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Tag: endangered species

  • Trump Administration Ends Protections for Rare Dancing Prairie Bird

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    FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — A ground-dwelling bird known for elaborate mating dances on the southern Great Plains will no longer be federally protected after the Trump administration agreed with arguments by three states and the beef and petroleum industries that the species was listed improperly.

    Thursday’s delisting by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service formalized a recent court ruling that acknowledged the federal agency has now sided with opponents of federal protections for the lesser prairie chicken.

    The ruling by a federal judge in Midland, Texas, in effect ended Endangered Species Act protections for the bird last summer. The protections required the energy industry and ranchers to take steps to avoid disrupting the birds’ habitat and especially their mating areas, called leks.

    The crow-sized birds once numbered in the millions. Habitat loss from energy and agriculture development has shrunk their population to about 30,000 across parts of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

    Wildlife watchers delight in the male birds’ spring dances and their warbling, clucking and stomping ruckus to attract mates. Native American tribes mimic the flamboyant displays — also a behavior of the more common greater prairie chicken — in some of their dances.

    The lesser prairie chicken has been federally protected twice in recent years. In 2015, a federal judge in U.S. District Court in Midland reversed the bird’s listing as a threatened species the year before, siding with petroleum developers who argued that sufficient protections were already in place.

    In 2022, President Joe Biden’s administration listed the lesser prairie chicken as threatened in the northern part of its range in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, and as endangered in a “distinct population segment” to the south in New Mexico and Texas.

    The listing prompted a lawsuit filed by Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas and groups including the Permian Basin Petroleum Association and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

    After President Donald Trump took office last year, the Fish and Wildlife Service reevaluated the bird and agreed with the states and groups that it lacked justification to classify the lesser prairie chicken into two distinctly different populations.

    Last August, another judge in U.S. District Court in Midland granted a Fish and Wildlife Service motion to reverse its Biden-era listings for the lesser prairie chicken.

    “Fish and Wildlife’s concession points to serious error at the very foundation of its rule,” District Judge David Counts wrote in his Aug. 12 ruling praised by Texas officials.

    Texas oil and gas regulatory officials including Texas Railroad Commission spokesperson Bryce Dubee and Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham welcomed the delisting.

    “It will ensure American oil and gas production in the Permian Basin remains robust and our economy steadfast,” Buckingham said in an emailed statement.

    Environmentalists vowed to fight on in court.

    “It’s shameful that the Trump administration sees fit to sacrifice these magnificent birds for oil and gas industry profit,” Jason Rylander, legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said in a statement. “Lesser prairie chickens may be lost forever without Endangered Species Act protections.”

    Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • These shy, scaly anteaters are the most trafficked mammals in the world

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    CAPE TOWN, South Africa — They are hunted for their unique scales, and the demand makes them the most trafficked mammal in the world.

    Wildlife conservationists are again raising the plight of pangolins, the shy, scaly anteaters found in parts of Africa and Asia, on World Pangolin Day on Saturday.

    Pangolins or pangolin products outstrip any other mammal when it comes to wildlife smuggling, with more than half a million pangolins seized in anti-trafficking operations between 2016 and 2024, according to a report last year by CITES, the global authority on the trading of endangered plant and animal species.

    The World Wildlife Fund estimates that over a million pangolins were taken from the wild over the last decade, including those that were never intercepted.

    Pangolins meat is a delicacy in places, but the driving force behind the illegal trade is their scales, which are made of keratin, the protein also found in human hair and fingernails. The scales are in high demand in China and other parts of Asia due to the unproven belief that they cure a range of ailments when made into traditional medicine.

    There are eight pangolin species, four in Africa and four in Asia. All of them face a high, very high or extremely high risk of extinction.

    While they’re sometimes known as scaly anteaters, pangolins are not related in any way to anteaters or armadillos.

    They are unique in that they are the only mammals covered completely in keratin scales, which overlap and have sharp edges. They are the perfect defense mechanism, allowing a pangolin to roll up into an armored ball that even lions struggle to get to grip with, leaving the nocturnal ant and termite eaters with few natural predators.

    But they have no real defense against human hunters. And in conservation terms, they don’t resonate in the way that elephants, rhinos or tigers do despite their fascinating intricacies — like their sticky insect-nabbing tongues being almost as long as their bodies.

    While some reports indicate a downward trend in pangolin trafficking since the COVID-19 pandemic, they are still being poached at an alarming rate across parts of Africa, according to conservationists.

    Nigeria is one of the global hot spots. There, Dr. Mark Ofua, a wildlife veterinarian and the West Africa representative for the Wild Africa conservation group, has rescued pangolins for more than a decade, which started with him scouring bushmeat markets for animals he could buy and save. He runs an animal rescue center and a pangolin orphanage in Lagos.

    His mission is to raise awareness of pangolins in Nigeria through a wildlife show for kids and a tactic of convincing entertainers, musicians and other celebrities with millions of social media followers to be involved in conservation campaigns — or just be seen with a pangolin.

    Nigeria is home to three of the four African pangolin species, but they are not well known among the country’s 240 million people.

    Ofua’s drive for pangolin publicity stems from an encounter with a group of well-dressed young men while he was once transporting pangolins he had rescued in a cage. The men pointed at them and asked him what they were, Ofua said.

    “Oh, those are baby dragons,” he joked. But it got him thinking.

    “There is a dark side to that admission,” Ofua said. “If people do not even know what a pangolin looks like, how do you protect them?”

    ___

    AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

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  • US ocean regulator faces criticism over changes to right whale protection rule

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    PORTLAND, Maine — The U.S.’s ocean regulator plans to make industry-friendly changes to a longstanding rule designed to protect vanishing whales, prompting criticism from environmental groups who cite the recent death of an endangered whale.

    The rules protect the North Atlantic right whale, which numbers less than 400 and lives off the East Coast. The giant animals are protected by a vessel speed rule that requires large ships to slow down at certain times to avoid collisions, which is a leading cause of death for the whales.

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a Thursday statement to The Associated Press that it plans to soon announce proposed new rules designed to “modernize” the whale protections. The proposal will be a “deregulatory-focused action” that will seek to “reduce unnecessary regulatory and economic burdens while ensuring responsible conservation practices for endangered North Atlantic right whales,” the statement said.

    A notice of rulemaking about the right whale rules is listed on the U.S. Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website, but it does not include any details about the proposal. NOAA said in its statement that more information about the rules was forthcoming and that the agency was focused on “implementing new technologies, engineering approaches, and other advanced tools” to protect the whales.

    Several environmental groups criticized the move away from vessel speed rules. Some cited the Feb. 10 confirmation of the death of a 3-year-old female whale off Virginia. The cause of the animal’s death was not yet determined, but it died at a far younger age than typical.

    “Another female right whale — the future of this species — has lost her life. We urgently need more right whale protections, not fewer. The Trump administration’s apparent determination to weaken the vessel speed rule could not come at a worse time,” said Jane Davenport, senior attorney at conservation group Defenders of Wildlife.

    Right whales migrate every year from calving grounds off Florida and Georgia to feeding grounds off New England and Canada. Along the way, they are vulnerable to collisions with ships and entanglement in commercial fishing gear. They were once numerous off the East Coast but were decimated during the commercial whaling era and have been federally protected for decades.

    The Biden administration planned to expand slow zones off the East Coast to protect the whales. It also planned to expand the classes of boats required to slow down. However, the federal government withdrew the proposal in the final days of the administration, with officials saying it didn’t have time to finalize the regulations due to the scope and volume of public comments.

    Some shipping businesses and other marine industries have long pushed back at vessel speed rules. The National Marine Manufacturers Association has described speed restrictions as “archaic” and advocated for solutions that rely on technology.

