I’m thrilled to announce that we have scored a monumental legal victory for the Joshua tree, as well as climate-imperiled species across the country.

A federal judge—a George W. Bush appointee no less—recently ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the law when it failed to list the imperiled Joshua tree under the Endangered Species Act.

When the very icons and namesakes that define America’s national parks can no longer survive, WildEarth Guardians springs into action. That’s what Guardians do—relentlessly protect and defend the vulnerable.

WildEarth Guardians pursued this case for the past two years because we believe in holding the government accountable for following the science to stop extinction. And, in this case, all of the available scientific evidence points to the same unambiguous conclusion: Joshua trees will be in danger of extinction throughout most of their current range by century’s end—from climate-change-driven habitat loss, invasive-grass-fueled wildfire, and other stressors.

This decision is a big leap forward not only for the protection of iconic Joshua trees, but for all climate-imperiled species. As a result of Guardians’ tenacity, the federal government must confront the reality of climate change and issue a new decision. We believe that decision can reach only one conclusion: it’s time to protect the Joshua tree. That’s what we’ll be fighting for. That’s because there’s simply no other conclusion to reach when the agency considers all of the best science—including climate science.

Your support made this victory possible! You have shared the plight of the Joshua tree on social media and within your networks. Thousands of you have urged the previous administration and the Biden administration to defend these icons of the American West—just as you’ve done with grizzly bears, gray wolves, Canada lynx, and sage grouse.

Your continued support will allow us to keep fighting for the Joshua tree, and all the endangered icons of the American West.

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Salmon and steelhead now have a fighting chance—because of our success and your support!

Tonight, one hour before sunset, the spillway at Foster Dam on the South Santiam River in Oregon will open and begin releasing water so young spring Chinook salmon and winter steelhead can move more quickly and safely on their downstream migration to the Pacific Ocean. This is critically important for their survival.

This watershed moment for the recovery of threatened salmon and steelhead was made possible because of successful legal action taken by WildEarth Guardians, Advocates for the West, Native Fish Society, and the Northwest Environmental Defense Center.

In 2018, we sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for failing to save Upper Willamette River wild spring Chinook salmon and winter steelhead from extinction. Last month, Judge Marco Hernández unequivocally agreed, stating, “the Court has no patience for further delay or obfuscation in this matter.” And now action is happening!

Because of our successful lawsuit, operations at multiple dams must be modified to prioritize fish passage and water quality, which is vital to ensuring native fish and ecosystems can thrive. There is renewed hope today for western rivers, including Oregon’s Willamette!

Stay tuned over the next few months as we share exciting updates on the cascade of positive actions as they happen in real time.

Your actions and financial support have been vital to our work protecting living rivers and stopping extinction—you helped make this victory possible. Your continued support and partnership will enable Guardians to keep defending the wild fish and wild rivers of the American West.

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Across the American West, rivers and streams are under threat like never before. Caught between the impacts of more than a century of unsustainable water use, archaic laws and policies and exacerbated by the growing effects of climate change, these imperiled streams could be lost if we don’t make a concerted effort to rethink how we value and manage New Mexico’s rivers and waters.

In 2018 Michelle Lujan Grisham outlined her plan for New Mexico’s water future. Built upon the foundation of stewardship, sustainability, and equity, she recognized how climate change is intensifying our water challenges and promised to develop a 50-year water plan for the state. Your voice is needed to ensure that New Mexico’s rivers, streams, fish, and wildlife are adequately considered in this plan.

The state recently released its Leap Ahead Assessment, which identifies both current and projected challenges and threats to New Mexico’s waters and serves as the basis for the 50-year water plan. But the 241-page document fails to prioritize some of the most important ways in which New Mexicans connect with the state’s waterways. Use your voice today to tell New Mexico state agencies that these are important values for all of us and cannot be excluded.

The Office of the State Engineer and Interstate Stream Commission are currently accepting written comments from members of the public through October 15, 2021. You can submit your comments via their comment portal here.

