Biophilia Hypothesis

Environment. Climate change. Urban ecology. Animals (domestic, farm, wild).  Desert. Prairies. Farms. Wilderness. My photography (never photoshopped). Issues that scratch my progressive mind. Take the kids outside. You go outside. Hike, bike, climb. Blackhawks. Chicago. Southern California.

[rjzimmerman]

Speed Limits for Ships Protect Endangered Right Whales From Vessel Strikes. Could the Animals Survive Without Them?

Since 2008, rules requiring ships to slow down to avoid collisions with North Atlantic right whales have reduced fatalities of the criticall

Excerpt from this story from Smithsonian Magazine:

Even though whales take up a lot of space, they can be surprisingly stealthy in the water. Regina Asmutis-Silvia, executive director of Whale and Dolphin Conservation North America, knows firsthand how difficult it can be to spot one and avoid a collision.

When she’s steering a research boat, Asmutis-Silvia looks for specific types of ripples at the surface or spouts of water from a blowhole to signal that a whale is nearby. But even so, the animals can be unpredictable.

“They’re not out here paying attention to you,” she says. “Whales that are looking for food and eating are very focused. It’s probably the whale version of hangry!”

Recently, Asmutis-Silvia was moving her boat extra slowly near Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, having noticed signs of whales in the area. Suddenly, a North Atlantic right whale popped up just 30 feet ahead, off the boat’s bow. “That’s not atypical whale behavior for right whales,” Asmutis-Silvia says. “These animals do what they want.”

She had time to turn her vessel away from the mammal, because of her low speed, but many other cases don’t end so harmlessly. Whale strikes have been on the rise in areas along the East Coast, likely due to the growth of global shipping in the past few decades. Worldwide, vessels fatally hit an estimated 20,000 whales each year. Recent examples of dead whales washing ashore on New York and Delaware beaches have brought the toll of vessel strikes into the public eye.

Since 2008, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has regulated ship speed in some areas along the East Coast to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. Mother-calf pairs are often sighted within about 40 miles of the New England shoreline. Because whales move north to south along the coast and major shipping lanes span east to west, the animals and vessels are liable to collide. Research has shown that the best way to prevent collisions, aside from rerouting ships entirely, is to have ships slow down.

Now, NOAA, which enforces laws within 230 miles of the United States’ coast, is calling into question the necessity of this ship speed regulation. The agency has begun investigating whether technology to detect whales may be sufficient to prevent strikes.

While conservationists support developing detection technologies, they are concerned that a change to the current speed limit could lead to more injured whales on our beaches and higher risks to the endangered right whales. Weakening the existing protections would be “really dangerous for the survival of the species,” says Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity.

[rjzimmerman]

Animals Have Culture, Too | NOEMA

From architectural traditions to ancient courtship rituals, evidence of animal cultures is overwhelming but underacknowledged.

Excerpt from this story from Noema:

When ecologists relocated dozens of bighorn sheep from Oregon, eastern Wyoming and other locations to the Rocky Mountains to restore populations eradicated by hunters, the animals — typically seasonal migrants — had no idea what to do. A handful decided to follow local bighorns around to learn how they navigated this vast and unfamiliar terrain. The rest didn’t even attempt to migrate.

The local herds traveled along time-tested pathways they had learned from their ancestors — reliable routes that had been shrewdly forged between high-risk predation areas and short plant-growth seasons. This centuries-old migratory practice, researchers determined, is driven not by instinct but shared through cultural transmissions from parent to child or peer to peer. If a herd’s traditional pathways are disrupted, such as by human interference, it expunges “generations of knowledge.”

Similar community-based behaviors exist in many nonhuman societies. Sperm whales communicate using group-specific dialects older than Sanskrit. Certain chimpanzee communities share knowledge of how to use stone tools to crack open palm oil nuts. Matriarchal forest elephants pass down wisdom about extensive pathway networks through the Congo Basin undergrowth, where new generations learn about established transit corridors by following their elders. White-browed sparrow weavers build nests according to the distinctive style of their cultural group, each of which has its own architectural traditions. 

And yet, such behaviors — which are often crucial to animals’ survival — are not acknowledged by global institutions dedicated to protecting cultural activities. They are conspicuously absent from the list of roughly 800 “intangible” cultural heritage practices and expressions recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Inclusion on that list could open the door to special protections and funding for preservation. 

