Rocket Frog, Damselfish, and Bandicoots: The Species Declared Extinct in 2025

This year’s list includes a notable extinction caused by climate change — and several caused by introduced predators.

Did climate change wipe out the Galápagos damselfish (Azurina eupalama)?

This once-common, reef-dwelling fish — described by the Galápagos Conservancy as a “shimmering jewel” — hasn’t been seen since the 1982-1983 El Niño Southern Oscillation, which devastated the ecology around the Galápagos. Fueled by climate change, the weather event brought months of warm water to the normally cooler areas where the fish lived and decreased supplies of the plankton they depended on for food.

By the time weather conditions returned to normal, the damselfish was nowhere to be found.

Engraving of the Galápagos damselfish, originally published by Heller & Snodgrass (1903).

Divers have spent the past 40 years looking for the fish, to no avail. A 2025 paper published in the Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation concluded that the species should now be considered “likely extinct,” although it encourages ongoing environmental DNA sampling just in case the animal persists.

In a press release about this research, the Conservancy wrote that simply mourning this species is not enough. “Every species lost is a page torn from the book of life. But there’s still time to write a different ending. Let this story move us. Let it motivate us. Because we can still make a difference — if we choose to act.”

Sadly the Galápagos damselfish is not an isolated story. This past year scientists announced many other species we appear to have lost. Their stories are often haunting, but they can motivate us to learn from our mistakes, take advantage of conservation opportunities, and act to prevent further erosions of the natural world.

Here are the stories of the past year, drawn from scientific papers, media reports, and the IUCN Red List.

Christmas Island shrew (Crocidura trichura)

This tiny but loud species — “its distinctive shrill squeaks could be heard all around as one stood quietly in the rainforest,” according to a 2004 species recovery plan — was last seen in 1985, although its final days really began in the first decade of the 20th century, when humans carried rats (and the rats carried diseases) to Christmas Island. That was just the first blow, though. After that came nonnative yellow crazy ants, cats, and other predators. Then came roads, habitat loss, and — finally — the arrival of yet one more nonnative predator, common wolf snakes, in the 1980s. The last two known shrews were found mid-decade; they died soon after, and the species has long been feared extinct. Last year the IUCN calculated the slim possibility of their continued survival and made it official.

The 52-square-mile Christmas Island — a territory of Australia — may not be very big, but it looms large in the extinction crisis. Isolated from other land masses by hundreds of miles of ocean, dozens of unique species had the opportunity to evolve there. That worked just fine until humans arrived and knocked the delicate system out of whack. This shrew is at least the fourth extinction of the island’s unique species. Let’s hope it’s the last.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ©HemantKumar (@360pixual)

Mimo jiaoyue

A paper published in February 2025 described this freshwater mussel for the first time … and declared its possible extinction. The authors based its name on “an ancient Chinese term for the moon, used to describe the shell’s shape as being as round as the bright moon in the night sky.” The species was native to Lake Fuxian in China, but the paper points out that the lake is highly polluted, with low levels of dissolved oxygen, and the shoreline has been destroyed by development. The paper reports that no living specimens have been found and pollution levels suggest it’s “highly unlikely that any surviving populations remain.” (A 2021 paper identified a host of threats to this lake, including “rural domestic pollution, farmland runoff pollution, urban domestic pollution, phosphorous chemical pollution, and tourism pollution.”)

And this species may not have been the only one to disappear from the lake: Freshwater mussels rely on specific fish species to host their larvae, and the authors suggest that M. jiaoyue’s unidentified host species may have also gone extinct.

Dryadobates erythropus

Sometimes we find evidence of extinction not in the wild but in museums or other scientific collections. That’s the case with this 14-millimeter (.55 inches) frog, described by researchers as a new species based on a “badly desiccated and extremely fragile” specimen that had been collected by pioneering herpetologist Doris Cochran in Brazil in 1963 (and stored at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, ever since).

The authors noted that the site where the original specimen was collected “has been transformed into a highly developed residential and commercial area lacking suitable habitat,” so it seems unlikely the frog persists in the wild.

Like other so-called “rocket frogs,” this species had a thin, streamlined body, a pointed face, and probably the ability to leap many times its body length. Too bad they couldn’t jump out of the way of humanity.

Ngutu kākā (Clianthus puniceus)

This shrub with delightful red flower clusters hails from New Zealand’s North Island, where it hasn’t been seen in the wild since 2015, although it still exists in a handful of herbariums. The reasons for its disappearance remain unclear, but it seems likely to have fallen prey to nonnative herbivores such as feral goats, red deer, and snails. Extensive surveys have failed to turn up any free-growing populations, so the IUCN this year assessed the plant as “extinct in the wild.”

A related species, C. maximus, persists in the wild — barely — with about 150 known plants (a number New Zealand’s Department of Conservation is actively working to increase). Both species are collectively known as “Kākābeak” because their flowers are shaped like the beak of the kākā parrot (Nestor meridionalis).

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Vandy she/her Canon 5D iv R6 ii (@coastal_wanderer_nz)

Slender-billed curlew (Numenius tenuirostris)

This once-wide-ranging bird led our annual extinction list in 2024 after a scientific paper declared it lost due to overhunting and habitat loss. This year the IUCN used the paper as the basis for wider scientific consensus and similarly listed the species as extinct.

1905 illustration of slender-billed curlews, courtesy Biodiversity Heritage Library

Eugenia acutissima

This Cuban plant hasn’t been seen since 1952 and probably fell victim to agricultural development; it was only observed by scientists once. In 2025 the IUCN declared it extinct.

Delissea sinuata

Native to the Waianae Mountains of Oʻahu, this plant hasn’t been seen since 1937. Nonnative species have heavily degraded its former habitat — another example of why Hawai‘i is often referred to as the “extinction capital of the world.” It would be easy to spot if it still existed, because it grew up to four feet high and bore striking purple berries.

Diospyros angulata

Proof that science takes its time: This plant from the island of Mauritius (home of the infamously extinct dodo) was last seen in 1851. The IUCN finally published an assessment identifying the species as extinct in 2025. The likely causes of its extinction include logging, grazing, soil erosion, and competition from nonnative plants and animals.

Syzygium ampliflorum

This tree grew on an active volcano — Mount Galunggung in Java, Indonesia — which last erupted over a nine-month period beginning Oct. 8, 1982. The eruption killed 2,000 people, wiped out 88 villages, and presumably caused this plant’s extinction — that is, if it hadn’t already been killed off during earlier eruptions in 1894 and 1918. An expedition in January 2025 failed to turn up signs of this plant’s existence, and a paper published in September suggested it should now be considered possibly extinct. If so, that would make it one of the few extinctions on this list not directly linked to human activity.

Brunoniella neocaledonica

This small, flowering herb from New Caledonia was only documented twice, in 1967 and 1968. Its only habitat has suffered from frequent fires and grazing from nonnative Rusa deer. The IUCN assessed it as extinct in 2022 but only published that in 2025.

Another rarely documented New Caledonian herb — Pytinicarpa tonitrui — faced the same threats and has also been declared extinct.

Kākāpō parasites

New Zealand’s critically endangered kākāpō parrots (one of our species to watch in 2026) nearly went extinct a few decades ago. Conservationists saved the species by moving the last of these flightless birds to safe, predator-free islands. They’ve been doing fairly well ever since and may experience a baby boom in the year ahead, but they’ve lost something else along the way: their parasites. A study published this past July found more than 80% of the parasite species previously associated with kākāpō prior to the 1990s have disappeared. Of the 16 parasites the researchers identified, only three remain on the birds.

Sirocco, the famous kakapo, pokes out of the brush in 2012. Photo: New Zealand Department of Conservation

The paper suggests that four of these parasites were associated exclusively with kākāpō and, with no other species to host them, have gone extinct.

This might seem like a “no big whoop” deal, but parasites rarely deserve their bad reputation. They often play important ecological roles — research suggests they can help keep our immune systems healthy and may even protect us from any new, potentially more destructive parasites that arrive.

Their disappearance, meanwhile, is a sign that natural systems are deeply disturbed — and if a habitat can’t support a parasite, what does that mean for the fate of the host species?

A press release about this research gives us further food for thought. It reminds us that parasites live on a small proportion of the population of their host species, so when the bigger species become endangered, the parasites are likely to go extinct faster than the hosts (a process called secondary extinction or coextinction). This means parasite declines could be considered an early warning system and tip us off to problems in the hosts.

At the same time, the paper warns that we may have underestimated the rate of parasite extinction worldwide and failed to account for them in our documentation of disappearing species. Case in point: What if every extinction announced this year also involved the extinction of one or two parasite species?

So let’s spare a moment to think about these lost species — and maybe give those that remain a little extra attention and appreciation.

