Seagrass Gardening

From tiny seeds come big results: replanting seagrass meadows that help fish, protect coastlines, and absorb climate-heating carbon dioxide.

Chris Patrick is optimistic about seagrass restoration.

“There are lots of kinds of restoration happening in the world — mangroves, oyster reefs, forests, coral reefs,” says the director of the aquatic vegetation restoration program at Virginia Institute of Marine Science. “But seagrass is one of the only systems I can think of where it happens very fast if conditions are right. You get a 15 to 1 return. For every acre planted, 15 acres grow. Some restored areas look like they did 100 years ago.”

What a difference a century can make.

Since the early 1900s, vast coastal seagrass meadows — think of underwater fields of long, swaying plants that host hundreds of nearby marine species — have dwindled and even disappeared around the world. They’ve succumbed to a growing list of insults that includes thermal stress from climate change, dredging, coastal development, intentional removal, disease, and increasing pollution runoff from agriculture and other human activities.

 

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Because seagrasses live below the water, out of sight, the magnitude of the loss has only recently begun to sink in. A 2020 study reported a global net loss of 29% or more than 19,000 square miles (about the size of Costa Rica). The western Gulf of Mexico alone saw a 23% decline and parts of the United Kingdom 44%.

On the other hand, scientists restoring these coastal ecosystems see more success than with other marine environments. Collecting seeds and placing them in suitable habitat is generating the most positive results along the U.S. East Coast and elsewhere.

Why Seagrass Matters

Seagrasses — which evolved from terrestrial plants — have roots, stems, and leaves and produce flowers and seeds. They form vast underwater meadows that provide multiple ecosystem services such as habitat for a variety of marine animals. They provide foraging and spawning grounds for dugong and sea turtles and shelter for fish and invertebrates.

Seagrasses also are nursery habitat — key areas for young animals to grow — for over 20% of the world’s largest fisheries, according to information provided via email by the UK-based conservation group Project Seagrass. One study estimated that the UK’s historical seagrass meadows could have supported about 400 million fish. Today its remaining meadows support approximately 50 million.

Seagrass infographic

Project Seagrass also notes that the plants improve water quality by filtering out pathogens, bacteria, and pollution.

The plants also benefit the planet as a whole: They sequester up to 18% of carbon stored in the ocean, capturing it 35 times faster than tropical rainforests.

The roots of seagrasses strengthen the seafloor and, along with their leaves, weaken wave energy and storm surges to help protect coastal communities. This slowing of waves also causes sediment to drop out of the water, feeding bacterial communities that metabolize nitrogen compounds and reducing excess nutrients in the water that can lead to algal blooms and low oxygen levels.

Spreading Seeds

Damaged meadows can regenerate on their own from pockets of surviving plants — but only if what caused the damage passes or is removed and only in areas close enough to be reseeded by those survivors.

That happened along much of the U.S. East Coast after a disease in the 1930s wiped out about 99% of the most common species, Zostera marina, or eelgrass, Patrick says.

But regeneration never happened on Virginia’s coast, where bays are too isolated from each other to be reseeded by survivors outside of them.

Today these bays have the right conditions for seagrass growth, though, which made them natural targets for restoration efforts. In 1999 scientists from the University of Virginia’s Coastal Research Center, The Nature Conservancy, and VIMS distributed more than 70 million seeds in these bays. To date the effort has created new meadows covering more than 10,500 acres.

With funding from NOAA, the participants seeded another 80 acres in Burton’s Bay in fall 2023 and another 45 acres in fall 2024. Teams also have set up stations to collect water quality data and to monitor marine life. The project is set up to be funded through 2027 and has not yet been affected by the general threat to all federal funding under the Trump administration.

A Garden Experiment

Another effort kicked off in 2022. A series of workshops hosted by The Nature Conservancy brought together experts on seagrasses, corals, agriculture, forestry, and plant genetics to explore restoration strategies used for other ecosystems.

“We went to forestry groups, coral groups, all these different silos to find out their thinking,” says Boze Hancock, senior marine restoration scientist with The Nature Conservancy’s global oceans team. “Forestry and grassland groups are dealing with the same thing on land: changes happening too fast for natural adaptation to keep up. But different strains of plants on different hills and mountains at different latitudes have a lot of adaptations to test. The quickest way to look at all the variables and tease out which ones work in your area is a common garden experiment.”

This strategy grows populations from the same species collected from different regions and microclimates under common conditions to see how they respond. Scientists can use that information to identify strains more likely to thrive in specific conditions and then strategically relocate them, a process called assisted migration. This technique also is being used in coral restoration.

 

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Growing seagrasses from different latitudes along the East Coast in a common garden could help match genetic tolerance to conditions such as water temperature and pollution in specific locations, explains Hancock. A population thriving in a Virginia estuary today, for example, might be suited for the warming waters of Long Island in the future.

Scientists from national parks and National Estuarine Research Reserves on the East Coast, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, University of North Carolina Wilmington, Stony Brook University, and other involved groups plan to use those “most likely to succeed” strains in restoration.

Using seeds allows scaling up of restoration efforts. That, says Hancock, is key to keeping up with the rapid rate of change.

“Back in the 1980s, [seagrass] restoration tended to be slow and steady, transplanting root stock one plot at a time.”

Across the Pond

Over on the other side of the Atlantic, the same list of insults killed off as much as 92% of seagrass meadows in the UK during the past century, according to Project Seagrass.

In 2019 the organization, along with Swansea University and the nonprofit Pembrokeshire Coastal Forum, piloted the UK’s first major seagrass restoration project, “Seagrass Ocean Rescue: Dale,” off the southwest coast of Wales. According to information provided by Corrinne Cox, communications officer at Project Seagrass, the effort collected and planted over 1 million Z. marina seeds on 2 hectares (almost 5 acres).

The team chose the site based on habitat suitability modelling and historic and anecdotal records indicating the Welsh coast had much more extensive seagrass historically than now. Seeds were hand-collected primarily in North Wales by scuba divers, snorkelers, and people wading at low tide.

According to Cox the project collected and processed an estimated 750,000 seeds in summer 2019 and another 450,000 in summer 2020. They used the Hessian Bag method, which places a mixture of seagrass seeds and sterile sand into containers made of vegetable fibers (also known as burlap) ready for planting.

Project Seagrass worked with volunteer groups throughout the UK to prepare the bags. Community support and commitment has been key to the effort, according to Cox, and representatives from the local community continue to guide management of the seagrass, along with users of coastal waters and regulators.

Monitoring and More

Monitoring whether efforts are successful and what adjustments may be needed for subsequent projects is key to restoration. Monitors typically measure total area covered and number of shoots per square meter.

“Basically, if it is growing in area and thickness, it’s working,” Hancock says. “It’s not rocket science. It is complicated somewhat by the fact that eelgrass grows during spring and summer and tends to die back in the fall. So the timing of monitoring is important, as is repeating it over years.”

Ongoing monitoring in Dale, for example, showed a threefold increase in shoot density throughout the restoration area by fall 2024, Cox reports. Scientists also saw increased shoots per clump and clumps more than eight times larger on average from two years before, showing that the grass is spreading.

Some projects engage citizen scientists. Anglers, divers, beach goers, and other visitors to coastal waters can report sightings of seagrass on the Project Seagrass app, SeagrassSpotter. The app is a way to expand the number of people contributing to mapping distribution and status of the plants from a few hundred scientists to hundreds of community members.

People also can help by taking action on climate change and encouraging others to do so — important today more than ever. Individuals can support community efforts to switch to clean energy or ramp up public transportation, buy products from companies with sustainable practices (and buy less overall), or donate to and volunteer with projects restoring habitats like seagrass that sequester carbon.

Boze adds that another way to help is by reducing excess nutrients in coastal bays by avoiding use of fertilizers on lawns or commercial properties.

The recreational boating community can help reduce physical damage to seagrass from anchoring and mooring. The Dale project installed three moorings as an alternative to anchoring for visiting boats and encourages users to donate to support the upkeep of the buoys.

In a world where many species and habitats continue to decline, these attempts to bring back seagrass offer a ray of hope. Restoring seagrass habitat takes a lot of effort, the experts admit. But with the right conditions, tiny sesame-sized seagrass seeds can lead to massive results — not just for seagrass itself, but for everything and everyone that depends on it.

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Previously in The Revelator:

Coastal Restoration: Saving Sand

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

Scientists also declared several other extinctions, including the first documented plant extinction in New Hampshire.

In 2009 teams of volunteers fanned out across 35 countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia looking for something that, in all likelihood, no longer existed.

The object of their quest: a 14-inch-long shorebird with long legs, a curved beak, and a mix of white and gray feathers.

Last officially seen in 1995, the slender-billed curlew (Numenius tenuirostris) had once been plentiful enough to hunt — perhaps most notably for museum specimens. That pressure, combined with habitat destruction, reportedly pushed the birds into decline.

In November 2024, after years of searches, scientists declared that the species was gone for good — the first documented extinction of a bird species from mainland Europe, North Africa and West Asia.

“It is a tragedy on a par with the dodo and the great auk, and we should hang our heads in shame,” wrote Mary Colwell of the conservation group Curlew Action. “Our disregard for wildlife speaks volumes for who and what we are. The slender-billed [curlew] may not have had an economic value, it contributed nothing to the bottom line of anyone’s financial spreadsheet, no one relied on these birds for their jobs or wellbeing, there was no conceivable reason to drive them to extinction. But it seems that is exactly what we have done.”

The biggest tragedy about this bird’s loss: We didn’t act soon enough to save it.

“Conservation attention came too late for the slender-billed curlew,” researchers wrote in the paper announcing its probable extinction. “The potential decline of the species was highlighted [in 1912] and stated more explicitly [in 1943]. These warnings were not acted on however, and the species was not recognized as being of conservation concern until 1988. After this, a [1991] review of the species and an action plan [in 1996] followed. Our analysis indicates the species was on the verge of extinction or extinct when the action plan was published.”

They continued, warning that this extinction is a call to action to prevent future species losses:

“Such extinctions are an indicator of the failure of international cooperation on biodiversity conservation as surely as climbing carbon levels currently measure our failure adequately to address climate change. With more advanced technologies than were available even 20 years ago — including optical and photographic equipment, bird-tracking and remote-sensing methods, and an evidence base on methods for protection, management and restoration — there is even less excuse for further failures.”

But the slender-billed curlew won’t be the last species we lose, and it wasn’t the only species scientists declared extinct (or regionally extinct) in 2024. Here are some of their stories.

Key Largo tree cactus (Pilosocereus millspaughii) — This coastal plant still grows on a few scattered islands, but not on the island that gave it its name. Encroaching seas have wiped it out in the past couple of years, making it “the first local extinction of a species caused by sea-level rise” in the United States. That’s shocking for a population that was considered “thriving” as recently as 2021.