To assist you, we’ve compiled this list of talking points that you may want to include in your comments to the State of New Mexico:

• The purpose of the 50-year water plan is to “rethink how we manage our water supply.” If New Mexico is serious and committed to this idea, any planning efforts must include the needs of the environment;
• The three basic principles the Governor outlined to guide water management in the state are stewardship, sustainability, and equity; therefore, the process must be inclusive of all water values;
• New Mexicans value the rivers, streams, and plant, fish, and wildlife communities that depend on them. They’re too important to lose;
• Ecological health. The Leap Ahead Assessment does not adequately address the ecological health of rivers and streams across the state. Your comments will be most impactful if you can include the ways in which you engage with rivers and streams across the state, like taking walks through the Bosque with your dog, cooling off on a hot summer day with your kids, or picnicking along the banks of your favorite river with friends and family;
• Endangered species are not mentioned at all in the 241-page draft. While projected effects to vegetation, fish, and wildlife species are mentioned briefly, the draft focuses on upland vegetation species and does not meaningfully address the plethora of native fish and wildlife species that depend on both riverine and riparian habitats in the state. Outlining recovering endangered species as a value you hold dear and time spent birdwatching or boating to view New Mexico’s diverse array of plant, fish, and wildlife species will make your comments most effective;
  • There are a total of 59 species in New Mexico federally protected under the Endangered Species Act. The Rio Grande silvery minnow, the southwestern willow flycatcher, and the yellow-billed cuckoo are just a few examples of species that are both federally protected and can be harmed by water management decisions. Any water planning effort must take into account how future conditions will impact these and other imperiled species;
• Recreation. The effects of climate change on the recreational economy of the state are not addressed in the Leap Ahead Assessment. Recreation is estimated to contribute 35,000 direct jobs, $1.2 billion in wages and salaries, and add a total value of $2.4 billion to the state’s economy. Recreation is only mentioned once in the entire 214 pages of the assessment. Including how you and your family recreate in and around the rivers and streams of New Mexico will make your comments most powerful;
• The Leap Ahead Analysis Assessment largely represents the rivers and streams of New Mexico more as pipelines, existing to move water from point a to point b. But these precious waterways would be better thought of as living entities that many different communities, including humans, depend on; and
• Rivers bring greater value than the mere volume of their flows. The future of New Mexico’s rivers and riparian corridors for all life must be adequately considered and be given equal weight in any planning process.

The Governor and agencies of New Mexico need to know that you care about a healthy environment for both people and wildlife. Your comments will be most impactful if you can share how you interact with New Mexico’s waterways and highlight how important ensuring these values are maintained going forward is to you and your community.

Again, please be sure to submit your comments to the Office of the State Engineer and Interstate Stream Commission by 11:59 pm on October 15, 2021. If you have questions on how to best structure your comments, contact Tricia at tsnyder@wildearthguardians.org or 505-396-1752.

As September reached its halfway point, trophy hunters were let loose across Montana—including on the edges of Yellowstone National Park—to hunt for some of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem’s most iconic and ecologically charismatic species: wolves.

Restraints that had formerly limited the kill to one wolf in this hunting zone, to reduce the likelihood of harming Yellowstone’s wolves and ecosystems, had recently been wiped away by Montana officials.

Within a few days, hunters shot three wolves dead in the zone bordering America’s first national park. We do not yet know if the wolves were adventurous, young males out on their own or if they were critical members of a family of Yellowstone wolves—perhaps even alpha females or males.

Montana’s cruel 2021 wolf hunt is championed not by the state’s wildlife management agency, but by wolf-hating forces in the Montana legislature.

The methods sanctioned by the legislature and signed into law by Montana’s wolf-killing Governor Greg Gianforte, include hunting with night vision scopes, strangulating snares, baiting of wolves, and bounties. These brutal means of slaughtering wolves harken back to another era, when wolves were eradicated from the landscape of the American West.

As the six-month wolf hunting season turns from fall to winter, the death toll will certainly rise as this catastrophe plays out. If the state of Montana fulfills its ambitions, the wolf killings won’t stop until the body count reaches 450—half of Montana’s entire wolf population. If a similar plan fueled by wolf hostility in Idaho meets its goal, 90% of the state’s wolves will be eradicated and the body count in the Northern Rockies could reach into the thousands.

I don’t like writing these words, but they are painfully true. I am sickened and heartbroken.

These wolf killings are not meant to remedy problems or to feed the hungry. They are intended to feed a culture war in which wolves are mere pawns and in which the powerful exploit the vulnerable.