Madeiran large white (Pieris wollastoni)

This striking, 2-inch butterfly once flew in Madeira, an autonomous region of Portugal, but hasn’t been seen since 1986. The IUCN SSC Butterfly Specialist Group assessed it as extinct in 2023, but that wasn’t published to the IUCN Red List until last year. The cause of its extinction remains unclear, but possible factors include pesticides, a virus, or the decline of the plants the butterflies’ larvae depended on.

Conus lugubris

This poor little cone snail was once abundant on the Cape Verde Islands, which have since become a tourist mecca. Rapid coastal development since the late 1980s has destroyed the snails’ habitat and the species is now presumed extinct.

Leptaxis vetusta

This Portuguese land snail was scientifically described in 1857 based on a fossil shell and has never been observed alive. The IUCN this past year assessed it as extinct.

Mastigodiaptomus galapagoensis

This small copepod (a type of crustacean) lived until recently in El Junco, a high-elevation freshwater crater lake on San Cristóbal island in the Galápagos that has no naturally occurring fish. An illegal attempt to establish a tilapia fishery there in 2005 or 2006 devastated the lake’s ecology. By the time efforts to eradicate the nonnative fish began in 2008, the lake held an estimated 40,000 tilapia. Native invertebrates didn’t stand a chance. A paper published in 2021 suggested this had caused an extinction; the IUCN this year gave broader consensus to that sad reality.

Snowy owls (Bubo scandiacus) in Sweden

Sometimes species disappear on the regional level, which is known as extirpation rather than extinction. This year the conservation organization BirdLife declared snowy owls regionally extinct in Sweden, a decade after the last sign of the birds breeding in that country.

BirdLife says this should serve as a warning for all northern countries in which snowy owls still roam, where climate change is rapidly altering ecosystems and making them less hospitable to these iconic birds (and so many other species in the process).

Thaumastus teixeirensis

Another land snail, this time from Brazil. Scientists have previously identified dozens of other species in this genus, but this one slipped by until a paper published this past year. Evidence of the species emerged from sambaquis — shell mounds left as monuments by prehistoric people. Researchers found the shells for this new species in these mounds and wrote that “efforts to find similar living specimens, or even empty shells, in that region were fruitless, strongly suggesting that the species is currently extinct.”

Acropora corals

Not an extinction, and not an extirpation, but about as close as you can get: A paper published this past October warned that an “acute heating event” along the Florida Keys in 2023 killed between 97.8% and 100% of elkhorn (Acropora palmata) and staghorn (A. cervicornis) coral colonies. So many corals died that further reproduction remains unlikely, leaving the species in this area “functionally extinct.” This is climate change in a nutshell, folks.

Elkhorn coral spawning. Photo: Brett Seymore/National Park Service

Several Italian plant species

A massive study of the vascular plants of Italy (i.e., most plants other than mosses and the like) reassessed 628 species, resulting in conservation status updates for 44% of them. The 100-plus authors fanned out across the country and found that the fate of 57 species has improved. But they also found that 176 species fared worse than their previous assessments, and the researchers confirmed several regional and national extinctions, mostly in aquatic habitats.

Among the losses:

- Atriplex mollis in Sardegna
- Coleanthus subtilis in Trentino-Alto Adige
- Taraxacum pauckertianum in Toscana
- Aldrovanda vesiculosa all over Italy
- Mentha cervina in Abruzzo
- Nuphar lutea and Nymphaea alba in Sicilia
- Utricularia minor and vulgaris in Toscana
- Potamogeton gramineus and Sonchus palustris in Veneto
- Crucianella maritima in Calabria
- Juniperus sabina in the Marche

Other countries would do well to follow the lead of these Italian botanists. As they write in the paper, “This research also underscores the importance of botanical collections and historical records to reconstruct the history, dynamics, and current distribution of plant species, and addresses challenges such as limited access to the collections. This study is not only a milestone in Italian floristics but also provides a replicable methodology for updating national floras globally.”

Six bandicoots

These long-unseen (and in some cases newly identified) Australian marsupials got their first — and last —entries on the IUCN Red List this past year when all were listed as extinct species:

- Northern pig-footed bandicoot or Yirratji (Chaeropus yirratji) and southern pig-footed bandicoot (C. ecaudatus) — Previously considered one species, they were reassessed as two species in 2019 using a combination of fossil records, Aboriginal oral accounts, bones, and taxidermied specimens. Unseen since the 1950s and 1930s, respectively, the two bandicoots probably disappeared due to introduced predators (like cats and foxes), changes in fire regimes instituted by European settlers, and habitat degradation by livestock. The rest of the bandicoots on this list faced similar stories.
- Nullarbor barred or butterfly bandicoot (Perameles papillon) — Last seen alive in 1928 and identified as their own species in 2018 based on museum specimens. The only known photos of this species were rediscovered in 2025.
- South-eastern striped or southern barred bandicoot (Perameles notina) — Last seen in the mid-19th century.
- Liverpool Plains striped bandicoot (Perameles fasciata) and southwestern barred bandicoot or Marl (P. myosuros) — Previously considered subspecies, these bandicoots were elevated to full species status in research published in 2018. They were last seen in 1846 and 1907, respectively, and cats once again get the blame for most of their declines.

Three Caribbean lizards

A recent study took a deep dive into the DNA of forest lizards from the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, and Hispaniola and shook things up quite a bit, ultimately defining 35 new species — including one that lives near Goldeneye, Jamaica, where author Ian Fleming wrote his James Bond novels (they of course named the species Celestus jamesbondi). In the process they declared the Altagracia giant forest lizard (Caribicus anelpistus) and yellow giant forest lizard (Celestus occiduus) “critically endangered (possibly extinct)” (assessments already made by the IUCN Red List under different common names) and added a newly identified species, the black giant forest lizard (Celestus macrolepis), to the list of lost species.

Armeria maritima

An odd case to wrap up this list: Botanists considered this species “extinct in the wild,” with the last living samples growing at Utrecht University Botanic Gardens in the Netherlands. But recent DNA tests of the living plant and 19th-century specimens showed that the gardens actually held a hybrid of two different Armeria species. That allowed them to declare that Armeria arcuate is truly extinct — but at the same time it illustrated the value of botanical gardens and herbarium collections, which can still provide critical scientific evidence even if the samples are decades or centuries old. Many herbarium collections themselves face extinction in an age of scientific budget cuts, so that’s an important message we’d do well to take to heart.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy.

Previously in The Revelator:

The Curlew, the Cactus, and the Obliterated Whitefish: The Species We Lost in 2024

Protect This Place: Elijio Panti National Park, a Mayan Heritage Site in the Heart of Belize’s Rainforest

A logging concession granted to a furniture company threatens to disrupt the park, its cultural legacy, and its amazing biodiversity.

The Place:

We’re in Noj Kaax Meen Elijio Panti National Park, a protected area situated in the heart of the Maya Mountains in western Belize, near the border with Guatemala. Bounded by the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve and the Macal River, it’s an extremely biodiverse, tropical rainforest with some remaining intact areas of primary broadleaf forest.

Why It Matters:

Named after the world-renowned traditional Mayan healer Don Elijio Panti, Noj Kaax Meen (which means “canopied rainforest of healers”) Elijio Panti National Park is home to some of the most emblematic and endangered wildlife of the Neotropics, including jaguars, spider monkeys, tapirs, and scarlet macaws. It also conceals several large, intricate caves full of artifacts and relics where the ancient Mayas conducted rituals and ceremonies. Some of these caves remain unexplored.

Photo: Daniel Couceiro (used with permission)

The Mayas’ descendants still live here. They consider the land, rivers, trees, herbs, birds, jaguars, and other wildlife to be their heritage, which they are honored to take care of. They’re dedicated to preserving the delicate balance between the territory and the people. The legacy that Don Elijio Panti, a spiritual leader as well as a healer, left within the national park is also paramount for this community, as he offered ceremonies of gratitude to the spirits and the land, meditated, and gathered sacred herbs to serve his people.

The park is full of economically important trees, such as mahogany, nargusta, rosewood, sapodilla and ceiba, which supply food for many insects, birds, and mammals. They’re also important habitat: In their massive crowns and branches, you can find nests of top predators such as the stunning ornate hawk-eagle or the black-and-white owl.

At the same time, as if these trees represent a duality of blessing and curse, they attract national and international logging companies, eager to cut them down and extract their precious timber at any cost.

The Threat:

Last July the government granted a logging license to Belize Woodmark Designs Ltd., allowing the furniture company to harvest wood in approximately 11,500 acres of the area known as the Western Hardwoods. The area is situated within the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve and directly borders Elijio Panti National Park to the south. According to park head ranger Rigoberto Saqui, this logging concession will severely harm ecological connectivity and populations of mammals with large home ranges like jaguars and tapirs.

“It’s a ripple effect that happens when a logging concession begins in an area,” he says. “When new roads are opened, it makes it easier and accessible for other loggers, looters, or poachers to do illegal activities within the park.”

He also mentions a consequence that would reach areas even beyond the park.

