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Center for     Biological     Diversity   

More Than 200 Lawsuits Against the Trump Administration

We knew we'd be in a tough fight with the Trump administration – and we've never backed down.

The Center for Biological Diversity has now filed more than 200 lawsuits against the administration, including one on Monday to fight smog pollution in California's Imperial County.

And it's working. We've won 9 out of every 10 cases that have been resolved.

We've fought off some of the most egregious environmental rollbacks and secured protection for imperiled wildlife and plants in the face of unprecedented hostility to endangered species. We've also cast daylight on the most secretive government operations we've ever seen using the Freedom of Information Act, and we've halted destructive projects like the massive Rosemont copper mine in Arizona.

The Trump administration serves corporate profits over people — so its attacks on the environment won't stop until its last day. But every single day until then, we'll be battling it ferociously to protect our health and our planet.

Learn more about all our lawsuits against the Trump administration and support our fight by making a donation to our Saving Life on Earth Fund.

Join Us Today: A Discussion on Grizzlies, Wolverines

Wolverine and grizzly bear

Few animals embody wildness like grizzly bears and wolverines. They're fierce, mysterious — and in trouble.

Join us later today for a Saving Life on Earth discussion about our work to save these two iconic large carnivores. The presentation will include Center Senior Attorney Andrea Zaccardi and Endangered Species Program Director Noah Greenwald.

The conversation will dive into the biology and significance of these amazing creatures and how you can join our campaigns to ensure they have the long-term protection they need to survive.

Take Action: Rare Alaska Wolves Devastated by Trapping

Alexander Archipelago wolf

Shocking news from Alaska: Wolves on Prince of Wales Island in the Tongass National Forest may have been almost entirely wiped out. During the most recent trapping season, at least 165 wolves were killed out of a population last estimated at 170 (and yes, you read that right). This attack on wildlife can't stand — these wolves need to be protected, not hunted to oblivion.

Send a letter urging state and federal officials to stop the trapping and hunting of these imperiled wolves and give them the full protection they deserve.

Logging

COVID-19 has made it clear that our health is deeply connected to the ecosystems we're a part of. But the pandemic's link to the destructive wildlife trade is only one example of how environmental damage drives human disease. Watch this new video on Facebook or YouTube, and learn more at The Revelator.

Cumberland sandwort

Latest Success: A Lovely Flower in the Southeast

Ready for good news?

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week announced the recovery of the Cumberland sandwort, a small, white flowering plant mainly found in the Big South Fork National Recreation Area in Kentucky and Tennessee. It's now being proposed to come off the endangered species list, where it has been protected since 1988.

"Thanks to the Endangered Species Act, this delicate little flower has made quite the comeback," said the Center's Stephanie Kurose. "This amazing success story is proof that the Act works and shows why it remains one of the most popular laws among the American people."

Read more.

Suckley's cuckoo bumblebee

Protection Sought for Vanishing Cuckoo Bumblebee

You may have never seen it, but it's there: the rare Suckley's cuckoo bumblebee.

This parasitic pollinator was once common to prairies, grasslands and meadows across the West. Now it has lost more than half its historic range to grazing, pesticides, habitat loss and global warming.

The nearly inch-long, black-and-yellow bee is unusual in that it's a "cuckoo" or social parasite that takes over the nests of other bumblebees. It subdues their resident queen and makes the worker bees feed and care for its own young.

But this bee may not survive its recent steep declines. That's why this week the Center petitioned to protect it under the Endangered Species Act.

Read more.

The Revelator: Tiger King and the Illegal U.S. Tiger Trade

Captive tigers

Last month Netflix released its sensationalist docu-series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, and housebound viewers flocked to the spectacle. The show was less about tigers, the most endangered big cats in the world, than the tormented egos and trashy dramas of the people involved in their abuse. Real documentaries should inspire change, not milk misery for profit — so The Revelator takes a look at the tragic story behind the tawdry one.

Read it and sign up for The Revelator's weekly e-newsletter.

Deepwater Horizon: 10 Years Later

Deepwater Horizon

In a new piece on Medium, the Center's Oceans Legal Director Kristen Monsell remembers the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010. The disaster killed 11 people, shut down fishing, polluted vast areas of shore and sea, and harmed huge numbers of animals and plants, including endangered species. Under the Trump administration, "we're still drilling and spilling more than ever in the Gulf of Mexico," writes Kristen.

Have we learned anything? Will this happen again?

Read her article now.

Op-ed: Out of View, Trump EPA Pushes Dangerous Poisons

Dandelions

You've probably never heard of a pesticide called isoxaflutole, writes the Center's Dr. Nate Donley in Environmental Health News. And that's exactly how the Trump Environmental Protection Agency, under former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, wants it. The newly approved pesticide has been linked to cancer and, like dicamba, is prone to drift. But that didn't stop the EPA from approving it for use on 90 million acres in 25 states last month — and stifling public participation in the process.

Check out Nate's column.

Climate protest

How Fiction Can Fight Climate Change

"All the most beautiful and terrible things we do as human beings, we do with words: law, policy, religion, art — also the bomb. The first atomic bomb was made of words. Math is a language too. … We can end ourselves with words, but we can also save ourselves."

In an Earth Day conversation for NPR, Pulitzer Prize–nominated author and Center staffer Lydia Millet talks about the power of fiction to address the global crises of climate change and extinction.

Tune in to hear from Lydia as well as authors Amy Brady and Jenny Offill.

Op-ed: Plan Would Devastate Ponderosas Near Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon

Some of the largest, oldest ponderosa pines in the Southwest live above the North Rim of the Grand Canyon — and the U.S. Forest Service wants to cut many of them down. The trees won't be the only casualties, as the Center's Joe Trudeau wrote in an op-ed in The Arizona Republic. The feds' plan proposes logging through almost 100 nesting sites for northern goshawks, beautiful raptors that rely on these dense pine tree canopies.

Read Joe's op-ed and tell the Forest Service you oppose cutting these large trees.

Ring-tailed lemur

Wild & Weird: Male Lemurs Use Body Odor as Pick-up Line

A new study has discovered that during breeding season, male ring-tailed lemurs secrete a combination of chemicals similar to pheromones from glands on their wrists to attract potential mates.

The males rub their smelly wrists on their tails and then shake their tails to waft the vaporized perfume toward the objects of their affection. The secretions seem to pique the interest of females, who lick places where droplets of the chemicals settle. Scientists have dubbed the process "stink flirting."

According to researchers one of these chemicals produced by the males smells like pear.

Read more — and watch video of a lemur stink flirting — at Smithsonian Magazine.

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Photo credits: Elephant via Unsplash; wolverine by Mathias Appel/Flickr; grizzly bear by frostnip/Flickr; Alexander Archipelago wolf (c) Michelle Rodgers; logging by Ancient Forest Alliance; Cumberland sandwort courtesy Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation; Suckley's cuckoo bumblebee by Hadel Go/American Museum of Natural History; captive tigers courtesy The HSUS; Deepwater Horizon courtesy U.S. Coast Guard; dandelions by Blonde Bomb/Flickr; climate change protest by Joe Brusky/Flickr; Grand Canyon by Alan English/Flickr; ring-tailed lemur by Mathias Appel/Flickr.

Center for Biological Diversity
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Tucson, AZ 85702
United States