No. 1236, March 14, 2024

Endangered Bats Get 1.1 Million Protected Acres

Thanks to a court-ordered agreement following two lawsuits by the Center for Biological Diversity and allies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service just protected more than 1.1 million acres of ­­critical habitat for Florida bonneted bats. Destructive development and pesticides nearly drove the bats extinct before previous Center litigation earned them Endangered Species Act protection in 2013.

Florida bonneted bats are the largest of their state’s 13 bat species and the second largest in North America. Their bird-like echolocation calls have such a low frequency that some people can actually hear them hunt for insects.

Our latest victory — won with backing by Center supporters — will help ensure survival for these adorable bats and their jumbo ears, plus other species sharing their pine rockland home.

Species with critical habitat are twice as likely to be on a path to recovery as those without it. Tell the Biden administration it’s time to take bold action so imperiled species can live on to one day thrive again.

Wolverines May Return to California, Colorado

In the past month, bills have been introduced in the legislatures of two western states to consider reintroducing wolverines, the fierce, furry, snow-loving members of the weasel family who’ve become so rare in the lower 48.

California’s bill to study the feasibility of returning wolverines to the state, which is sponsored by the Center, was introduced in February; now Colorado lawmakers have introduced their own bipartisan bill.

"Reintroduction will give wolverines a fighting chance as climate change reduces the snowpack they need to rear their young,” the Center’s Alli Henderson told Axios.

Help our fight for wolverines with a gift to the Center's Saving Life on Earth Fund.

Video of Border Saguaro Deaths Goes Viral

Under the Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security bulldozed thousands of saguaros to build up the border wall. The agency tried to save face by transplanting a few of them, but many of those transplants were already dead six months later.

The Center’s video evidence of those deaths went viral, getting millions of views on Twitter/X.

Saguaros are very slow-growing cacti, reaching only about 1.5 inches within their first 10 years of life, and they don’t blossom till they’re about 7 to 8 feet tall. That means some of the killed cacti were over a century old.

Head to Facebook or YouTube to watch — and share — our video showing the tragic fate of these once-mighty desert sentinels.

Hawaiʻi Update: Winning for the Big Island

Good news for 12 species on the island of Hawaiʻi: Center litigation just helped secure almost 120,000 acres of critical habitat for 11 plants and a picture-wing fly. Protected areas range through dryland forest and grasslands to rainforests on the slopes of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.

In another move for the Big Island, we just filed a legal intervention opposing a proposed resort on the spectacular black-sand beach of Punaluʻu. The resort would threaten endangered hawksbill sea turtles and Hawaiian monk seals and harm local communities.

“The impacts of this development will be huge,” said Maxx Phillips, the Center’s Hawaiʻi director, to Civil Beats.

Underfunding leads to federal sluggishness on protecting habitat and species — including some of those most desperately in need, like Hawaiian plants. If you live in the United States, help us ask Congress to pass bold legislation funding their recovery.

Survey Finds 257 Mexican Wolves

The Fish and Wildlife Service has announced that the number of endangered Mexican gray wolves in Arizona and New Mexico grew by just 15 last year, to a total of 257.

Last century the U.S. government poisoned and trapped almost all wild Mexican wolves. Following a lawsuit by the Center and allies, in 1998 Fish and Wildlife reintroduced captive-bred descendants of the last seven survivors to the U.S. Southwest.

Today, despite dangerously low genetic diversity, the agency refuses to release captive wolf families into the wild together — after pressure by the livestock industry, it stopped doing that in 2006. But pups released by themselves into wild wolves’ dens don’t fare well: Last year only 1 of 16 survived.

We’re working to change that so Mexican wolves can truly recover.

The True Cost of Sprawl

A new Center report finds that sprawl — low-density housing development outside of urban centers — poses serious threats to people and wildlife.

Sprawl destroys native habitat, worsens the climate crisis, and creates poisonous pollution. It siphons resources from existing communities and — because it’s often built in dangerous places — exposes residents to wildfire and flooding.

But people need affordable places to live. Check out our report to learn more about the problems with sprawl and policy solutions to provide safe, sustainable housing without sacrificing a healthy environment. And find out what our Urban Wildlands program is doing to stop a massive Northern California sprawl development.

Revelator: Adapt, Move or Die?

As climate change gets worse, many plants and animals have just two choices: adapt or migrate. Some species — from African rhinos to Australian marsupials to fish across the globe — may not be able to do either.

What does their future hold? Get a peek into their stories at The Revelator.

And if you don't already, subscribe to the free weekly e-newsletter for more wildlife and conservation news.

That’s Wild: Wormlike Amphibians Who Lactate?

Mammals are known as the only animals who feed their young by secreting milk from their bodies — but other critters are apparently giving us some competition.

A group of limbless tropical amphibians resembling worms, called caecilians, contains some species whose young come into the world equipped with teeth and feed on their mothers’ skin. Now it turns out those egg-hatched youngsters can also get their mothers to eject a high-fat, high-protein substance from their cloacae — if they make the right clicking noises.

Watch a voracious new family in action on Facebook or YouTube.

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Photo credits: Florida bonneted bat by Shalana Gray/Wikimedia; wolverine by Mattias Berger via Canva; dead saguaro by Laiken Jordahl/Center for Biological Diversity; māʻoliʻoli flower courtesy Pohakuloa Training Area Natural Resources Office, Hawaiian picture-wing fly (Drosophila digressa) © Kevin Kaneshiro; Mexican gray wolf by Jim Clark/USFWS; mountain lion P64 courtesy NPS, sprawl from Center report; black rhinos by Meghan Hess/Flickr; caecilian mom and babies by Carlos Jared.

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