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  • Genetic analysis could speed up restoration of iconic American chestnut: Scientists

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    WASHINGTON — Billions of American chestnut trees once covered the eastern United States. They soared in height, producing so many nuts that sellers moved them by train car. Every Christmas, they’re called to mind by the holiday lyric “chestnuts roasting on an open fire.”

    But by the 1950s, this venerable tree went functionally extinct, culled by a deadly airborne fungal blight and lethal root rot. A new study out Thursday in the journal Science provides hope for its revitalization, finding that the genetic testing of individual trees can reveal which are most likely to resist disease and grow tall, thus shortening how long it takes to plant the next, more robust, generation.

    A smaller gap between generations means a faster path to lots of disease-resistant trees that will once again be able to compete for space in Eastern forests. The authors hope that can occur in the coming decades.

    “What’s new here is the engine that we’re creating for restoration,” said Jared Westbrook, lead author and director of science at The American Chestnut Foundation, which wants to return the tree to its native range that once stretched from Maine to Mississippi.

    The American chestnut, sometimes called the “redwood of the East,” can grow quickly and reach more than 100 feet (30 meters), produce prodigious amounts of nutritious chestnuts and supply lumber favored for its straight grain and durability.

    But it had little defense against foreign-introduced blight and root rot. Another type of chestnut, however, had evolved alongside those diseases. The Chinese chestnut had been introduced for its valuable nuts and it could resist diseases. But it isn’t as tall or competitive in U.S. forests, nor has it served the same critical role supporting other species.

    So, the authors want a tree with the characteristics of the American chestnut and the disease resistance of the Chinese chestnut.

    That goal is not new — scientists have been reaching for it for decades and made some progress.

    But it has been difficult because the American chestnut’s desirable traits are scattered across multiple spots along its genome, the DNA string that tells the tree how to develop and function.

    “It’s a very complex trait, and in that case, you can’t just select on one thing because you’ll select on linked things that are negative,” said John Lovell, senior author and researcher at the HudsonAlpha Genome Sequencing Center.

    Breed for disease resistance alone and the trees get shorter, less competitive.

    To deal with this, the authors sequenced the genome of multiple types of chestnuts and found the many places that correlated with the desired traits. They can then use that information to breed trees that are more likely to have desirable traits while maintaining high amounts of American chestnut DNA — roughly 70% to 85%.

    And genetic testing allows the process to move faster, revealing the best offspring years before their traits would be demonstrated by natural growth and encountering disease. The closer the gap between generations, the faster gains accumulate.

    Steven Strauss, a professor of forest biotechnology at Oregon State University who wasn’t involved in the study, said the paper identified some promising genes. He wants scientists to be able to edit the genes themselves, a possibly faster, more precise path to a better tree. In an accompanying commentary piece in Science, he says regulations can bog down these ideas for years.

    “People just won’t consider biotech because it is on the other side of this social, legal barrier” and that’s shortsighted, he said.

    For people who have closely studied the American chestnut, the work begs an almost existential question: How much can the American chestnut be changed and still be an American chestnut?

    “The American chestnut has a unique evolutionary history, it has a specific place in the North American ecosystem,” said Donald Edward Davis, author of the American chestnut, an environmental history. “Having that tree and no other trees would be sort of the gold standard.”

    He said the tree was a keystone species, useful to humans and vital to bigger populations of squirrels, chipmunks and black bears — hybrids might not be as majestic or effective. He was pleased that the authors included some surviving American chestnuts in their proposal, but favored an approach that relied on them more heavily.

    “Not that the hybrid approach is itself bad, it is just that why not try to get the wild American trees back in the forest, back in the ecosystem, and exhaust all possibilities from doing that before we move on to some of these other methods?” he said.

    Lovells said resurrecting the species requires introducing genetic diversity from outside the traditional pool of American chestnut trees. The study authors’ goal is tall, resilient trees and they are optimistic.

    “I think if we only select American chestnut (tree genes), period, there’s going to be too small of a pool and we’re going to end up with a genetic bottleneck that will lead to extinction in the future,” said Lovell.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • Inside the effort to bring back California condors

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    Inside the effort to bring back California condors – CBS News









































    Watch CBS News



    More than a dozen California condors born in captivity are getting their first flights of freedom. Joy Benedict reports.

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  • Trump administration delays decision on federal protections for monarch butterflies

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    MADISON, Wis. — President Donald Trump’s administration has delayed a decision on whether to extend federal protections to monarch butterflies indefinitely despite years of warnings from conservationists that populations are shrinking.

    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced during the waning days of then-President Joe Biden’s term in December 2024 that the agency planned to add the beloved backyard pollinator to the threatened species list by the end of 2025, calling the insect “iconic” and “cherished across North America.”

    But the Trump administration quietly listed the effort as a “long-term action” in a September report on the status of federal regulatory initiatives from the Office of Management and Budget. The designation does not mean the administration has blocked the fish and wildlife service from making the decision, only that it will not come within the year that began in September.

    “The administration remains committed to a regulatory approach that is transparent, predictable and grounded in sound science,” an agency spokesperson wrote in an email to The Associated Press on Friday. “Any listing must follow the (Endangered Species Act’s) statutory requirement that determinations be based on the best scientific and commercial data available. At the same time, the administration continues to emphasize voluntary, locally driven conservation as a proven tool for supporting species and reducing the need for additional federal regulation.”

    No one at the agency immediately returned follow-up emails inquiring about the specific rationale for the delay. The first Trump administration named the monarch a candidate for listing in December 2020. His second administration has made oil and gas production a centerpiece and has been working to strip away environmental regulations that impede development.

    His administration moved in November to roll back blanket protections for threatened animals and plants, requiring government agencies to instead craft species-specific rules, a potentially lengthy process. Other proposals call for bypassing species protections for logging in national forests and on public lands.

    The Center for Biological Diversity and other conservation groups started pushing for federal protections for the butterfly in 2014, petitioning the fish and wildlife service to list the insect. The center sued in 2022 to force the agency to make a listing decision.

    Tierra Curry, the center’s endangered species co-director, said Friday that she’s not surprised the Trump administration has delayed the decision. She said it can take more than a decade to get a species listed. For example, she said, the Miami Blue Butterfly was finally listed as endangered in 2012 after waiting on the candidate list since 1984. The Dakota Skipper butterfly became a candidate in 1984 but was not listed as threatened until 2014, she added.

    The long-term action designation doesn’t mean the end for monarch protections but it does place them in “bureaucratic limbo,” she said.

    “It’s absolutely disappointing because monarchs need all the help they can get,” Curry said.

    Monarchs are found across North America. Known for their distinctive orange-and-black wings, they’re a symbol of sunny summer days.

    But environmentalists have warned that monarch populations are shrinking due to climate change and rural development. Fish and wildlife service experts said when they announced in December 2024 that they planned to list the butterfly that monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains face a 57% to 74% probability of extinction by 2080. Monarchs west of the Rockies have a 95% chance of becoming extinct by then.

    The monarch listing proposal would generally prohibit people from killing or transporting the butterfly. People and farmers could continue to remove milkweed, a key food source for monarch caterpillars, from their gardens, backyards and fields but would be barred from making changes that would make the land permanently unusable for the species.

    People could continue to transport fewer than 250 monarchs and could continue to use them for educational purposes.

    The proposal also would designate as critical habitat 4,395 acres (1,779 hectares) in seven coastal California counties where monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains migrate for winter. The designation would prohibit federal agencies from destroying or modifying that habitat. The designation doesn’t prohibit all development, but landowners who need a federal license or permit for a project would have to work with the wildlife service to mitigate damage.

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  • Eel populations are falling, and new protections were defeated. Japan and the US opposed them

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    SCARBOROUGH, Maine — Eels are the stuff of nightmares — slimy, snakelike creatures that lay millions of eggs before dying so their offspring can return home to rivers and streams. They’ve existed since the time of the dinosaurs, and some species are more poorly understood than those ancient animals.