The hunts glorify cruelty, but they also reinforce a narrative built on lies. Montana and Idaho’s legislators lied to get these measures passed. They lied about wolves reducing opportunities to hunt deer and elk. They lied about the impact of wolves on animal agriculture. And they used their biggest lie of all, that wolves threaten children and people, to create and reinforce fear.

For years the rallying cry of hunters, so vehemently and violently opposed to wolves in the Northern Rockies, has been to ‘smoke a pack a day.’ That means they intend to use their high-powered rifles to kill an entire pack of wolves in one day.

That’s not just a cruel slogan—now, it’s public policy in Montana and Idaho.

There’s only one conclusion for the rational or compassionate among us. For iconic, charismatic species like wolves, who roam across state boundaries and even international borders, the states shouldn’t be calling the shots. Wolves are not only intrinsically valuable, they are part of a public trust that serves and benefits all Americans.

At our nation’s founding, the states were intended to be laboratories of the best form of governance. Instead, at their worst, they’ve become incubators for hate and violence that’s often built on a foundation of lies.

A brief ray of hope came on the same day the Montana hunt began, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said, in response to Endangered Species Act listing petitions from my organization and others, that wolves in the American West may warrant federal protections.

But that reprieve won’t come in time for countless wolves that will die this year. That’s why there needs to be a deeper reckoning amongst the wildlife profession and its leaders. There is something profoundly wrong when entire packs of Yellowstone wolves can be slaughtered a few feet outside Yellowstone National Park.

When hunters shot the first wolves of the Montana hunting season, there was individual glory. But I am almost certain that wolves howled in grief. I have heard these howls before on the nights after some of Yellowstone’s most iconic wolves lost alpha members to hunter’s bullets.

Though trophy hunters claim glory, I know millions of Americans will also collectively grieve for the loss of America’s wolves.  We must use that grief to fuel our push to secure the protections that wolves now so desperately need.

Please write President Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and demand the Biden administration immediately restore Endangered Species Act protections to all gray wolves in the lower 48 states.

Over the past few years, tens of thousands of you have signed our petitions, sent letters, and called officials to demand protection for wolves. Thank you! Now, please stand with us again today and consider supporting Guardians’ Wolf Defense Fund. Together, we will secure a future for the gray wolf.

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The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) wants to build a new four-lane highway through imperiled desert tortoise habitat outside St. George. And so far, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has been okay with that.

Days before leaving office, the Trump administration granted UDOT a right-of-way for the Northern Corridor Highway through Red Cliffs National Conservation Area—designated by Congress in 2009 to conserve and protect the plants and wildlife that live in this transition zone, where the Mojave Desert, Great Basin, and Colorado Plateau converge. Unusual plant and animal species have evolved in this area, including the dwarf bear poppy and Shivwits milkvetch—native plants that grow nowhere else on Earth. Red Cliffs is also a stronghold of the Mojave desert tortoise, a species whose population has significantly declined despite being listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act since 1990.

A new four-lane highway thwarts the very purpose of the national conservation area designation: conservation and preservation of the Mojave desert tortoise and other desert species. BLM must not abandon its obligation to preserve these public lands, especially since the agency’s environmental analysis offered two viable alternatives that impacted the local environment less, were better at alleviating traffic congestion, and were either equal in cost to or cheaper to construct than the four-lane highway.

In June, Guardians and our conservation allies sued BLM for failing to uphold its conservation obligations. Meanwhile, construction hasn’t started on the highway and BLM can still fix this grave mistake.

Speak up and urge BLM Deputy Director Culver to uphold the agency’s obligation to preserve the Red Cliffs by withdrawing the Northern Corridor Highway right-of-way.

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Wolves are set to return to Colorado by the end of 2023. The state has made some progress for native wildlife, but challenges remain. We need your help to ensure wolves are welcomed back to the Centennial State.

Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) is in the process of writing a plan for wolf reintroduction. And there are real concerns that the agency’s cultural antagonism toward carnivores will permeate the plan. So far, conversations have focused on lethal management and the concerns of outfitters and ranchers.