To be eligible for UNESCO nomination, cultural activities must be actively practiced today and fit within one of five key domains: “oral traditions and expressions,” “traditional craftsmanship,” “performing arts,” “knowledge and practices on nature and the universe” or “social practices, rituals, and festive events.” 

[rjzimmerman]

On Loving Birds

A couple of years after I began volunteering, I realized I was hell-bent on healing birds because they, too, had healed me—in more ways than

Excerpt from this story from Guernica:

I love birds because otherwise, I wouldn’t know what else to do with myself. Birds are  utterly astounding and totally ridiculous, all at once. Like this one time in Prospect Park, when I saw a squirrel run up on a red-tailed hawk perched in a tree. The hawk panicked, flapping its wings, fighting for its life to maintain balance. I looked at it genuinely concerned, like: Sir, did you forget that you’re a hawk?! That same day, over by the feeders, a blue jay decided to cosplay as a red-tailed hawk. It let out one scream, and the warblers and chickadees dropped their food and bailed in terror. The jay surveyed the now-deserted feeding station, landed on the tallest feeder, did a smug little du-du-du, and bounced. I don’t think it even wanted food, just the sweet thrill of disruption. Like a petty tyrant in blue—a chaos muppet, through and through.

 I love birds more than I love method-acting the stompy New Yorker. When I’m out weaving through a barrage of tourists in the glass, concrete, and steel of Manhattan, muttering impatiently under my breath, I might spot a song sparrow—0.06 pounds, three inches tall—hopping, twitching, and clanking out a song hundreds of feet big. Then I stop in my tracks. And I become the very imposition I was hating on, people shoving past me as I shout back to the sparrow, “Ya, I love you! You are my whole heart. You know that?” in the same high-pitched chirp.

I love birds the way zealots preaching in the streets love the gospel. I tell fellow Muslims that we learned how to ritualize grief when God sent a crow to show a haunted, bloody-handed, and bereaved Cain how to bury his brother, by scratching at the earth beside him before he knew he was worthy of redemption. Later, when a tyrannical king threw Prophet Abraham into a fiery pit, a little bird zipped over in a frenzy, spilling drops of water from her beak to try to put it out—teaching us that we must do our best to love and protect one another.

I make everything about birds the way people who really love Jesus make everything about liberation theology. I tell people that greater anis live in communes, building and laying eggs in one big, shared nest. No one knows whose baby is whose, and it seems like no one really cares. When the eggs hatch, it’s all hands on deck. If there was a word for reverse-anthropomorphism, I wish Congress could embody it—in the spirit of the greater anis. Because a nation that won’t fund pre- and post-natal care at home but will bankroll the bombing of Palestinian, Lebanese, and Iranian maternity wards, schools, and homes abroad has a long way to go in loving humanity.

Birds steadied the hearts of my favorite writers in times of deep deprivation. James Baldwin, living in exile, found solace in them. In “Munich, Winter 1973,” he calls to a lover and makes a bid for connection as he watches birds circling—birds that “have wings and voices / are making choices,” and birds that “are aware / that, on long journeys, / each bears the other, / whirring, / stirring / love occurring / in the middle of the terrifying air.” Toni Morrison, living in a boathouse along the Hudson, loved it best when birds visited her. The journalist Sandra Guzmán, who spent time with her, wrote that birds became a “spiritual wonder” and “darling beings—friends, even” to her—proof that when you watch a beloved love something beside you long enough, their eyes become your eyes. Many people don’t know this, but even bell hooks, best known for her incisive, scathing takedowns of intersecting -isms, wrote ten poems about birds in Appalachian Elegy. All of them are about the great lessons these “small yet mighty” creatures teach us. 

[rjzimmerman]

The Beaver God of Bavaria

One man has done more than anyone else to bring beavers back to Europe. Some might find his tactics unorthodox.

Excerpt from this story from Earth Island Journal:

IN GERHARD SCHWAB’S backyard in a quiet hamlet in Bavaria, a beaver lay prone on a picnic table. It was mid-March 2024 and the animal, a roughly 30-pound female, had been caught somewhere in the region during the preceding weeks. Now the beaver’s eyes were closed, her flanks softly rising and falling as anesthetic gas flowed into her lungs through a clear plastic mask. Spread around her was a mess of makeshift medical supples, including a portable ultrasound scanner, two hot water bottles, and half a pint of vodka.

