No. 1316, September 25, 2025

Win for Grizzlies Near Yellowstone

A federal court just found that the U.S. Forest Service broke the law when it approved expanded livestock grazing north of Yellowstone National Park in Montana, where grizzly bears live, without analyzing how more grazing would affect public lands in the area. The Forest Service had expanded both the grazing area and the grazing season, which the best science shows will put grizzlies at higher risk of being killed in response to conflict with cattle operations. So the Center for Biological Diversity and allies sued.

“I’m thrilled the court struck down the federal government’s illegal decision to increase livestock grazing in important grizzly bear habitat,” said Andrea Zaccardi, the Center's carnivore conservation legal director. “Putting livestock on public lands where grizzlies live is akin to baiting these bears into conflicts. I hope the Forest Service will revisit its decision and decide not to move forward with this irresponsible proposal.”

Another Southern Resident Orca Mourns Her Baby

Our hearts break for a Southern Resident orca named Alki who was recently seen in drone footage carrying her dead calf off the Pacific Northwest coast.

These intelligent, highly social orcas — among the planet’s most fragile whale populations — often grieve their babies like this. In 2018 a whale named Tahlequah carried her deceased calf for 17 days and 1,000 miles. But there’s still hope for Alki’s pod: Scientists have spotted another calf among them.

Southern Residents have a very high rate of miscarriage and newborn deaths because of malnutrition, contaminants from pollution, stress from vessel disturbance, and potential inbreeding, with a population of only 73.

The Center has been defending these whales since 2001, when we filed the petition that won their federal protection. Help with a gift to our Future for the Wild Fund.

Seeking Protection for Flower, Thrashers, Spadefoot

This month we petitioned to protect a rare Oregon flower under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The striking Willamette phlox lives only in a handful of ephemeral wetland habitats in the southern Willamette Valley, which have dwindled to a mere 2% of their historic extent.

We also sought protection for two desert birds and one amphibian under the California Endangered Species Act. Bendire’s thrashers and LeConte’s thrashers are secretive songbirds who live in arid desert habitats, and they rarely fly — instead, when threatened, they run for cover with their tails cocked like miniature velociraptors. Western spadefoots are commonly called toads, but they’re actually a type of frog. These small, big-eyed amphibians can breed in different kinds of water bodies but are particularly partial to seasonal wetlands called vernal pools.

Orphan Mountain Lion Cubs Face a Difficult Future

Two mountain lion cubs have been left alone after the tragic death of their mother, a lion known as F390 who was killed on Southern California’s Highway 74 earlier this month. The cubs are too young to be safely separated from her but too old to be taken in by a rescue center.

Roads are among the many threats to these 14-month-old kittens, who already face an extinction vortex driven by inbreeding and rat poisons (as well as vehicle strikes).

The Center works hard to reduce the risks to wide-ranging wildlife like mountain lions, panthers, and red wolves by improving habitat connectivity.

Head to Facebook or Instagram to watch a video of two other orphaned kittens, P-91 and P-92, when they were tiny in their foster den.

New Border-Wall Segment Blasts Through Arizona

This month the Center’s Russ McSpadden documented construction of the first 250 feet of a new segment of border wall through the San Rafael Valley in Arizona. The planned 27-mile wall would block a critical wildlife corridor for dozens of imperiled species, including endangered jaguars and ocelots. To build it the Trump administration waived the Endangered Species Act and other important environmental laws — so we sued in July.

Hear Russ speak about the wall and other topics in the Rewilding Institute’s podcast.

And see his video footage of the wall’s destruction on Facebook or Instagram.

Rally to Help Save Phalaropes, Great Salt Lake

Wilson’s phalaropes are dainty migratory shorebirds gravely imperiled by Great Salt Lake’s decline. More than 60% of their population lands on the lake’s shores during their migratory journey, and a healthy Great Salt Lake is critical to the species’ survival.

We’re working to save them, and you can too.

Join the Center and local allies — including celebrated author Terry Tempest Williams — on Wednesday, Oct. 1, for a rally and press conference to announce a federal lawsuit to protect Wilson’s phalaropes. The event will also feature phalarope puppets and wave art by the Making Waves Artist Collective.

Tell your local friends and family. Hope to see you there!

What: Rally and press conference

When: 11 a.m., Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025

Where: 12408 Saltair Dr., public beach on the north side of Saltair, Great Salt Lake

Revelator: A Puzzling Tree

Why did The Revelator’s editor, John Platt, encounter an endangered South American tree in Portland, Oregon?

In this new article he digs into the fascinating history of monkey puzzle trees — and the myriad modern threats these “living fossils” face.

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

That’s Wild: Chimps Guzzle 2 Drinks a Day in Fruit

According to a new survey out of the University of California at Berkeley, the ethanol content in fruit available to wild chimps in Uganda and Ivory Coast could mean they consume what amounts to two cocktails a day.

“Across all sites, male and female chimpanzees are consuming about 14 grams of pure ethanol per day in their diet, which is the equivalent to one standard American drink,” said UC Berkeley graduate student Aleksey Maro. When you adjust for chimps’ body mass — much lower than peoples’ — it’s more like two drinks.

So if alcohol is a regular part of chimps’ diets, could it have been a regular part of the diets of humans’ ancestors, too?

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Photo credits: Grizzly bear by Jean Beaufort/Wikimedia; Southern resident orca mother J16 (Slick) and calf J60 (Scarlet) courtesy John Durban/NOAA, Holly Fearnbach/SR3, and Lance Barrett-Lennard/Vancouver Aquarium; western spadefoot by Takwish/Wikimedia, Willamette phlox © Gerald D. Carr/OSU, LeConte's thrasher by Norm Pillsbury; monarch butterfly by Rhododendrites/Wikimedia; mountain lion kitten from video courtesy NPS; border wall construction by Russ McSpadden/Center for Biological Diversity; Wilson's phalarope by Tom Koerner/USFWS; monkey puzzle trees by Pieter Edelman; chimpanzees by Alain Houle/Wikimedia.

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