My family, which includes me, my husband, two teenage girls, and a bouncy terrier, loves holidays. Preparing special meals, decorating the house, and gathering together are always our favorite times.
Here at ESC, we are getting ready for our biggest holiday of the year, Endangered Species Day. Founded by ESC in 2006, this global celebration of wildlife on the third Friday of May has grown to include thousands of events in the U.S. and around the world. I love this day because it is an opportunity to reflect on our successes, reconnect with nature, and honor the people in communities who are working so hard to protect wildlife.
And, this year there is a lot to celebrate! Colorado has reintroduced wolves and is now voting on legislation that would bring back the elusive wide-ranging wolverine, the first federal grants have gone out to states and Tribes to help build underpasses and overpasses for animals to navigate roads and the Biden Administration has proposed a plan to restore grizzlies (one of my favorite animals) to Washington’s North Cascades!
This is also a day to recognize and thank the amazing wildlife champions in our 425-member groups and our partner organizations – including Tribes such as the Nez Perce who are working to restore wolves, salmon, and condors, the Hawaii Plant Extinction Program that is successfully safeguarding some of the world’s most endangered plants and the Sea Turtle Conservancy whose research is showing us how to mitigate the impacts of lighting and fishing on these beautiful sea creatures.
So, on Endangered Species Day, I invite you all to join the party! Look for an Endangered Species Day Event in your community, plan one yourself (we have lots of materials on our website), or spend the day in nature in communion with the wildlife you love. And, recharge your batteries – there is still plenty of work to do!
Thank you for your support and for helping make the world a little more wild.
Susan Holmes, Executive Director
Susan Holmes
Executive Director
Endangered Species Coalition
Grizzly Bear Recovery in the West: What’s on Tap in 2024
The Grizzly bear is an American wildlife icon, and a key component of our unique Western wildlife heritage. Lewis and Clark wrote about encountering grizzly bears when they explored the West more than 200 years ago.
Unfortunately, these bears were all but wiped out during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Despite its rugged image, the grizzly bear is more vulnerable to industrial development and other human activity than most other wildlife species in the Northern Rockies. Roughly 2,000 grizzlies now inhabit the lower-48 states (with most living in and around Yellowstone National Park and Montana’s Continental Divide), down from as many as 100,000 in the early 1800s. Read more…
Endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales Get Love and Much Needed Help from Oregon Junior High School Students
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission was surprised at its February hearing when thirty junior high school students filed into the room mid-morning.
They were there to urge the commission to list the Southern Resident Killer Whales as endangered under the state’s Endangered Species Act.
Ten students gave testimony, four individually and the others as two groups of three. They were poised, cited scientific research and talked about the Southern Residents Killer Whales matriarchal cooperative culture. Read more…
Colorado’s New Wolves are Exploring Their New Home
It has been three months since Colorado made history by beginning the process of restoring wolves to our mountains. Now, once again, the howl of wolves can be heard (if you are lucky) in Colorado. These first ten wolves mark an inflection point in history where the wrong of extirpating wolves and other wildlife is made right.
So far, the wolves have been doing well and avoiding any trouble with livestock or cars. There are reports that the wolves are starting to pair up and as we enter mating season, we can only hope that pups will be on the way offering their adorable promise of new life and a brighter future for wolves and wildlife in Colorado.
This is not to say this process is without its challenges. While safe in Colorado, wolves can be killed if they cross into Wyoming where there are no federal protections.s. We are working to find ways to safeguard this significant conservation success. We don’t want to lose a single wolf to hunting or trapping across the state border. As we enter the spring, we will work with the promise of new life and a brighter future for wolves as we continue to advocate for these remarkable animals.
Mural Brings the Rusty Patched Bumblebee Back to Ohio
Across the tallgrass prairies of the midwestern United States, rusty patched bumblebees (Bombus affnis) once thrived in a landscape rich with native plants providing nectar and shelter. Today, the rusty patched bumblebee is listed under the Endangered Species Act. Since 2003, it has rarely been observed in the landscapes where it historically ranged. As a result of habitat loss and conversion of land to agriculture, the habitat that the rusty patched bumblebee needs has been dramatically altered.
Through the power of visual artwork for biodiversity conservation, the rusty patched bumblebee is once again visible in Ohio. As part of the Endangered Species Act 50th Anniversary National Mural Project, artist Kenia Lamarr created and installed a rusty patched bumblebee in the Linden neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. Read more…
Support Pollinators and their Habitat
What do bats, bees, butterflies, moths, and birds have in common? All of these animals can help to pollinate native plants. Endangered Species Coalition’s Pollinator Protectors campaign helps to create habitat for pollinating species of each of these animals. So far in 2024, the Endangered Species Coalition has funded restoration work for a greenhouse propagating agave for native pollinating bats in Texas, the purchase of a locally rare native pollinator plant for bees at an urban restoration project in Washington, and a native pollinator garden at a farm in Maryland. You can support these incredible projects by donating to Endangered Species Coalition’s Pollinator Protectors campaign. Please help ESC fund the vital work of creating pollinator habitats across the US. Thank you for your support!