    Yet they’re also valuable seafood fish that are declining all over the world, leading to a new push for restrictions on trade to help stave off extinction.

    Freshwater eels are critically important for the worldwide sushi industry, and some species have declined by more than 90% since the 1980s. The eels have succumbed to a combination of river dams, hydroelectric turbines, pollution, habitat loss, climate change, illegal poaching and overfishing, according to scientists. Some environmental organizations have called for consumers to boycott eel at sushi restaurants.

    The loss of eels motivated the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, to consider new restrictions to protect the wriggling fish. The members of CITES, an international treaty, met in Uzbekistan this week to determine if the new rules on trade are needed. Member nations voted against the new protections on Thursday.

    Conservation groups said the protections were long overdue, but not everyone was on board. Some fishing groups, seafood industry members and regulatory agencies in the U.S., China and Japan — all countries where eel is economically important — have spoken out against restricting the trade.

    The push for more restrictions is the work of “an international body dominated by volunteer scientists and unelected bureaucrats,” said Mitchell Feigenbaum, one of North America’s largest eel dealers and an advocate for the industry. But several conservation groups countered that the protections were needed.

    “This measure is vital to strengthen trade monitoring, aid fisheries management, and ensure the species’ long-term survival,” said Susan Lieberman, vice president of international policy for Wildlife Conservation Society.

    The eels in question are the eels of the anguilla genus, which spend their lives in freshwater but migrate to the ocean to spawn. They are distinct from the familiar, grinning moray eels, which are popular in aquariums and are mostly marine fish, and the electric eels, which live in South America.

    Anguilla eels, especially baby eels called elvers, are valuable because they are used as seed stock by Asian aquaculture companies that raise them to maturity for use as food. Freshwater eel is known as unagi in Japan, and it’s a key ingredient in numerous sushi dishes. Eel is also culturally significant in Japan, where people have eaten the fish for thousands of years.

    The elvers have become more valuable in the U.S. over the last 15 years because of the steep decline of eels elsewhere in the world. While the population of American eels has fallen, the drop has not been as severe as Japanese and European eels. Attempts to list American eels under the Endangered Species Act in the U.S. have failed.

    Maine is the only U.S. state with a significant fishery for the elvers, and it is heavily regulated. Maine’s baby eels were worth more than $1,200 per pound at the docks in 2024, and they were worth more than $2,000 per pound the year before that.

    CITES, which is one of the world’s largest multinational wildlife agreements, extended protections to European eels in 2009. The organization considered adding more than a dozen more eel species, including the American and Japanese eels, to its list of protected species.

    Adding the eels to the list would mean exporters would need a permit to ship them. Before the permit could be granted, a scientific authority in the home country would have to determine that the export would not be detrimental to the species’ survival and that the eels weren’t taken illegally under national wildlife laws. That is significant because poaching of eels is a major threat, and rare species are often illegally passed off as more common ones, CITES documents state.

    Tightening trade rules “will encourage species-specific trade monitoring and controls and close loopholes that allow illegal trade to persist,” the documents state.

    Fishing groups are not the only organizations to resist expanding protections for eels, as regulatory groups in some countries have argued that national and regional laws are a better way to conserve eels.

    Japan and China have both told CITES that they don’t support listing the eels. And in the U.S., the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates the American eel fishery, submitted testimony to CITES opposing the listing.

    The U.S.’s own management of eels is sufficient to protect the species, said Toni Kerns, fisheries policy director with the commission.

    “We don’t feel that the proposal provides enough information on how the black market would be curbed,” Kerns said. “We are very concerned about how it would potentially restrict trade in the United States.”

    A coalition of industry groups in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan also submitted a request that the protection be rejected, saying CITES’ assertion that international trade is causing eel populations to decline is “not supported by sufficient evidence.”

    The strong demand for eels is a reason to protect the trade with new rules, said Nastya Timoshyna, office director for Europe with TRAFFIC, a U.K.-based nonprofit that fights wildlife trafficking.

    Illegal shipping is not the only reason the eels are in decline, but working with industry to cut down illegal trade will give the fish a better chance at survival, Timoshyna said.

    Eels might not be universally beloved, but they’re important in part because they’re an indicator species that helps scientists understand the health of the ecosystem around them, Timoshyna said.

    “It’s not about banning it or stopping fishing practices,” Timoshyna said. “It’s about industry being responsible, and there is massive power in industry.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.

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  • Eel Populations Are Falling, and New Protections Were Defeated. Japan and the US Opposed Them

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    SCARBOROUGH, Maine (AP) — Eels are the stuff of nightmares — slimy, snakelike creatures that lay millions of eggs before dying so their offspring can return home to rivers and streams. They’ve existed since the time of the dinosaurs, and some species are more poorly understood than those ancient animals.

    Yet they’re also valuable seafood fish that are declining all over the world, leading to a new push for restrictions on trade to help stave off extinction.

    Freshwater eels are critically important for the worldwide sushi industry, and some species have declined by more than 90% since the 1980s. The eels have succumbed to a combination of river dams, hydroelectric turbines, pollution, habitat loss, climate change, illegal poaching and overfishing, according to scientists. Some environmental organizations have called for consumers to boycott eel at sushi restaurants.

    The loss of eels motivated the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, to consider new restrictions to protect the wriggling fish. The members of CITES, an international treaty, met in Uzbekistan this week to determine if the new rules on trade are needed. Member nations voted against the new protections on Thursday.

    Conservation groups said the protections were long overdue, but not everyone was on board. Some fishing groups, seafood industry members and regulatory agencies in the U.S., China and Japan — all countries where eel is economically important — have spoken out against restricting the trade.

    The push for more restrictions is the work of “an international body dominated by volunteer scientists and unelected bureaucrats,” said Mitchell Feigenbaum, one of North America’s largest eel dealers and an advocate for the industry. But several conservation groups countered that the protections were needed.

    “This measure is vital to strengthen trade monitoring, aid fisheries management, and ensure the species’ long-term survival,” said Susan Lieberman, vice president of international policy for Wildlife Conservation Society.


    Why are eels so valuable?

    The eels in question are the eels of the anguilla genus, which spend their lives in freshwater but migrate to the ocean to spawn. They are distinct from the familiar, grinning moray eels, which are popular in aquariums and are mostly marine fish, and the electric eels, which live in South America.

    Anguilla eels, especially baby eels called elvers, are valuable because they are used as seed stock by Asian aquaculture companies that raise them to maturity for use as food. Freshwater eel is known as unagi in Japan, and it’s a key ingredient in numerous sushi dishes. Eel is also culturally significant in Japan, where people have eaten the fish for thousands of years.

    The elvers have become more valuable in the U.S. over the last 15 years because of the steep decline of eels elsewhere in the world. While the population of American eels has fallen, the drop has not been as severe as Japanese and European eels. Attempts to list American eels under the Endangered Species Act in the U.S. have failed.

    Maine is the only U.S. state with a significant fishery for the elvers, and it is heavily regulated. Maine’s baby eels were worth more than $1,200 per pound at the docks in 2024, and they were worth more than $2,000 per pound the year before that.


    New protections were on the table

    CITES, which is one of the world’s largest multinational wildlife agreements, extended protections to European eels in 2009. The organization considered adding more than a dozen more eel species, including the American and Japanese eels, to its list of protected species.

    Adding the eels to the list would mean exporters would need a permit to ship them. Before the permit could be granted, a scientific authority in the home country would have to determine that the export would not be detrimental to the species’ survival and that the eels weren’t taken illegally under national wildlife laws. That is significant because poaching of eels is a major threat, and rare species are often illegally passed off as more common ones, CITES documents state.

    Tightening trade rules “will encourage species-specific trade monitoring and controls and close loopholes that allow illegal trade to persist,” the documents state.


    US, Japan pushed back at protections

    Fishing groups are not the only organizations to resist expanding protections for eels, as regulatory groups in some countries have argued that national and regional laws are a better way to conserve eels.