“The Western Hardwoods are very sensitive when it comes to its ecological functioning: It has a lot of headwaters that flow into the major tributaries of Belize.” This means the effects of the operation would stretch into areas and communities far away from the park through damage done by logging to water quality.

The license was granted for 30 years, with the option to be extended for an additional 30, and was granted despite the opposition of the chief of the Forest Office Department.

My Place in This Place:

I visited Elijio Panti National Park for the first time last summer, leading a group of college students in environmental sciences from the United States. As an ecologist and passionate naturalist, I immediately connected with the exuberant jungle and spent the days walking trails up and down, checking jaguar and tapir tracks, birdwatching, swimming in the beautiful waterfalls, exploring deep caves, and learning nonstop from the park rangers who accompanied us.

I felt privileged to witness such a vibrant landscape, and I also observed my students’ constant enthusiasm in discovering the rainforest for the first time, opening their eyes to a new world full of unique species, sounds, and scents.

When the rangers told me about the ongoing situation with the logging concession, I felt powerless in the face of corporate interests that care nothing about the needs of nature and the people, so I decided to do my part and share the voice of the park and its community. I will continue to bring my students to Elijio Panti every year, so they can learn about rainforest ecology, its brimming wildlife, and the endless challenges human greed poses to the common good.

Who’s Protecting It Now:

The Itzamna Society has co-managed the park with the state since 2001. A team of four brave rangers patrols about 16,000 acres (roughly 9,000 football fields) of hilly terrain. They have been navigating the dense rainforest and working to control groups of illegal poachers, loggers, and looters with the help of two motorbikes, machetes for opening small trails, their strong legs, and determined hearts.

What This Place Needs:

In the words of the head ranger Rigoberto Saqui, “The number of rangers that we have — it’s not enough, and we have seen the consequences of our limited capacity to safeguard the park.”

The park requires more personnel to initiate proper long-term research and be more efficient in patrolling and protecting the area. It’s crucial to initiate research to identify key sites within the park that may contain hidden Maya caves before looters arrive. There’s also a significant chance that the park holds new-to-science species of insects, plants, and other groups, which means that the community and rangers need equipment and training to start monitoring and collecting data.

The rangers also need to acquire fire-extinguishing equipment, since the dry season is about to start and they have had difficult experiences in the past trying to fight wildfires with minimal tools. The government does not have either the initiative or the capacity to provide help in these situations.

The Itzamna Society is trying to secure a large grant that will allow it to implement several processes to better address the park’s needs, but the team is struggling to write the proposal due to a lack of grant-writing expertise. If anyone reading this article has experience with grant-writing for conservation or environmental causes and is willing to help, please contact me so I can connect you with the team.

Lessons From the Fight:

The oppression carried out by companies and corporations to destroy the last wild places on this planet for mere profit and personal convenience can’t be allowed anymore. It’s clear that we can’t trust governments to take care of mountains, rivers, and forests, so what are our options as citizens?

Elijio Panti National Park and the Itzamna Society are a clear example of the power of communities in protecting nature. This Mayan community will defend their place with their lives as long as they exist, because it’s part of their identity and legacy.

Similarly, rebuilding our relationship with nature is a duty we have as humans, so we’re intrinsically motivated and ready to do whatever’s necessary to safeguard the sources of food, clean water, and clean air for ourselves and the rest of the fellow creatures with whom we share the world. Most of Western society has lost our connection to our territories, allowing private interests to extract the land’s wealth without resistance.

Lastly, one of our greatest powers as citizens comes from our ability to make informed choices as consumers. What would happen if no one bought any furniture from the company that received the logging concession that now threatens Elijio Panti National Park — or other exploitative companies?

Follow the Fight:

Follow the Itzamna Society, the local community and co-managers of Elijio Panti National Park, on Facebook.

And visit the park’s own website, where you can find detailed information on this unique protected area.

Share your stories:

Do you live in or near a threatened habitat or community, or have you worked to study or protect endangered wildlife? You’re invited to share your stories in our ongoing features, Protect This Place and Save This Species.

Previously in The Revelator:

Antidote for Despair in the Shawnee National Forest

Incredible Journeys: Filling in the Blanks of Sea Turtle Migrations

These marine reptiles lead complicated lives, making protecting them a real challenge. But new science has revealed important information.

Migration: Many animal species do it — from tiny zooplankton to enormous whales — moving over every continent and through all oceans, from north to south, south to north, Europe to Asia, Asia to Africa. That movement by individual animals in response to season or life stage typically involves substantial numbers and vast distances.

Recent studies are giving scientists a better understanding of migrations at the species and population levels and reveal implications for conservation. This series focuses on a few particular species, what we’re learning about their migrations, and how that knowledge may help us protect them.

This second installment in the series looks at a group of reptiles who really get around: sea turtles.

Sea turtles live complex lives that have mostly gone unstudied and unobserved by human researchers. But new technology, including lightweight satellite transmitters as small as a thumb drive, is increasing the ability of scientists to tag and track the turtles at every stage of their development. The resulting data have upended several major assumptions and revealed details of the movements of these highly migratory marine reptiles — details that could support efforts to protect them.

“If you look at their life cycle, sea turtles occupy the entire oceanic realm,” says Pam Plotkin, a retired Texas A&M University Department of Oceanography professor. “They’re in bays and estuaries, on beaches, near shore, and out in the high seas. And threats exist in all those areas.”

Sea turtles nest on beaches, and hatchlings move to nursery areas over waters deeper than about 650 feet (200 meters). Scientists long believed the young turtles passively drifted with ocean currents for four to six years, but didn’t know much about this oceanic stage, calling it the “lost years.”

They also assumed that after the animals returned to coastal waters as larger juveniles, they remained there through adulthood, with seasonal migrations to foraging areas and nesting beaches.

But those assumptions weren’t entirely accurate.

“The more tags we put out, the more we saw turtles doing things we weren’t expecting,” says Kate Mansfield, a professor at the University of Central Florida Marine Turtle Research Group, who started satellite-tracking animals more than 12 years ago during their post-hatchling period (after they leave their natal beaches for the open ocean). “It was our first inkling that there’s more nuance to it.”

The first unexpected discovery was that post-hatchlings are active swimmers, confirmed by research on oceanic-stage loggerheads (Caretta caretta) and green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) in the North Atlantic and juveniles of different species tagged in the Gulf.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Center for Biological Diversity (@centerforbiodiv)

Tracking also showed that not all adults migrate predictably to foraging areas and nesting beaches.

For example, juvenile loggerheads spend their summers in Chesapeake Bay before heading south to warm Gulf Stream waters in fall. But about a third to a quarter of those tracked went far offshore, some for a long time.

“We started questioning the model that once they check the box on the oceanic stage, they move into coastal habitat and remain the rest of their lives,” Mansfield says. “That has big implications for understanding where and when these animals are and the threats they may encounter.”

Those peripatetic loggerheads, for example, pass through coastal and longline fishery areas.

Olive Ridleys

Research that Plotkin started in 1990 upended another truism, this one about olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea), who practice mass nesting events called arribadas.

Plotkin expected to track throngs of them migrating between a Costa Rican arribada beach and a feeding ground somewhere in the eastern Pacific Ocean. That would have made it relatively easy to protect their route between the two.

But the data showed olive ridleys swim hundreds to thousands of miles from their nesting beach, taking different and unpredictable routes among multiple areas that vary one year to the next. Not so easy to protect.

In addition, conservation efforts had focused on protecting known arribada beaches in Mexico and Costa Rica, but it turned out that many olive ridleys nest alone on beaches from Mexico to Ecuador.

“The idea had persisted that solitary nesters just missed the arribada, didn’t get the memo,” Plotkin says. “But there are hundreds of thousands of them, and they are widely distributed.”

Olive ridleys are classified as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. The most recent status report on this species, to which Plotkin contributed, noted significant declines on many solitary nesting beaches, highlighting the need to protect those sites as well.

Green Sea Turtles

The IUCN Red List recently reclassified green turtles from Endangered to Least Concern, noting that the population has increased by 28% since the 1970s. This positive milestone reflects international, long-term conservation and protection of nesting beaches and marine habitats, guided by a lot of research.

Green sea turtles nest in significant numbers on the Florida and Texas Gulf coasts. As Mansfield’s research showed, after years in the open ocean after hatching, as small juveniles they move to nearshore seagrass beds, reefs, and lagoons.

Ryan Welsh, a senior scientist at the Inwater Research Group, says larger juveniles then go to areas like the Florida Keys, where deeper waters near seagrass beds help them avoid predators as they mature into adults. In 2022 he and Mansfield found one of the world’s densest green sea turtle foraging aggregations near Key West, in an area called the Eastern Quicksands. An estimated 3,000 animals, ranging from 150 to 500 pounds, occupied 18 to 22 square miles (30 to 36 square km).

“This is unique in the density of animals, especially big animals,” says Welsh.