A few feet away, some two dozen other beavers were cooped up in a warren of repurposed dog kennels that Schwab, who is 64, had set up years earlier as a sort of transit station for the animals. They sit behind his large and cluttered house, where he lives alone among countless beaver skulls and beaver pelts, whole stuffed beavers and their frozen meat.

Beavers have been Schwab’s life ever since he left university in the late 1980s. At the time, it had been only 20 years since Bavaria, Germany’s southernmost state, had started repopulating its waterways with the Eurasian beaver, Castor fiber, which had largely been hunted to extinction across Europe in the 1800s. By the time Schwab started working with them, around 1,000 had been resettled across the state. Today, there are upwards of 27,000 spread across Bavaria’s increasingly crowded rivers, streams, creeks, and brooks. All those beavers have to share space with people, whose numbers have also grown over the past 200 years, in a state where roughly half the land is farmed — often right up to the water.

As one of Bavaria’s two dedicated beaver managers, Schwab is responsible for keeping relations between humans and beavers as peaceful as possible. This is no small task: Although he relies on a network of volunteers, his patch spans the entire southern half of the state, home to around 8 million people in an area nearly the size of Switzerland.

When it comes to beavers and people, Schwab is decidedly on the side of the beavers. This explains why he was planning to load 26 of them, including the female on the picnic table, onto a trailer and drive them all the way to Greece.

The beavers had all come into conflict with farmers and other landowners, and could legally be trapped and killed. Schwab wasn’t opposed to culling them — as part of his job he regularly shoots beavers right in his backyard, with a .22 Magnum rifle — but he would rather travel more than 1,000 miles, one way, and set the beavers free. Although the release would be a first for Greece, where the animals are native but were last resident in the nineteenth century, it would follow a familiar playbook for Schwab, who has perhaps done more than anyone else to aid the species’ spread across Europe.

[rjzimmerman]

Rewilding Point Reyes National Seashore: Why and How • The Revelator

Restoring this vital landscape and its amazing wildlife will require strategy, collaboration, and vigilance.

Excerpt from this story from The Revelator:

Point Reyes is a coastal treasure protecting about 110 square miles of some of the most scenic and biodiverse landscapes on the planet. Surrounded by marine protected areas on its western coastline and buffered by open spaces of various jurisdiction on eastern inland boundaries, the West Coast’s only national seashore supports extraordinary species richness for both plants and wildlife. Meanwhile its proximity to San Francisco and Oakland provides an unusually accessible oasis for humans seeking recreation and outdoor experiences. Point Reyes receives more than 2 million visitors per year.

That number could soon increase — and it should. People deserve to see this amazing landscape. A recent legal settlement added new protection to Point Reyes that should make it even more magnificent. But getting to that point still requires effort, coordination, and vigilance against both new and returning threats.

The Seashore has a rocky history. It was signed into existence by John F. Kennedy in 1962. Over the next decade or so, the federal government purchased private ranches in the area, adding acreage in a puzzle-piece fashion, and sparing the whole peninsula from seemingly inexorable sprawl development.

What followed were decades of controversy and conflict over the best ultimate uses of the park. Commercial ranches were initially allowed to stay in operation, leasing back the land they’d just sold to the public. But beef and dairy cattle operations increasingly conflicted with the park’s preservation and public-use principles. Damage from overgrazing and ranching lease violations came under public scrutiny. A battle raged over controlling tule elk in the only national park where they still occur. With growing concerns of extinction and climate crises, pressure from citizens and environmental groups boiled over and, following a recent settlement, the government enacted changes to move away from private businesses guiding park management.

Now 10 out of 12 commercial cattle operations have now vacated the park. With the departure of all dairy and most beef cattle ranches, around 17,000 acres of formerly overgrazed lands are shifting from “pastoral working zone” to “scenic landscape” — meaning they are slated, in theory at least, for ecological restoration.

[rjzimmerman]

Aluminum Plant Near Arizona’s San Pedro River Scrapped Amid Local Opposition

Center for Biological Diversity: BENSON, Ariz.— A company has abandoned plans to construct a controversial aluminum recycling facility in Be

Excerpt from this press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

A company has abandoned plans to construct a controversial aluminum recycling facility in Benson, Arizona, ending a yearlong fight led by residents concerned about threats to their health, groundwater supplies and the nearby San Pedro River.

