The People Have Spoken — and the Senate Must Listen

In this week’s historic U.S. election, voters rejected the Trump agenda and the kleptocrats who’ve been working to advance their interests at the expense of people, wildlife, and the environment. We’re celebrating this shift in the power dynamic.

But the current Congress will return to D.C. on Monday — and Republicans will try to push through as much bad policy as they can before they lose congressional control in the new year.

The first legislation they plan to consider is the so-called Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act. It contains 77 distinct environmental attacks and would lock in President Donald Trump’s gutting of bedrock laws, hindering future administrations from restoring protections for years — if not decades.

Tell your senators to vote “no” on this devastating bill.

Humpbacks Keep Getting Entangled in California

Nine endangered humpback whales have been reported entangled in fishing lines off California this year, new state numbers show, with four confirmed in Dungeness crab gear. At least 24 large whales have been documented entangled off the state’s coast in 2026, and scientists say the actual numbers could be five times higher.

Pop-up (aka ropeless) fishing gear minimizes the time that untended vertical fishing lines are in the water, and at least 29 California crabbers used it this spring and summer. The state’s Fish and Wildlife director will soon decide how to manage the Dungeness crab fishery to reduce whale entanglements.

“California knows it has a serious entanglement problem, and officials know how to solve it, yet year after year whales continue to suffer,” said the Center for Biological Diversity's Ben Grundy-Hawley. “These entanglements can be reduced by using pop-up fishing gear all season long.”

Help whales and other marine creatures with a gift to the Future for the Wild Fund.

Suit Aims to Save Nevada Toads and Fish From Mining

Little Amargosa toads and fish called Oasis Valley speckled dace live only in spring-fed wetlands surrounded by desert near Beatty, Nevada. Now their fragile, delicately balanced home is a hub of proposed new gold mining by a multinational company called AngloGold Ashanti.

So last week the Center sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service seeking Endangered Species Act protection for the two species — both essential components of the upper Amargosa River ecosystem.

“The toads and fish are at the center of a bullseye surrounded by devastating mining activity that threatens to push them over the edge to extinction,” said Patrick Donnelly, our Great Basin director. “We won’t rest until they get the protection they urgently need and deserve.”

New Podcast Episode: In Search of Gopher Tortoises

Gopher tortoises are among the oldest living creatures on Earth, having stubbornly survived for some 60 million years. But they’ve suffered steep declines over the past century in places like Florida, where their homes are vanishing in real time.

In the newest episode of our Sounds Wild podcast, cohost Mike Stark joins the Center’s Florida and Caribbean Director Elise Bennett in a search for gopher tortoise burrows and a few answers about what the future holds for these lovable, slow-moving residents of South Florida.

Listen to the latest episode on our website or find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

New Center T-shirts, Hats Now Available

Ready to show your support for the Center’s work to save the wild? We’ve got a fresh batch of T-shirts and hats in our store.

Check out our new “Wild at Heart” T-shirts featuring two species we’re working to save — Wilson’s phalaropes and chambered nautiluses — as well as a new borderlands tee with a jaguar. Our “Love, Fight, Resist” hats have been popular among staff, and now we’re making them available for you or someone you need a good gift for.

While you’re in our online store, check out our selection of books by Center staff and the Endangered board game. All purchases at our store help fund the lifesaving work the Center does every day.

The Revelator: Before and After

We know the usual direction of “before and after” photos. The forest becomes a clearing. The glacier retreats. The reef loses its color. “Before” holds abundance; “after” records what has been taken away. But in an amazing series of photos from coral restoration research, “after” means recovery.

Read more and see the photos in The Revelator.

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Join Us for a Talk Called ‘Ecologies of Resistance’

We’re excited about an upcoming free event in Oakland: a conversation by writers and artists whose work sits at the intersection of culture, nature, and resistance. They’ll discuss how authors can craft inclusive work that holds history, ecology, and lived experience simultaneously.

One speaker will be the Center’s Tiffany Yap, a senior scientist and author of the graphic novel Tales of the Urban Wild: A Puma’s Journey. Her book follows the survival story of a young California mountain lion navigating a human-dominated landscape.

Books will be available for sale and signing. After the conversation, stick around to dance to a performance by SambaFunk!

Although it’s free, you’ll need to register in advance.

When: Sunday, Nov. 15, noon - 2 p.m.

Where: Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St Suite 290, Oakland

That’s Wild: Venomous Primate Rediscovered

Bangka slow lorises belong to a group of big-eyed, venomous primates whose underarm glands secrete a defensive toxin they can use against predators. These 10-inch-long critters were believed to be extinct starting around 1937.

But over the past decade a wildlife rescue center in Indonesia has treated quite a few of the lorises after they had encounters with humans (and dogs) in homes and neighborhoods. And while the good news is that they’re not extinct, they remain critically endangered.

Read more and see pictures at Gizmodo.

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Photo credits: Monarch butterfly by Ryan Hagerty/USFWS, Mexican spotted owl by Preston Keres/USDA; humpback whale by Kaitlin Thoresen/NPS; Amargosa toad by Robert Dobbs/iNaturalist (CC BY-NC), speckled dace by Ilja Fescenko/iNaturalist (CC BY-NC); gopher tortoise by Renee Bodine/USFWS; shirts and hat by Center for Biological Diversity; before and after corals recovering from bleaching © by Danny Collins; {{if --[[40 miles from 94607]] SavedSearch_502042}}Tales of the Urban Wild illustration by Meital Smith, Tiffany Yap headshot used with permission; Bangka slow loris (Nycticebus bancanus) by Gunay M.E./Wikimedia Commons.

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Center for Biological Diversity
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