The Eastern Quicksands are under jurisdiction of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, providing some protection for the turtles and seagrasses. But Welsh recommends further protecting the area with Endangered Species Act critical habitat designation.

“Adults are especially vulnerable,” he says. “As they migrate to nesting beaches in Costa Rica, Mexico, and the eastern U.S., they’re exposed to a lot of risks and enter areas where they might not be protected. Giving them the best protection we can where they spend the majority of their time is critical and the least we can do.”

In July 2023 NOAA published a proposed rule to designate critical habitat for green sea turtles that included the Quicksands and other areas. But it remains just a proposal.

The Quicksands are the site of a lot of fishing activity for Caribbean spiny lobster and Florida stone crab, and those nets can entangle sea turtles. Welsh would like to see the sanctuary prohibit or limit fishing there. A series of meetings with multiple stakeholders proposed creating a Marquesas Keys Turtle Wildlife Management Area, he says, but the Florida governor vetoed it.

Other Protections

It takes more than protected areas to help these highly mobile reptiles, though.

Incidental capture by fisheries is a common threat, including from bottom trawlers, which tow a net along the ocean floor to capture target species such as shrimp. A 2021 paper in Nature reported that trawlers scrape some 1.9 million square miles each year.

Turtle excluder devices, or TEDs, have reduced capture of sea turtles by bottom trawlers in the United States, according to Plotkin. A TED is a grid of bars in the neck of the net and an opening in the net’s top or bottom. Small shrimp pass through the bars and into the net while larger animals, such as sea turtles, are stopped by the bars and escape through the opening. A recent NOAA pilot project showed that narrower bar spacing reduced bycatch of juvenile sea turtles, which could slip through standard bars, without significantly decreasing shrimp catch.

Texas Sea Grant, where Plotkin previously served as director, was instrumental in developing these devices and gaining their acceptance among Gulf of Mexico shrimpers. But the U.S. currently requires TEDS only in shrimp and summer flounder trawl fisheries. Other countries don’t always require them or enforce their use.

“Catch remains a significant problem for sea turtles,” Plotkin says. “And trawlers operating near nesting grounds or foraging grounds can do a lot of damage.”

Pelagic or deep-sea longline fisheries, which set out baited hooks at various depths that often remain in place for hours, are another threat. Sea turtles can swallow hooks, be hooked in the flippers or head, or become entangled in longlines and drown.

Sea turtles are less likely to swallow circle hooks and can more easily escape this type of gear. Other techniques to reduce bycatch include changing baits, minimizing how long lines are in the water, and limiting mainline length. But these methods are not used everywhere, Plotkin says.

Other options are moving fisheries to areas less frequented by sea turtles and closing areas at certain times to accommodate their migrations.

Those measures require ongoing research to better identify those areas.

“Just a handful of tags opened our eyes to how complex the picture is,” Mansfield says. “We have holes to fill in. A lot of our work is in the North Atlantic and we need similar work elsewhere.”

More research also is needed on the role of temperature on migration and other behaviors. Sea turtles are ectotherms (what we used to call “cold-blooded”) and cannot regulate their body temperatures, which means water temperatures affect their bodies and behavior. In addition, sex is determined by the temperatures that eggs are exposed to in the nest, with higher temperatures producing females. Changing temperatures therefore could shift sea turtle sex ratios as well as nesting and foraging habitats, according to scientists at the Université libre de Bruxelles in Belgium. They predict the disappearance of 50% of current known sea turtle hotspots by 2050.

The lengthy sea turtle life cycle is another reason for ongoing study.

“Even when we see upticks in nesting, as we have with greens, that needs to be maintained for a long time before it represents a solid recovery,” Mansfield says. “You can’t just take a good year here and there, it takes generations. Bottom line, we need to learn more about where these animals are going and what they are doing there.”

Previously in The Revelator:

Incredible Journeys: Migratory Sharks on the Move

Photo Essay: Climate Change and Deforestation Collide in Indonesia’s Deadly Floods

Millions of people on Sumatra remain displaced by November’s cyclone, showing the dangers of the climate crisis and indiscriminate logging and habitat destruction.

The massive Senyar cyclone that hit Indonesia in November brought heavy rains and caused devastating floods and landslides that displaced an estimated 3.3 million people and resulted in more than 1,030 deaths. Similar extreme weather has struck several countries in South and Southeast Asia, including Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

“I lost my husband, and our house is damaged and filled with mud,” says Siti Basmallah, of Babo village in Aceh Tamiang Regency.

“I saw the flood reach 15 meters [50 feet] above our houses,” Siti says. “Villages turned into rivers and homes were destroyed.”

A woman sites outside a flooded home — Photo: Garry Lotulung

The damage has made it difficult for response teams to reach villages and deliver aid, worsening suffering.

Amid views of damaged homes and debris in Aceh Tamiang, Syahrial Umar says the community urgently needs clean water and food.

“Our settlement was destroyed, as if by a tsunami,” he says. “Many victims remain missing.”

Three men stand amidst piles of broken logs — Photo: Garry Lotulung

Logs, swept along by deadly flash floods, became destructive battering rams as waters carried them into communities.

“I saw many logs carried away by the flood,” Syahrial says. “They came from upstream, likely due to logging.”

An aerial photo shows logs dominating a flooded landscape — Photo: Garry Lotulung

This destruction, extreme weather, and heavy and unpredictable rainfall are signs that the impacts of the climate crisis are real, says experts. Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency classified the Senyar cyclone an unusual phenomenon.

Widespread deforestation has made the effects of climate change worse in Indonesia. According to a Greenpeace report, based on data from the Ministry of Forestry for the period 1990-2024, many natural forests in North Sumatra Province have been converted to crop plantations, tree plantations, and dryland agriculture. A similar situation is also occurring in Aceh and West Sumatra. Land conversion is also taking place in watershed areas.

People lined up for food aid. Photo: Garry Lotulung

Sapta Ananda Proklamasi, senior researcher of the Greenpeace Indonesia Forest Campaign Team, says most Sumatra watersheds are in critical condition, with natural forests covering less than 25% of their original range.

“Now only 10 to 14 million hectares [54,000 square miles] of natural forest remain in Sumatra — less than 30% of the island’s 47 million hectares,” he says.

Flooding knocked down healthy trees. Photo: Garry Lotulung

The decrease in forest cover must be taken seriously, as it changes the environment’s carrying capacity and resilience.

He adds that a thorough investigation is needed into the large number of small and large pieces of wood swept away by the floods in Sumatra.

“It could be from old or new logging, or incomplete land clearing,” Sapta says.

Arie Rompas, chair of the Greenpeace Indonesia Forest Campaign Team, echoed these concerns, saying the increasingly severe climate crisis, coupled with damaged forests and declining environmental carrying capacity, will further hurt the community. The government must also acknowledge that forest and land management have been conducted improperly.

A boy holds a rescued kitten covered in mud, amidst a flooded, muddy setting — Photo: Garry Lotulung

“As a result, the forests of Sumatra are nearly depleted, severe environmental degradation has occurred, and now the people of Sumatra must bear the high cost of this ecological disaster,” says Arie.

Nearly two months after the disaster, millions of people across Sumatra remain displaced. Floods have damaged roads and bridges, cut off villages, and left widespread mud, debris, and power outages.

Zul, of Lintang Bawah City, Aceh Tamiang, says floods there rose up to 15 feet. The city was among the worst hit by the flash flood.

“My family is just surviving on whatever we have,” he says. “We only have the clothes we’re wearing and [did not eat] for three days during the flash floods; we’re just collecting rainwater to drink.”

A man in a purple shirt stands outside his flooded dwelling — Photo: Garry Lotulung

Local leaders across Aceh are urgently calling on the government to declare a national emergency to enable the swift allocation of additional funds for rescue and relief efforts.

The Seduction of Despair, the Persistence of Possibility

Hope comes from the stubborn work of refusing to abandon what’s wild. Here’s how to keep moving forward.

Some mornings despair arrives before coffee.

Not dramatically, not like a crashing wave or a siren, but quietly, like a fog: soft at first, then everywhere. It shows up on my phone, in headlines, on social media: policies rolled back. Protections stripped. Science defunded. Expertise ridiculed. Species disappearing. A political climate that feels more handheld flamethrower than democratic process. And beneath all of that, the quiet exhaustion of living through cascading crises without a pause button.

It’s especially loud now, at the turn of the year, a time when we’re told to make plans, set goals, and imagine better futures. But imagining can feel dangerous when the world feels fragile. The idea of resolve can seem almost laughable.

Despair is seductive because it offers a strangely rational refuge: If everything is collapsing, then nothing is required of you anymore. And there’s relief — brief, dangerous — in imagining the story is already over.

But despair isn’t neutral. It doesn’t just describe reality. It shapes it. Despair hands momentum to the forces counting on our fatigue. To the industries that benefit when we withdraw. To leaders who flourish when we believe we are powerless. It masquerades as honesty. Underneath it is permission — not to feel, but to quit.

