Tell Interior: Yosemite Isn't for Sale

Yosemite National Park is America’s first protected area and one of the most visited and extraordinary places on Earth. Each year millions travel there to witness its soaring granite walls, towering ancient sequoia trees, and incredible diversity of wildlife, from Yosemite toads to Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep.

Now, in a shocking sweetheart deal, the Trump administration is pressuring National Park Service staff to give away part of Yosemite to a private equity firm — all so developers can build a private road straight into the park.

Yosemite belongs to every American, not to a corporate entity seeking to profit by destroying this beautiful, beloved place. And if Yosemite can be chopped up and sold to the ultra-wealthy few, no national park or public land is safe.

Leadership at the U.S. Department of the Interior needs to know you're outraged by this proposed deal. Tell Interior our public lands and parks aren't for sale.

In Court to Save Owls, Bull Trout From Logging

This week the Center for Biological Diversity and local partners sued the U.S. Forest Service for approving the Midnight Restoration Project, a 53,000-acre logging proposal in Washington state touted for “wildfire risk reduction.” Besides allowing extensive logging of mature and old-growth forests otherwise protected under the agency’s own Northwest Forest Plan, Midnight Restoration would destroy critical habitat for northern spotted owls and bull trout. Meanwhile research shows that logging remote, mature forests is not the best way to reduce wildfire risk.

“This lawsuit challenges the false narrative that we have to choose between healthy forests and safe communities,” said the Center’s Kristine Akland.

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

Suit Filed Over New PFAS Pesticide Approval

The Center and allies just sued the Trump administration over its approval of trifludimoxazin, a potent PFAS pesticide, for use on a long list of food crops — despite acknowledging its threats to wildlife and human health.

PFAS (aka perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are nicknamed “forever chemicals” because that’s basically how long they can pollute water and soil.

Among many other problems with trifludimoxazin, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has linked the pesticide to cancer and found a high risk to federally protected fish species like Atlantic sturgeon, smalltooth sawfish, and endangered Chinook salmon and steelhead populations.

“This approval is unconscionable, immoral, and illegal,” said the Center’s Nathan Donley. “Our kids and grandkids deserve better than to be saddled with pollution that never goes away.”

Roadless Rule Rollback Could Risk 400 Extinctions

According to a new Center analysis, the Trump administration’s move to dismantle the Roadless Area Conservation Rule could hasten the extinction of more than 400 federally protected plants and animals. Scrapping the rule — which safeguards nearly 45 million acres of unfragmented national forests — would also threaten 7.4 million acres of critical habitat and nearly 1,800 miles of protected rivers and streams.

"Bulldozing more roads through our national forests will mean dirtier water, fragmented wildlife habitat, and greater wildfire risk,” said Randi Spivak, public lands policy director at the Center.

You can help: Before the public comment period ends, tell the Forest Service to keep roadless forests protected.

Appeals Court Protects Sea Turtles From Fishing Nets

Lifesaving news for imperiled sea turtles: A federal appeals court has unanimously affirmed a district court decision upholding a federal rule requiring some shrimp-trawling vessels to use turtle excluder devices, or TEDs.

This decision rejects a challenge by shrimpers arguing the rule was “arbitrary and capricious” — and follows a friend-of-the-court brief by the Center and allies supporting TED requirements for federally protected turtles.

“It’s a relief that the court didn’t take the bait and dismantle protections that are already far weaker than what’s needed,” said the Center’s Florida and Caribbean Director Elise Bennett. “We won’t rest until protections prevent senseless turtle deaths in all skimmer trawls.”

The Revelator: Narwhals

No, they’re not creatures of myth or cartoons. These “unicorns of the sea” are real — and they’re incredible.

Read all about them, including the surprising ways they use their tusks, in The Revelator’s latest “Whale of the Month” column.

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

That’s Wild: Marmots Explode on OnlyFans

An OnlyFans account that’s safe for work? Yes, because it’s all about a different kind of wild: yellow-bellied marmots in their natural habitat (but yes, also in their birthday suits).

The story: After President Donald Trump slashed U.S. conservation funding, the grant for a 60-year-old marmot-research project was in limbo. Instead of letting the project end, the passionate biologists running it made an OnlyFans account — called OnlyMarms — that posts up-close and personal footage of these pudgy, burrowing rodents in their natural habitat. The project blew up in the media, and sympathetic memecoin enthusiasts independently launched the Solana $ONLYMARMS cryptocurrency. Its trading fees have now risen to more than $100,000 and will go directly toward marmot research.

Learn more hilarious details and watch a video.

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Photo credits: Yosemite toad by Rick Kuyper/USFWS, Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep by Nathan Hurner/USFWS; northern spotted owl by Taylor Ellis/NPS, bull trout by Roger Tabor/USFWS; Chinook salmon by Roger Tabor/USFWS; brown bear by Jennifer Kardiak/USDA Forest Service; Kemp's ridley sea turtle courtesy NOAA Fisheries; narwhals © azure27014/iNaturalist (CC BY-NC); yellow-bellied marmot by Caleb Putnam.

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