“This victory belongs to the people of Benson who refused to accept the threat of toxic pollution and risks to their drinking water as the price of development,” said Russ McSpadden, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “They knocked on doors, challenged state and federal permits, went to court, voted and ultimately stopped this terrible project in its tracks. The community and the San Pedro River will be better off because people fought to protect the place they love.”

The aluminum facility was under construction near a nursing home and the San Pedro River, which provides habitat for millions of migratory birds and supports endangered species, including the threatened yellow-billed cuckoo. A company spokesperson confirmed the project’s cancellation to local media.

Residents and advocacy groups have criticized the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality for approving permits despite widespread public opposition and unresolved concerns about air pollution, groundwater use and other public health threats.

“This is another infuriating example of the department rubber stamping pollution rather than working on behalf of the people of Arizona,” said McSpadden. “Arizonans shouldn’t have to beg our environmental regulator to protect our health, water and air. We deserve an agency that stands up to industry instead of clearing the way for it.”

On June 5 the Center filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to respond to a petition challenging the plant’s air pollution permit. The petition raised concerns about air pollution monitoring, enforceability of permit conditions and compliance with federal clean air protections.

[rjzimmerman]

Lawsuit aims to put sunflower sea stars on endangered species list | Alaska Beacon

The huge sea stars, which used to be plentiful in waters from Mexico to Alaska, were nearly wiped out by a bacteria-caused wasting disease.

Excerpt from this story from the Alaska Beacon:

An environmental group has sued the Trump administration over its failure to grant Endangered Species Act protections to sunflower sea stars, a keystone Pacific Ocean species that lost 90% of its population since 2013 to a wasting disease.

The Center for Biological Diversity, in its lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accused the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of illegally delaying endangered and threatened listings for the giant sea stars.

NOAA’s Fisheries Service in 2023 proposed listing the species as threatened across its entire range, which stretches from Baja California to Alaska. That proposal stemmed from a petition the Center for Biological Diversity filed in 2021.

However, NOAA Fisheries has missed legally the legally mandated 12-month deadline for issuing a rule, thus violating the Endangered Species Act, the lawsuit said.

“The agency’s failure to meet the deadline delays crucial protections for the sunflower sea star, increasing its risk of extinction,” the lawsuit said.

[rjzimmerman]

Judge upholds protections for Southern California steelhead trout

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has rejected a water agency’s challenge to endangered species protections for the Southern Califor

If you're a vegan or for other reasons won't eat fish, don't read my comment or closer your eyes. I think that steelhead is one of the best fish or dinner. Tastes like salmon, hence, its biologically "complicated" status. Maybe we'll see it return to menus? OK, now open your eyes.

Excerpt from this story from The Missoula Current News:

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has rejected a water agency’s challenge to endangered species protections for the Southern California steelhead trout.

“The court recognized the science showing the plight of this struggling fish and upheld the protections needed to stave off extinction,” said Evan Levy, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a written statement. “Development, dams and water diversions have threatened this species so deeply that only a handful of spawning southern steelhead have been seen in recent years. Now that these state protections have survived legal challenge, I’m looking forward to a new chapter for these remarkably complex fish.”

The Ventura County-based United Water Conservation District operates multiple dams in California, which conservation groups say prevent steelhead migration upstream. For years, the agency has challenged the state’s steelhead protections: first in 2023 over temporary protections, then again in 2025. Both petitions have now been rejected. The district has argued that the California’s Fish and Game Commission “relied upon incomplete and flawed data while ignoring better scientific evidence” in granting the steelhead endangered status.

[rjzimmerman]

Florida Gov. DeSantis announces closure of 'Alligator Alcatraz' - UPI.com

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has announced the closure of the embattled immigration detention center colloquially known as "Alligator Alcatraz.

Excerpt from this story from UPI:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has announced the closure of the embattled immigration detention center colloquially known as "Alligator Alcatraz," less than a year after it opened.

"Florida led the way in increasing much-needed detention capacity and working with our federal partners to streamline deportations, removing thousands of the most dangerous criminal aliens from our country," DeSantis said in a statement.

The temporary facility, built at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport compound, began accepting detainees last July as Florida sought to expand capacity for Trump's nationwide immigration enforcement surge.

DeSantis was among the most vocal supporters of Trump's aggressive immigration policy, which aimed to increase arrests, detention and deportations of immigrants facing removal.