“Unfortunately, the Key Largo tree cactus may be a bellwether for how other low-lying coastal plants will respond to climate change,” Jennifer Possley, director of regional conservation at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, said in a statement announcing the extinction.

Expect more in future. But we can also use this as an opportunity: Scientists saw it coming and collected enough cactus flowers and fruits to keep the species growing in a greenhouse. Maybe one day they’ll be able to return to Key Largo. Until then the island has a hole in its ecosystem.

Key Largo cactus, photo courtesy Florida Museum of Natural History

Obliterated whitefish (Coregonus obliterus), Ören whitefish (Coregonus trybomi) and Zug whitefish (Coregonus zugensis) — These Swiss fish were among seven species redescribed and taxonomically reassigned by scientists in 2023. The IUCN assessed them as extinct in 2024, reflecting a greater scientific consensus.

The obliterated whitefish (a name that just kills me) was last seen in Lake Zug in 1939 and, according to a press release, “would have been completely forgotten if specimens had not been found by Eawag scientists Oliver Selz and Ole Seehausen in the historical Steinmann-Eawag Collection.” It and other species died out from eutrophication — lack of oxygen in lake water caused by algal blooms, themselves caused by phosphates from domestic wastewater and fertilizer runoff from agriculture. (The Ören declined due to introduced predators like Eurasian pikeperch and acid rain.)

Lest we get completely depressed, the press release presents a lovely counterpoint, noting that “the only whitefish species still found in Lake Zug today, spawning near the shore, is the ‘Balchen.’ Testifying to its survival is its new scientific name — Coregonus supersum (‘I have survived’).”

The seven Coregonus species. Courtesy: Eawag

Java stingaree (Urolophus javanicus): This small Indonesian stingray was only observed once, at a fish market in 1862. The IUCN declared it extinct in December 2023 — calling it the first marine fish extinction caused by human activity — although the media didn’t notice until after January (which is why it’s on this year’s list).

“Intensive, generally unregulated fishing was likely the major threat resulting in the depletion of the Java stingaree population, with coastal fisheries catches already declining in the 1870s,” the extinction assessment reads. “Catches on the northern coast of Java in 1940 were down to almost half the annual catch landed in the 1860s. Additionally, the northern coast of Java, particularly Jakarta Bay, is heavily industrialized, and extensive habitat loss and degradation may also have impacted this species.”

Round Island hurricane palm (Dictyosperma album var. conjugatum) — As reported by Mongabay, the last wild tree of its kind “snapped during a windstorm.” The tree had stood on Mauritius “for decades as the only survivor of its kind.”

Bogardilla (Squalius palaciosi) — Last seen in 1999, this Spanish fish disappeared after dams and weirs limited its habitat and a half-dozen introduced species either ate it, outcompeted it for resources, or brought new pathogens to the area. It serves as a reminder that extinction is often the result of multiple factors chipping away at a species’ survival — a death of a thousand indignities.

Seven plants in Bangladesh: The Asian nation released its updated Plant Red List in November and announced that seven native plant species were no longer found within its borders. Most appear to be regional extinctions and still grow in other countries or in private collections, with the sad exception of the last plant on this list.

    • Fita champa (Magnolia griffithii)
    • Ironweed tree (Memecylon ovatum)
    • Jiringa (Archidendron jiringa)
    • Kathphal (Myrica nagi)
    • Syzygium venustum
    • Drypetes venusta
    • Thurma jam (Syzygium thumri)

Four Egyptian plants: A paper published last January assessed many native plants of Egypt and declared four species and one subspecies extinct:

    • Bellevalia salah-eidii — a perennial bulb that grew in sandy areas but hasn’t been since 1966.
    • Muscari salah-eidii — a perennial bulb last seen in the field in 1967.
    • Vicia sinaica — an annual or perennial herb once restricted to North Sinai and last collected in 1955.
    • Limonium sinuatum romanum — a perennial herb last collected in the field in 1949. The main species is known as wavyleaf sea lavender.

The paper doesn’t speculate on what causes these species to disappear but notes a long list of threats to Egyptian plants, including climate change, extreme weather, droughts, pollution, habitat alteration, roads and railways, agriculture, and biological resource use.

Ethiopian wolves (Canis simensis) — A paper published this July reports several regional extinctions for this embattled predator, now down to a population of about 450 animals. “We describe three population extinctions and three local extinctions within fragmented populations, and present evidence of factors accelerating the extinction process, such as disease (rabies and canine distemper virus), persecution, road kills and poisoning.” The situation isn’t likely to improve: “Hard borders imposed by expanding subsistence agriculture lock Ethiopian wolves into further isolation, with few opportunities for dispersal and recolonization,” they write. Shockingly, this species is still assessed as “endangered,” when its plight has obviously reached critical levels.

Sangihe dwarf kingfisher (Ceyx sangirensis) — A bird we didn’t know to keep looking for before it disappeared. A paper published this past March details decades of taxonomic confusion — enhanced by poor documentation of the first scientific specimen in the 1870s — that kept the animal from being recognized as its own species. Once native to Sangihe Island in the Philippines, it apparently no longer exists there.

Malagodon honahona — A paper published this past April described this newly recognized fish species from Madagascar … and also announced its possible extinction. The researchers — Emily M. Carr, Rene P. Martin, and John S. Sparks from the American Museum of Natural History — recount how they first encountered this species in a small, isolated swamp in 1994, where introduced mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) were competing with the native fish for resources.

But that wasn’t the only pressure, as they wrote: “The region upstream of their only known habitat lies outside the Réserve Spéciale de Manombo protected area and is afforded no protection. As a result, the watershed has experienced rapid deforestation in recent decades such that the fragile type locality has suffered severe degradation. It is likely M. honahona became extinct in the late 1990s, not long after it was first discovered.” In that fate it joins a similar species, M. madagascariensis, which Sparks and other researchers declared extinct in 2018 as part of an IUCN assessment of Madagascar’s freshwater fish.

Smooth hornwort (Phaeoceros laevis) — This wide-ranging plant isn’t extinct, but a 2024 assessment of liverwort and hornwort species in Serbia calls it “possibly extinct” within that country, making it a noteworthy regional extinction.

Digitaria laeviglumis — This species of smooth crabgrass once grew in New Hampshire but was last seen in 1931 and had since almost been forgotten. A paper published this July declared it extinct. Some of the last samples of the crabgrass have sat in the University of New Hampshire’s Albion R. Hodgdon Herbarium for generations; recent DNA analysis helped to identify it as a unique species, revealing it as the first documented plant extinct in the Granite State.

“Documenting the extinction of Digitaria laeviglumis has significant implications for biodiversity conservation,” herbarium collections manager Erin Sigel said in a press release. “It highlights the vulnerability of endemic species, particularly those with very limited geographic ranges, and understanding the factors that led to the extinction of this grass can help inform conservation strategies for other at-risk species. This case underscores the vital role herbaria play in preserving specimens and providing essential data for scientific research.”

Hieracium tolstoii — This Italian plant presented scientists with some challenges. The Hieracium genus (better known as hawkweed) has more than 10,000 documented species, many of which remain under debate due to variations in their appearance and frequent hybridization, as well as a mutation process called polyploidization that can cause dramatic shifts in chromosomes. But a paper published this past September examined the records and confirms H. tolstoii (which once grew on “ancient brick walls” but hasn’t been seen since 1938) as a unique species — one that went extinct at some point in the 20th century. (Previous research had also declared it extinct but maintained some doubt it was a unique species.)

Fucus virsoides — This “glacial relict” algae species isn’t extinct, but it’s rapidly disappearing and deserves a shoutout. A paper published this past August warned that we could be heading toward “the first documented extinction of a marine macroalga in the Mediterranean Sea.” The researchers wrote that “F. virsoides could be considered functionally extinct in Istria (Croatia), critically threatened with extinction in Italy and Montenegro and locally extinct in Slovenia.” They hypothesize its decline has been caused by “a variety of anthropogenic stressors (e.g. habitat destruction, pollution, overgrazing) exacerbated by climate change,” all of which increased the Adriatic Sea’s surface temperature and salinity.

Taiwanese swallowtail butterfly (Papilio machaon sylvina) — Rumors of this butterfly’s extinction have fluttered around for years. It was last seen in 1999, before the Jiji earthquake struck Taiwan, killing more than 2,400 people, destroying the homes of 100,000 more, and causing $300 billion in damage. According to a paper published this past November, the earthquake also caused “multiple landslides” that “permanently altered” the butterfly’s habitat. Research published in 2018 and 2023 suggested the earthquake caused the butterfly’s extinction. This new research examines its morphological characteristics and DNA to confirm that it was a unique subspecies and notes that it “was well on its evolutionary track to become its own distinct lineage as a separate species.”

The paper also notes the butterfly’s importance to Taiwanese culture — “its image is imprinted on the personal ID cards of Taiwanese citizens,” the researchers write. They also suggest we keep looking for it: “Even though the butterfly has not been seen or collected since 1999, one can always hope that it still persists in the remote mountain regions in the Taiwan highlands.”

White-chested white-eye (Zosterops albogularis) — The Australian government has listed this 5-inch bird as extinct since 2000, but scientists kept looking for it for several years. The IUCN finally reassessed it as probably extinct in 2024. Native to Norfolk Island, the bird suffered most of their declines due to introduced black rats, which predated on their eggs. They were last officially observed in 1979, although possible sightings persisted into this century.

Multiple Polynesian tree snails — The IUCN listed several snail species as extinct this past year (although the scientific assessments were all done several years earlier). They include:

    • Partula langfordi — Last seen in 1992, wiped out by deforestation and the predatory invasive rosy wolfsnail.
    • Partula magistri — A “large, conspicuous” species observed alive just one time. The sole specimen was found in 1992 amid empty “freshly killed” shells left behind by wolfsnail predation.
    • Partula dentifera — Last seen in 1972, although it persisted until at least 1991, when only empty shells were found. The rosy wolfsnail again gets the blame.
    • Partula diminuta — Last seen on Tahiti in 1980, three years after the rosy wolfsnail arrived on the island. You can guess what happened next.
    • Clarke’s tree snail (Partula clarkei) — Last seen in the wild in 1991, although they persisted in captivity for five more years. Wolfsnail again.
    • Partula lugubris — Last officially observed in 1927, but no one looked for it again until 1991, by which time the wolfsnail had eaten them all up.
    • Partula auriculata — Last seen in 1992, following the same pattern.
    • Pearce-Kelly’s tree snail (Partula pearcekellyi) — Known from a single valley on Raiatea and last seen in 1991 or 1992. Guess what arrived there in 1990?
    • Pohnpei ground partula snail (Partula guamensis) — Another “large, conspicuous species” last recorded in 1936. This one has deforestation and a host of introduced species to blame: the New Guinea flatworm, three rat species, and possibly the rosy wolfsnail.