The emphasis instead should be on ensuring that wolves reinhabit their historic range and bring balance to their native ecosystems. Fortunately, WildEarth Guardians and our allies have done the research and collaboration to create a template for such a plan. Now we need you to tell CPW to use it.

Write a comment to CPW urging them to rely on science and public values when drafting a wolf plan for Colorado. Some key points you can use for your comment:

• The planning process needs to be equitable, inclusive, transparent, and representative of all Coloradans.
• Tribal rights and values, tribal sovereignty, and traditional ecological knowledge need to be respected.
• No recreational wolf hunting or trapping—these practices serve no ecological value, are cruel, may encourage illegal killing, and can exacerbate conflict.
• A system of proactive, non-lethal conflict deterrence that includes accountability measures and adequate oversight is essential.
• Funding for education and awareness programs must be provided.

Public comments are due by midnight on August 31, so don’t delay submit your comment today!

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After gearing up for the culmination of Guardians’ nearly two-year long court battle to secure federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for the imperiled Joshua tree—an August 2 hearing before Judge Otis D. Wright, II of the Central District of California—my brain is teeming with factoids about these beloved plants and the perils so many Mojave Desert dwellers face.

The combined threats of climate change, invasive grass-fueled wildfires, human expansion, and habitat degradation have already reduced the richness of the region’s biodiversity by about fifty percent over the last century. Striking losses of bird communities are increasingly evident. Recent studies describe mass die-offs of other regionally endemic plants from prolonged droughts. Records from Twentynine Palms weather station show that not only have average daytime temperatures already increased 2° F over the last 40 years, but nighttime lows in the area are nearly 8° above average—so even if precipitation levels don’t decline (though they already have) the evaporation rate is much higher so less water actually reaches the desert floor to get soaked up by native plants. Graveyards of charred Joshua trees now blanket the Mojave National Preserve after 2020’s Dome fire swept through and destroyed an estimated 1.3 million of these majestic desert icons. And for the past two consecutive years, summertime temps have reached a mind-numbing 130° F.

Desert ecologists believe that many Joshua trees are now living in an environment that is no longer conducive to replacing themselves—older trees in hotter and drier portions of the Mojave are dying off and researchers aren’t finding any baby trees in those areas to replace them. But even aside from the lack of new, young Joshua trees in much of the southern Mojave, every peer-reviewed study to model future climate impacts to this species agrees that most of their current range will be rendered climatically unsuitable by the end of the 21st century under the most likely greenhouse gas emissions scenarios—including nearly the complete extirpation of Joshua trees from their own namesake, Joshua Tree National Park.

In other words, all the available scientific evidence points in one direction: Joshua trees will be in danger of extinction throughout most of their current range by century’s end. This dismal projection need only be “likely” for Joshua trees to meet the ESA’s definition of a “threatened” species and be entitled to the Act’s broad federal protections. Indeed, this whole concept of protecting threatened species (as opposed to only those that are already “endangered” with the risk of imminent extinction) reflects what our federal courts have dubbed the ESA’s policy of “institutionalized caution”—to conserve species before they’re conclusively headed for extinction.

Sadly, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service chose to deliberately ignore a wealth of science showing the Mojave will undergo truly profound transformations in the coming decades. Instead, the agency summarily concluded that Joshua trees are long-lived, hardy desert plants distributed over broad geographic areas so that must mean they’ll be able to weather climate change and various other combined stressors.

Given just how blatant the agency’s conscious disregard of the available science was, I shouldn’t have been surprised when Judge Wright suggested at the outset of our hearing two weeks ago that Guardians’ position was more reasonable than the government’s. In fact, Judge Wright indicated that the clarity of Guardians’ legal arguments and the record science obviated the need for any additional oral argument from me (lead counsel). He asked only one question to defendants: would USFWS consider redoing its decision not to list the Joshua tree? Alas, the government’s attorney responded with a strident “NO.” So while we’re disappointed with the Biden administration’s refusal to voluntarily walk away from this terrible Trump-era listing decision, we’re left at least feeling optimistic that the Court will now wade past all USFWS’s pleas for deference, its unsupported assertions and selective cherry-picking of the record evidence, and force the government’s hand at a better decision.

