Finally — Recovery Plan for Endangered California Frog

Southern California's tiny population of endangered mountain yellow-legged frogs has a roadmap to recovery at last.

These frogs have disappeared from nearly all of their historic range in Southern California. By the 1990s fewer than 100 were eking out a living in isolated headwater streams.

After years of scientific and legal work by the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has finalized a recovery plan. It calls for re-establishing populations and tackling threats like disease, habitat loss, pollution and nonnative fish that eat the frogs.

"It'll be no small feat to recover these highly endangered frogs in the wild, with their numbers so low," said the Center's Jenny Loda. "But we have to try."

Get more from MyNewsLA.

A Big Win for a Small Texan

Victory for a Texas songbird: A federal judge has ruled that golden-cheeked warblers should stay protected under the Endangered Species Act. The birds are severely threatened by runaway urban sprawl.

Several right-wing think tanks had petitioned to strip safeguards from the warbler, which is native to the Hill Country of central Texas. The bird was put on the endangered species list in 1990.

The Center and allies were part of the court proceedings to keep the bird protected.

"With the continued protection of the Endangered Species Act, I'm hoping the golden-cheeked warbler will charm birders worldwide for a long time to come," said the Center's Ryan Shannon.

Read more in the San Antonio Express-News.

This is the first 20 miles of Trump's new border wall. Although Trump shut down the government over border-wall funding for 2019, he'd got funding from Congress in 2018. That money was used to construct this wall in the remote New Mexico desert — and it's already stopping wildlife migrations and causing real harm. Next up for new wall construction: Texas and California. With your help we're doing everything we can to stop this destructive project. Watch our video on Facebook or YouTube.

40,000 Endangered Species Condoms for Valentine's Day

To show we care — about saving animals and plants, that is — the Center has recruited volunteers to distribute 40,000 of our free Endangered Species Condoms today in the 10 "best cities to get married in." We're also giving out 1,000 condoms in New York City's Times Square today as part of a fun one-day ad campaign.

The condoms, as well as our new Wildlife-friendly Wedding Guide, are geared at helping couples consider the threats posed to wildlife by population growth before getting hitched. Condom packages feature illustrations of endangered species plus slogans like "When you're feeling tender, think about the hellbender."

Read more.

The 20th installment in the Center's Endangered Species Mural Project has just been completed at Arizona Western College in Yuma, Ariz. Painted by Roger Peet and Lucinda Y Hinojos, the mural depicts the Sonoran pronghorn, the smallest and fastest species of pronghorn, and the charismatic Yuma clapper rail, a resident of Colorado River region wetlands. Pronghorns are threatened by increased militarization of the border region, and rails by the encroachment of industrial agriculture into their riparian habitat.

In Memoriam: John D. Dingell, Jr.

Many people worked to make the Endangered Species Act law in 1973, but no one did more than former U.S. Rep. John D. Dingell, Jr., who died last Thursday at 92.

Rep. Dingell was the lead sponsor of the bill that became the Act. He worked closely with Nixon administration officials to draft it, then shepherded it through a year of hearings. It got stronger because of testimony he elicited.

The Endangered Species Act is reason enough to revere Dingell. But he was also instrumental in passing the National Environmental Policy Act, Wilderness Act, Clean Water Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act and virtually every other environmental law the Center works under today.

The work he did for this country is immense, and so is our gratitude.

Read Dingell's last words for America in The Washington Post.

Wild & Weird: Rare, Adorable Ocelot Spotted in Arizona

Scientists at Conservation CATalyst have released footage of an extremely rare and painfully cute wild ocelot roaming in Arizona, within five miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. School kids at an Arizona elementary school recently named the ocelot Lil' Jefe (aka "Little Boss").

Check out Lil' Jefe on Facebook or YouTube, then watch elementary students giving the diminutive cat his name on Facebook or YouTube.