(Sierra Sun Times), Nov. 29, 2020 -The EPA released a draft biological evaluation on Wednesday finding that glyphosate is likely to injure or kill 93% of the plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act.

The long-anticipated draft biological evaluation released by the agency’s pesticide office found that 1,676 endangered species are likely to be harmed by glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and the world’s most-used pesticide.

The draft biological opinion also found that glyphosate adversely modifies critical habitat for 759 endangered species, or 96% of all species for which critical habitat has been designated.

(ZME Science), Nov. 25, 2020 -Pollution regulations in the U.S. are helping people and birds both, a new study reports. The findings showcase how federal measures meant to reduce ozone pollution likely prevented around 1.5 billion bird deaths over the past 40 years, roughly one-fifth of the US’ current bird population.

Keeping our environment clean and tidy benefits everybody quite literally. The effects of pollution on public health have been investigated in the past, but it also affects wildlife. The current study comes to flesh out our understanding of its effects on the general health of bird species.

The study was conducted by scientists at Cornell University and the University of Oregon. They based their research on a series of models from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird program, which they ran alongside ground-level pollution data, to track monthly changes in bird abundance, air quality, and regulation status for 3,214 U.S. counties over a span of 15 years.

(ZME Science), Nov. 23, 2020 -Tim Flach, a London-based nature artist, is not your typical photographer. He’s renowned for his meticulous, marvelously-lit photography of various animals, from common creatures like ducks or domestic dogs and horses to the exotic and endangered.

One of Flach’s signature styles is portraying his subjects intimately, emphasizing their expressive, almost human-like qualities. This is perhaps most illustrated in his latest project of birds from across the globe, from the Peruvian Inca tern to the Toco toucan.

(Center for Biological Diversity), Nov. 5, 2020 -The EPA released an assessment today finding that the endocrine-disrupting pesticide atrazine is likely to harm more than 1,000 of the nation’s most endangered plants and animals.

The finding is a result of the agency’s first-ever nationwide assessment of an herbicide’s harm to protected species, an analysis that’s required by the Endangered Species Act.

The assessment’s release comes just two months after the EPA re-approved the pesticide’s use for another 15 years.

“Finally the EPA has been forced to acknowledge atrazine’s far-reaching harms,” said Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. ”This alarming assessment leaves no doubt that this hideously dangerous pesticide should be banned in the U.S., just as it is across much of the world.”

(StarTribune), Oct. 29, 2020 -Federal wildlife officials are removing the gray wolf from the U.S. Endangered Species Act list, saying the wolf population — an estimated 6,000 roaming the continental U.S. — has recovered and the animal no longer requires federal protection.

The national delisting decision, to be announced Thursday, turns management of the wolves over to states to handle as they see fit.

Long anticipated, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service ruling is nonetheless a blockbuster as the wolf reigns with the bald eagle as a majestic and symbolic species in the United States, one revered by many Native American tribes. The delisting generally opens the gray wolf to hunting and trapping.

(The Revelator), Oct. 14, 2020 -Oh what a difference a few decades make.

Back in in the 1980s and 1990s, a species known as the smalltail shark (Carcharhinus porosus) was one of the most common fish caught off the coast of northern Brazil.

That’s not the case anymore. A new paper by researchers from a trio of Brazilian science institutions calculates that smalltail shark populations in the country have declined by a shocking 90%. They say the species has now become critically endangered and is in need of “urgent conservation methods…to prevent its extinction in the near future.”

The problem, as with so many other declining oceanic species, stems from rampant overfishing.

(Boston Globe), Oct. 13, 2020 -The 13-pound male calf, which has yet to be named, has been bonding behind the scenes with his mother, Cleo, before making his exhibit debut, Zoo New England officials said in a news release.

His arrival marked the first ever successful birth of this endangered species at the Franklin Park Zoo, officials said.