We know Joshua trees are long-lived plants that have evolved to withstand harsh desert conditions, but living on the edge of what is already one of the most extreme environments is precisely why this species is so vulnerable to further rising temperatures, prolonged droughts, and uncharacteristically severe fires. We also know that the ESA isn’t the legal mechanism to solve climate change. But it can give climate threatened species like the Joshua tree a fighting chance.

If listed, USFWS would be required under the Act to develop a “recovery plan” and formally designate “critical habitat” for the Joshua tree. In this case, that would likely necessitate protecting higher elevation areas that climate modeling experts predict will have the right temperatures and precipitation levels in the future for Joshua trees to successfully reproduce and survive. But these areas (see all that land depicted in green on the map above) are far too distant for these stationary plants and their sole obligate pollinator (a Yucca moth that can only fly a few hundred feet at best) to migrate to on their own, before their current habitat is lost. So, in all likelihood, Joshua trees will need a recovery plan that involves human assisted migration to persist beyond the 21st century. It’ll also likely necessitate increased efforts to combat invasive grasses that are fueling so many devastating fires in this region.

Those are the efforts USFWS should be devoting its limited resources to—not litigating its deeply flawed listing decision. Here’s to hoping a favorable court decision will now drive the Joshua tree’s preservation. In the meantime, please take action and urge the Biden administration to protect Joshua trees.

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Idaho’s new wolf killing law authorizing the slaughter of up to 90% of wolves in the state went into effect on July 1. Already trappers and hunters have brutally killed wolf pups in dens and entire families of wolves. It’s as bad as we imagined and likely will get worse.

Right now, Montana’s Fish & Wildlife Commission is charged with implementing new laws that expand the wolf trapping season, authorize strangulation snares, and allow bait to lure wolves and even hunting with night vision scopes. Once executed, the new laws could lead to thousands of wolves slaughtered across the northern Rockies in the coming months.

We, as Guardians, are working to stop the cruelty and bloodshed not only in Idaho and Montana, but across our nation.

Since January, we’ve been in court challenging the Trump administration’s delisting of gray wolves across most of the lower 48 states.

In May, we called on the Biden administration to immediately restore Endangered Species Act protections to gray wolves in the northern Rockies.

In June, we launched a campaign to overhaul state management of wolves, releasing planning guides and resources for management agencies, and creating advocacy tools and roadmaps for wolf advocates to demand change from the agencies that manage—and too often kill—wolves.

We’ll need your help—with both your actions and your financial support—if we are to succeed. One of the most impactful ways to bring about our vision for wolves is by joining our Wild Bunch with a sustaining monthly gift.

Your recurring financial support of $5, $10, $20, or more each month will ensure wolf defense and wolf coexistence is funded for the long haul.

More than 500 Guardians just like you have already signed up as monthly donors. I invite you to join me, and them, as Wild Bunch sustaining members. For wolves. For coexistence. For our shared future.

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A federal judge has issued a win to WildEarth Guardians and our partners—rejecting crucial aspects of the Flathead National Forest’s revised forest plan that would have paved the way for increased road building and logging on the forest in northwest Montana.

This is a major victory for federally threatened grizzly bears and bull trout, whose population numbers had benefited from the prior forest plan’s more protective road management requirements.

The lawsuit challenged the Forest Service’s decision to abandon key road management requirements despite them being more protective of wildlife habitat and supported by best available science. Exiting the courthouse after oral arguments, I felt cautiously optimistic about Guardians’ chances of success. Thankfully, my gut feeling was spot on.

The judge held the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s biological opinion for the U.S. Forest Service’s revised forest plan failed to justify or explain the weakening of protections for grizzly bears and bull trout, in violation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The court also rejected the Forest Service’s reliance on the flawed biological opinion.

This win is likely to have even broader implications beyond the Flathead. The judge ruled that the agencies must consider impacts of the revised plan to the entire grizzly bear population in the lower-48 states, not just the smaller disparate population on the Flathead. The goal under the ESA is survival and recovery of all six grizzly bear ecosystems to ensure, among other things, long-term genetic diversity.

But the fight is not over yet. We are continuing to diligently track the federal agencies’ actions in response to the court order to ensure this legal win equates to real on-the-ground results for grizzly bears and bull trout. Your support is crucial for Guardians to see the work through for the benefit of grizzly bears and bull trout.

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