邛海白魚 or Qionghai white fish (Anabarilius qionghaiensis) — A freshwater fish frequently caught and eaten by the people living around China’s Qionghai Lake for decades (if not centuries), this species was last observed around 1970. Development, pollution from pesticides and fertilizers, overfishing, introduced species, and destruction of aquatic vegetation all conspired to do this fish in.

Limnophila limnophiloides — Scientists only documented this aquatic plant once, in 1918, in India’s Bhushi lake. Extensive surveys have failed to find it, so the IUCN this year declared it extinct. We don’t know exactly why or how it disappeared, but the assessment notes that the “area is converted into high intensity tourism area and the habitat is completely altered to a small reservoir which is used for bathing, swimming and other recreational purposes by more than a lakh (100,000) of people every year.”

Vachellia polypyrigenes and V. zapatensis — These Cuban plants were last seen in 1951 and 1940, respectively. The IUCN declared them extinct in 2024, blaming urbanization and petrochemical activity for the first species, and “the expansion of human activity” for the second.

Starnberg whitefish (Coregonus renke) and Chiem whitefish (Coregonus hoferi) — Native to the lakes in southern Germany for which they were named, these fish were last seen in the late 1800s and 1940s-1980s, respectively. They were assessed as extinct by the IUCN in 2024.

Orkney charr (Salvelinus inframundus) — This Scottish cold-water fish hasn’t been seen since the 1950s. Scientists suspect dams and other engineering projects build during the 19th century “disturbed tributary streams into which this species migrated to spawn.” The IUCN listed this species as “data deficient” for years but moved them into the “extinct” category in 2024. Nonetheless, some sources say the fish or another species that looks like it has recently been observed in Loch Meallt, so…fins crossed?

This list isn’t comprehensive, in several notable ways — because it can’t be.

First, these extinctions are not reported in real time. The last days of the last members of a species are rarely observed by human eyes. They occur in the cracks beyond our perception, out of sight, the disappearance of a shadow or a sunbeam, here and then gone.

Second, even when scientists suspect a species has died out, they don’t give up hope. They keep looking — often for decades. And on a not-uncommon basis, they find them.

There’s an incentive to keep searching: Giving up too early ensures that a species won’t get the protection it deserves. Species have gone extinct simply because they were declared extinct too soon, protections were removed, and threats worsened as a result.

These endless quests aren’t easy: Tiny frogs who hide in deep jungles or plants that only flower a few nights a year don’t make themselves easily known.

It’s also hard to prove a negative: If you lay eyes on something, you know if exists. If you don’t see it, that’s not proof that it’s gone.

It’s also been a hard few years for science. Fewer researchers got into the field during the pandemic, and people still have a lot of catching up to do. Budgets have also gotten tighter or more unpredictable. We’ll see (or not see) the effects of the Trump administration’s slash-and-burn of federal research funding in the months and years ahead.

Finally, we must remember that most of the species we lose are “invisible extinctions” — species that have never been observed, documented, named, or studied by modern science. One study last year estimated that humans have caused 1,500 bird extinctions, half of which were of species we’d never documented. Another study estimated that Australia loses 1-3 invertebrate species every week. If a species doesn’t have a name and goes extinct, did it ever really exist?

Of course, it did — which is why stories of these extinct species remain so important. They’re a reminder to celebrate the diversity of life around us — and to protect it while we still can.

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Previously in The Revelator:

Book of the Dead: The Species Declared Extinct in 2022

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

The Trump administration has already rolled back planned limits on PFAS chemicals, which have been linked to cancer and other health problems.

The water flowing from taps in Wilmington, North Carolina, looked clean, tasted normal, and gave no indication that it carried an invisible threat. For decades the Cape Fear River had provided drinking water to hundreds of thousands of residents in the region. But in 2017 tests revealed what many had feared: high levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), chemicals linked to cancer, immune dysfunction, and reproductive issues, coursing through their water supply.

The contamination had been traced to Chemours, a spinoff of DuPont, which had been releasing PFAS chemicals from its Fayetteville Works plant for years.

The discovery sent shockwaves through the community, triggering lawsuits, emergency water-treatment plans, and a reckoning over how corporations and government regulators had failed to protect public health. But even as residents fought to hold polluters accountable, the company responsible for much of the contamination was tightening its grip on the agencies meant to regulate it.

A former DuPont and American Chemistry Council lobbyist, Nancy Beck, now holds a key position at the Environmental Protection Agency, shaping chemical safety policies that will determine how — or if — PFAS pollution is addressed. In the first days of the second Trump administration, the agency withdrew a proposed rule that would have imposed limits on PFAS discharges, a move that watchdog groups say amounts to giving polluters free rein to continue contaminating water supplies.

Across the Atlantic a similar threat looms. In Bentham, England, residents had unknowingly consumed water laced with a staggering 1.2 million nanograms per liter of PFAS — nearly 12,000 times the legal limit. The contamination originated from a nearby firefighting foam testing facility, a mirror to the industrial discharge in North Carolina.

The crisis in Cape Fear and Bentham reveals the creeping, silent danger of PFAS, which has infiltrated groundwater, rivers, and drinking-water supplies across the world.

And yet, as the Trump administration accelerates its environmental rollbacks, the ability to regulate and mitigate this growing threat in the United States is being systematically dismantled.

“North Carolina is one area that I’m most familiar with where there’s an entire river system that serves hundreds of thousands of people [and] is very badly contaminated with PFAS,” Erik D. Olson, senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told The Revelator. “A lot of people are drinking that water every day.”

From Miracle to Menace

When first introduced in the 1940s, PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, chemical company Dupont hailed them as “miracles of science.” Their unique properties — resistance to heat, water, and oil — made them indispensable in a variety of industries. From nonstick pans to waterproof clothing, PFAS became embedded in daily life.

But the very quality that made them so useful — resilience — also makes them a nightmare for the environment. They do not break down naturally, persisting in soil, water, and even the human body for decades.

According to Andrea Tokranov, a researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey specializing in PFAS contamination, 71 to 95 million Americans rely on groundwater with detectable PFAS levels before any treatment. She was the lead author of a 2024 study, published in the journal Science, that found that 50 to 66% of people in the United States who rely on groundwater as their primary water source could be exposed to PFAS contamination.

The predictive modeling used in her research highlights a grim reality: millions of Americans may be drinking contaminated water without knowing it.

“This is a fairly large number,” Tokranov told The Revelator. “And the implications are striking.”

Meanwhile recent research from the Keck School of Medicine at USC, led by postdoctoral fellow in population and public health sciences Hailey Hampson, uncovered disturbing insights into PFAS’ effects on human health.

The study, which focused on young adults in Southern California, found that higher PFAS exposure was linked to worsened kidney function over time. The research also established that changes in gut bacteria and related metabolites mediated up to 50% of the kidney function decline.

“We saw that exposure to PFAS was potentially altering the composition of the microbiome, associated with lower levels of beneficial bacteria and lower anti-inflammatory metabolites,” Hampson told The Revelator. This disruption, the researchers suggest, may contribute to long-term kidney damage and other chronic health issues.

The study also highlights a troubling disparity: Hispanic young adults, already at a higher risk for chronic kidney disease, were disproportionately affected by PFAS exposure. The inequities in exposure, driven by geographic and economic factors, mean that the most vulnerable populations are bearing the brunt of the contamination crisis.

But what makes this crisis especially insidious is its uneven burden. Rural and low-income communities, already struggling with limited infrastructure and regulatory oversight, are disproportionately affected. The places with the least political clout are the ones most exposed to this creeping poison.

The situation is compounded by deregulation at the federal level.

Trump, PFAS, and the EPA

During Trump’s first term, the Environmental Protection Agency delayed action on PFAS, weakened oversight, and stalled cleanup efforts. Now, with a second Trump presidency, the rollbacks have already escalated.

A statement from the Environmental Working Group describes the latest policy changes as “a gift to polluters and a disaster for public health.” The group sounded the alarm when Trump’s EPA withdrew a proposed rule that would have limited PFAS discharges from chemical manufacturers into the water supply.

An EPA Instagram post from before the Trump administration took office:

 

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A post shared by U.S. EPA (@epagov)

Trump’s executive orders have triggered sweeping environmental rollbacks, dismantling protections for clean air, water, and climate policy. Advocacy groups warn that his actions prioritize polluters over public health, leading to increased pollution, higher energy costs, and worsening climate-related disasters such as wildfires and extreme weather. Without intervention, communities will face greater exposure to harmful pollutants like PFAS.

As the administration continues its rollback of environmental protections, environmental advocates, scientists, and public health experts warn that PFAS contamination will only intensify, disproportionately affecting low-income and rural communities who have fewer resources for mitigation

Olson, who has spent decades advocating for clean water regulations, warned that “the more we continue to make this stuff and spew it out into the environment, the more those cleanup costs just exponentially continue to increase.” He estimates that the public will ultimately bear hundreds of billions of dollars in liability and cleanup costs due to the unchecked spread of PFAS.

Addressing PFAS Beyond Borders

PFAS contamination is not a crisis confined to the United States. It’s a global problem, requiring international collaboration and stricter regulations. While Europe has been at the forefront of addressing the threat, efforts to control PFAS are gaining momentum worldwide.

Megan Kirton, senior project officer at Fidra, a Scotland-based environmental nonprofit, pointed out that while the United Kingdom lags, other European nations are leading the charge in restricting PFAS use.

“The UK government should be doing more to safeguard our water sources from PFAS pollution,” Kirton told The Revelator. “We are seeing stricter PFAS standards across the EU, and some nations like Denmark and Germany are already taking major steps to ban certain PFAS compounds altogether.”

The European Union has proposed a comprehensive PFAS restriction under the REACH regulatory framework, which could lead to a near-total ban on PFAS use in consumer products. Countries such as Germany and Sweden are pushing for aggressive enforcement, with new PFAS limits in drinking water set at 100 nanograms per liter for a sum of 20 PFAS compounds — a much stricter limit than what exists in the United States.

But beyond Europe there’s a growing recognition that PFAS is a transboundary issue, affecting low- and middle-income countries disproportionately. According to Olson, the dumping of PFAS-contaminated waste in developing countries is a major concern.

“We’ve seen this pattern before — where wealthier countries tighten regulations, but companies shift their PFAS waste and contaminated products to lower-income countries that lack strong regulatory frameworks,” Olson told The Revelator. “It’s not just the dumping of waste; it’s also the continued sale of products laden with PFAS in these regions.”