Zoo officials said they learned of Cleo’s pregnancy on March 2 and ultrasounds were conducted to monitor the baby’s development. Because Cleo gave birth to stillborn calves in 2018 and 2019, the decision was made to induce her so that the veterinary team could assist her if needed, zoo officials said in the statement.

Lisa Friedman,(ZME Science), Oct. 12, 2020 -Scientists and conservationists from 40 countries have signed an open letter calling for global action to protect cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) from extinction. Half of all species are of conservation concern, with two on the edge of extinction according to the researchers, who called for urgent action.

“Let this be a historic moment when realizing that whales are in danger sparks a powerful wave of action from everyone: regulators, scientists, politicians and the public to save our oceans,” Mark Simmonds, a visiting research fellow at the University of Bristol who coordinated the letter, told the BBC.

(ZME Science), Oct. 5, 2020 -Around 3,000 years ago, Tasmanian devils were driven out from mainland Australia by dingoes introduced by Sulawesi hunter-gatherers. Fortunately, dingoes never made it to the island of Tasmania, the namesake of the devils, which helped the aggressive scavengers avoid extinction. But recent challenges such as habitat loss and the spread of one of the only known contagious cancers in the world are casting doubt on the fate of the iconic mammal.

With just 25,000 devils left in the wild in Tasmania, today’s announcement of their reintroduction to the Australian mainland marks a historic moment.

(The Guardian), Sept. 29, 2020 -Two in five of the world’s plant species are at risk of extinction as a result of the destruction of the natural world, according to an international report.

Plants and fungi underpin life on Earth, but the scientists said they were now in a race against time to find and identify species before they were lost.

These unknown species, and many already recorded, were an untapped “treasure chest” of food, medicines and biofuels that could tackle many of humanity’s greatest challenges, they said, potentially including treatments for coronavirus and other pandemic microbes.

(ZME SCIENCE), -Sept. 28, Threatened by bushfires and ongoing habitat destruction, the koala is being officially considered for listing as endangered by the Australian government. The species is now seen as ‘vulnerable’ according to local environmental laws but this could soon change as the number of koalas keeps dropping.

The government is also considering upgrading the status of the greater glider to endangered, as 30% of its habitat range was affected by bushfires. Several frog and fish species, such as the Blue Mountains perch and Pugh’s frog, are also being considered for critically endangered listing, as well as some species of kangaroo.

(US News), Sept. 25, 2020 -The Center for Whale Research has confirmed that another baby orca has been born to a pod of endangered southern resident orcas that frequent Puget Sound.

It’s the second calf born this month for J pod, according to director Ken Balcomb, who confirmed the birth.

J35, the orca also known as Tahlequah, gave birth to a male calf on Sept. 4. She raised global concern in 2018 when her new calf died and she carried it for 17 days and more than 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers).

(The Guardian), -Sept. 24, The western Joshua tree will be considered for protection under the California Endangered Species Act, possibly becoming the first plant species to be given protection of law in the state because of a primarily climate crisis-related threat.

The California Fish and Game Commission voted Tuesday to accept a petition that provides the gnarly-limbed yucca plants protected status for a year while the state conducts a study. The Joshua tree – which is not a tree but is actually a succulent called Yucca brevifolia – has graced the landscape of the Mojave desert for 2.5m years.

Research has shown that amid unmitigated climate change, only .02% of the tree’s current habitat in Joshua Tree national park would remain viable.

(National Geographic), -Sept. 23, The retired elephants of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will be moving to a spacious new home at a Florida conservation center next year, concluding a journey that began in 2015 when the circus’s parent company, Feld Entertainment, first announced it would be phasing out its use of performing elephants.

White Oak Conservation’s purchase of 35 Asian elephants from Feld Entertainment, announced today, creates what will be the largest community of Asian elephants in the Western Hemisphere, according to the organization. Construction has begun on a 2,500-acre (four-square-mile) habitat that is slated for completion in 2021.