    Japan and China have both told CITES that they don’t support listing the eels. And in the U.S., the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates the American eel fishery, submitted testimony to CITES opposing the listing.

    The U.S.’s own management of eels is sufficient to protect the species, said Toni Kerns, fisheries policy director with the commission.

    “We don’t feel that the proposal provides enough information on how the black market would be curbed,” Kerns said. “We are very concerned about how it would potentially restrict trade in the United States.”

    A coalition of industry groups in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan also submitted a request that the protection be rejected, saying CITES’ assertion that international trade is causing eel populations to decline is “not supported by sufficient evidence.”


    Conservationists say the time to act is now

    The strong demand for eels is a reason to protect the trade with new rules, said Nastya Timoshyna, office director for Europe with TRAFFIC, a U.K.-based nonprofit that fights wildlife trafficking.

    Illegal shipping is not the only reason the eels are in decline, but working with industry to cut down illegal trade will give the fish a better chance at survival, Timoshyna said.

    Eels might not be universally beloved, but they’re important in part because they’re an indicator species that helps scientists understand the health of the ecosystem around them, Timoshyna said.

    “It’s not about banning it or stopping fishing practices,” Timoshyna said. “It’s about industry being responsible, and there is massive power in industry.”

    Associated Press writer Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • 81 monkeys and meth found in car driven by suspected wildlife smugglers, rangers in Thailand say

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    Thai rangers have arrested two men suspected of being part of an international wildlife smuggling network, the military said Saturday after they were intercepted in a car carrying 81 macaques near the Cambodian border.

    Thailand is a major transit hub for wildlife smugglers, who often sell highly-prized endangered creatures on the lucrative black market in China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

    A patrol stopped the vehicle on Friday afternoon in Aranyaprathet district of Sa Kaeo province, where troops found the monkeys stuffed into blue net bags.

    “At 3:20 pm, authorities arrested the two suspects and inspected their vehicle,” the 12th Ranger Forces Regiment, which is responsible for the area, said in a statement on Facebook.

    The soldiers also seized methamphetamine pills and crystal meth, though no quantities were specified.

    A patrol stopped the vehicle on Friday afternoon in Aranyaprathet district of Sa Kaeo province, where troops found the monkeys stuffed into blue net bags.

    Thailand 12th Ranger Forces Regiment


    During questioning, the men admitted they were involved in a cross-border trafficking ring moving macaques from Thailand into Cambodia, the military said in a Facebook post.

    Troops were working with police to pursue charges under wildlife-protection and narcotics laws.

    Last year Thailand sent almost 1,000 highly endangered lemurs and tortoises back to their home in Madagascar, after both countries’ biggest operation against wildlife trafficking.

    In June, Indian customs officers seized nearly 100 creatures including lizards, sunbirds and tree-climbing possums, from a passenger arriving from Thailand. Wildlife trade monitor TRAFFIC, which battles the smuggling of wild animals, said at the time thatmore than 7,000 animals, dead and alive, have been seized along the Thailand-India air route in the last 3-and-a-half years.

    In May, Thai police arrested a man suspected of smuggling two baby orangutans into the kingdom. That operation was supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Office of Law Enforcement. A 47-year-old was arrested at a Bangkok gas station as he prepared to hand over the animals to a buyer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife said at the time.

    Last year, Thai customs officials arrested six Indians for attempting to smuggle a red panda and 86 other animals out of the kingdom, including snakes, parrots and monitor lizards.

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  • Endangered primates, 1 alive and 1 dead, found in checked bag at airport in India

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    Indian customs officers have arrested a plane passenger after discovering two endangered gibbons stuffed inside a checked bag, the latest animals seized from smugglers at Mumbai’s airport.

    One of the tiny animals from Indonesia was dead, while the other, in a video shared by Indian Customs, was seen cradled in the arms of an officer, softly hooting before covering its face with its arm.

    Customs said the passenger, who had travelled from Malaysia via Thailand, was given the rare animals by a wildlife trafficking “syndicate” for delivery in India. Officers acting on “specific intelligence” arrested the passenger in Mumbai on Thursday.

    “A subsequent search of their checked baggage, a trolley bag, led to the discovery and seizure of two Silvery Gibbon (Hylobates moloch), one live and one found dead, which were concealed in a basket,” the customs department said.

    Indian customs officers have arrested a plane passenger after discovering two endangered gibbons stuffed inside a checked bag, the latest animals seized from smugglers at Mumbai’s airport.

    Mumbai Customs


    The department also said that almost 8 kilograms of hydroponic weed was found hidden in the passenger’s baggage.

    Wildlife trade monitor TRAFFIC, which battles the smuggling of wild animals and plants, warned in June of a “very troubling” trend in trafficking driven by the exotic pet trade.

    More than 7,000 animals, dead and alive, have been seized along the Thailand-India air route in the last 3.5 years, it said.

    Home in the wild for the small Silvery Gibbon is the rainforests of Java in Indonesia.

    They are threatened by the loss of forests, hunting and the pet trade, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

    Estimates for the primates left range from about 2,500 to 4,000.

    The seizure follows several recent smuggling busts at the same airport.

    Just a week earlier, customs officials said they had arrested another smuggler carrying snakes, tortoises and a raccoon.

    In June, Mumbai customs intercepted two passengers arriving from Thailand with dozens of venomous vipers and more than 100 other creatures, including lizards, sunbirds and tree-climbing possums, also arriving from Thailand.

    In February, customs officials at Mumbai airport stopped a smuggler with five Siamang Gibbons, an ape native to the forests of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. 

    Exotic primates have also been smuggled at the U.S.-Mexico border recently. Jim Stinebaugh, a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told CBS News that nearly 90 baby spider monkeys have been confiscated at the Texas-Mexico border in the last 18 months — and that’s believed to be just a fraction of the spider monkeys illegally brought into the United States.

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  • Poachers are killing families of spider monkeys, kidnapping their babies and selling them to Americans on social media

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    Bound, sedated and stuffed into bags: Poachers are ripping baby spider monkeys from their mothers in the forests of southern Mexico and selling them as pets on social media platforms in the United States.

    Jim Stinebaugh, a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says nearly 90 baby spider monkeys have been confiscated at the Texas-Mexico border in the last 18 months – and that’s believed to be just a fraction of the spider monkeys illegally brought into the United States.

    Wildlife officials say the spike in spider monkey smuggling is driven in part by viral videos showing the animals dressed up, diapered and treated like human babies. Those clips racking up millions of views may look cute, but experts warn they glamorize illegal pet ownership and fail to show the cruel conditions for monkeys torn from the wild.

    Investigative photos document the cruelty of how baby spider monkeys are smuggled across the border. Traffickers smuggle the spider monkeys in horrific conditions, often crammed into tiny compartments with no food or water. Many arrive sick, injured or clinging to life, with authorities racing to save those that survive the brutal journey.

    In Mexico, poachers shoot mother spider monkeys out of trees, with their babies still clinging to their backs. And because the moms only give birth every two to four years, the population is slow to recover. 

    “You’re going to have to kill the mothers to get the babies, and then the rest of the family are going to be protective of the mother and the baby as well,” Stinebaugh explained. “You very well may end up killing dozens of monkeys, just to keep a few of the babies.”

    Stinebaugh focuses on catching smugglers who sell through social media platforms. It’s an uphill battle because law enforcement is understaffed, and the penalties are often small.

    He warned: “If you’re paying cash for a spider monkey in the parking lot of a big-box store, there’s something wrong.”

    Baby spider monkeys can’t be returned to the wild without their mothers, so agents bring them to the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas, where five veterinarians care for 1,600 other animals. But one Texas zoo can’t tackle the problem alone, so the Association of Zoos and Aquariums is piloting a project where facilities house, care for and permanently place spider monkeys at other accredited facilities around the country.