Efforts to create a global coalition against PFAS contamination remain fragmented. While some organizations work under the Stockholm Convention, a global treaty aimed at eliminating persistent organic pollutants, Olson believes international coordination remains weak.

“There are groups that work on implementing the Stockholm Convention, but it’s not as effective as it should be,” he said. “I’d love to see more cooperation between the Global North and activists in developing countries because right now, I don’t think there’s very effective coordination.”

Meanwhile, some countries have begun exploring alternatives to PFAS-based products. The Toxic Use Reduction Institute in the U.S. is actively researching safer replacements, and some governments are investing in “green chemistry” solutions to eliminate reliance on PFAS altogether.

Despite these efforts enforcement remains a major challenge. Loopholes in international trade allow PFAS-laden products to continue circulating in markets with weaker regulations. And as the U.S. continues rolling back environmental protections, other nations are left to grapple with the consequences.

Olson believes that the only viable path forward is a global agreement on PFAS.

“We need a coordinated effort,” he said. “Countries must phase out nonessential uses of PFAS and push for a binding international agreement that holds companies accountable. Otherwise, the problem will just keep shifting from one part of the world to another.”

Fighting Back

For advocates and scientists, the fight against PFAS is far from over.

“We will be in court if we have to be,” Olson told The Revelator. “We don’t like to be in court, but if that’s the only way to do it, we will go to court and try to protect the public against these chemicals.”

Olson and his colleagues at NRDC are working with community activists to intervene in lawsuits challenging EPA’s PFAS regulations, ensuring that industry groups don’t weaken existing protections. He believes that public pressure remains critical.

“I don’t think anybody voted for more toxic chemicals in their drinking water… As the public learns about the extent of the problem, I think they are unhappy with efforts to roll back protections.”

But legal battles alone won’t solve the crisis. Scientists argue that the only way to truly curb PFAS contamination is to shut off the tap.

“We need to stop spewing these things into the environment and making this stuff,” Olson said. “But we still have to figure out a way to destroy these chemicals because right now, we don’t even have a good method for doing that.”

The scientific community is exploring alternative chemistry and biodegradability, with groups like the TURI researching safer replacements. But Olson warns that funding for green chemistry remains woefully inadequate.

“We would love to see the world move towards cleaner chemistry, green chemistry,” he said. “But the research is underfunded. The companies profiting from these chemicals should be the ones paying for their cleanup.”

Efforts are also underway to phase out nonessential uses of PFAS. Some U.S. states have banned PFAS in consumer products like cookware, dental floss, and ski wax. But Olson argues that industry lobbying continues to stall meaningful federal regulation.

“There are all these uses that are absolutely not necessary and that are still contaminating our bodies and our environment,” he said. “We need to move away from PFAS chemistry and towards safer alternatives.”

Despite the challenges, Olson remains optimistic.

“This isn’t going to be easy. But when people stand up and demand action, change happens. We’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again.”

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Previously in The Revelator:

PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ Are Everywhere: Here’s What That Means for Wildlife

Earth Doesn’t Burn: (Back) Toward a Fire-Wise Infrastructure in Southern California

Earthen homes present an opportunity for building sustainably, but first we need to overcome several institutional barriers.

In October 2020, as the Bobcat Fire threatened to scale the San Gabriel Mountains and descend into Pasadena, my family and I packed our essentials and temporarily relocated with loved ones across the country in Ohio. The fire wasn’t just a natural disaster; it was a symptom of larger systemic failures. Between the fire, terrible air quality, and the ongoing COVID pandemic, my wife and I felt the acute fragility of our situation as we sheltered in the Midwest with our 7-month-old daughter, who is now 5 years old.

That evacuation marked a turning point for me. Instead of pursuing a tenure-track academic job immediately after earning my doctorate, I joined the CalEarth Institute’s Long-Term Apprenticeship Program to learn and teach others how to build SuperAdobe homes, structures designed to withstand the realities of fire, floods, earthquakes, and the broader polycrisis of climate collapse.

Apprentices finishing the domes. Photo courtesy Kenjus T. Watson, Ph.D.

My work in Apocalyptic Education, an educational collective advocating for communal sustainability and self-determination, deepened my understanding of how communities survive and adapt to catastrophe. Rooted in the African diaspora’s long history of enduring repeated world-ending crises, Apocalyptic Education actively learns from and applies these proven strategies, alongside those of other Indigenous communities, to meet the intensifying challenges of our time. My grounding in this collective gave me a framework for understanding the fires as an emergent opportunity to re-indigenize how we live amid intense challenges.

The fires raging through California are not new phenomena, but they’ve become catastrophically unmanageable. Los Angeles has experienced fire seasons for thousands of years, managed by Indigenous nations through  cultural burns and sustainable fire stewardship. These practices were systematically and violently dismantled by U.S. and California state policies beginning in the mid-1800s. Combined with worsening climate collapse and decades of corporate-fueled ecological destruction, today’s fire seasons have become deadlier and more widespread.

For Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other communities of color, the cascading negative impacts of these disasters are disproportionately severe. Altadena, a historically Black community north of Pasadena, has faced devastating losses from wildfires. Entire blocks have been reduced to rubble, displacing Black families who once defied national trends with an 81% homeownership rate in the area. The compounded grief of displacement and destruction, unfolding alongside these new realities, reflects the enduring legacy of systemic racism intertwined with climate collapse.

l011_Altadena Fire

Policies like redlining created conditions where communities of color were forced to live in areas with higher environmental vulnerabilities, while being deprived of investments in resilient infrastructure. In Los Angeles, the planned lack of shade, exposure to drought, and extreme heat in many of these neighborhoods today are direct consequences of these inequities.

This history of exclusion from resilient infrastructure is compounded by the materials commonly used in home construction today. Far too many dwellings throughout Southern California were constructed using problematic materials, such as synthetic insulation, vinyl siding, and asphalt shingles, chosen for their affordability and ease of construction. But these materials are highly flammable, exacerbating the risk of destruction during fires.

Some estimates suggest building with wildfire-resistant materials and design can add up to $27,000 to the cost of already overpriced homes in Southern California.

However, sustainable building structures built from earthen materials offer a much more affordable alternative. They provide resilience against California’s worsening fire seasons and are emblematic of a broader shift toward environmentally sustainable construction.

Many of these structures are a modern adaptation of ancient building practices. Earthen-based structures may include the use of rammed earth, sandbags, and barbed wire to create homes that are fireproof, environmentally sustainable, and cost-effective. SuperAdobe, for example, according to a 2018 study, also provides high thermal mass that improves energy efficiency and protects against extreme heat while being durable enough to withstand natural catastrophes like floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes.

In the summer of 2022, I joined a team of seven other apprentices to construct a single-family SuperAdobe dome (including a 11-foot main dome with an 8-foot add-on/apse) over the span of just 17 workdays. The total cost for a fully functional dwelling (excluding labor) is just around $25,000.

The author (and kids) compact (tamp) the earth into a bag to coil into the dome. Photo courtesy Kenjus T. Watson, Ph.D.

That experience transformed how I imagined resilience and sustainability for communities like Altadena. I envisioned neighborhoods of these domes, standing strong against the fires, droughts, and earthquakes that are becoming increasingly common.

However, widespread adoption of earthen homes faces significant barriers, including regulatory challenges, limited funding, and resistance from conventional housing industries.  For example, while some of the building systems are approved by the International Code Council, the standards organization that creates the International Building Code used throughout the United States, additional engineering is often required for California projects, and further efforts are underway to include SuperAdobe in the International Residential Code.

These changes would make these types of technology more accessible regionally, but the process is costly and requires significant collaboration and support from public policy and varied stakeholders invested in creating resilient communities.

Still, I am one of countless Earthen builders who continue to hold this vision. I’ve watched as the fires in California destroy not just homes but entire lives. The daycare my children once attended somehow still stands amid rubble, and the home we fled in Pasadena came dangerously close to burning down. Yet on a decimated block in Altadena, a single structure remains intact: a SuperAdobe dome, built by visual artist James Séamus Knight.

 

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Lone domes and earthen structures surviving fire are not just isolated outcomes. They highlight the inspiring potential of re-indigenizing our dwellings in alignment with the land we live on. Imagine a neighborhood where every home is designed to withstand the specific disasters associated with their geographies, fundamentally transforming recovery efforts and demonstrating that a resilient future is not yet out of reach.

If we can transform our homes in a way that’s in “right relation” to Southern California ecology, it’s an important step toward creating more sustainable neighborhoods, towns, and cities.

The families and communities affected by the fires of today and future calamities are demanding more than temporary fixes or increased precarity due gentrification to disaster capitalism. There must be a fundamental shift in how we approach housing and infrastructure in the face of ecological collapse. In my work on my own campus, I maintain a somber urgency to explore how Apocalyptic Education can help us confront the complexities of disaster preparedness and safe, affordable housing. This is premised on the notion that through interdisciplinary approaches, we can foster solutions that honor the past while equipping communities for the challenges ahead.

As impacted families and mutual aid networks continue to navigate the daunting terrain left in the wake of devastation across these communities, Southern California has the opportunity to lead — not by reinvesting in unsustainable and inequitable systems, but by embracing community-led, adaptation-focused, and land-honoring approaches to rebuilding homes and resilience.

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Previously in The Revelator:

‘Like a Phoenix,’ A New Forest Emerges From the Destruction in Ukraine

What Can Psychology Offer Biodiversity Protection?

The new field of conservation psychology offers valuable lessons for protecting the world’s wildlife — as well as ourselves.

In recent weeks and months, Donald Trump and other leaders and pundits around the world have taken aim at diversity and inclusion efforts in government, schools, and businesses.

As a conservation professional, I’m working to embed more diversity and inclusion in my efforts — and in the process making biodiversity protection more effective.

I’ve accomplished this through the relatively new field of conservation psychology.

Conservation psychologists study the intersection between people and biodiversity protection by examining environmental justice; human behavior, attitudes, and perceptions; environmental education; community-based conservation and capacity building; and the many ways in which we relate to our natural environments, amongst other topics

This merging of conservation with social aspects is new in the field of psychology. But transitioning from psychology as a therapeutic practice to studying the human aspects of conserving biodiversity has given me the opportunity to witness the need to shift toward an ethos of coexistence. Through my work, I’ve highlighted the many ways in which conservation needs to be more inclusive of people, as well as the ways in which people can more willingly embrace pro-environmental behaviors.

With the climate and extinction crises continuing to worsen, this is the perfect time for conservation psychology and other social sciences to play a pivotal role in transforming conservation into a space that is participatory, inclusive, and diverse — areas in which traditional western models have failed.