(ZME SCIENCE), -Sept. 22, 2020, More than one in five species of maple trees, known for the vivid colors on their autumn leaves, are at high risk of extinction. A new report calls for more conservation measures and the inclusion of maple species in botanic gardens and seed banks.

Maples are a very well known, diverse, and versatile group of trees and shrubs. They draw millions of visitors each year to the natural maple woods in North America and East Asia but also to gardens and arboreta worldwide. Maples range across the northern hemisphere from North America to Japan and are especially diverse in China.

The “red list” for maples, published by the Botanic Gardens Conservation International, showed that 36 out of the 158 known species, some 23%, are at high risk of extinction in the near future in the wild.

(National Geographic), -Sept. 21, Skyler Kardell gets to watch birds for a living, in his job as a coastal steward on Tuckernuck Island, part of the town of Nantucket, Massachusetts. While patrolling the beach on September 5, observing terns, the 18-year-old spotted what initially looked like a great blue heron, a waterbird commonly seen there. But on closer look, something was off—it appeared smaller and paler.

“It had a shorter neck, shorter legs, and shorter bill than a great blue,” Kardell says. In fact, it looked like a gray heron, though Kardell had only seen one before in a book. But these birds are native to Eurasia and Africa.

“I had my suspicions right from the get-go, but because this identification poses a number of issues, I knew I had to be careful with my excitement,” he says. 2020,

(The Guardian), -Sept. 21, 2020, Hundreds of elephants died in Botswana earlier this year from ingesting toxins produced by cyanobacteria, according to government officials who say they will be testing waterholes for algal blooms next rainy season to reduce the risk of another mass die-off.

The mysterious death of 350 elephants in the Okavango delta between May and June baffled conservationists, with leading theories suggesting they were killed by a rodent virus known as EMC (encephalomyocarditis) or toxins from algal blooms.

The latest tests have detected cyanobacterial neurotoxins, bacteria found in water, to be the cause of deaths.

(ZME SCIENCE), -Sept. 21, 2020, We might unwittingly be eating endangered fish species as part of our diet, according to a new study which found that almost 100 endangered species that are being sold as seafood across the globe — legally. The researchers warn that the problem could be even greater than we believe, and called to keep endangered species off the menu.

A team from the University of Queensland looked at records between 2006 and 2014 and found 92 endangered and 11 critically endangered species of seafood where caught and sold, 13 of them internationally. When sold, they aren’t required to be labeled according to species, so consumers don’t know what they are eating.

(Center for Biological Diversity), -Sept. 16, 2020, LAS VEGAS— Conservationists discovered over the weekend that someone had dug up and destroyed more than 17,000 Tiehm’s buckwheat plants, a rare Nevada wildflower the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said this summer may warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act.

As much as 40% of the flower’s global population, which exists on just 21 acres in western Nevada, may have been destroyed.

“This is an absolute tragedy,” said Patrick Donnelly, Nevada state director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Tiehm’s buckwheat is one of the beautiful gems of Nevada’s biodiversity and some monster destroyed thousands of these irreplaceable flowering plants.”

(The Revelator), -Sept. 10, 2020, In August 2020 federal authorities charged a dozen people for illegally trafficking millions of dollars of shark fins in Florida and two other states over the previous seven years.

According to the indictment, the defendants and their two shell companies also smuggled marijuana across the country and laundered their ill-gotten gains into gold, jewels and other commodities.

Although the court cases could still take months, the arrests represent a rare victory in the world of wildlife crime.

(ZME SCIENCE), -Sept. 10, 2020,The population sizes of mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, and amphibians have declined an average of 68% between 1970 and 2016, according to World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Living Planet Report 2020, a biannual assessment of wildlife. Latin America and the Caribbean were the most affected, with an average decline of 94%.

The report pointed to humanity as the underlying cause of the deterioration of nature and the decline in the wildlife population. The increase in consumption, population, trade and urbanization in the last 50 years means we now use more of Earth’s resources that can be replenished. And this has a tremendous impact on biodiversity.