    Stinebaugh believes that if people understood the brutality of the spider monkey black-market trade, they would see the truth: that we’re pushing these animals closer to extinction.

    His message: “If you care at all about this species, if you don’t want them killed in the wild, if you don’t want the babies smuggled across the border and these abhorrent conditions, don’t make the purchase.”

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  • Blue and ‘cinnamon’ creatures caught at Mexico archaeology site for first time

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    At Monte Albán in Mexico, a species was spotted for the first time.

    At Monte Albán in Mexico, a species was spotted for the first time.

    Matthew Essman via Unsplash

    For more than 1,000 years, ancient people built terraces, dams, pyramids and mounds in central Mexico.

    One of these sites is called Monte Albán, and it was carved from the mountain outside Oaxaca.

    Archaeologists have made countless discoveries about the history of the people who once called the site home, but now, it is the center of a different kind of discovery.

    A songbird has been found at Monte Albán for the first time.

    Researchers placed tall nets around the site to capture birds as part of a biodiversity project in June 2023, according to a study published Oct. 13 in the peer-reviewed journal Check List.

    They waited for birds to collide with the net so they could be identified and catalogued, according to the study.

    Then, “slate-blue” and “cinnamon”-colored birds became wrapped up in the mesh.

    The birds were identified as Amaurospiza concolor relicta, the male and female of the species, or the slate-blue seedeater, researchers said.

    Males (left) and females (right) of blue-slate seedeaters were found at the archaeological site.
    Males (left) and females (right) of blue-slate seedeaters were found at the archaeological site. Daniel F. Díaz-Porras, Irving de J. Morales-Leal, Jaime M. Calderón-Patrón (2025) Check List

    “The male had the characteristic darker blue color of A. concolor, specifically slate-blue all over its body and wing coverts (small feathers at the base of the flight feathers), while the remiges (large flight feathers) exhibited a black edge with a slate-blue border,” researchers said. “The rectrices (tail feathers) were predominantly blackish with an external wash of slaty blue.” (

    The sides of the face, ear openings and throat were more blackish, while the forehead of the male birds were “sky-blue” darkening to a deeper shade toward the base of the crown, according to the study.

    The females, however, were completely different.

    “The female had cinnamon-brown upperparts and ochraceous-tawny underparts. The remiges were dusky brown with cinnamon-brown edges,” researchers said.

    Males are varying shades of black and blue.
    Males are varying shades of black and blue. Daniel F. Díaz-Porras, Irving de J. Morales-Leal, Jaime M. Calderón-Patrón (2025) Check List

    Slate-blue seedeaters are a part of a group of birds called passerines, or birds that have the correct feet structure to be able to perch on ledges, a feature that unites all songbirds.

    They are also from the family Cardinalidae, which includes cardinals, tanagers, grosbeaks and buntings, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

    Aside from their coloration, the seedeaters stand out from other related birds because of their “robust, conical bill,” according to the study

    The species is considered a “bamboo specialist,” according to Cornell, and eats bamboo seeds in stretches when all the plants release their seeds in a synchronized event.

    “It is this concentrated and easy-to-find food that the seedeaters are after,” according to Cornell. “Due to this close association with these plants (the birds are) usually considered a very local, rare species and difficult to spot throughout its distribution.”

    Females are cinnamon and brown.
    Females are cinnamon and brown. Daniel F. Díaz-Porras, Irving de J. Morales-Leal, Jaime M. Calderón-Patrón (2025) Check List

    The specific slate-blue seedeaters are thought to be restricted to the Pacific slope and interior region of southwestern Mexico, with no previous records in the Valles Centrales region of Oaxaca, until now.

    “Consequently, our documented observation represents the first confirmed record of A. concolor relicta in this area, thereby extending the known southeastern boundary of its year-round range,” researchers said. “After the capture of these individuals … four subsequent citizen-science observations … support our finding.”

    The species is considered “endangered” in Mexico, according to the study.

    Monte Albán is in southwestern Mexico.

    The research team includes Daniel F. Díaz-Porras, Irving de J. Morales-Leal and Jaime M. Calderón-Patrón.

    Irene Wright

    McClatchy DC

    Irene Wright is a McClatchy Real-Time reporter. She earned a B.A. in ecology and an M.A. in health and medical journalism from the University of Georgia and is now based in Atlanta. Irene previously worked as a business reporter at The Dallas Morning News.

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  • Trump Officials Back Firm in Fight Over California Offshore Oil Drilling After Huge Spill

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    When the corroded pipeline burst in 2015, inky crude spread along the Southern California coast, becoming the state’s worst oil spill in decades.

    More than 140,000 gallons (3,300 barrels) of oil gushed out, blackening beaches for 150 miles (240 kilometers) from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, polluting a biologically rich habitat for endangered whales and sea turtles, killing scores of pelicans, seals and dolphins, and decimating the fishing industry.

    Plains All American Pipeline in 2022 agreed to a $230 million settlement with fishers and coastal property owners without admitting liability. Federal inspectors found that the Houston-based company failed to quickly detect the rupture and responded too slowly. It faced an uphill battle to build a new pipeline.

    Three decades-old drilling platforms were subsequently shuttered, but another Texas-based fossil fuel company supported by the Trump administration purchased the operation and is intent on pumping oil through the pipeline again.

    Sable Offshore Corp., headquartered in Houston, is facing a slew of legal challenges but is determined to restart production, even if that means confining it to federal waters, where state regulators have virtually no say. California controls the 3 miles (5 kilometers) nearest to shore. The platforms are 5 to 9 miles (8 to 14 kilometers) offshore.

    The Trump administration has hailed Sable’s plans as the kind of project the president wants to increase U.S. energy production as the federal government removes regulatory barriers. President Donald Trump has directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to undo his predecessor’s ban on future offshore oil drilling on the East and West coasts.


    Environmentalist sue to stop the project

    “This project risks another environmental disaster in California at a time when demand for oil is going down and the climate crisis is escalating,” said Alex Katz, executive director of Environmental Defense Center, the Santa Barbara group formed in response to a massive spill in 1969.

    The environmental organization is among several suing Sable.

    “Our concern is that there is no way to make this pipeline safe and that this company has proven that it cannot be trusted to operate safely, responsibly or even legally,” he said.

    Actor and activist Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who lives in the area, has implored officials to stop Sable, saying at a March protest: “I can smell a rat. And this project is a rat.”

    The California Coastal Commission fined Sable a record $18 million for ignoring cease-and-desist orders over repair work it says was done without permits. Sable said it has permits from the previous owner, Exxon Mobil, and sued the commission while work continued on the pipeline. In June, a state judge ordered it to stop while the case proceeds through the court. The commission and Sable are due back in court Wednesday.

    “This fly-by-night oil company has repeatedly abused the public’s trust, racking up millions of dollars in fines and causing environmental damage along the treasured Gaviota Coast,” a state park south of Santa Barbara, said Joshua Smith, the commission’s spokesman.


    Sable keeps moving forward

    So far, Sable is undeterred.

    The California Attorney General’s office sued Sable this month, saying it illegally discharged waste into waterways, and disregarded state law requiring permits before work along the pipeline route that crosses sensitive wildlife habitat.

    “Sable placed profits over environmental protection in its rush to get oil on the market,” the agency said in its lawsuit.

    Last month, the Santa Barbara District Attorney filed felony criminal charges against Sable, also accusing it of polluting waterways and harming wildlife.

    Sable said it has fully cooperated with local and state agencies, including the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and called the district attorney’s allegation “inflammatory and extremely misleading.” It said a biologist and state fire marshal officials oversaw the work, and no wildlife was harmed.

    The company is seeking $347 million for the delays, and says if the state blocks it from restarting the onshore pipeline system, it will use a floating facility that would keep its entire operation in federal waters and use tankers to transport the oil to markets outside California. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, the company updated its plan to include the option.