In its short time, the Florida Everglades facility drew protests, a slew of lawsuits and allegations of inhumane conditions, detainee abuse and human rights violations, as well as accusations of harming the local environment.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Thursday that the facility's closure was long overdue.

"This facility should never have been built," she said in a statement.

Additional comments from the Center for Biological Diversity:

For a year the Center for Biological Diversity has fought to shut down this facility as officials tried to bulldoze environmental laws protecting the Everglades and endangered species like Florida panthers and Florida bonneted bats.

We will keep working to ensure accountability, full restoration of the site, and long-term protection so a tragedy like this can ever happen again.

“Finally it looks like ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ is meeting its end,” said the Center’s Elise Bennett. “But the Trump and DeSantis administrations have shown we can’t trust them with Big Cypress’ future. So we’ll keep fighting till panthers can return and bonneted bats can reclaim the star-spangled skies.”

[rjzimmerman]

Supreme Court ruling blocks thousands of lawsuits against the maker of Roundup weedkiller

The Supreme Court has sided with the maker of Roundup weedkiller, blocking thousands of lawsuits alleging it failed to warn users the produc

In my humble opinion, this "opinion" does not preclude someone with a form of cancer that might be attributable to exposure to Roundup from suing Bayer, and maybe even prevailing in court, if the person can prove to that court (or jury) that, notwithstanding the claims by Bayer to the contrary and the federal government fairy tale, Roundup is a carcinogen.

Excerpt from this AP story:

The Supreme Court sided with the maker of Roundup weedkiller Thursday in a ruling expected to block thousands of lawsuits alleging it failed to warn people the product could cause cancer.

The case came before the justices after a tidal wave of litigation that included some multibillion-dollar verdicts against Bayer, a German agrochemical manufacturer that acquired Roundup’s original producer, Monsanto, in 2018.

The decision is a victory for President Donald Trump’s administration, which argued in support of Bayer. But it provoked outrage from allies in the “ Make America Healthy Again” movement who want to rein in pesticide use.

The high court, in a 7-2 ruling, held that Roundup cannot be sued in state courts for failure to warn because federal regulators have found a cancer link unlikely and do not require a warning label. Federal law also bars states from imposing additional or different labeling requirements, the opinion from Justice Brett Kavanaugh states.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Neil Gorsuch, dissented, saying that Monsanto could have added a warning without violating federal law.

Though focused on Roundup, the ruling could affect similar health claims against other pesticide products.

“This decision is good for American farmers who help feed the world,“ Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said. ”It provides the regulatory clarity necessary for innovators like us to develop the agricultural tools that guarantee an affordable food supply.”

Though Bayer said the ruling should result in the dismissal of failure-to-warn lawsuits, the company said it plans to proceed with a proposed $7.25 billion class-action settlement intended to resolve many of the remaining claims.

The ruling was denounced by environmental groups and lawyers representing people who believe they were harmed by Roundup.

[rjzimmerman]

See the First-Ever Photos of Cozumel’s Mysterious Dwarf Fox

See the First-Ever Photos of Cozumel’s Mysterious Dwarf Fox: Many believed the tiny fox had gone extinct

Excerpt from this story from Nautilus:

Strange things happen to animals when they colonize islands. Some of them get larger, like the enormous rabbit Nuralagus rex of ancient Menorca, while others get smaller, like the dwarf fox of Cozumel. This mysterious species of gray fox is estimated to be only around 60 to 80 percent the size of its larger mainland brethren. Fossils indicate it first arrived on the Mexican island around 5,000 years ago, predating the arrival of humans. 

Since then it’s become critically endangered. In fact, the Cozumel dwarf fox is so rare, the last secondhand sighting was more than two decades ago, in 2001. Many believed the species to be extinct. Then, in 2023, reports of a disoriented animal meandering along the highway poured into the Cozumel Parks and Museums Foundation, and officials raced to rescue the wayward critter. They also snapped some photos—the first taken of the dwarf fox.

After scooping him up and providing a full health assessment, the dwarf fox was relocated to the Laguna Colombia State Reserve, far from any dangerous roadways. While this particular animal was spared, the species is still in dire straits due to habitat loss, invasive species, and climate change.

“The biggest challenge facing the Cozumel fox is that we still know almost nothing about it, including its remaining population size, distribution, or ecology,” Travis Bayer, author of a recent paper on the sighting published in Neotropical Biology and Conservation said in a statement. “That uncertainty alone is dangerous, because it makes effective conservation extremely difficult.”

