rockies director. “Now it’s time to work together to ensure reintroduction succeeds. The future of wolves in the southern Rockies depends on it.”

Colorado’s wolf plan calls for relocating 30 to 50 wolves over three to five years, guided by science and expert analysis on what it will take to successfully restore the species.

Check out an aerial video of wild Colorado wolves on Facebook or Instagram.

Seafood Ban Will Save Whales, Dolphins

NOAA Fisheries just decided that, starting in January, 42 nations won’t be able to export certain seafood species to the United States because fisheries in those countries don’t meet U.S. fisheries’ standards for protecting marine mammals from deadly entanglement.

For Mexico, the agency announced, the nation can’t sell some sharks and shrimp to the United States because of its failure to address how those fisheries harm animals like critically endangered vaquita porpoises and humpback whales.

“This is a lifesaving victory for beloved marine mammals swimming in the waters of Mexico, Vietnam, and other places,” said Sarah Uhlemann, the Center’s International program director.

Our thanks to the 15,000 Center supporters who pushed for the seafood ban.

Keep making waves: Urge Mexico to outlaw the possession, sale, and export of shark fins.

Trump Administration Waives 31 Laws for Border Wall

The Trump administration has waived 31 environmental and public health laws to speed border-wall construction through the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Texas — even though border crossings have plunged.

New wall segments in the refuge will fragment critical habitat for federally protected species, sever wildlife corridors, disrupt the Rio Grande’s natural flow, and threaten species like endangered ocelots, endangered plants, aplomado falcons, and hundreds of migratory birds. Border militarization hurts people, too.

Head to Facebook or YouTube to watch our video getting up close and personal with an ocelot.

The Revelator: Fighting Wildlife Trade

Apologists for the wildlife trade often claim that many people depend on it for their livelihoods. But is that true? In this new Revelator article, Tracy Keeling reports on new research that challenges the argument.

If you haven’t yet, subscribe to The Revelator’s free weekly e-newsletter for more wildlife and conservation news.

That’s Wild: This Big Boy’s a Hugger

Spectral bats are the largest meat eaters of their kind, with wingspans that can be over 3 feet. But new research and awesome footage from Guanacaste National Park in Costa Rica show they’re social creatures who share their food, play, and wrestle together.

Check out this video of one bat seeming to hug another bat after returning from a hunt.

Sure, the hugger may be angling for a piece of that delicious-looking rat, but it doesn’t mean the hug wasn’t genuine. Right?

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Photo credits: Loggerhead sea turtle hatchling courtesy NPS; sage grouse courtesy USFWS; wolf screenshot from video courtesy Colorado Parks and Wildlife; humpback whale by Ed Lyman/NOAA; ocelot from video by Russ McSpadden/Center for Biological Diversity; Amboina box turtle by Vijay Ismavel; spectral bat by Matt Muir/iNaturalist.

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