Why We Stay in the Work

There have been days — fieldwork days, policy days, loss-of-another-species days — when I thought: Maybe the wild world will outlive us. Maybe the most we can do is bear witness to the ending. But then I think of future generations forced to inherit a planet stripped of its complexity and wildness, and bearing witness feels too much like quiet betrayal.

And then something interrupts. A headline — quiet, almost buried — about wolves returning or a coastal ecosystem recovering faster than expected. A student’s email saying they never realized nature was part of their story too, even from a city block surrounded by concrete. A grainy livestream of coral spawning — imperfect, but undeniable evidence that life is still trying. A community cleanup that began with six hesitant strangers and somehow became a recurring ritual people now protect on their calendars. A message from someone I’ll never meet saying they felt less alone because I didn’t give up.

And then, perhaps most powerful, I sit in a folding chair at a community meeting. The room isn’t glamorous. There’s no dramatic soundtrack. People are tired. Some are angry. Some are afraid. No one knows everything. But they showed up anyway. And in that small, imperfect room, I remember: Despair isolates. Community builds momentum.

We Are Not at the End — We Are at the Fork

This is a threshold moment. The kind future generations will study — not because we were certain, but because the uncertainty cornered us into choosing who we were willing to be.

History is full of inflection points when the future could have veered toward collapse or reinvention. And in those moments, there were always people who refused to leave the page blank: people who showed up tired. People who acted without guarantees. People who believed — not because the outcome was certain, but because living without trying felt unbearable.

That’s us now. Not the first generation to fight for wildlife, rivers, forests, or ocean. Not the last. But the generation with the least time to hesitate.

So what do we do when despair feels stronger than resolve? We don’t banish it. We don’t pretend we’re immune. We learn to feel it — and then move anyway.

Here’s how we keep going — not perfectly, but sustainably.

1. Shrink the Horizon.

Not everything needs to be solved at planetary scale. When the global feels unbearable, go local. This isn’t evasion, it’s strategic retreat. When we successfully restore one stream, one prairie, one forest patch, one shoreline, we break the logic of despair that says our efforts are futile. We create our own momentum. Small work is not small if it moves the world forward.

2. Build Belonging, Not Just Awareness.

Loneliness is one of despair’s most reliable accomplices. Hope doesn’t thrive alone. Find your people — the conservationists, scientists, artists, kids, elders, divers, farmers, fishers, hikers, hunters, dreamers, pragmatists — anyone who still believes a living planet is worth fighting for.

Community transforms despair from a boulder into a load shared. Show up to talks. Host a nature walk. Make space for questions, grief, curiosity, laughter, failure, and trying again. Movements don’t survive because they are correct. They survive because they are connected.

3. Let Awe Recalibrate You.

Get on your belly at the edge of a tidepool and watch barnacles open, each one waiting for the right moment to feed as the tide breathes in. Watch ants rebuild a colony after rain. Follow animal tracks in the snow. Stand beside a river and notice its pull. Watch a storm build over a lake and feel how water holds mood and memory. Plant native grasses and discover how soil — quiet, unglamorous soil — becomes an ecosystem. Grab a map and trace the flight paths of migrating birds overhead. Watch a livestream of a loud, chaotic romp of giant river otters in the Amazon and feel how wildness doesn’t apologize for taking up space.

Awe doesn’t erase the grief, but it reminds us why grief exists in the first place: because we love something worth protecting.

4. Act Anyway.

Even when discouraged. Even when unsure. Even when afraid. Action is not the opposite of despair — it is the antidote that makes despair bearable.

Write. Vote. Volunteer. Donate. Protest. Teach. Repair. Create. Speak up in rooms where silence is easy. Hope grows where footsteps repeat.

5. Rest. Seriously.

Burnout doesn’t make you a martyr. It makes you absent. Rest isn’t quitting; it’s recharging the part of you that refuses to give up.

Even ecosystems rest: Seasons shift, fires reset forests, tides withdraw, storms spend themselves. Your rest is part of the rhythm, not a deviation from it. Rest doesn’t pause the movement. It preserves the mover.

The Persistence of Possibility

Here’s a truth: Despair is honest.

Hope is honest, too. The difference is that hope participates. Hope has calluses. Hope stumbles and keeps going. Hope is the quiet refusal to surrender the future. The living world is not gone. And neither are we. This story isn’t finished. We are still writing it… species by species, action by action, community by community.

So as we step into 2026, maybe the resolution isn’t flashy or tidy. Maybe it’s this: Show up. For the wild. For each other. For the future. Some days that will mean attending hearings. Some days that will mean protecting your rest. Some days it will simply mean refusing to say “It’s too late” even when despair feels convincing.

Hope isn’t something we wait for. It’s a discipline we practice.

And as we cross into this new year — with uncertainty in one hand and possibility in the other — we make a quiet, stubborn promise: We will not hand the living world over to despair. Not this year. Not while we are here. Not while there’s still something left to protect.

Species to Watch in 2026

From orangutans to parrots, hellbenders, and a newly discovered Tanzanian grass, these species — and the threats they face — are sure to make headlines in the year ahead.

Wildlife never seems to get the attention it deserves, but 2026 will bring many headline-worthy developments for certain imperiled species, including some whales, wolves, and oversized parrots and salamanders.

We’d do well to pay attention to these 20 species (or 21, depending how you count them). The threats and opportunities these animals and plants face could mean the difference between disappearance and survival, but they also illustrate the situations faced by countless other species around the world — including Homo sapiens.

Kākāpō (Strigops habroptilus) — These endearing flightless parrots are about to enjoy what could be their best breeding season since 1977. And they need it: Only 242 of the critically endangered birds remain, on three remote, predator-free islands off the coast of Aotearoa New Zealand. They breed about every 2-4 years, when a native conifer called the rimu tree produces its nutritious fruit. This year 84 kākāpō females could potentially lay eggs, and while not every female is guaranteed to reproduce — nor every egg or chick guaranteed to hatch or survive — 2026 could still be a banner year.

And we won’t need to wait too long for the results: Nesting and hatching season will take place from January to March, and conservationists will monitor the chicks through May. They won’t manage the process as heavily as in past years — the goal is to establish a self-sustaining population that doesn’t need as much human intervention — but I expect plenty of photos of eggs, chicks, and proud kākāpō parents in the months ahead.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by John Platt (@johnrplatt)

North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) — These critically endangered baleen whales are already in their calving season, which will run through mid-April. And as with the kākāpō, every newborn matters.

North Atlantic right whales have had a hard time the past few years, with more than 20% of the population dying after being entangled in fishing gear or struck by boats or ships. Their population fell about 25% from 2010 to 2020 but has been on the upswing since then, rising 7% since the start of this decade to an estimated 384 whales.

The good news: As of this week, conservation teams have already spotted an amazing 15 calves — a great start to the season. But at the same time, a male whale named Division experienced “life-threatening” fishing-line entanglements, with the cords embedded in his jaw and cutting his blowhole. A two-day rescue effort appears to have saved his life — but the crisis reminds us that many threats remain for these struggling whales.

Pangolins — These scaly anteaters from Africa and Asia are among the world’s most-trafficked species, and that’s put them on the fast track to extinction. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed legal protection for seven of the eight (or is that nine?) pangolin species, with a decision due in 2026. The United States hasn’t been directly linked to much pangolin trafficking, but federal protection here would lend support to international efforts.

Unfortunately the Trump administration wants to dismantle or neuter the Endangered Species Act, so the fate of the proposal seems uncertain at this time — a situation that echoes throughout the rest of this list.

Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) — This third orangutan species, only described by science in 2017, may have a hard time making it out of this decade. A massive flood this November wiped out somewhere between 6-11% of the species’ population, which before this disaster was estimated at just 800 apes. As Gloria Dickie wrote for The Guardian, Tapanuli orangutans only reproduce every six to nine years, so this mass mortality is a terrible blow. Much of their habitat and food also got washed away, so the survivors will have an especially hard time recovering.

It doesn’t help that gold miners have taken aim at Tapanuli orangutans’ habitat. Not only have roads further carved up the apes’ territory, but the deforestation and land degradation caused by a billion-dollar mining project may have made the recent flood much worse.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by NE Primate Conservancy (@neprimateconsrv)

White storks (Ciconia ciconia) — These long-legged birds are widespread throughout much of Europe, Asia, and Africa — but not so much in Britain, where the last breeding birds were documented in 1416. The storks were wiped out in the British Isles by habitat loss, overhunting, and persecution. But in 2026 conservationists aim to return the birds to the skies around London for the first time in 600 years in one of the world’s most visible rewilding and reintroduction efforts.