(The Guardian), -Sept. 7, 2020, An orca who became famous around the world in 2018 when she carried her stillborn calf aloft in the water for 17 days has given birth to a healthy baby.

The not-for-profit Center for Whale Research spotted the baby, dubbed J-57, “swimming vigorously alongside its mother”, named Tahlequah, on Saturday in waters near the border between the US state of Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia. They estimate that the calf was born a few days earlier.

(ZME SCIENCE), -Sept. 8, 2020, If conservation efforts don’t step up, the number of mammal species going extinct could reach 558 by 2100, according to a new study, which estimated the number based on fossil evidence of past extinctions.

Unlike previous extinction events, however, humans are largely to blame for this one, researchers argued.

(The Guardian), -Sept. 3, 2020, Earlier this year, more than 350 elephants mysteriously died in the Okavango delta in Botswana. Individuals of all ages and both sexes were affected, with many walking in circles before dying suddenly, collapsing on their faces. The mass die-off in May and June was described as a “conservation disaster.”

Three months later, most surviving elephants have fled. Last week a plane flew over the Okavango Panhandle, an area in the north-west of the delta where most of the deaths occurred, and eight elephants were spotted, when normally you would see hundreds, says Dr Niall McCann, director of conservation at UK-based charity National Park Rescue. “It is understandable, I’m sure you or I would flee if all our friends and relatives were dying, and that’s what the elephants appear to have done.”

Aug. 21, 2020 (Science News) - Saving endangered species isn’t easy. Doing so requires the cooperation of many people — from scientists and conservation organizations to governments and local residents — as well as a bit of luck. That’s as true in real life as it is in Endangered, a new board game from Grand Gamers Guild.

Endangered is a cooperative game for one to five players. Each person takes on a role — zoologist, philanthropist, lobbyist, environmental lawyer or TV wildlife show host — and players work together to convince at least four ambassadors to save a species. (In a one-player game, two roles are played simultaneously.) If you get too few “yes” votes, or let habitat destruction spread too much, or if your animal population dies out, everyone loses

National Geographic, August 7, 2020 -In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials believed that one of the most effective ways to fight the spread of the virus was to disinfect highly touched surfaces.

That led China, South Korea, France, Spain, and several other countries to spray copious amounts of disinfectant throughout densely populated urban areas. Fleets of trucks, drones, and even robots doused streets, parks,playgrounds, and other outdoor public spaces with virus-killing chemicals.

In Indonesia, drones drenched homes in disinfectant from above. And in one village in Spain, tractors dumped hundreds of gallons of bleach onto a public beach.

Aug. 4, 2020,(The Guardian)-Satellite images have revealed 11 previously unknown emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica, boosting the number of known colonies of the imperilled birds by 20%.

The discoveries were made by spotting the distinctive red-brown guano patches the birds leave on the ice. The finds were made possible by higher-resolution images from a new satellite, as previous scans were unable to pick up smaller colonies.

July 31, 2020,(Science News)-The emergency surgery took place in the back of a modified pickup truck in a parking lot in Pikeville, Ky. This scrappy plan to rescue a species of mussel on the edge of extinction made perfect sense: Meet somewhere between Indian Creek in Virginia, where the last known wild golden riffleshells lived, and Kentucky’s Center for Mollusk Conservation in Frankfort, where they would be saved.

The strategy was a malacologist’s version of a Hail Mary pass. One scientist would gingerly pry open three golden riffleshells and remove their larvae to be nurtured in his lab. The other would return the three mussels to Indian Creek, and wait for the day he could introduce their grown offspring to the same habitat. If the plan didn’t produce enough offspring to sustain a new population, the mussels would probably vanish.

ZME SCIENCE, July 29, 2020 -The populations of migratory freshwater fish species have drastically declined by 76% on average since 1970, according to a new report. Most of this damage is linked to human-made impacts such as hydropower, overfishing, and pollution.

Europe was the most affected region, with a 93% plunge.