A Crisis of Exclusion

We face undeniable threats to biodiversity across the world, all of which endanger a multitude of ecosystem services that both humans and nonhuman species depend on. Calls to protect biodiversity started in the 1970s, yet we’re still in desperate search for solutions amidst increasingly urgent reminders that plant and animal life are rapidly disappearing.

In the face of the growing urgency from scientists and policymakers, why do we still face an imminent crisis?

This is a complex question, but a major shortfall of historical conservation efforts has been the omission of the human aspects of preserving biodiversity. Early efforts resorted to complete exclusion of people — primarily local and Indigenous communities — to create “pristine” habitats devoid of a human footprint. Such spaces later became open to travelers seeking out untouched environments — a privilege limited to those who could afford the exclusivity of access.

The legacy of this exclusion endures, compounded by issues such as poverty, food insecurity, and resource scarcity.

Outside Looking In?

The overtly exclusionary ways of conducting conservation echo deeply in our severed connections and relationships with the natural world, in which we exist outside of nature as if we, as people, need to be separated.

This happens in two ways, both perpetuating the notion of a human-nature dichotomy.

The first is the philosophy that we must separate ourselves from nature for nature’s sake. Humans, in this model, are considered a hostile presence and must remain removed from natural spaces.

The second is the belief that nature is “out there,” something messy, a little too wild and unsanitized for our increasingly urbanized existence. The continuous use of pesticides and herbicides, destruction of natural spaces, and an aversion to non-companion animals in our spaces are all indicative of a worrying rift growing between people and nature.

But nature has long been shaped, even subtly, by a human presence, as demonstrated by the richness of biodiversity that many Indigenous and First Nation lands sustain. And we can’t survive without a thriving environment: Striving for separation from nature is a dangerous pursuit.

The Extinction in Our Culture

More than 20 years ago ecologist Robert M. Pyle coined the term “extinction of experience” to describe our increasing separation from and hostility toward nature.

This separation has diminished the mental and physical wellbeing so often derived from nature and decreased our pro-environmental behavior and attitudes. With each successive generation, children grow up in a world in which nature is continuously diminished and experience less exposure to nature than their parents and grandparents.

According to Peter Kahn, a psychology professor at the University of Washington, this has caused “environmental generational amnesia” — a lack of natural spaces simply becomes the norm or standard by which each generation judges what is considered to be the natural environment, despite its degradation.

Time to Shift

The fact that we’re studying and talking about generational amnesia is a sign that we’re starting to see enormous shifts in research and the ways in which we conduct conservation to change behavior.

The growing interest in incorporating social sciences like conservation psychology into the natural sciences appears to be partially responsible for this shift. Through a recognition that people are part of the natural world, not apart from it, we can more creatively consider how that should look in ways that don’t exclude, discriminate, or cause harm.

An exciting element of the field of conservation psychology is that it’s still relatively new but rapidly gaining traction. It was founded in the early 2000s by Carol Saunders and has already become one of the official professional divisions of the American Psychological Association. This newness and recognition create enormous space for growth and creativity for researchers to explore the nexus between people, biodiversity, and protecting our natural world.

Giving People (and Species) Voice

My own research has focused primarily on capacity building, photographic storytelling in conservation, and advocating for a diverse, justice-foregrounded means of conducting biodiversity protection.

My colleagues and I used a creative methodology called photovoice to learn about the graduates of a capacity building initiative called Wild Shots Outreach. We explored their experiences living in the Greater Kruger region of South Africa, including their experiences of exclusion from protected land, the legacy of apartheid, and how they view conservation and capacity building. The findings strongly suggest that promoting justice, human wellbeing, and representation through capacity building can help conservation practitioners achieve more inclusive, positive outcomes for both people and nature.

Through this research we see that conservation psychology has much to offer the field of conservation, both in theory and practice. By incorporating a much stronger recognition of issues of justice, we can begin to recognize where redress may be needed and embrace greater diversity.

Issues of justice can include nonhuman species, too, as seen in the field of ecological justice. This remains a largely untapped area of research that holds enormous promise to transform biodiversity protection. Going forward, researchers and practitioners need to be mindful of the multitude of ways in which social, environmental, and ecological justice need to be addressed for enduring change.

Moving Forward

In 1985 biologist Michael E. Soulé positioned conservation studies as a crisis discipline — one that seeks solutions to urgent problems that affect all life forms, including our own, and recognizes the significance and gravity of conservation in which practitioners and researchers from multiple backgrounds can contribute to biodiversity protection.

Although the social sciences have been slower to take a firm hold in conservation, Soulé made an interesting point — the conservation sciences depend on the social sciences for effective implementation.

As social scientists, psychologists have much to offer the conservation sciences — from design, implementation, and evaluation — to provide new, creative perspectives and skills that more consciously include the human components of conservation work. After all, conserving biodiversity means working with people, given our significant anthropocentric footprint.

For those pursuing a career in psychology and wanting to contribute to environmental issues, your expertise can also provide valuable insights into topics of community engagement, environmental education, behavior change, communication strategies, public health, and wellbeing.

There’s no more important time than now to transform conservation and biodiversity protection in ways that appreciate all the complexities and nuances of our relationships with nature.

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Previously in The Revelator:

The Challenges of Studying (and Treating) PTSD in Chimpanzees

By Shutting Down USAID, Trump and Musk Will Worsen the Climate and Extinction Crises

The agency supports critical efforts to reduce wildlife trafficking, deforestation, land violence, and other threats around the world.

During the first weekend of February, while the media focused on President Trump’s escalating tariff trade war, a battle of a different type raged on in the offices of the United States Agency for International Development.

Better known as USAID, the independent agency of the U.S. State Department is responsible for administering civilian (i.e., nonmilitary) foreign aid and development assistance. The agency has unquestionably done enormous good throughout the world by helping to alleviate or eliminate diseases, poverty, and other threats.

Many of those efforts take place in the environmental realm, with programs to reduce wildlife poaching and trafficking, tackle deforestation, assist environmental refugees, study animal populations in the wild, and protect people in critical habitats.

But to Musk, USAID is “hopeless” and deserves to be thrown “into the wood chipper.” Over the past few days Musk allies have bullied their way into USAID offices, accessed critical systems (and classified documents), hollowed out the agency’s leadership, turned off the agency’s website, and locked staff out of their headquarters. “We’re shutting it down,” Musk wrote on X.

Many question the legality of these options, but that hasn’t stopped Trump or his allies in any of their regressive activities since he regained power.

If allowed to continue, the destruction of USAID will create shockwaves throughout the world — and worsen the ongoing climate and extinction crises.

Here are just a handful of examples of USAID’s recent environmental efforts:

    • In Tanzania, the $30 million Hope Through Action project — a collaboration with the Jane Goodall Institute — “aims to improve protection for key chimpanzee corridors and 2.5 million additional hectares, increase the incomes of 450,000 people, develop a National Youth Council and more.” (This includes efforts to foster “gender equality in land-ownership rights,” which makes it a target for Trump’s anti-DEI efforts.)
    • USAID is one of the primary partners in the RISE program, which supports “Resilient, Inclusive and Sustainable Communities” by addressing gender-based violence as it connects to environmental and climate-related issues.
    • The agency has helped train hundreds of wildlife rangers in Cambodia and other countries.
    • USAID’s Saving Threatened Wildlife project has spent several years working to stop wildlife trafficking in Vietnam, with work on the national and provincial lessons. Most recently USAID trained tourism professionals in Quang Ninh Province, “equipping them with knowledge, tools, and strategies to discourage tourist purchases of illegal wildlife products” such as elephant ivory.
    • The agency has also helped to fight deforestation in Vietnam to conserve biodiversity and alleviate poverty, and carried out the country’s largest camera-trap survey, which revealed wildlife population declines across Vietnam.
    • A project in Papua New Guinea “facilitated the development of a conservation deed to protect the endangered Western Pacific leatherback sea turtle and preserve the rights of coastal communities.”
    • The discovery of a new orangutan species in Indonesia several years ago only happened thanks to funding by USAID. More recently, this past December, the agency announced the U.S. and Indonesia were working together to “advance orangutan conservation” in a now-deleted press release.
    • USAID funded local efforts in Bangladesh that helped reverse an endangered fish’s decline.
    • Funding in the Philippines helped to “reduce poaching and use of illegally harvested wildlife species and byproducts, and improve ecosystem goods and services for human wellbeing.”
    • The agency worked with several partners to document a biodiversity stronghold for endangered species in Cambodia, an effort that will help protect Asian elephants, dholes, sun bears, clouded leopards and other wildlife.
    • Also in Cambodia, the agency’s Wonders of the Mekong project that has helped conservation efforts of the critically endangered Mekong giant catfish.
    • In 2022, during the height of the COVID pandemic, USAID and several other organizations organized meetings to develop strategies to minimize the risk of future zoonotic disease outbreaks, one of many efforts in this area.
    • In Madagascar USAID invested “nearly $80 million” by November 2023 “to help communities mitigate and adapt to climate change, manage and benefit from their natural resources, create environmentally friendly livelihoods, combat wildlife trafficking, and prevent deforestation.”  (The official web page about this has been removed, but it’s still accessible through Archive.org’s Wayback Machine.)
    • In Mozambique a multiyear effort by USAID has “encouraged prosecutors and judges to prosecute wildlife crimes, ending poachers’ impunity.” (Wayback Machine link.)
    • The agency organized workshops in Ghana to engage people from the finance and transportation sectors to address wildlife crime.
    • USAID has worked with airlines to fight illegal wildlife trafficking through its ROUTES partnership, which stands for Reducing Opportunities for Unlawful Transport of Endangered Species.
    • In Liberia the agency worked with a local youth organization to hold a national conference on conservation and sustainability.
    • USAID worked with the Journalists Environmental Association of Tanzania to hold a meeting on biodiversity conservation and encourage more coverage of wildlife in the media.
    • The agency helped fund efforts that discovered an amazing small boa species in the Dominican Republic.
    • And USAID funds the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, a critical tool for predicting humanitarian and ecosystem crises, which has been offline since the U.S. froze foreign aid.

This just scratches the surface — hundreds of additional examples both large and small existed on USAID’s now-shuttered website (and can still be found on other sites they haven’t figured out how to delete or turn off yet).

And environmental issues comprise just one small portion of USAID’s mandate. Millions of people around the world seem likely to suffer from the assault on this one agency — one of many currently under assault in the second Trump administration.

Of course, the president lacks the authority to kill off a federal agency. As Tess Bridgeman wrote for the website Just Security, “while some functions delegated from the president to the secretary of state, and in turn to the administrator of USAID, could likely be pulled back by executive action alone, wholesale dissolution of the agency or formal transfer of functions provided by Congress would require legislation.”