Wolves (Canis lupus) — As usual, there’s a lot going on with this beloved species — so much that we could probably run a whole article on what to watch from and about wolves in 2026. In particular we should pay attention to Republican efforts to delist wolves from the Endangered Species Act; conservationists’ push to restore a national recovery plan; the ongoing reintroduction efforts in Colorado; wolves’ continued expansion in California; and their population growth in Oregon.

Grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) — We can expect the Trump administration to try to undermine grizzlies’ recovery, despite two years of record-high mortality levels.

Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) — Are monarchs the poster child for insect conservation? They inspire conservation efforts wherever they fly — even though the number of places they land continues to plummet. Unfortunately the Trump administration just announced plans to indefinitely delay decisions to protect these butterflies; meanwhile state and individual conservation efforts have ramped up and science to track the beloved insects has made leaps and bounds. It’s a fair bet that people will keep watching the skies for these beauties as long as they flutter by.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Peter Kuper (@kuperart)

Mountain lions (Puma concolor) — These big cats go by a lot of names, and there are a lot of reasons to watch them in 2026. California may protect them as a threatened species (thanks to a push by our publisher, the Center for Biological Diversity), while construction of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing — the world’s largest wildlife bridge, designed in no small part to protect cougars like the beloved (and much-missed) cat known as P-22 — should wrap up this year. Meanwhile the historically persecuted animals continue to expand their range in other states, a sign that it’s hard to keep a good cougar down.

Sansevieria bangalalana — This newly discovered Tanzanian grass species appears on this list not because I expect it to make many (or any) headlines, but as an emblem for all the other species (plant and otherwise) known to exist in single locations that could be wiped out by even one development or disaster. Single-site endemics like this are the faces of the extinction crisis — even though plants don’t have faces.

On that note let’s also pay attention to a rare orchid known as Canelo Hills ladies’ tresses (Spiranthes delitescens). Native to Arizona’s Sky Islands, this species’ remote range has retreated from five known sites to just two — both of which are cattle ranches. As Riley Black detailed in Smithsonian, these plants rely on levels of moisture and a specific fungus species to survive — a reminder that nature often exists in a delicate balance. A test effort to plant 10,000 orchids in sites shown to host the fungi could make interesting headlines in the months to come.

Manatees (Trichechus manatus) — Florida’s iconic manatees have had a rough time lately. The most recent data suggests 625 manatees died in 2025, up slightly from last year though still nowhere near the mass mortality that took place in 2021 and 2022. The “sea cows” face a host of threats — including boat strikes, cold waters, pollution runoff, and a lack of the seagrass they depend upon for food. In the year to come they’ll become one of the species most likely to be hurt by the Trump administration’s planned changes to the Endangered Species Act — something I don’t think Floridians will take lightly.

Eastern hellbenders (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) — Our final “species to watch” this year is one of my favorites. These massive salamanders rely on clean, cool fresh water that’s in increasingly short supply in this country — so much so that at least 41% of this species’ historical habitats can no longer support them. A decision to protect them under the Endangered Species Act is due in 2026, but as with other animals on this list, the Trump administration looms over that timeline. This time it’s not only the Act’s jeopardy but proposed rollbacks to the Roadless Rule and clean-water protections that are threat multipliers for hellbenders.

But folks increasingly find these amphibians endearing, seeing them as worthy of study and protection and icons of freshwater conservation and even celebrating them in pop culture. I don’t think the public will let hellbenders fade into the night, and any efforts to protect them will benefit countless other species that rely on freshwater systems — including people.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Center for Biological Diversity (@centerforbiodiv)

What species will you be watching in the months ahead? Drop us a line anytime.

Eagles, Wolves, and Whales: Announcing the 2025 Wildlife MVPs

In a world where conservation news often appears grim, let’s celebrate the animals who made a difference.

Welcome to The Revelator’s annual Wildlife MVPs, where we celebrate animals who left their mark in the previous year.

Some of our 2025 most valuable players earned a mention for reclaiming historical habitat, like certain salmon and wolves in California. Others, including elk and dolphins, made our list for turning up in unexpectedly large groups that wowed onlookers. And some simply did something new, like the orcas in Washington who made tools and the deer-moose pair in Alaska who just seem to enjoy each other’s company.

The stories show that wildlife, like humans, use determination and their own innate skills to thrive, often despite the odds. They also show that we still live in a world of remarkable abundance. And many of the stories reveal big successes from conservation measures — something that’s critically important as the Trump administration takes aim at the Endangered Species Act.

So let’s celebrate those successes: Sit back and enjoy some of this year’s good news.

Making the Klamath Great Again

Klamath River salmon won’t stop winning. In 2024, after removal of four fish-blocking dams in California and Oregon, Chinook salmon surged up over 200 miles of newly open river, reclaiming habitat that had been inaccessible to them for over a century.

During their 2025 spawn, they again rocketed upstream and beyond the expectations of biologists. This time they swam 360 river miles from the ocean, climbing past the Klamath’s remaining dams and into more watersheds that hadn’t seen salmon in over 100 years.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) (@epic_wildcalifornia)

The fish enliven their habitats with ocean nutrients and baby salmon, but they also spread joy, including among Klamath and other Indigenous groups who had pressed for dam removal for years, based on 1864 treaty rights. In July more than 100 Indigenous youth from Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa Valley, and other groups completed a 30-day paddle down the river to honor salmon’s return and the people behind it.

Tribal and government biologists are also on the river, trying to keep up with salmon to understand their movement. Fishing is not permitted, but salmon still face threats from agricultural runoff, pollutants, and warming waters.

Wandering Wolves

Hats off to the female gray wolf who explored 1,230 miles of Colorado between January and April. Wildlife officials called it an “extraordinary display.” The wolf was translocated from British Columbia as part of a voter-approved reintroduction program. Maps show most of the wolves are in Colorado’s mountains, while some are pushing toward busy Front Range communities and the borders of Wyoming, Utah, and Mexico.

Wolves also stretched their legs in California this year. Three new wolf packs established themselves in the north-central part of the state, bringing the total to 10 packs since their 2015 migration back into California. A 2025 report also showed Mexican gray wolves in Arizona and New Mexico, reintroduced in 1998, increased by 11% the prior year. They total 286 animals in 60 packs.

By nature wolves are valuable landscape players. Since their 1995 reintroduction to Yellowstone, research shows their presence influences elk and other prey species in ways that positively reshape habitats.

Although resilient, wolves still face a hard road. In October Colorado reported the 10th death of a reintroduced wolf, dropping their survival rate to 60%. Also in 2025, Colorado paid record compensation for reported wolf-related livestock predation. New federal rules further complicate the Colorado program, and a move is underfoot for a ballot initiative to stop reintroduction.

Turtle Recovery Speeds Up

This July crowds in Cocoa Beach, Florida, cheered as a giant loggerhead turtle named Bubba crawled into the ocean after three months of rehab at the Brevard Zoo. People shouted, “Go Bubba!” as the 375-pound guy eased himself into gently lapping waves. Estimated at 75 years old, Bubba had been treated for anemia, leeches, and injured flippers, likely from a shark. Thought to be a great-grandfather, the breeding male went home at the tail end of mating season, perhaps in time to contribute to ongoing Atlantic turtle recovery.

Speaking of mating season: In Florida, loggerhead, leatherback, and green turtles dug a whopping 170,000 nests in 2025. They included over 2,000 endangered leatherback nests, a new state record, and 66,000 green turtle nests, second only to the 2023 season. It comes amid news that conservation efforts have reduced sea turtle threats in over half of sites monitored around the world. Green sea turtles have especially benefitted: This year the IUCN changed their conservation status from “endangered” to “least concern.”

Scientists credit decades of conservation work, including bans on commercial harvest, reduced bycatch, and thousands of volunteers who raise awareness and restore beaches. Sea turtles, whose herbivorous diets help important underwater seagrass meadows, still face global threats. But current numbers are worth at least a slow clap.

Miles of Dolphins

A super-pod is a marvelous thing to behold, and in 2025 Californians saw two. In January biologists near Carmel encountered a miles-long group of Risso’s dolphins, estimated at over 1,500 animals. Drone footage showed the cetaceans, who grow to 13 feet and over 1,000 pounds, breaching, tail-slapping, and “having fun,” according to one biologist.

A month later an even larger super-pod swam near Monterey Bay. Estimated at more than 2,000 animals, it included the smaller northern right whale dolphins and Pacific white-sided dolphins. Experts say whales and dolphins form superpods to socialize or when food is abundant.

A River (of Elk) Runs Through It

Is there such a thing as a super-herd? If so, that’s what a Montana woman filmed south of Bozeman in January. Estimated at 2,000 animals, the herd undulated across snowy fields and a rural road. Montana biologists, who had tagged some of the animals earlier, said the elk are using conservation easement lands specifically established for their protection.

Orca Tools and Hats

In 2025 scientists reviewing drone footage found that orcas in the Salish Sea repeatedly cut kelp into similar sized lengths, which they used to massage or scrub each other. Each piece was just the right size for an orca to press and roll along the body of a pal. They’re the only orcas known to do this.