Issued by the World Fish Migration Foundation and Zoological Society of London, the Living Planet Index is the first major report to look to the status of freshwater migratory fish on a global scale.

July 15, 2020,(Deutsche Welle)-Researchers in Australia are building ocean love shacks to boost numbers of the endangered White's seahorse. Pollution, construction, storms and illegal trade are threatening the tiny pipefish.

It can grow to a maximum of 16 centimeters, change color depending on mood and habitat, and, like all seahorses, the White's seahorse male gestates its young. But this tiny snouted fish is under threat.

White's seahorse also called the Sydney seahorse, is native to the Pacific waters off Australia's east coast. In recent years, populations have decreased drastically. It and the South African Knysna seahorse are the only two out of around 50 seahorse species to be listed as endangered.

July 15, 2020,(National Geographic) -Their shells come in a wide variety of colors: pastel yellow and pink, brick red and black, pearly white and ochre. Regardless of hue, the markings of the six species of Cuban painted snails, as they’re known, accentuate the whorled shape of their grape-size shells, which swirl in upon themselves. You can get lost gazing at these marvels of nature, as if you’re peering down a whimsically colored staircase that spirals on forever.

Cuba is home to the world’s greatest diversity of snails, but no others have shells with such a range of colors and complex patterns. Painted snails, in the genus Polymita, have long been sought by collectors, who sell the shells to tourists or trade them abroad to the United States and Europe. This demand is one reason why Cuba lists all six species as critically endangered, and why it’s been illegal for more than a decade to take these snails from the wild.

July 9, 2020,(NY Times Climate Forward) - When boaters spotted a dead North Atlantic right whale off Elberon, N.J., on June 25, marine biologists quickly established the identity of the hulking gray carcass.

With only about 400 such whales left in the world, every individual is known to researchers and cataloged. This one, the six-month-old calf of whale No. 3560, had been struck several times on the head, suggesting one or possibly two vessel collisions.

On Thursday, such whales, which got their name because they float after being killed and thus were considered the “right whale” to hunt, were placed on the Red List of critically endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the last classification before they are gone from the wild.

July 7, 2020,(ZME SCIENCE) -Coconut oil production could be more damaging for the environment than previously thought, worsening already-high extinction rates in tropical forests. According to a new study, coconut oil may actually be worse than palm oil, whose production is widely regarded as extremely harmful to the environment.

Researchers from the University of Exeter found that coconuts affect 20 threatened species per million liters of oil produced, while palm oil only affects 3.8 species per million liters. Globally, coconut farms occupy 12.3 million hectares (30.4 million acres) of land, about two-thirds the area of oil palm plantations.

June 19, 2020,(nwfDailyNews.com) -A Florida wildlife advocacy group could soon file a lawsuit to ensure protections for the Panama City crayfish.

The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a formal notice of its intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its failure to finalize protections for the 2-inch-long crayfish species that is unique to Bay County. Officials announced about four years ago that it was a threatened species.

“The diminutive Panama City crayfish is an important part of the local ecosystem and these animals desperately need federal protection,” Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director of the center, said in a Thursday press release. “Tiny critters like the Panama City crayfish need some love too.”

June 17, 2020,(YubaNet.com) -A coalition of conservation groups filed a formal notice today of their intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for its failure to protect the imperiled Bi-State sage grouse population under the Endangered Species Act despite ongoing population declines. These genetically unique and isolated sage grouse inhabit an area along the California-Nevada border and face multiple threats to their survival and population declines are particularly acute at the northern and southern ends of the birds’ range.

June 17, 2020,(The Conversation), By Roland Kays -It was a dark time for animals. Poaching was rampant. Wild birds and mammals were being slaughtered by the thousands. An out-of-control wildlife trade was making once-common animals hard to find and pushing rare species into extinction.

This is the story of North America a century ago, and of Asia today. But there was a surprise ending in America, and I believe there could be one in Asia.