That doesn’t help the employees who have already lost their jobs, the organizations around the world waiting for funding, or the people or animals now in greater jeopardy. But the legal reality is also a bit of a lifeline — if Congress and the courts do their jobs and save USAID from Musk’s woodchipper.

Social media has been buzzing about the attack on USAID. Here are some important posts:

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— USAID Lives! Alt USAID (@altusaid.bsky.social) February 2, 2025 at 11:02 AM

Former senior #USAID, @agawande.bsky.social tells FOX News on purge:

“It’s insane”

“A gift to our enemies”

“Ebola outbreak…Bird flu has broken out in 49 countries. Our efforts to contain them have all been shut down.”

“USAID was funding the treatment for 20 million people with HIV worldwide”

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— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw.bsky.social) February 3, 2025 at 4:21 AM

Elon Musk wanting to dismantle the #USAID is starting to make sense. Just pure unmitigated revenge by “Apartheid Clyde.”

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— Maya Contreras (@mayatcontreras.bsky.social) February 3, 2025 at 2:34 AM

It is getting worse every day.
usaid.gov has gone dark.
Life-saving humanitarian aid programs are halted.
And the infamous billionaire is calling for #USAID “to die”

This is just a level of madness that I could have never imagined…

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— Leif Erik Sander (@sanderlab.bsky.social) February 2, 2025 at 12:10 PM

The assessment from a #USAID friend 💔

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— Aram Sinnreich (@aramsinn.bsky.social) February 3, 2025 at 6:02 AM

Gotta be honest, I don’t think he has ANY idea what exactly he just signed or why he signed it. #SaveUSAID

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— USAID Lives! Alt USAID (@altusaid.bsky.social) February 3, 2025 at 10:56 AM

It’s hard to overhype how dangerous this moment is. This a naked attempt to seize government by the right wing billionaire class so they can steal from the American people.

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— Chris Murphy (@chrismurphyct.bsky.social) February 3, 2025 at 8:12 AM

REP. BEYER: “What Trump and Musk have done is not only wrong, it is illegal. USAID was established by an act of Congress and can only be disbanded by an act of Congress.”

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— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) February 3, 2025 at 10:30 AM

Ilhan Omar says “When people are fleeing, and they need just little bit of food and USAID is there to provide that, that creates goodwill for the American people.”

— Eric Michael Garcia (@ericmgarcia.bsky.social) February 3, 2025 at 10:29 AM

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Trump’s Assault on Foreign Aid Threatens Brazil’s Efforts to Fight Deforestation and Poverty

Previous support and pledges from the United States have helped to slow forest loss in Brazil. Will Trump reverse that progress?

(Editor’s note: This article was scheduled for publication even before President Trump and Elon Musk announced their intention to close the United States Agency for International Development, the independent agency of the U.S. State Department that administers civilian foreign aid and assistance — a move that many experts say is illegal. Musk and his team have already hollowed out USAID leadership, accessed critical files and classified documents, and locked employees out of the agency’s headquarters. We expect this story to now echo in hundreds if not thousands of similar situations around the world.)

As a younger man, Osmarino de Souza used to cut down native trees and sell the wood to support his family. Now age 60, he helps a community called Rodrigues Alves, a small Amazon town of just 15,000 in the far north of Brazil, raise money by harvesting local fruits such as cocoa and açaí.

To earn enough income without clearing native forest, Osmarino has the help of the SOS Amazônia Association, one of the hundreds of nongovernmental organizations (ONGs, in Portuguese) that work in the region with resources from Fundo Amazônia, a state fund that supports forest conservation projects, monitors deforestation, and promotes economic projects in Indigenous communities. The fund’s resources are raised through donations from countries such as Norway, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the United States.

Experts say the fund has helped contribute to Brazil’s recent success fighting deforestation, which fell by 30.6% in the Brazilian Legal Amazon region last year.

The U.S. State Department donated an initial $50 million to the fund between last August and October. Last November U.S. President Joe Biden visited Brazil and announced a planned investment of another $50 million, pending congressional approval. Experts at the time said this support could inspire additional large donations from the government and U.S. companies.

Now, however, residents and ONGs such as the one that helps Osmarino are worried that new U.S. President Donald Trump could put the brakes on donations to the fund.

This, in turn, could cause the fight against deforestation and poverty in the Amazon to lose traction.

Their fears are well founded: On Jan. 24 incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered a 90-day freeze on nearly all foreign assistance worldwide. In recent days Trump and ally Elon Musk have also announced their intent to shutter USAID, the independent State Department agency that administers civilian aid. That leaves many in the Brazilian community wondering what will happen next.

“We know that during Trump’s last term, the climate issue received zero attention and commitment from the U.S.,” says Álisson Maranho, technical director of SOS Amazônia. “So we feel quite insecure about climate policies and these climate agreements at a global level.”

An Innovative Fund

Fundo Amazônia was created in 2008, during the second administration of Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to “raise donations for nonreimbursable investments in efforts to prevent, monitor and combat deforestation, and to promote the conservation and sustainable use of the Legal Amazon.” In addition, the fund seeks to support the “development of systems to monitor and control deforestation in the rest of Brazil and in other tropical countries,” according to the agency.

An aerial shot, river on the bottom, with people nearby two boats
The community of Rodrigues Alves, a small town of just 15,000 inhabitants in the far north of Brazil, in the Amazon region. Photo courtesy of SOS Amazônia.

The fund has received donations from countries around the world as well as corporations such as the oil company Petrobras. It is managed by the state-owned National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES, in Portuguese), which seeks to finance various segments of the Brazilian economy in the long term.

“The fund is a very good instrument for the development of socioenvironmental projects, such as the recovery of a deforested area, the promotion of some profits activity within the forest,” says Pedro Cortês, a professor at the University of São Paulo, Brazil’s largest university. “The funds are nonrepayable. It’s not a loan. They’re earmarked for development and, at the end of the day, that’s very important.”

To date the fund has already helped more than 600 ONGs and government projects and has allocated around R$1.7 billion (US$283 million).

Supported projects include Amazônia na Escola (Amazon in School), which promotes sustainable agriculture and healthy school meals in the Legal Amazon, and Restaura Amazônia (Restore the Amazon), which aims to recover 46,000 square miles of native vegetation by 2030. The organization prioritizes projects in Indigenous and quilombolas (Afro-Brazilian peoples) territories.

The fund’s current focus is on generating income for local peoples, which, according to experts, helps to combat deforestation and climate change by reducing their incentive to chop down native trees.

Osmarino, the fruit harvester in Rodrigues Alves, is president of the Nova Cintra Cooperative, which has been receiving resources from Fundo Amazônia via ONGs since 2015. The cooperative, which serves around 400 families, has received equipment such as boats and motors as well as classes in management and good practices. Osmarino says he got funding last year to set up a nursery, where seedlings of açaí, cocoa, and other native trees are planted and distributed to locals so that they can harvest and sell the fruit.

Nursery where seedlings of native trees are planted to later be distributed to residents. Photo courtesy of SOS Amazônia.

“It’s a good alternative source of income,” he says. Participants sign a contract promising not to commit any further deforestation. And the project itself helps to reforest the land: Nova Cintra distributes native trees to the community and guarantees the purchase of the fruit, so people in the community can not only recover a deforested area but also have a profitable livelihood.

Rodrigues Alves is in the state of Acre, one of the Fundo Amazônia’s focuses. Amazônia na Escola, also located in Acre, runs the SOS Amazônia Association and expects to soon receive its second round of funding. According to Álisson Maranho, technical director of SOS Amazônia, the ONG will use the funds for a new family farming project expected to reach up to 5,000 people.

“The project invests both in training and improving structures for the communities, as well as offering regionalized products for snacks, with natural local foods, instead of ultra-industrialized products,” he says. “We also aim to improve logistics in these regions and focus on generating income.”

Thanks to the extent of ONGs in remote parts of Brazil, the Fundo Amazônia has become a financing tool for generating income and improving the quality of life of local people, who end up choosing to preserve the forest, according to experts.

“The fund is essential for conserving biodiversity, preventing deforestation, promoting sustainable forestry and recovering degraded areas,” says Leandro Juen, a professor at the Federal University of Pará, in the Amazon region. “But it also strengthens environmental policies and the system for monitoring and controlling deforestation.”

Risks Under Trump

The importance of the fund was recognized by former U.S. President Joe Biden: “I will leave my successor and my country a strong foundation to build on if they choose to do so,”  he said when announcing the promised investment. He also took a moment to praise ongoing environmental efforts, especially renewable energy, and encourage their progress: “Which government will stand in the way and which will seize the enormous economic opportunity?”

With the election of Donald Trump, however, experts tell me they believe that the new government will not be able to implement the donation, which still needs to pass through the U.S. Congress.

Trump has already announced several executive orders that set aside the entire agenda of combating climate change, which seemed to put this funding at risk even before the announced freeze on State Department funding.

The State Department did not respond to requests about the status of the promised funding in the days after the hold on foreign assistance was announced.

Meanwhile, people I spoke with in Brazil were concerned the change in administration means other corporations or governments will no longer be inspired to also donate to Fundo Amazônia.

“The funds announced are very small,” admits Márcio Holland, professor of economics at FGV. “More important than the amount is the gesture. It’s the U.S. initiative to start as one of the fund’s donor countries. It’s a gesture that other countries could follow.”

But Holland doesn’t seem to expect that gesture to be made under Trump, who made clear during the election that he will not take the environmental debate seriously.

“Clearly,” he says, “his agenda is anti-climatic and, in the same way, it is contrary to this whole discussion of the Amazon, of Brazil being important in the balance of the world environment. This discussion doesn’t cross his mind.”

Mauricio Santoro, a political scientist and professor of international relations and collaborator at the Brazilian Navy’s Center for Political and Strategic Studies, agrees with this view and believes that the Trump administration could still be hostile to the current Lula administration’s conservation agenda.

“With Trump back in office, his government will probably resume an agenda that is very hostile to Brazil in environmental terms, denying that climate change is underway and creating obstacles to more environmental financial aid for developing countries,” he says.

In addition, for Santoro, there is also the possibility that Trump’s allies in the region, such as former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who paralyzed the activities of the Fundo Amazônia for four years, will be strengthened by the conflict between the Lula administration and the new U.S. government.

“It will probably be a relationship marked by conflicts and disagreements, on issues such as big tech, China, BRICS, the environment, protectionism, and Venezuela,” he says. “There is a very strong identification of the Brazilian Bolsonaro opposition with Trump, and if the American president wants to promote it, this could become a factor of tension in Brazil’s domestic politics.”

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Previously in The Revelator:

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

This Month in Conservation Science: The Dead Whale and the Pediatricians

Other new research this month looked at snow leopards, wolves, wildlife crossings, newly discovered species, and … scorpion copulation?