    Fulfilling the president’s energy promise

    The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said in July it was working with Sable to bring a second rig online.

    “President Trump made it clear that American energy should come from American resources,” the agency’s deputy director Kenny Stevens said in a statement then, heralding the “comeback story for Pacific production.”

    The agency said there are an estimated 190 million barrels (6 billion gallons) of recoverable oil reserves in the area, nearly 80% of residual Pacific reserves. It noted advancements in preventing and preparing for oil spills and said the failed pipeline has been rigorously tested.

    “Continuous monitoring and improved technology significantly reduce the risk of a similar incident occurring in the future,” the agency said.


    CEO says project could lower gas prices

    On May 19 — the 10th anniversary of the disaster — CEO Jim Flores announced that Sable “is proud to have safely and responsibly achieved first production at the Santa Ynez Unit” — which includes three rigs in federal waters, offshore and onshore pipelines, and the Las Flores Canyon Processing Facility.

    State officials countered that the company had only conducted testing and not commercial production. Sable’s stock price dropped and some investors sued, alleging they were misled.

    Sable purchased the Santa Ynez Unit from Exxon Mobil in 2024 for nearly $650 million primarily with a loan from Exxon. Exxon sold the shuttered operation after losing a court battle in 2023 to truck the crude through central California while the pipeline system was rebuilt or repaired.

    Flores said well tests at the Platform Harmony rig indicate there is much oil to be extracted and that it will relieve California’s gas prices — among the nation’s highest — by stabilizing supplies.

    “Sable is very concerned about the crumbling energy complex in California,” Flores said in a statement to The Associated Press. “With the exit of two refineries last year and more shuttering soon, California’s economy cannot survive without the strong energy infrastructure it enjoyed for the last 150 years.”

    California has been reducing the state’s production of fossil fuels in favor of clean energy for years. The movement has been spearheaded partly by Santa Barbara County, where elected officials voted in May to begin taking steps to phase out onshore oil and gas operations.

    Associated Press writer Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana contributed to this report.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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  • New list of threatened species includes arctic seals, majority of bird species worldwide

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    Arctic seals are being pushed closer to extinction by climate change and more than half of bird species around the world are declining under pressure from deforestation and agricultural expansion, according to an annual assessment from the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

    One bright spot is green sea turtles, which have recovered substantially thanks to decades of conservation efforts, the IUCN said Friday as it released its latest Red List of Threatened Species.

    While many animals are increasingly at risk of disappearing forever, the updated list shows how species can come back from the brink with dedicated effort, Rima Jabado, deputy chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, told The Associated Press.

    “Hope and concern go hand in hand in this work,” Jabado wrote by email. “The same persistence that brought back the green sea turtle can be mirrored in small, everyday actions – supporting sustainable choices, backing conservation initiatives, and urging leaders to follow through on their environmental promises.”

    The list is updated every year by teams of scientists assessing data on creatures around the world. The scope of the work is enormous and important for science, said Andrew Farnsworth, a visiting scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who studies bird migration and wasn’t involved with the IUCN report.

    “Every time one is done and every time there’s revision, there’s more information, and there’s more ability to answer questions” on species, some of which are still largely a mystery to researchers, Farnsworth said.

    Sea ice loss

    Because all the marine mammals native to the Arctic – seals, whales and polar bears – rely on the habitat provided by sea ice, they’re all at risk as it diminishes because of human-caused climate change, said Kit Kovacs, co-chair of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission Pinniped Specialist Group, which focuses on seals.

    The three species highlighted in the latest IUCN report – harp, hooded and bearded seals – have been moved up to a designation of greater concern in the latest update, indicating they are increasingly threatened by extinction, Kovacs said.

    A hooded seal is released March 30, 2008, by the University of New England’s Marine Animal Rehabilitation Center in Biddeford, Maine.

    Joel Page / AP


    The same melting of glaciers and sea ice destroying seal habitats also “generally will bring escalation in extreme weather events, which are already impacting people around the globe,” wrote Kovacs.

    “Acting to help seals is acting to help humanity when it comes to climate change,” Kovacs said.

    Global bird decline

    The update also highlighted Madagascar, West Africa and Central America, where Schlegel’s asity, the black-casqued hornbill and the tail-bobbing northern nightingale-wren were all moved to near-threatened status. Those are three specific birds in trouble, but numbers are dropping for around three-fifths of birds globally.

    “That three in five of the world’s bird species have declining populations shows how deep the biodiversity crisis has become and how urgent it is that governments take the actions they have committed to under multiple conventions and agreements,” said Ian Burfield, global science coordinator at BirdLife International.

    Deforestation of tropical forests is one of a “depressing litany of threats” to birds, a list that includes agricultural expansion and intensification, competition from invasive species and climate change, said Stuart Butchart, chief scientist at BirdLife International.

    “The fact that 61% of the world’s birds are declining is an alarm bell that we can’t afford to ignore,” Butchart said.

    The annual U.N. climate summit will be held in November in Belem, Brazil, with much attention on the Amazon and the value of tropical forests to humans and animals. But Farnsworth, of Cornell, said he was “not so confident” that world’s leaders would take decisive action to protect imperiled bird species.

    “I would like to think things like birds are nonpartisan, and you can find common ground,” he said. “But it’s not easy.”

    Green sea turtles

    One success story is the rebound of green sea turtles in many parts of the world’s oceans. Experts see that as a bright spot because it shows how effective human interventions, like legal protections and conservation programs, can be.

    Still, “it’s important to note that conservation efforts of sea turtles can take decades before you realize the fruits of that labor,” said Justin Perrault, vice president of research at Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, Florida, who wasn’t involved with the IUCN report.

    Climate Threatened Species

    A Pacific green sea turtle swims near Fernandina Island, Ecuador in the Galapagos on June 8, 2024.

    Alie Skowronski / AP


    The overall success with green sea turtles should be celebrated and used as an example with other species, some of which, like hawksbills and leatherbacks, aren’t doing nearly as well, said Nicolas Pilcher, executive director of the Marine Research Foundation.

    And even for green sea turtles, areas still remain where climate change and other factors like erosion are damaging habitats, Pilcher said, and some of those are poorer communities that receive less conservation funding.

    But in the places where they have recovered, it’s “a great story of, actually, we can do something about this,” Pilcher said. “We can. We can make a difference.”

    Extinct species

    The latest Red List notes that six species have moved to the extinct category. The IUCN says those species include the Christmas Island shrew and the slender-billed curlew, a migratory shorebird.

    Three Australian mammals and a plant native to Hawaii were assessed by the IUCN for the first time and put on the list of extinct species.

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  • Arctic seals and more than half of bird species are in trouble on latest list of threatened species

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    Arctic seals are being pushed closer to extinction by climate change and more than half of bird species around the world are declining under pressure from deforestation and agricultural expansion, according to an annual assessment from the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

    One bright spot is green sea turtles, which have recovered substantially thanks to decades of conservation efforts, the IUCN said Friday as it released its latest Red List of Threatened Species.

    While many animals are increasingly at risk of disappearing forever, the updated list shows how species can come back from the brink with dedicated effort, Rima Jabado, deputy chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, told The Associated Press.

    “Hope and concern go hand in hand in this work,” Jabado wrote by email. “The same persistence that brought back the green sea turtle can be mirrored in small, everyday actions — supporting sustainable choices, backing conservation initiatives, and urging leaders to follow through on their environmental promises.”

    The list is updated every year by teams of scientists assessing data on creatures around the world. The scope of the work is enormous and important for science, said Andrew Farnsworth, a visiting scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who studies bird migration and wasn’t involved with the IUCN report.

    “Every time one is done and every time there’s revision, there’s more information, and there’s more ability to answer questions” on species, some of which are still largely a mystery to researchers, Farnsworth said.