Endangered Species Day is May 17th–Make Plans at endangeredspeciesday.org!
The Endangered Species Coalition and David Robinson started Endangered Species Day in 2006 and it has grown to become a global event in the 18 years that have followed. We organized a unanimous U.S. Senate resolution marking the day; we have generated media coverage from large national news networks to local newspapers; the White House has tweeted; and activists like you and me have come together to celebrate the work and the successes those works have led to and to keep doing more to save species. New events are being added to our Endangered Species Day map every day.
Join us on the 3rd Friday in May (May 17th) to be a part of Endangered Species Day. Learn more at endangeredspeciesday.org.
America the Beautiful for All Coalition (AtB4All)
The Endangered Species Coalition is proud to be a member of the AtB4All Coalition, a broad and diverse coalition of hundreds of organizations across the country. All working to advance two of President Biden’s initiatives on 30X30 and Justice40.
30×30: Conserve, connect, and restore at least 30% of land, water, and ocean in protected areas by 2030 to avoid massive species loss, secure equitable access to nature’s benefits, and prevent and repair the impacts of the climate crisis for all communities.
JUSTICE40: Implement a Justice40 metric for the America the Beautiful Initiative to ensure at least 40% of the investments are made in communities of color and frontline communities that have historically seen little to no investment in conservation and equitable access to nature.
ESC staff co-chair the wildlife working group and have advanced several priorities for the coalition to work on this year, including a National Biodiversity Strategy for the U.S., supporting wildlife corridors both at the federal level and in states, and expanding the National Wildlife Refuge system. For a look at the full 2024 Policy Priorities: 2024 Policy Agenda | America the Beautiful for All
Saving Species on Capitol Hill
The Endangered Species Coalition has an exciting update on our policy work: Jewel Tomasula, Ph.D., came on board as our new Policy Advisor! With Jewel joining us, we visited Capitol Hill to share our Top 10 Stories of Hope Report, discuss our concerns with the Endangered Species Act (ESA) about Congressional attacks on the ESA, and advocate for a National Biodiversity Strategy and for protecting wildlife corridors. We met with several offices: Senator Collins (ME), Senator Merkley (OR), Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Senator Carper, Congresswoman Dingell (MI-06), Congressman Beyer (VA-08), Congressman Molinaro (NY-19), and Congressman Buchanan (FL-16). importantly, we are recruiting more legislators to the Congressional Endangered Species Act Caucus.
With a deal to fund the federal government for Fiscal Year 2024, we are breathing a huge sigh of relief that none of the anti-ESA amendments proposed by House conservatives are in the final budget. It is disappointing that funding for ESA implementation took cuts, as did many other environmental protection programs across federal agencies. In the face of the largest number of anti-ESA amendments in the 50-year history of the Endangered Species Act, our movement successfully fended off these attacks, helping keep intact protections for the gray wolf, grizzly, long-eared bat, North Atlantic right whale, Rice’s whale, and more. When the Fiscal Year 2025 appropriations process begins, we will remain vigilant to defend endangered species and mobilize to restore funding for ESA implementation.
Endangered Species Coalition Member Group Spotlight
Photo: ESC’s Susan Holmes led a discussion about living with wildlife in Africa with Alais Moridat, a Maasai elder from Tanzania at the organization African People and Wildlife.The event at the Georgetown Club in Washington, DC, explored a model to protect lions and how we can learn from their success as we explore ways to protect wolves, grizzlies, and other large carnivores.
Our strength comes from all our wonderful member groups working together to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats. We now have almost 500 members! In upcoming editions of our newsletter, we will highlight some of the great work of those groups. We also have bi-weekly member calls on Wednesdays at 2 pm ET. If you have a great story to tell, a victory you would like to share, or a cool tactic your group is employing, we want to know about it!!
In this edition, we want to welcome some of our newest members: African People and Wildlife, HYNCharity, Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance, Gotham Bat Conservancy, and the Conservation Angler. Their work ranges from protecting a specific species to protecting a mountain range to creating sustainable, resilient communities. Our members are incredibly diverse. Please visit their websites to learn about the awesome work they are doing.
If you feel your group would be a good fit to become a member of ESC, please use this link to join us!
Endangered Species Coalition Member Groups Application – Endangered Species Coalition
Do you know? How many subspecies of wolves are there in North America?
Here are five subspecies of the gray wolf (Canis lupus) in North America.
Canis lupus baileyi – the Mexican wolf (lobo)
Canis lupus nubilus – the Great Plains or buffalo wolf.
Canis lupus occidentalis – the Canadian or Rocky Mountain wolf.
Canis lupus lycaon – the eastern or Algonquin wolf. Some scientists believe this wolf is a separate species, Canis lycaon.
Canis lupus arctos- the arctic wolf.
Thanks to ESC Member Organization, Wolf Conservation Center for the answer to that question.
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