The constant flow of new environmental science is a wonder to behold: Every day I receive dozens of notifications of newly published papers from every continent, often sharing discoveries about some amazing or little-understood species.

Most of these papers come from journals whose titles include variations of the words “ecology,” “conservation,” “endangered species,” or “wildlife.” They form the core of our regular “This Month in Conservation Science” column, and you’ll find links to many of them collected below.

But sometimes the best or most interesting new papers come from journals outside the environmental field. This month, for example, my favorite study came from the Hong Kong Medical Journal.

The paper, from a team of five pediatricians, takes its inspiration from tragedy: a baby Bryde’s whale (Balaenoptera brydei) who was struck and killed by a boat propeller in the sea around Hong Kong in July 2023.

But from pain comes wisdom: “As pediatricians, we should seize this opportunity to encourage societal reflection and to educate children and families,” the doctors wrote in the introduction to their paper, which digs into the lessons we can teach children from this whale’s death and similar sad events. The authors offer guidance on talking about animal rights, how recreational activities can harm animals (or people), legal protections for wildlife, overfishing, and more.

As they write in their conclusion, “The death of the Bryde’s whale serves as a reminder to collectively value Hong Kong’s marine life and prompts physicians, especially pediatricians, to strengthen preventive and environmental medicine for children and families in Hong Kong.”

Perhaps other doctors around the world can follow their cue.

Let’s get to some more of this month’s most interesting conservation research:

The Over-Under

Preventing animal deaths on roadways remains an active and important field of research. Here are two new papers: one that looks at animals going above roadways and the other underneath.

    • “Highway Crossing Rates of Wild Felids Before, During, and After Wildlife Crossing Structure Installation” (Ecology and Evolution)
    • “Does artificial light interfere with the activity of nocturnal mammals? An experimental study using road underpasses” (Biological Conservation)

Right Whales and Other Ocean Species

As we covered recently, North Atlantic right whales face a lot of threats that could magnify under the second Trump administration. Here are some new papers about those whales, as well as other ocean-dwelling species covered in the same article:

On the Border

Speaking of the Trump administration, the science of border walls continues to reveal how bad they are for wildlife:

    • “International border fences and walls negatively affect wildlife: A review” (Biological Conservation) (firewalled)
    • “Border fences threaten movements of large mammals in southwestern China post-COVID-19 pandemic” (Global Ecology and Conservation)
    • “Zoonosis: social and environmental connections in the Mexico-United States border region” (One Health Outlook)

Wolves and Snow Leopards

These two species tend to dominate research into large predators and megafauna, and with good reason: They help illuminate so many big issues — especially when they live in the same habitats.

    • “Narrow Dietary Niche With High Overlap Between Snow Leopards and Himalayan Wolves Indicates Potential for Resource Competition in Shey Phoksundo National Park, Nepal” (Ecology and Evolution)
    • “Uncovering the full potential of attitude measures in navigating human-wolf coexistence” (Biological Conservation)
    • “Tracking the Ghosts of the Himalayas: Snow Leopard Conservation Insights From Satellite Collar Data” (Ecology and Evolution)
    • “Dispersal and settlement dynamics of wolves in a lowland ecological corridor in northern Italy: Effects of resource availability and human disturbance” (Biological Conservation)
    • “Silent Signals in the Snow: Tracking the Spatio-Temporal Territorial Marking Behavior of Snow Leopards (Panthera uncia) in the Mountainous Region of Baltistan, Pakistan” (Ecology and Evolution)

Sexy Time

    • “Repeated Copulation and Guarding, and Their Relationship With Male and Female Morphological Traits in the Water Scorpion Nepa hoffmanni” (Ecology and Evolution)
    • “First observation of mating behavior of the endangered forest musk deer Moschus berezovskii in the wild” (Tropical Zoology)

Animal Behavior

Big Conservation Issues

    • “Who’s Responsible? Public Ascriptions of Responsibility for Endangered Species Conservation in Arkansas, USA” (Human Ecology)
    • “Evaluating the effectiveness of seabird bycatch mitigation measures for pelagic longlines in the South Atlantic” (Biological Conservation)
    • “Rethinking Conservation and Restoration Strategies of Endangered and Key Medicinal Clavicarpa Plants in Yunnan-Kweichow Plateau’s Karst Areas Under Climate Change” (Ecology and Evolution)
    • “Sampling mass mortality events to enable diagnoses: A protocol using freshwater mussels” (Methods in Ecology and Evolution)
    • “Unveiling the Threat to Vulture Diversity: A Comprehensive Ethno-Ornithological Study Uncovers Regional Trade Effects in Côte d’Ivoire” (Ecology and Evolution)
    • “Vertebrates in trade that pose high invasion risk to the United States” (Biological Conservation)
    • “Guardians of the forest: community-led conservation of Malayan sun bears in Mizoram’s dampa tiger reserve, India” (European Journal of Wildlife Research)
    • “Turtle Economic Value: The non-use value of marine turtles in the Asia-Pacific region” (Ecological Economics)
    • “Habitat Occupancy of the Critically Endangered Chinese Pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) Under Human Disturbance in an Urban Environment: Implications for Conservation” (Ecology and Evolution)
    • “Selecting habitats to reintroduce the endangered species Ardisia gigantifolia (Primulaceae) based on growth and physiological traits” (Global Ecology and Conservation)
    • “Projected Climate Scenarios Reveal an Expanding Suitable Habitat for the Critically Endangered African White-Backed Vulture Gyps africanus” (Integrative Conservation)
    • “Are Chemicals a Useful Tool for Glass Eel Traceability?” (Fishes) — part of a special issue on “the roles of fishery biology and fish population dynamics in fisheries management”
    • “Wild boar hunting and trapping as a threat for wildlife conservation on Sumatra, Indonesia” (Conservation Science and Practice)
    • “Amaranthus pakai (Amaranthaceae), a New Critically Endangered Species from the Hawaiian Islands” (Novon)
    • “Discovery of a potential open ocean nursery for the endangered shortfin mako shark in a global fishing hotspot” (Scientific Reports)
    • “Mercury exposure in an endangered songbird: influence of marsh hydrology and evidence for early breeding impairment” (Ecotoxicity) (firewalled)
    • “Proposal to list the Peruvian tuco-tuco (Ctenomys peruanus, Ctenomyidae, Rodentia) as a critically endangered species” (Biodiversitas)
    • “Why are hazel dormice common while edible dormice are endangered in Lithuania? The importance of forest management for dormouse conservation” (Journal of Vertebrate Biology)
    • “Do Endangered Glacial Relicts Have a Chance for Effective Conservation in the Age of Global Warming? A Case Study: Salix lapponum in Eastern Poland” (Biology)
    • “What the Turtles Taught Us: Improving Migratory Outcomes for Eastern Long-Necked Turtles Across Conservation Fences” (Ecological Management & Restoration)

Special Issues

Rounding it all off, we go beyond the individual papers to look at two cases of broader coverage:

    • The journal Ecopsychology published a special issue on “Nature and Health.”
    • And Biological Conservation released a special issue on “Leveraging genetics in spatial conservation prioritization.” Read the introduction.

Our next science roundup column will appear in late March and cover publications from roughly Feb. 1 to March 15. We’re happy to hear from any author or team with a new paper coming out in a peer-reviewed journal or other publication during that timeframe, especially if you’re from the Global South or an institution without much public-relations support. For consideration in a future column, drop us a link at [email protected] and use the subject line TMICS.

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Saguaro Struggles: A Desert Icon Feels the Heat

Climate change, drought, and fires — all caused or worsened by human activity — are rewriting the future of ancient Sonoran saguaros.

Ask a roomful of kids to draw a desert and odds are good that most of their drawings will include a saguaro cactus, waving two friendly (albeit prickly) arms.

Despite the endearing ubiquity of that image, it’s not a sight you’ll actually see in most of the planet’s 71 deserts. In fact, the only home to the tree-like saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) is the Sonoran Desert, which stretches across southeast California, the southern half of Arizona, and the northwest states of Mexico.

“Saguaros are such an icon of this area, of the Southwest in general,” says Beth Hudick, interpretation, education, and outreach manager at Saguaro National Park in southern Arizona. “If you close your eyes and picture a cactus, it’s a saguaro.”

A saguaro at sunset. Photo: National Park Service (uncredited)

The Sonoran Desert is no stranger to heat, but as climate change makes heatwaves more frequent, intense, and long-lasting, the resilience of this desert’s most beloved plant is being tested.

Tucson is the cactus’s stronghold, bookended by Saguaro National Park on both its east and west edges, but a 2018 study by the National Park Service rated the park as one of those put at greatest risk by climate change. The city, meanwhile, smashed heat records this past summer, including the longest number of consecutive days in the triple digits.

Even plants native to this desert feel the heat: In the past few years many saguaros have lost arms, toppled over, or burned.

Although it’s unlikely these iconic cacti are headed for extinction anytime soon, they’re in decline. And these newly harsh conditions have people wondering what the species’ survival will look like.

From Baby Boom to Bust

Let’s start with the good news: Saguaros are not endangered. Not in the short term, at least. They can live 200 years, and they had a baby boom in the 1980s, according to Hudick, so the current population of saguaros in the park is “quite healthy.”

Saguaros’ most famous characteristics help protect them. Pleats in their trunk and arms allow them to grow pleasantly plump after heavy rains. Columns of spines shade them and shield them.

Saguaros at sunset. Photo: Karen Mockler

But it takes time to build up those defenses.

Hence, the bad news: Establishment of new saguaros has nearly ceased. A study published by the National Park Service in 2018 found that since the early 1990s, the number of young saguaros in this and two other parks in the region has been disturbingly low — mainly due to a decline in precipitation coupled with higher temperatures.

The Sonoran Desert has two rainy seasons — in the winter, when the gentle rains come, and in the late summer when the dramatic monsoons arrive. Arizona has been in a long-term drought since 1994, so it’s seen less of both. Without sufficient moisture a seed might still germinate, but not be able to establish itself.

The young saguaros that do pop up face a tough beginning. Seedlings grow very slowly at first — only an inch or so annually during their first handful of years. It may be 70 years before they sprout arms and 150 before they reach their full height of 40-50 feet, with some rising higher.

“They’re so vulnerable when they’re little,” Hudick says, “because they can’t absorb a lot of water. That’s why it takes them so many years to get to the size that you can actually see and notice. [Park] visitors will not notice saguaros that are less than ten years old.”

People still look for them, though. The Park Service and hundreds of citizen scientists and saguaro enthusiasts conduct a census every decade to monitor the health of the plants over time.

The results of the most recent survey, published in that 2018 study, showcased just how few new saguaros are surviving. Of the nearly 10,000 saguaros surveyed, teams located just 70 young plants under 4 inches tall or less than 11–15 years old.