    Because all the marine mammals native to the Arctic — seals, whales and polar bears — rely on the habitat provided by sea ice, they’re all at risk as it diminishes because of human-caused climate change, said Kit Kovacs, co-chair of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission Pinniped Specialist Group, which focuses on seals.

    The three species highlighted in the latest IUCN report — harp, hooded and bearded seals — have been moved up to a designation of greater concern in the latest update, indicating they are increasingly threatened by extinction, Kovacs said.

    The same melting of glaciers and sea ice destroying seal habitats also “generally will bring escalation in extreme weather events, which are already impacting people around the globe,” wrote Kovacs.

    “Acting to help seals is acting to help humanity when it comes to climate change,” Kovacs said.

    The update also highlighted Madagascar, West Africa and Central America, where Schlegel’s asity, the black-casqued hornbill and the tail-bobbing northern nightingale-wren were all moved to near-threatened status. Those are three specific birds in trouble, but numbers are dropping for around three-fifths of birds globally.

    Deforestation of tropical forests is one of a “depressing litany of threats” to birds, a list that includes agricultural expansion and intensification, competition from invasive species and climate change, said Stuart Butchart, chief scientist at BirdLife International.

    “The fact that 61% of the world’s birds are declining is an alarm bell that we can’t afford to ignore,” Butchart said.

    The annual U.N. climate summit will be held in November in Belem, Brazil, with much attention on the Amazon and the value of tropical forests to humans and animals. But Farnsworth, of Cornell, said he was “not so confident” that world’s leaders would take decisive action to protect imperiled bird species.

    “I would like to think things like birds are nonpartisan, and you can find common ground,” he said. “But it’s not easy.”

    One success story is the rebound of green sea turtles in many parts of the world’s oceans. Experts see that as a bright spot because it shows how effective human interventions, like legal protections and conservation programs, can be.

    Still, “it’s important to note that conservation efforts of sea turtles can take decades before you realize the fruits of that labor,” said Justin Perrault, vice president of research at Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, Florida, who wasn’t involved with the IUCN report.

    The overall success with green sea turtles should be celebrated and used as an example with other species, some of which, like hawksbills and leatherbacks, aren’t doing nearly as well, said Nicolas Pilcher, executive director of the Marine Research Foundation.

    And even for green sea turtles, areas still remain where climate change and other factors like erosion are damaging habitats, Pilcher said, and some of those are poorer communities that receive less conservation funding.

    But in the places where they have recovered, it’s “a great story of, actually, we can do something about this,” Pilcher said. “We can. We can make a difference.”

    ___

    Follow Melina Walling on X at @MelinaWalling and on Bluesky at @melinawalling.bsky.social.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Human heart-monitoring devices find new life helping biologists understand threatened species

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    During his regular checkup, a 9-year-old clouded leopard named Masala undergoes a procedure to get a tiny heart monitor implanted under his skin at the Smithsonian’s Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia.

    Rosana Moraes, a Brazilian biologist, studies how high-stress levels in animals can hinder their ability to thrive and breed. Masala’s new heart monitor will record changes in his body temperature, hydration and heart rate — which all tell a lot about an animal’s level of stress and anxiety.

    Moraes calls it a “gigantic” leap forward in animal care.

    Clouded leopards are agile climbers that live in trees. In the wild, their population is in steep decline due to habitat destruction and illegal hunting for their coats and body parts. Masala is part of a breeding program to help preserve the vulnerable species. Lately he’s been anxious and biting his tail, and they’re not exactly sure why. The heart monitor will help biologists understand the exact moments when Masala becomes stressed.

    In the wild, using a minimally invasive procedure, the Smithsonian says it has implanted these tiny Bluetooth heart monitors in eight species around the world, including giant anteaters in South America.

    Tim Laske, a biologist who studies bears, is also the vice president of research at Medtronic — the world’s largest medical device company — which donates the technology. The heart monitors are designed for humans, but Laske realized expired devices still had many years of life in them and could help with our understanding of animals.

    “We’ve implanted more than 600 over the years. And these are all devices that would otherwise have been disposed of,” Laske said.

    Because of these monitors, scientists can now use data to assess which captive maned wolves, for example, have the best temperament to thrive in the wild or when a pack of scimitar-horned oryx out in the wild is stressed by humans encroaching on their habitat.

    For Moraes, the ability to visualize data in animals that was previously hidden excites her the most about the technology, offering powerful insights on a planet where our own activities are rapidly pushing beloved species closer to extinction.   

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  • UNESCO designates 26 new biosphere reserves amid biodiversity challenges and climate change

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    An Indonesian archipelago that’s home to three-fourths of Earth’s coral species, a stretch of Icelandic coast with 70% of the country’s plant life and an area along Angola’s Atlantic coast featuring savannahs, forests and estuaries are among 26 new UNESCO-designated biosphere reserves.

    The United Nations cultural agency says the reserves — 785 sites in 142 countries, designated since 1971 — are home to some of the planet’s richest and most fragile ecosystems. But biosphere reserves encompass more than strictly protected nature reserves; they’re expanded to include areas where people live and work, and the designation requires that scientists, residents and government officials work together to balance conservation and research with local economic and cultural needs.

    “The concept of biosphere reserves is that biodiversity conservation is a pillar of socioeconomic development” and can contribute to the economy, said António Abreu, head of the program, adding that conflict and misunderstanding can result if local communities are left out of decision-making and planning.

    The new reserves, in 21 countries, were announced Saturday in Hangzhou, China, where the program adopted a 10-year strategic action plan that includes studying the effects of climate change, Abreu said.

    The new reserves include a 52,000-square-mile (135,000-square-kilometer) area in the Indonesian archipelago, Raja Ampat, home to over 75% of earth’s coral species as well as rainforests and rare endangered sea turtles. The economy depends on fishing, aquaculture, small-scale agriculture and tourism, UNESCO said.

    On Iceland’s west coast, the Snæfellsnes Biosphere Reserve’s landscape includes volcanic peaks, lava fields, wetlands, grasslands and the Snæfellsjökull glacier. The 1,460-square-kilometer (564 square-mile) reserve is an important sanctuary for seabirds, seals and over 70% of Iceland’s plant life — including 330 species of wildflowers and ferns. Its population of more than 4,000 people relies on fishing, sheep farming and tourism.

    And in Angola, the new Quiçama Biosphere Reserve, along 206 kilometers (128 miles) of Atlantic coast is a “sanctuary for biodiversity” within its savannahs, forests, flood plains, estuaries and islands, according to UNESCO. It’s home to elephants, manatees, sea turtles and more than 200 bird species. Residents’ livelihoods include livestock herding, farming, fishing, honey production.

    Residents are important partners in protecting biodiversity within the reserves, and even have helped identify new species, said Abreu, the program’s leader. Meanwhile, scientists also are helping to restore ecosystems to benefit the local economy, he said.

    For example, in the Philippines, the coral reefs around Pangatalan Island were severely damaged because local fishermen used dynamite to find depleted fish populations. Scientists helped design a structure to help coral reefs regrow and taught fishermen to raise fish through aquaculture so the reefs could recover.

    “They have food and they have also fish to sell in the markets,” said Abreu.

    In the African nation of São Tomé and Príncipe, a biosphere reserve on Príncipe Island led to restoration of mangroves, which help buffer against storm surges and provide important habitat, Abreu said.

    Ecotourism also has become an important industry, with biosphere trails and guided bird-watching tours. A new species of owl was identified there in recent years.

    This year, a biosphere reserve was added for the island of São Tomé, making the country the first entirely within a reserve.

    At least 60% of the UNESCO biosphere reserves have been affected by extreme weather tied to climate change, which is caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and gas, including extreme heat and drought and sea-level rise, Abreu said.

    The agency is using satellite imagery and computer modeling to monitor changes in coastal zones and other areas, and is digitizing its historical databases, Abreu said. The information will be used to help determine how best to preserve and manage the reserves.