The same orcas, known as the Southern Resident pod, made waves in late 2024 when some were seen balancing dead salmon on their heads. It recalled the salmon “hats” that they took to wearing in the 1980s. And in November 2025, all 74 Southern Residents gathered into a rare super-pod near Port Townsend, Washington, delighting ferry passengers.

While the Southern Residents are revered in the Pacific Northwest, their endangered population faces threats from pollution and declining salmon.

Legacy MVP for Utah Bison

In the past two decades, roughly 25 bison wandered into Colorado from Utah’s 600-member Book Cliffs herd, who Utah officials manage as big game. Unfortunately, each was killed after entering Colorado.

Now, following years of objections from Native Americans, conservationists, and others, a new Colorado law gives the bison freer range. It grants them “dual status” as both livestock and wildlife and directs state biologists to prepare a free-ranging bison plan, which will address possible competition with livestock. Our MVP goes to the wandering bison of yore who prompted the change.

Summers at the Cape With Right Whales

Here’s a wave out to all those Atlantic right whale moms nursing newborns this year. In the 2024-2025 calving season, they included 32-year-old Monarch and 44-year-old Grand Teton. Across their breeding careers, these moms have so far had five and nine calves, respectively. And although this year’s count of 11 calves for the entire species is lower than past years, biologists express cautious optimism about a slowly growing population. The critically endangered species has 386 members.

Whales also made news in April, when 30 right and humpback whales amassed in Cape Cod Bay to feed on zooplankton. They briefly closed Cape Cod Canal ship traffic. The gatherings, typical for spring, show a functional marine food chain that connects its largest and smallest creatures.

Ship strikes, entanglement in fishing gear, and climate change are chief threats. But officials credit rising awareness among boat captains and better fishing gear for recent progress.

Of Moose and Deer

For over a year, residents of Seward, Alaska, have seen a moose and a Sitka black-tailed deer hanging around with each other. The pair have grazed and traveled together through the seasons. Unconfirmed rumors are also flying of a separate pair to the north. Deer are extremely rare in the region, with some occasionally migrating over snowbound mountains from Prince William Sound. But moose are common. The buddies make our MVP list simply because any tales of conviviality are welcome news these days.

She Loves New York

On April 14 a wild turkey named Astoria spread her wings and jetted across the East River from Roosevelt Island to the east side of Manhattan. It’s not a lot of air time for a turkey, but Astoria’s “movin’ on up to the East Side” is her latest surprise for her many fans. And it reflects one of America’s most successful conservation stories.

The turkey first arrived in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens in 2024, before relocating to Roosevelt Island, where she strutted and pecked among brush for months. Although midtown Manhattan presents more noise and traffic, she appears to have figured out city life. Local authorities have even lent a hand by shooing her away from traffic. So New York has her back.

While Astoria appears to be flying solo, she’s not the city’s only turkey. Several flocks live on Staten Island. They also live in Boston and other cities. By the 1930s deforestation and overhunting had extirpated America’s native turkeys from much of their habitat. But they rebounded over decades, responding to hunting regulations, reforestation, and translocation programs. In recent years recovering coyotes, bobcats, and raptors have decreased turkey populations. As Astoria struts about New York, she’s a reminder of these successes.

Sisterly Love

We’ll wrap with Shadow and Jackie, two California bald eagles about 30 miles from Los Angeles who gained millions of online fans this year as they raised sister eaglets Sunny and Gizmo. A nest cam livestreamed their straight-up adorable upbringing, including the moments they fledged. Jackie and Shadow have used their nest overlooking Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains since 2018, when they first started dating.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by CA Natural Resources Agency (@canaturalresourcesagency)

Biologists believe that Jackie, who hatched in 2012, was the first bald eagle born in the basin in decades. Between Shadow and an earlier mate, she has helped raise five eaglets — her contribution to ongoing eagle recovery across the United States.

This is the first time the pair fledged two eaglets in one season. A third hatchling died after a March snowstorm, one of several that dumped inches of snow on the parents as they shielded their young. Their nest is 145 feet up in a Jeffrey pine that sways in strong wind.

Every day for months, the parents brought fresh fish to their young, reflecting an intact local food web. Sunny and Gizmo also get credit for impressively peaceful cohabitation, with minimal bonking or other competitive conflict, even as they endured snow, rain, high winds, aggressive owls, and being couped up in the same tiny pad for two months.

So love wins and puts this family among our most valuable players — for reflecting conservation and species recovery, showing off an abundant basin, gathering people together, and raising good kids.

***

Although we live in an era of alarming losses in biodiversity, it’s good to note the encouraging stories. Each reminds us of the resilience of wildlife and the value of conservation. Happy New Year.

Extreme Weather, Wildlife Trafficking, and Giraffes: 15 of Our Most Powerful Articles of 2025

Our reporters showcased the power and importance of journalism covering wildlife, climate change, and environmental justice.

Environmental news often slips through the cracks, especially during difficult times. But that’s why The Revelator exists: We tell stories that otherwise might not get told.

Here are 15 noteworthy stories we reported on in 2025 that broke through the noise and covered the planet’s most pressing environmental problems — and, in the process, showcased ways to help us get through them.

A Helping Hand for Mangroves

As Heat Deaths Rise, Planting Trees Is Part of the Solution

The Curlew, the Cactus, and the Obliterated Whitefish: The Species We Lost in 2024

Donald Trump’s Second Term Will Be Bad News for Endangered Ocean and Coastal Animals

The Endangered Species Next Door

The Exotic Pet Trade Harms Animals and Humans. The European Union Is Studying a Potential Solution

Giraffes for Peace

The Land Is an Ancestor We Refuse to Abandon: In the Shadows of the Hermosa Mine (copublished with Crucial Comix)

Meet the Activist Fighting PFAS Pollution — and Winning

Meet the Passionate Advocates Trying to Save Western Monarch Butterflies

Russia’s Ukraine Invasion Causes a Deadly Oil Spill on the Black Sea

The Silent Threat Beneath Our Feet: How Deregulation Fuels the Spread of Forever Chemicals

Studies: Extreme Weather Fueled by Climate Change Is Adding to Bird Declines

What Does It Take to Write a Global Conservation Report? A New Assessment of Sharks Offers Answers

Yes, Your Friends and Neighbors Want to Talk to You About Climate Change

This represents less than a quarter of the reporting we published in 2025. Explore our news archive to read more.

And don’t miss out on any news to come: Sign up for our weekly email newsletter to receive our latest headlines, as well as extras available exclusively to subscribers.

We already have several great stories lined up for January, but we also want to hear from our readers: What stories or topics would you like us to cover in the year ahead? Drop me a line with your suggestions.

12 Environmental Commentaries That Defined Our Year in 2025

These expert opinions address opportunities to make a difference — and point out a few of our failures.

Some of my favorite emails contain variations on an exciting phrase: “I’ve enclosed an op-ed for your consideration.”

These messages — and their accompanying commentaries — come to us from environmental experts all over the world who have something important to say about saving life on this big blue marble we call home.

Some of them offer roadmaps for improving our efforts to address problems like conservation, environmental injustice, or climate change. Others point out lesser-known threats we should do more to address. Many authors share personal insights and experiences that most readers would otherwise rarely encounter.

Here are 12 of our favorite environmental commentaries of the past year, addressing Indigenous rights, coral reefs, activism, some iconic or lesser-known endangered species, and more:

‘Active Management’ Harms Forests — And It’s About to Get a Whole Lot Worse

Birding’s Tragic Blind Spot

Ghost Reefs of 2083: The Paleontology of Color (A Speculative ‘Fiction’)

The Last Breath of the Himalayas: Can We Stop the Collapse?

Nature Is ‘Not for Sale’

Palm Oil Continues to Plague Borneo’s Orangutans, Elephants, and Other Icons

Rare Earth Metals Must Not Come at the Cost of Indigenous Rights

Saving America’s National Parks and Forests Means Shaking Off the Rust of Inaction

Saving the Ryukyu Rabbit Tick: The Posterchild of Parasite Conservation

Trump’s Approach to Public Lands? Expanding the Extractive Economy and Declaring a War on Nature

What Catastrophes Get Our Attention and Why It Matters

Who Heals the Earth’s Healers? Ways to Avert Burnout for Environmental Advocates

Truthfully, this list could have been twice as long — and it still wouldn’t have included every inspirational or intriguing expert opinion we published in 2025. I encourage you to scroll through our entire Ideas category, where you’ll find a few dozen more essays worth reading. (While you’re at it, keep going back into 2024 or earlier — most of our commentaries have a long shelf life and remain of interest for quite a while after they’re published.)

