Colorado Wolves Need Your Help

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is accepting public comments on how Colorado agencies are working to reintroduce gray wolves in the state. This process could shape how federal agencies support reintroduction — whether they back the state's science-based, coexistence-first approach or move to undermine its progress.

To keep up the momentum for wolves in Colorado, the Fish and Wildlife Service must stand by the state's reintroduction efforts and support the actions needed to ensure the species' long-term recovery.

If you haven’t taken action yet, urge the Service to back positive actions to ensure wolves’ long-term recovery in Colorado.

Trump Quietly Brings Back Cyanide Bombs

In 2023, after a decade of advocacy by the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups, cruel spring-loaded traps called M-44s — or “cyanide bombs” — were finally banned on 245 million acres of federal public lands. Now the Trump administration has reversed that ban.

M-44s attract animals with a sweet scent and then spray sodium cyanide into their faces. Deployed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s nefarious Wildlife Services program to poison predators like coyotes and foxes as a favor to livestock owners, the toxic devices cause terrible suffering and needless death — which led to them being prohibited on federal lands in the first place.

“This dangerous reversal will result in so many indiscriminate killings of pets, endangered wildlife, and even people,” the Center’s Collette Adkins told The New York Times.

Help us get these grotesque traps off the people’s lands again with a gift to the Future for the Wild Fund.

Feds Failed to Protect 1,500+ Species From Malathion

In response to a Center lawsuit, a federal court just ruled that the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to properly safeguard more than 1,500 Endangered Species Act–listed animals and plants from an insecticide called malathion.

This dangerous neurotoxin is in the same chemical class as nerve agents that have been used in chemical warfare. Now it’s sprayed across the United States — to the tune of around 2.7 million pounds every year — for things like mosquito control. In 2022 the Service ignored its own data in concluding that malathion doesn’t threaten a single federally protected species. So we sued — and we’re celebrating the outcome.

“The court’s decision will force the Fish and Wildlife Service to figure out how to reduce harm to Fender’s blue butterflies, red-legged frogs, and many hundreds of other species from one of the worst neurotoxic pesticides on the market,” said Lori Ann Burd, the Center’s environmental health director.

El Niño Means Protection Needed for Loggerheads

A Pacific marine heat wave, likely to last from June till February, has triggered a legal requirement for NOAA Fisheries to close a large area off Southern California to swordfish drift gillnets to stop endangered loggerhead sea turtles from dying in them. We just notified the agency it must take action by June 1 to avoid a lawsuit.

In years with warm waters, thousands of loggerheads come to feed in the area; record-breaking water temperatures have occurred off San Diego for 38 days so far in 2026.

“Drift gillnets always wreak havoc on ocean life, but it’s especially critical these mile-long nets be pulled before loggerheads arrive,” said Center Senior Attorney Catherine Kilduff.

Agreement Protects World’s Oldest Oak

The Center and allies reached an agreement with Southern California developers that will help safeguard the world’s oldest known living oak. The agreement will also create new conservation areas and improve wildlife connectivity in the region.

The agreement lets a Jurupa Valley development move forward while permanently protecting 54.7 acres of open space near the ancient Palmer’s oak, which is at least 13,000 years old and culturally significant to local Tribes. The agreement will also dramatically expand a buffer around the oak and limit the development’s environmental impact.

“This agreement fulfills our goal — minimizing risk to the Jurupa oak — while also helping hillside animals roam and thrive,” said Center Urban Wildlands Director Aruna Prabhala.

Revelator: Chameleons and Climate Change

Despite being one of the most at-risk species groups on the planet, amazing chameleons have gotten almost no media coverage over the past few years. It’s time to change that, especially given threat multipliers like climate change.

The Revelator interviewed one of the world’s leading experts on chameleons to discuss why they’ve eluded conservation attention and what we can do to help save them.

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

That's Wild: The Little Hectocotylus That Could

Octopuses are famous for their seemingly polite mating habits: A male essentially taps a female with his arm and hands over a spermy gift. His approach is not only courtly but patient; she doesn’t have to use the sperm packet right away but can wait to fertilize her eggs at her convenience.

Now researchers have discovered an additional octopus aptitude. The males’ reproductive arm, or hectocotylus, is also a sensory organ. It can detect chemicals like progesterone in its environment, which females put out during their reproductive phase.

Watch a video of a clever hectocotylus.

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Photo credits: Gray wolf adult and pup by Holly Kuchera/Shutterstock; coyote by Peter Eades/USFWS; Fender's blue butterfly by Kelsey King/USFWS, California red-legged frog courtesy NPS; loggerhead sea turtle by T. Moore/NOAA; Jurupa oak by Aaron Echols; armored leaf chameleon by David d'O; two-spot octopus by Jerry Kirkhart/Flickr.

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