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Collage of an alligator and two manatees poking out of the water

No. 1,371, October 15, 2026

In Court to Force Trump to Cut Atrazine Pollution

The Center for Biological Diversity and allies just filed a lawsuit to make the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency set water-pollution limits for atrazine. This hormone-disrupting, cancer-linked chemical is the United States’ most widespread pesticide water pollutant. It’s found in thousands of rivers and streams at levels known to harm wildlife from manatees to alligators — and it’s in people’s drinking-water supplies, too.

Yet the EPA wants to reapprove its use — without legally required water-quality standards — for another two decades.

“We’re taking the Trump administration to court because it’s refusing to protect Americans or ecosystems,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center. “The rest of the world is banning this incredibly dangerous pesticide. Why is Trump’s EPA continuing to push this poison?”

If you haven’t yet, sign our petition asking the agency to ban atrazine once and for all.

New Rules Won’t Stop Whale Entanglements

Off the U.S. West Coast, heartbreaking whale deaths have been far too numerous lately: This year, for example, early data suggests 37 humpbacks have already been entangled, more than in any year since 2016.

So it’s lamentable that new rules for the region’s sablefish pot fishery, from NOAA Fisheries, probably won’t help reduce entanglements despite the fact that their stated goal is precisely that. The sablefish fishery alone has entangled three whales so far in 2026.

“It’s really troubling to see this many humpback whale entanglements attributed to this fishery in less than a year,” said Ben Grundy-Hawley, a Center oceans campaigner. “Trying to stop whale entanglements without reducing fishing line in the water makes no sense.”

Help us stop whale deaths with a gift to the Future for the Wild Fund.

Monarch butterfly photo with an invitation to take action against Endangered Species Act rollbacks

California Moves to Help Mount Pinos Sooty Grouse

Thanks to a petition by the Center and allies, on Tuesday the California Fish and Game Commission voted to designate Mount Pinos sooty grouse as a candidate for protection under the California Endangered Species Act. Now these fascinating high-elevation birds — known for hooting from treetops — get safeguards for a year while state biologists review their status to decide whether to make those safeguards permanent.

“Sooty grouse have already been driven out of their namesake Mount Pinos and the rest of Southern California’s Transverse Ranges,” said the Center’s Jeff Miller. “Protection is absolutely crucial for surviving populations in the Sierra Nevada, still at risk from logging and cattle grazing.”

Jaguar image captured by trail cameras, with a play button

The Center on The Daily Show: Border Wall Blues

What’s happening to nature, wildlife, and human communities along the U.S.-Mexico border is far more tragic than comic. But sometimes laughter's good medicine, and the folks at The Daily Show visited with the Center’s Russ McSpadden to find out why the Trump administration is so keen to build out the border wall in areas like the wild and beautiful San Rafael Valley, where people rarely bother to cross.

Please note that there’s some salty language in this video, though it’s not coming from Russ.

Watch Our Free Food Justice Film Festival Online

Our seventh annual virtual Food Justice Film Festival — happening Oct. 22-25 — highlights the links among Indigenous seed systems and seed sharing, food sovereignty and cultural heritage, and the fight to create a more sustainable food system.

This year’s lineup:

Seeds of Sovereignty spotlights Mexico’s effort to protect itself from the U.S. push for GMO corn and other industrial farming practices.
Seeding Change: Farming Beyond Neonics explores what the U.S. Northeast’s future would look like if seeds weren’t treated with neurotoxic insecticides called neonicotinoids.
Toxic Harvest: The Hidden Truth About Pesticides uncovers agricultural pesticides’ devastating impacts on South Africa.
Seed Is Life explores South Africa and Zimbabwe’s fight to protect their cultural heritage and reclaim the rights to their seed.

If you’re new to the festival, sign up for free.

If you joined last year, log in with your password.

Need help? Here’s how to sign up and watch.

And don’t miss our interviews with filmmakers, farmers, activists, and organizers.

The Revelator: Foul Fishmeal Factories

This week we’re happy (and a little nauseated) to showcase an investigation from The Revelator by journalist Ian Urbina and the Ocean Outlaw Project. As Urbina and his team reveal, much of the burden of the United States’ farmed fish industry lies upstream, in the factories of poorer countries, where communities live with foul air, broken sleep, and the costs of producing livestock feed for wealthy markets. This story is sure to raise a stink.

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

Illustration of sea spiders with a dark background

That's Wild: Newfound ‘Sea Spider’ Has Bad Hygiene

OK, so “sea spider” is a misnomer — the approximately 1,400 species discovered in the ocean so far are actually arthropods — but to us terrestrial mammals they definitely look the part. And some kinds can be 28 inches long.

Two newly described sea spiders, spotted by scuba-diving scientists in the Salish Sea, are of modest size but possess other noteworthy attributes. One called Callipallene pilosuspedes has red eyes and three lips, while the other, Tanystylum kiixin, is a parasite that’s often covered with parasites of its own — since its egg-carrying limbs don’t give it the dexterity to groom itself.