Meanwhile, don’t forget that a different kind of commentary appears a couple of times a month in our newsletter: exclusive cartoons by Tom Toro. Here’s one of my favorites from the past year:

Do you have a story to tell in the year ahead? We’re always open to op-eds and commentaries from activists, scientists, conservationists, legislators, government employees, and others — especially anyone with insight about the regressive and repressive second Trump administration. You can find out how to submit here, or drop me a line at any time.

This Year in Conservation Science: Whales, Birds, and Killer Roads

We asked conservation researchers around the world to send us their favorite papers of 2025. They address the planet’s most pressing problems — and important solutions.

The road to hell is paved with … more roads.

That seems to be the message of one of this year’s most striking conservation papers. The research, published this April in the journal Current Biology, linked the “explosive growth” of secondary roads — those that branch off what the papers call “first-cut roads” — to tropical deforestation around the world.

These aren’t the typical suburban Streets, Drives, and Courts that spring up around developments. They’re “illicit, unplanned, often illegal roads,” says the paper’s senior author, William Laurance, distinguished research professor at James Cook University. The research was led by ecologist Jayden Engert.

“The numbers are almost crazy,” says Laurance. “For example, we found an enormous proliferation of secondary roads in the Congo Basin, Amazon, and New Guinea — especially in the Amazon,” where every mile of official roads generated around 50 miles of unofficial roads. “These secondary roads are opening tropical forest frontiers like a flayed fish, exposing them to illegal land-grabbers, loggers, poachers, miners, and illegal drug producers whose activities are driving rampant forest loss.”

Sadly, Laurance says, these secondary roads don’t exist on official maps and they’re hard for governments to control. But research like this helps to document them — and that’s the first step to addressing the problem.

That can also be said of the other new papers and reports sent to us this month by conservation experts around the world who sent us their best or favorite research from 2025.

Forests Connect Us

Other research also called out the importance of forests — this time connecting the dots between places like New York City’s Central Park and other North American forests, especially rapidly disappearing landscapes in Central America.

“It’s easy to think of migratory birds as ‘ours,’ tied to a particular state or region, but their survival depends just as much on distant habitats far from home,” says the study’s lead author, Anna Lello-Smith of the Wildlife Conservation Society. “Using millions of bird observations from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird platform, our study shows that eastern North America’s forest birds rely on Central America’s last large tropical forests — the Five Great Forests — to survive migration and the winter. Because billions of migratory birds funnel into the narrow land bridge of Central America, these forests hold staggering concentrations of warblers, thrushes, and hawks — in some cases nearly half their global populations — yet several are rapidly disappearing due to illegal ranching and fires.”

The study identified what it called “sister landscapes” — sites across the U.S. and Canada that are linked to the Five Great Forests by shared bird species. Lello-Smith says this offers “a roadmap for connecting bird lovers and communities across the hemisphere to help protect and restore the tropical forests that keep our birds in the sky.”

Three From the Ocean

Shifting from the skies to the seas, frequent Revelator contributor and shark scientist David Shiffman shared new research by Mark E. Bond and other experts about how the world has improved conservation and management of sharks and related species.

“The ocean science and conservation community has invested a lot of time, energy, and resources into protecting sharks via the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species,” says Shiffman, who was not involved in this research. “We’ve seen promising signs that this approach is working for years, but Bond et al. is the first global-scale analysis of the impacts of CITES protections on shark management regulations around the world. They found that several countries who previously had no shark conservation or management regulations of any kind made their first regulations — a huge step. They also found improvements in regulations of more than half of shark fishing and exporting nations, including many that are substantive and important. There is no silver bullet to complex conservation challenges, but these results are clear that for many shark species in many countries, CITES helps.”

All ocean species face an ongoing and growing threat from human activities, though. That’s why a dozen conservation experts — including Callum M. Roberts, Sylvia Earle, and Stuart Pimm — recently penned a commentary in Nature calling for an end to extraction in the high seas in perpetuity. Such a move, the authors argued, would protect species and the planet from increased fishing, deep-sea mining, and other threats. Pimm called it his “most important contribution” of the past year.

On a more specific ocean note, one recent paper looked at critically endangered Rice’s whales, who scientists identified less than five years ago. Unfortunately the news coverage of that discovery failed to shift the needle on the forces endangering the whales.

“My co-author and I took a communication and media studies approach to research Rice’s whale conservation and management and intentionally included insights that anyone with an interest in conservation can use,” says Marcus B. Reamer, a lecturer at the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science. “We highlight the essential role of communication and media in conservation and offer actionable strategies for navigating media systems and communicating effectively in challenging political and ecological environments, providing a roadmap for individuals and organizations working on conservation challenges across ecosystems and geographies. It’s a unique direction for marine mammal conservation research — and timely given ongoing efforts to weaken environmental laws and ramp up oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Indigenous Science

Two researchers called out the importance of traditional Indigenous knowledge and related systems.

First, Liber Ero Postdoctoral Fellow Sara E. Cannon sent a paper about “a respectful and transparent way to uphold ancestral Indigenous Pacific salmon stream caretaking knowledge, longstanding Indigenous rights and relationships to land and waters, and our joint responsibilities to care for these watersheds.”

“This paper is an essential read for conservation practitioners and researchers across Canada,” says Cannon, who was not involved in the research. “It recenters Indigenous laws, governance systems, and ancestral caretaking knowledge as foundational to restoring Pacific salmon and their watersheds. By documenting Indigenous-led restoration initiatives across British Columbia, it offers tangible, place-based examples of how ethical collaboration and Indigenous leadership can guide more just and sustainable approaches to salmon recovery. It invites readers to rethink restoration not only as ecological repair, but as the renewal of relationships, rights, and responsibilities between people and salmon.”

Aerin Jacob, director of science and research at the Nature Conservancy of Canada, included a paper she coauthored about navigating the divide between science and policy.

“Environmental decision-makers often rely on natural science or familiar expert networks while feeling uncertain about how to meaningfully include Indigenous knowledge, social science, or local experience,” Jacob says. “This can lead to decisions that are less effective and less supported. Our study examines what Canadian science–policy professionals consider ‘good evidence,’ why some evidence gets used or overlooked, and how to build more balanced, credible decision-making. I like this paper because it’s frank about challenges while also focusing on solutions.”

And as a reminder that important science can come in many forms, Jacob also sent a report (funded in part by the organization whose board she chairs) entitled “A Guide to Choosing and Using Community-Based Data Management Systems for Indigenous Land-Based Programs.”

“Around the world, Indigenous guardians collect vital information about nature and people — including photos, maps, datasets, stories, and more,” Jacob says. “It’s crucial to keep that information organized, secure, and aligned with community values. I’m a big fan of this new work from northern Canada for two reasons. First, it supports guardians and other land-based program staff to decide what matters most to them and how they want to proceed. Second, it helps external parties to be better partners in the technical and governance aspects of data, software, funding, infrastructure, staffing, and more.”

Quick Hits

Chris Shepherd, another frequent Revelator contributor and source, sent an interesting (and worrying) paper about Canada’s role in the trade of live monitor lizards.

“Very little is known about the reptile trade in Canada, or about Canada’s role in the international wildlife trade at all,” he says. “Here we focused on the trade in monitor lizards in Canada and found Canada to be a major player. This issue is largely unknown in Canada, and we are only just starting to scratch the surface.”

Dominick A. DellaSala, senior conservation scientist associate at the Conservation Biology Institute and another Revelator contributor, sent a new paper he coauthored that suggested a conservation opportunity in the Montana’s Yaak River Watershed. The paper “provides new protected area assessments for the Northern Rockies and identifies proposed climate refugia based on climate modeling and GAP analyses methods,” he says.

Has the world failed the Sumatran rhino? K Yoganand of the Malaysian organization Bringing Back Our Rare Animals sent a coauthored paper published in the journal Pachyderm detailing the status, history, and fraught future of this critically endangered species. “We present a sobering case study of how decades of missteps, indecision, and cognitive biases have driven the Sumatran rhinoceros to the brink of extinction,” Yoganand writes. “For anyone committed to preventing future extinctions, the paper offers both a cautionary tale and a roadmap for how conservation must adapt to avoid repeating these failures.”

Finally citizen scientist Paula Borchardt wrote to remind us that everyday citizens play an important, ongoing role in collecting data about the natural world.

“I’m an artist, journalist, naturalist, and citizen scientist who publishes a weekly blog sharing my art and stories about natural history, mostly about my Tucson, Arizona, backyard and the environment here in the Sonoran Desert.” She pointed out one recent entry, “describing my husband’s and my project to grow saguaros from seed, to help an effort by several Tucson-based organizations to support saguaros and combat their declining numbers.” The striking headline: “We have 1,518 saguaros on our patio.”

That’s it for this year’s “This Year in Conservation Science.” But the new year is around the corner, and with it come 12 more months of new, exciting, important research about endangered species, habitats, environmental justice, climate change, and related topics. Keep reading The Revelator for coverage of that new science, and stay in touch if you publish research you think our readers would enjoy or could use in their own efforts to preserve life on Earth.