Stepping in to Save Right Whales From Ship Strikes

This week the Center for Biological Diversity and allies filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit targeting speed limits that protect North Atlantic right whales from deadly ship strikes. The suit — brought by a vessel owner fined for breaking speed limits — alleges that NOAA Fisheries didn't have the authority to set the limit (not true).

Meanwhile the Trump administration has proposed to weaken or altogether revoke the speed limit — even though fewer than 400 North Atlantic right whales are left, with only about 70 females of reproductive age.

“Sensible speed limits to keep ships from running over right whale calves and their mothers are crucial to ensuring these beautiful creatures aren’t wiped off the face of the Earth,” said Kristen Monsell, the Center’s oceans legal director.

Join the call for whale-safe ship speeds: Urge the feds to require vessel speed limits in crucial whale habitat.

Suit Launched to Save Wildlife From Trump Grazing Plan

The Center has officially warned the Trump administration we’ll sue over its approval of an expanded livestock grazing plan that would newly allow cattle on up to 24 million acres of federal lands, including iconic Grand Canyon National Park. The plan would illegally fast-track grazing permits with no regard for the resulting devastation of lands and streams that federally protected birds and fishes rely on. It would also hurt carnivores like grizzly bears and wolves, who are too often unjustly killed over cattle conflicts.

“Trump is bowing to the livestock industry’s destructive demands to turn our shared wilderness into discount feedlots,” said the Center’s Carnivore Conservation Legal Director Andrea Zaccardi. “We’re taking action to make sure our nation’s most vulnerable wildlife don’t pay the price.”

Help our fight with a gift to the Future for the Wild Fund.

New Video: A Cameo by ‘Cinco’ the Jaguar

A remote Center camera in the Sky Islands of southern Arizona captured new video, released this week, of a rare jaguar moving through the area in March and April — along with a bear, a mountain lion, and other wild creatures. The jaguar, a male nicknamed Cinco, was first caught on camera in 2025.

“Seeing this incredible jaguar is a powerful reminder that these great cats belong here,” said Russ McSpadden, our Southwest conservation advocate. “But their northern range is being ripped apart by Trump’s border-wall construction, along with mining, groundwater depletion, and climate-driven drought. A landscape this wild is too precious to sacrifice.”

Jaguars are the world’s third-largest cats, after tigers and lions, and once lived as far west as the mountains of Southern California and as far east as Louisiana.

Watch (and share) the video on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube.

North America’s Most Biodiverse River Protected

After years of activism by the Center and local partners — plus a recent push from Center supporters in the state — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has signed a bill designating the entire Duck River (and some tributaries) as a Class II State Scenic River. The new law protects the Duck from mining, commercial logging, and landfills within two miles. The most species-diverse river in North America, it’s home to more than 60 native mussels, 151 fishes, several rare plants, and three federally protected bats.

“This is a huge win for the plants and animals who call the Duck River home — and for the quarter-million people who rely on this incredible river for clean drinking water,” said Center attorney Laurel Jobe.

Petition Seeks Action on Shark Finning in China

China operates the world’s largest high seas fishing fleet, and Hong Kong is the world’s largest shark fin trading hub. Chinese ships catch sharks by accident regularly and in some cases even target them — including critically endangered oceanic whitetip and endangered shortfin mako sharks.

So the Center filed a legal petition Tuesday asking NOAA Fisheries to consider sanctioning China for its failure to meet U.S. shark-conservation standards.

“China catches so many sharks that stronger shark conservation policies in the country

could actually save these incredible creatures from extinction,” said the Center’s Alex Olivera. “We’re asking the United States to use every tool at its disposal to make that happen.”

Sharks in Mexico need our help too — you can take action for them now.

Revelator: The Gibbon-Trafficking Tragedy

Great apes like chimpanzees and gorillas get a lot of conservation and media attention, but the so-called lesser apes — gibbons — tend to fly under the radar. Maybe that’s one reason why the illegal trade in these arboreal primates has hit an all-time high recently.

This new Revelator article digs into the trafficking — and how to stop it.

And if you haven’t yet, make sure you’re subscribed to The Revelator’s free weekly newsletter.

That's Wild: The Case of the Golden Orb

About two miles beneath the surface of the ocean, in the Gulf of Alaska in 2023, a remote-controlled submersible found a mound-shaped, gold-colored unidentified object.

Animal? Vegetable? Mineral? When scientists got it back to the lab, it took a whole team of experts to solve the mystery.

Find out for yourself and watch a video.

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Photo credits: North Atlantic right whale courtesy NOAA; gray wolf by Neal Herbert/NPS, grizzly bear by Nathan Kostegian/NPS; screenshot of jaguar video by Russ McSpadden/Center for Biological Diversity; Duck River by Duck River Conservancy, Barrens topminnow courtesy USFWS; oceanic whitetip shark by Polygonia c album/Wikimedia Commons; gibbon courtesy Gibbon Conservation Society; unidentified golden orb-like organism courtesy NOAA.

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