    Some biosphere reserves also are under pressure from environmental degradation.

    In Nigeria, for example, habitat for a dwindling population of critically endangered African forest elephants is under threat as cocoa farmers expand into Omo Forest Reserve, a protected rainforest and one of Africa’s oldest and largest UNESCO Biosphere Reserves. The forest is also important to help combat climate change.

    The Trump administration in July announced that the U.S. would withdraw from UNESCO as of December 2026, just as it did during his first administration, saying U.S. involvement is not in the national interest. The U.S. has 47 biosphere reserves, most in federal protected areas.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • How the Minnesota Zoo is helping to save one of the world’s most endangered butterflies

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    The Minnesota Zoo, John Ball Zoo in Michigan and Assiniboine Park Conservancy in Canada have received the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ 2025 North American Conservation Award for their collaborative work to save the critically endangered poweshiek skipperling butterfly.

    “We’re certainly honored to be recipients of this North American Conservation Award,” Erik Runquist, conservation scientist at the Minnesota Zoo, said. “We hope this is a means by which we can collectively raise awareness.”

    Once common among the tallgrass prairies of Minnesota, the poweshiek skipperling has suffered a dramatic loss in population in recent decades. 

    “Considered probably the most Minnesotan butterfly,” Runquist said. “Used to be one of the most abundant butterflies in Minnesota’s prairies until it remarkably disappeared.”  

    The butterfly is now only found in a few isolated areas of Michigan and Manitoba, Canada. The decline is attributed to habitat loss and degradation.

    In 2012, an initiative was launched by the three institutions to refine captive breeding techniques to stabilize the species. 

    Thousands of zoo-reared butterflies have been released into the wild, and now the entire U.S. population may trace back to just 18 females held at the Minnesota Zoo at the start of the program.

    “Most of the individuals that exist currently are derived or related to those original 18 we had here at the Minnesota Zoo,” Runquist said. “Conservation requires naive optimism at times.”

    Minnesota Zoo


    Not much was known about the butterfly, and the team at the Minnesota Zoo had to go through vigorous trial and error to make the correct conditions for these insects to thrive.

    “It’s taken a lot of work and a lot of blood, sweat and tears,” Runquist said.

    The initiative gave Amaya Thomas an opportunity to learn about these butterflies while doing a conservation internship at the Minnesota Zoo.

     “I wasn’t super interested in insects at first,” Thomas said. “I fell in love with these butterflies really quickly. The work we do here is just so important for these butterflies that are often overlooked.”

    Thomas now works at the Minnesota Zoo to help take care of the poweshiek skipperling.

    According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the species was listed as endangered in 2014.

    The butterflies can be found with dots on the wings, indicating how the species is being tracked by different conservation groups.

     “The world would be a lonelier place and smaller place without this butterfly,” Runquist said.

    The Minnesota Zoo says the poweshiek skipperling typically has a life span of one year, and only lives for two weeks as an adult. The season for the butterflies is mid-to-late June.

    In the future, as more sites across Michigan are stabilized, the Minnesota Zoo hopes to bring back the butterfly to Minnesota. But for now, they will continue to see how the poweshiek skipperling impacts prairies.

    Ray Campos

    Ray Campos is a multi-skilled journalist at WCCO-TV.

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    Ray Campos

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  • Endangered orca in Washington state seen carrying a dead calf

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    EASTSOUND, Wash. — Once again, an endangered orca in Washington state has been seen carrying her dead newborn calf in an apparent effort to revive it.

    Researchers with the Center for Whale Research, Sea Doc Society and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance said they received reports on Friday that the whale — identified as J36 — was pushing the dead calf in Rosario Strait, part of the Salish Sea in the San Juan Islands. They were able to confirm that the female calf, which still had its umbilical cord attached, was deceased.

    Calf mortality is always high among orcas, but the endangered population of killer whales that frequent the marine waters between Washington state and Canada have especially struggled in recent decades due to a lack of their preferred prey, Chinook salmon, as well as pollution and vessel noise that interferes with their hunting. There are 73 whales remaining in the so-called Southern Resident population.

    Early this year, another Southern Resident orca — known as Tahlequah, or J35 — was observed carrying the body of a deceased newborn. Tahlequah made global headlines in 2018 for carrying a dead calf for more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) over 17 days.

    Researchers said it wasn’t clear if J36’s calf had been born alive. Based on prior observations of the whale, the calf would have been no more than three days old when it was spotted dead on Friday.

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  • Australia approves world-first vaccine to save koalas from chlamydia

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    MELBOURNE, Australia — A regulator has approved a world-first vaccine to protect koalas from chlamydia infections, which are causing infertility and death in the iconic native species that is listed as endangered in parts of Australia.

    The single-dose vaccine was developed by the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland state after more than a decade of research led by professor of microbiology Peter Timms.

    The research showed the vaccine reduced the likelihood of koalas developing symptoms of chlamydia during breeding age and decreased mortality from the disease in wild populations by at least 65%.

    The recent approval by Australia’s veterinary medicine regulator means the vaccine can now be used in wildlife hospitals, veterinary clinics and in the field to protect the nation’s most at-risk koalas, Timms said on Wednesday.

    “We knew a single-dose vaccine — with no need for a booster — was the answer to reducing the rapid, devastating spread of this disease, which accounts for as much as half of koala deaths across all wild populations in Australia,” Timms said in a statement.

    “Some individual colonies are edging closer to local extinction every day, particularly in southeast Queensland and New South Wales, where infection rates within populations are often around 50% and in some cases can reach as high as 70%,” Timms added.

    Deborah Tabart, chair of the conservation charity Australian Koala Foundation, said resources being spent on vaccinating koalas should be redirected at saving koala habitat.

    “At the risk of sounding flippant, how can anyone be so delusional as to think that you can vaccinate 100,000 animals? It’s just ridiculous,” Tabart said on Friday.

    Tabart’s foundation estimates there are fewer than 100,000 koalas in the wild. The government-backed National Koala Monitoring Program estimated last year there were between 224,000 and 524,000 koalas.

    “I accept that chlamydia is an issue for koalas, but I also want people to understand that they’re sick because they haven’t got any habitat,” Tabart said.

    The Queensland Conservation Council, an umbrella organization for more than 50 environmental groups across the state, welcomed the vaccine. But the council’s director, Dave Copeman, echoed Tabart’s focus on preserving koala habitat.

    “It’s really good news. Chlamydia is one of the key stresses that has been putting pressure on koala populations,” Copeman said.

    “Koalas were at risk before chlamydia outbreaks, and they will remain at risk even if we manage chlamydia perfectly, because we keep on destroying their habitat,” he added.

    Koalas are listed as endangered species in the states of Queensland and New South Wales and in the Australian Capital Territory, with habitat loss due to wildfires and urban expansion as the major threats. Chlamydia can cause urinary tract infections, infertility, blindness and death.

    Treatment with antibiotics can disrupt an infected koala’s ability to digest eucalyptus leaves — its sole food source — leading to starvation, the university said in a statement.

    The research has been supported by the federal, New South Wales and Queensland governments.

    Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt said his government had contributed to the vaccine’s development through a 76 million Australian dollar ($50 million) Saving Koalas Fund.

    “We know that koalas need help to fight diseases like chlamydia. It’s a widespread threat impacting their reproductive health and causing infertility,” Watt said in a statement.

    Koalas are iconic Australian marsupials, like wombats and kangaroos. They spend most of their time eating and sleeping in eucalyptus trees, and their paws have two opposing thumbs to help them grasp and climb up tree trunks.

    Australia’s wild koala populations have declined steeply in the past two decades.

    Facing compounded threats from disease, habitat loss, climate change and road collisions, koalas could become extinct by 2050, according to a 2020 assessment from the New South Wales government.

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