[rjzimmerman]

Video from the Center for Biological Diversity.

[rjzimmerman]

Court Ruling Protects Endangered Wildlife Nationwide From Dangers of Coal Mining

Center for Biological Diversity: CHARLESTON, W.Va.— A federal court ruled today that the federal government’s attempts to undercut Endangere

Excerpt from this press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

A federal court ruled today that the federal government’s attempts to undercut Endangered Species Act protections for the sake of coal mining were illegal. Coal mines will now be required to follow the law and ensure their activities don’t harm protected plants and animals.

“This is an incredibly important victory for the streams and rivers of Appalachia and the people and wildlife who rely on them,” said Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “For too long regulators have allowed coal mining to devastate wildlife. This decision will require coal mines to fully account for their threats and harms and do more to ensure that imperiled wildlife aren’t pushed to extinction for dirty fossil fuel profits.”

The decision was issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and invalidates the federal government’s unlawful attempt to streamline how coal mines comply with the Endangered Species Act. The Center for Biological Diversity and Appalachian Voices sued the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2023 for failing to protect highly imperiled wildlife from the devastating harms of coal mining. The court today agreed, finding the agencies failed to implement required protections for species, putting wildlife at great risk.

Coal mines had been allowed to rely on a watered-down process that did not require an analysis of the harm they actually cause and were operating without limits on the extent of that harm. The Endangered Species Act requires such analyses to ensure that wildlife won’t be lost forever. The court found that the government’s process wasn’t consistent with the law and vacated the nationwide biological opinion that coal mines in many states used to avoid the more thorough analysis and implementation of mitigation measures that are essential to protect wildlife.

[rjzimmerman]

Groups to sue Bitterroot Forest over vague logging project

Five conservation organizations sent a 60-day notice of their intent to sue the U.S. Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service if the Bit

Excerpt from this story from The Missoula Current News:

Following a recent court ruling faulting a Bitterroot National Forest amendment, conservation groups are warning federal agencies to shut down the Bitterroot Front project due to similar violations of federal law.

On Tuesday, five conservation organizations sent a 60-day notice of their intent to sue the U.S. Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service if the Bitterroot National Forest doesn’t stop and reconsider how the 20-year Bitterroot Front project would affect threatened species. The organizations include the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Bitterroot, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, WildEarth Guardians, Friends of the Clearwater and Native Ecosystems Council.

“This lawsuit takes aim at the Trump administration’s complete failure to consider how clearcutting this area will threaten grizzly bears, bull trout, wolverines and other imperiled animals that call the Bitterroots home,” said Kristine Akland, Center for Biological Diversity Northern Rockies director. “It’s utter nonsense to justify this massive project as an emergency action when it’ll take at least two decades to implement. Those of us who love the Bitterroots know that this spectacular forest and its endangered wildlife deserve stewardship and care, not reckless acquiescence to the logging industry.”

On May 12, the Bitterroot National Forest approved the Bitterroot Front Project, which includes road projects, logging and burning across 144,000 acres or 225 square miles, from the northern boundary with the Lolo National Forest south to the West Fork of the Bitterroot River. The logging activities will be conducted in four phases, with each phase occurring in successive years. Commercial logging is authorized on almost 44 square miles, noncommercial cutting will occur across 5 square miles, and slashing will be carried out on 28 square miles. Most of the commercial logging is planned for the southern end of the project area and will occur during the first two phases or years.

That’s all the information that the Bitterroot Forest provided about the project because it will be “condition-based.” But that makes it hard to know where roads will be built or where or when work will take place. Because of that, the organizations question how the Forest Service or the Fish and Wildlife Service could say with any certainty that the project activities won’t affect threatened grizzly bears or bull trout.

[rjzimmerman]

West Coast Whale Entanglements Still High in 2025, 9 Seen in 2026 So Far

Center for Biological Diversity: SAN FRANCISCO— Federal data shows that 33 whales were reported entangled in fishing gear off the U.S. West

Excerpt from this press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

Federal data shows that 33 whales were reported entangled in fishing gear off the U.S. West Coast in 2025. That’s just one fewer than the 34 entangled in 2024, which was the highest number since 2018. At least nine whales have already been seen entangled in 2026, including two humpbacks entangled near Monterey, Calif., in late May.