June 15, 2020,(National Resources Defense Council(NRDC)) -The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is home to an extraordinary array of marine species. But the Trump administration is trying to strip it of its core protections.

Alongside NRDC partners—the Conservation Law Foundation, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Zack Klyver, a whale-watching naturalist based in Maine—NRDC sued the Trump administration today for attempting to illegally strip essential protections from the country’s first and only monument in the Atlantic Ocean.

June 12, 2020,(BBC NEWS) -The world needs a single goal for fighting the loss of nature, much like the 1.5C target for climate change, according to conservation experts.

Extinctions of plants and animals should be kept well below 20 per year, they propose.

Last year, a UN report found that around one million species are now threatened with extinction.

Progress on biodiversity loss has been "far too slow, limited or ineffective," said Prof Georgina Mace of UCL, London.

June 11, 2020,(The Revelator ) -While most eyes were elsewhere last week, President Trump signed a proclamation to remove fishing restrictions within the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. The 4,900-square-mile marine protected area off the coast of New England is home to numerous endangered species and fragile deep-sea corals that can live for thousands of years.

The announcement took place late Friday afternoon in a week beset by protests over systemic racism in the middle of a pandemic.

Experts say removing protections puts a wide range of ocean species in harm’s way. It would also distance the nation from the goals of several scientific calls to fully protect 30% of the ocean by the year 2030.

June 11, 2020,(NY Times) -In May 2019, a headless jaguar carcass turned up at a garbage dump in southern Belize. The killing, one in a series of similar incidents, added to local outrage and inspired authorities, private citizens and companies to offer a combined $8,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the jaguar killer.

More than just a national issue, the graphic killing in Belize seemed indicative of a rise in jaguar poaching across the species’ range, from Mexico to Argentina.

(NEVADA Today), -June 8, 2020, New evidence identifies 64 pesticide residues in milkweed, the main food for monarch butterflies in the west. Milkweed samples from all of the locations studied in California’s Central Valley were contaminated with pesticides, sometimes at levels harmful to monarchs and other insects.

The study raises alarms for remaining western monarchs, a population already at a precariously small size. Over the last few decades their overwintering numbers have plummeted to less than 1% of the population size than in the 1980s – which is a critically low level.

June 3, 2020 (The Revelator) - For Australia’s native guava, death came in the form of a fungus.

Just 10 years ago, a virulent strain of the fungus Austropuccinia psidii arrived in New South Wales. First observed in Hawaii in 2005, the fungus causes a devastating plant disease called myrtle rust, which has quickly and mysteriously spread around the world — most likely through industrial shipping and other elements of our global economy. Each species that encounters the fungus displays different levels of resistance, but many plants experience deformed leaves, defoliation, stunted growth and even death. The fungus reproduces prodigiously, spewing out trillions of microscopic spores that can easily be carried to new areas by the wind.

Once the fungus hit Australia it quickly spread from coast to coast, infecting hundreds of species from the Myrtaceae family, which includes native guava, eucalyptus, tea trees and bottle brushes.

June 2, 2020,(ZME SCIENCE) -The world is facing its sixth mass extinction — it’s happening now and we are the ones to blame, according to a new study, which warned of the growing number of species that are facing extinction on the planet.

Professor Gerardo Ceballos and his team said human activities like poaching, pollution, and the use of toxic substances are driving species to the brink of extinction at a rate that has accelerated in recent decades. According to the new study, 173 species went extinct between 2001 and 2014.

The Earth has seen five massive extinctions throughout its history, taking away between 75% and 90% of the species of plants, animals, and microorganisms. The most recent one caused the dinosaurs to disappear. All past events were caused by natural alterations in the environment. But now it’s being caused by humans.

June 1, 2020 Through his National Geographic Photo Ark project, Joel Sartore aims to photograph all wildlife species in human care. His images of at-risk species on the cover include the Coquerel’s sifaka (a lemur), Florida leafwing butterfly, golden-shouldered parrot, common yabby (a freshwater crayfish) and mimic poison frog.