“It’s just devastating that so many whales are getting tangled up in fishing gear. Whale entanglement is not a new problem and it shouldn’t still be happening at these high rates off the West Coast,” said Ben Grundy, an oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These deaths could be prevented by closing whale hot spots to fishing or only allowing pop-up gear that reduces the risk of entanglements. If we don’t make changes, more whales will suffer and die.”

Seven of last year’s entanglements were humpbacks caught in fishing gear from the commercial Dungeness crab fishery. The California coonstripe shrimp fishery — with fewer than 20 participating boats — entangled two humpbacks. Of the 2025 data, 20 entangled whales were reported in California, 9 in Washington, 3 in Oregon, and one in Mexico entangled in Oregon gear.

Because not all entanglements are reported, these fisheries may be responsible for five times as many entanglements as the number reported, according to federal scientists.

To help reduce entanglement risk, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for the first time closed areas to Dungeness crab fishing effective March 27 and authorized the use of alternative gear starting April 3.

Most of the 2025 entanglements affected threatened or endangered humpback whales, while three of the reports involved gray whales. The population of gray whales has declined 50% in the past decade.

A marine heatwave currently off California is predicted to increase and persist through the summer, which will likely lead to more overlap between whales and fishing gear. Already at least 55 whales have stranded in 2026 off the West Coast because of starvation and ship strikes, another primary threat to whales. The last time there was a serious heatwave, known as the West Coast Blob, whale entanglements spiked and elevated levels have persisted since 2015.

[rjzimmerman]

One of the baby falcons that recently hatched outside Aurora City Hall rescued from Fox River, city says

A community member and an animal control officer involved in rescuing and reuniting the bird with its mother were honored by the city Tuesda

Excerpt from this Chicago Tribune story:

One of the baby falcons that recently hatched outside Aurora City Hall was rescued from the Fox River and reunited with its mother last week, according to the city.

Ed Bernal was visiting downtown Aurora for a haircut last Thursday, according to the city, when he noticed a number of people looking down at the Fox River as he rode his bike on the Downer Place bridge.

Stopping, Bernal joined the crowd and saw one of the baby falcons that had recently hatched outside City Hall, Hope, stuck in the river and being pushed by the current toward a wall, the city said in a news release.

A bystander had a bucket and a towel, and Bernal climbed down the wall to rescue Hope, per the city. He used the towel to take hold of her and place her, unharmed, into the bucket, and then waded downstream to a set of stairs to climb out of the river.

Afterwards, a group of community members drove the falcon to the DuPage Wildlife Conservation Center for a medical evaluation, the city news release said, and she was then taken back to Aurora.

The baby falcon stayed perched on the south side of City Hall for hours, according to the city, as passersby attempted to guide her back to the nest and her mother. Eventually, Quentin Johnson, an animal control officer with the city, was able to lure Hope off her perch, capture her and then transport her back to her mother and nest on the opposite side of City Hall.

The four baby falcons hatched in early May, laid by a five-year-old falcon named Vixen, who began nesting in a crevice on the second floor of the exterior of Aurora City Hall in early April. Vixen met an adult male peregrine named Dave, who was fledged from a nest in Chicago in 2020, and went on to lay four eggs that would hatch into the baby falcons.

[rjzimmerman]

California sues US EPA over sending emissions rules to Congress for potential reversal. (Reuters)

Excerpt from this story from Reuters:

The state of California sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday after the agency earlier ‌this month sent the Republican-controlled Congress landmark state vehicle emissions rules for potential repeal.

The EPA said waivers under the Clean Air Act for California environmental regulations approved under prior Democratic administrations should have been sent to lawmakers under the ​Congressional Review Act.

California said the action was illegal and should be blocked by the U.S. ​District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that the EPA was seeking ⁠to "wave a magic wand" and turn a waiver into a rule.

"These latest illegal actions would mean more ​pollution, poorer air quality, more market uncertainty, and greater health risks for communities already overburdened by emissions,” ​said California Attorney General Rob Bonta, noting the state has received more than 75 waivers for environmental actions.

The EPA did not immediately comment.

The Trump administration has mounted a multi-pronged effort to deny California the ability to require cleaner vehicles and ​more electric vehicles. The EPA has also enacted rules making it easier for automakers to sell more ​gasoline-powered cars and trucks, while making it more expensive to buy EVs.