“It’s not a die-off,” Hudick reiterates. “It’s a reduction in recruitment. That is the concerning thing.”

Invasives and Fire

A drought-stressed landscape is also more susceptible to invasive species. The archenemy of the Sonoran Desert is buffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris), which covers the ground and crowds out places where saguaro seedlings and other native plants would start life.

Buffelgrass also introduces another threat: fire.

Native to much of Africa and southern Asia, buffelgrass grows in savanna grasslands with sparse trees, where it adapted to survive frequent fires.

The Sonoran Desert’s flora evolved for heat, not flame. Historically, natural fires only burned here once every 250 years, and when they did, they didn’t get far. That changed with buffelgrass, which turns flammable as it dries out, producing twice the fuel of native vegetation.

A boot brush helps remove invasive seeds from treads. Photo: Karen Mockler

“This is not a fire-dependent ecosystem,” Hudick says. “The desert isn’t meant to have widespread fires like prairies or forests. And when we have those fires that are carried by buffelgrass, then we see the death of the large saguaros.”

Introduced to the Southwest in the 1930s, buffelgrass has spread most swiftly in the past quarter-century. By 2010 buffelgrass infestations were expanding roughly 35% per year. Now, thanks to thick invasions of grass, fires here burn hotter, faster, and over larger areas.

Besides saguaros, these fires also kill other iconic but slow-moving species, including desert tortoises and Gila monsters.

And thanks to climate change, the fire season has also grown longer.

Unlike excess heat and meager rain — factors hard to control — buffelgrass can at least be managed, Hudick says. Staff and dedicated volunteers go out each year to pull buffelgrass during a narrow window of time before it sets seed.

 

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Meanwhile, a new and dangerous invasive has arrived on the scene. The cheerful yellow ball-shaped blooms of stinknet (Oncosiphon pilulifer) produce thousands of seeds and can quickly smother a landscape and outcompete native wildflowers. It, too, is highly flammable.

Cactus Dominoes

When Hudick and I spoke outside the East Park’s visitor center, it was a lovely 70-degree day in December under a cloudless blue sky — no rain coming anytime soon. (Indeed, December 2024 turned out to be Tucson’s driest and warmest December on record.)

Here the Rincon Mountains rise to our east. On every side of the city, it’s these unfurling foothills that saguaros seem to love best. Some stands are so dense they’re called cactus forests.

“Saguaros really are a keystone species in this ecosystem, culturally and ecologically,” Hudick says. “A lot of animals rely on the saguaro.”

Animals such as doves, bats, javelina, and foxes depend on saguaros for their fruit, while pack rats and jackrabbits eat their moist flesh. Gila woodpeckers and gilded flickers make nest holes in the trunks and large arms. Other birds occupy abandoned holes or build nests in the crook of a raised arm, while raptors perch on tall saguaros to spot prey.

“If the saguaro were to disappear from the landscape, I think we would see largescale change ecologically — it’d change the way the whole desert community looked,” Hudick says. “People are not necessarily going to see that in their lifetime, because the changes are happening slowly. It might be 50 or 60 years before we see those larger saguaros die off and nothing coming in to replace them.”

The Saguaro Way of Life

An hour west, another group is keeping a watchful eye on the saguaro. The Tohono O’odham, or Desert People, have lived in southern Arizona for more than 5,000 years. The saguaro appears in one of their creation stories — their name for the cacti is haha:sañ (pronounced “ha-ha-shawn”).

“The saguaro is an ancestor to us,” explains Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, an instructor of language and culture at Tohono O’odham Community College, and as of 2024, the first Tohono O’odham board member of Friends of Saguaro National Park. “In the stories that we tell in the winter months, the story of how the saguaro came to be is a story that is told every year.”

Saguaros at sunset. Photo: Karen Mockler

In the creation story, a mother is obsessed with playing toka, a traditional field hockey game, and often neglects her young son. One day the child is so hungry and lonely that he goes in search of her, only to be laughed at by others and sent back home by his mother. In despair he sinks into ground, weeping, and rises later as a saguaro, a plant that has fed Ramon-Sauberan’s people “since time immemorial,” she says.

The tops of mature saguaros produce white blooms in late spring, pollinated in daylight by birds and bees, at night by bats and moths that all feed on the nectar. In summer those blooms produce red, juicy fruit. Using a pole fashioned from long saguaro ribs, her people harvest the fruit and turn the bright red pulp into jelly, syrup, and ceremonial wine.

But while the fruit provides nourishment and medicine, climate change has made the time of harvest less reliable.

“I know there have been saguaros that have produced and bloomed out of season,” she says. “It’s hot one day, it’s cold another, what’s going on? We don’t have a word for climate change.”

Ramon-Sauberan teaches a Tohono O’odham food systems class in which she starts out with the basics: What is climate change? What are we seeing now? What did we see in the past?

Her community on the reservation is discussing the same issue.

“We’re all trying to figure this out as we go, whether you are a human being or a plant. We’ve gotta take a step back and realize everything on this earth has a spirit, going back to our traditional ways. What did we used to do? We used to sing to our crops and harvest, and we do have songs for the harvest.”

In recognition of this rich cultural history, Saguaro National Park recently hired Raeshaun Ramon as its first permanent Tohono O’odham ranger since the park was created.

“He’s incorporating our culture and our language in what he does, which is really cool,” Ramon-Sauberan reports. “Singing is really important in our culture, and healing, and I really like that he’s started to bring that back. Our lands need to be sung to, our words need to be shared, and singing is one of the ways that we do that.”

She hopes that a mix of those traditions with contemporary science will achieve a middle ground that helps cope with climate change.

In speaking of the Tohono O’odham legend of the saguaro, Ramon-Sauberan says “there are lessons to be learned, consequences to our actions.” That was true in the death of the boy, and it’s true today. In the saguaro legend, it’s Crow who tells the people the sad truth that they didn’t care for the boy as they should have or realize his importance — not until he’d disappeared.

Will we learn that lesson in time to protect saguaros?

“I worry, but at the same time we’re resilient people, we’re desert people. We’ve survived and learned to adapt. I feel like our haha:sañ will, too.”

Seeds of Hope

As bad as things are for saguaros, Hudick says their cultural importance could be their greatest strength.

“I do think the people in this area love their saguaros, they love their desert, they feel very passionate about protecting it,” she says. “I think focusing on the positive actions we can take, the ways that we as individuals can help mitigate the impacts of climate change, helps to put it into a context where it’s not so hopeless.”

She pauses and looks out at the saguaro’s stronghold, then adds, “I think we all need hope.”

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Previously in The Revelator:

All the Plants We Cannot See

19 Books About Wolves

These howling good books examine how we’ve persecuted wolves, how we’ve helped to restore them, and how they embody humanity’s relationship with nature.

Wolves are one of the defining wildlife species of the 21st century — if not every century — of human existence.

Relentlessly persecuted, uniquely inspirational, and endlessly adaptive, wolves embody our relationship with nature: We love it, we fear it; we worship it, we denigrate it; we depend on it; we destroy it.

It’s no wonder so many authors in recent years have turned to wolves to examine the biggest issues of the day. Their books, many of which we’ve previously reviewed, tackle humanity’s destructive urges, our challenges to correct our mistakes, and nature’s intrinsic quest to survive.

This is an important time to look at these big-picture issues and at wolves themselves. Existing wolf packs keep growing, rewilding efforts continue, and individual wolves constantly expand their territories.

At the same time people keep illegally killing wolves, their legal protections remain in constant flux, prey populations face numerous pressures, and the right-wing extremists behind the second Trump administration have their eyes on dismantling the laws and agencies that protect not just wolves but all endangered species and ecosystems.

With that in mind, we’ve collected 19 recent books about wolves and our tumultuous relationship to nature. Most are nonfiction, but we’ve included a few entertaining novels as well. You’ll also find photography collections, books for kids, and an academic text or two. As always, the link in each title goes the publishers’ sites, but you can also request these books from your local booksellers or libraries.

Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear by Erica Berry

“At the center of this lyrical inquiry is the legendary wolf, OR-7, who roams away from his familial pack in northeastern Oregon. While charting OR-7’s record-breaking journey out of the Wallowa Mountains, Erica Berry simultaneously details her own coming-of-age as she moves away from home and wrestles with inherited beliefs about fear, danger, femininity, and the body. As Erica chronicles her own migration — from crying wolf as a child on her grandfather’s sheep farm to accidentally eating mandrake in Sicily — she searches for new expressions for how to be a brave woman, human, and animal in our warming world. What do old stories about wolves tell us about society’s relationship with fear? By strategically unspooling the strands of our cultural constructs of predator and prey, and what it means to navigate a world in which we can be both, Erica bridges the gap between human fear and grief through the lens of a greatly misunderstood species.”

Thinking Like a Wolf: Lessons From the Yellowstone Packs by Rick McIntyre

“Award-winning author and renowned wolf researcher Rick McIntyre explores the intricate world of wolf behavior in Yellowstone National Park and highlights the individual character traits that allow wolf packs to thrive. Unveiling power struggles, pack politics, the roles of family protection, inter-pack conflicts, and more, Rick skillfully follows the intricacy of packs and the unique attributes each wolf has. In these true stories, he celebrates the lessons we can learn from wolf packs and the dynamic personalities that enable them to expand across new territories amidst adversity. Weaving an impressive web of politics and power, family cooperation and commitment, rivalry and resilience, Thinking Like a Wolf provides readers with a unique window into the fascinating inner workings of wolf packs.”

Hunt for the Shadow Wolf: The Lost History of Wolves in Britain and the Myths and Stories That Surround Them by Derek Gow

“Renowned rewilder Derek Gow has a dream: That one day we will see the return of the wolf to Britain as it has already returned elsewhere. As Derek worked to reintroduce the beaver, he began to hear stories of the wolf, both real and mythical, and his fascination grew. With increasing curiosity, Derek started to piece together fragments of information, stories and artefacts to reveal a shadowy creature that first walked proud through these lands and then was hunted to extinction as coexistence turned to fear, hatred — and domination. What Derek came to realize was that the underlying motives behind our hatred were far more prosaic and, like most persecutions, based in power and profit. We have turned the wolf into a savage beast and saw its extirpation as a necessity for our survival… Hunt for the Shadow Wolf is Derek’s quest to uncover the true nature of this creature because, as we seek to heal our landscape, we must reconcile our relationship with it.”

A Woman Among Wolves: My Journey Through Forty Years of Wolf Recovery by Diane K. Boyd

“A debut memoir from one of the first women biologists in the United States to study wild wolves in their natural habitat — a story of passion, resilience, and determination. Called the Jane Goodall of wolves, world-renowned wildlife biologist Diane Boyd has spent four decades studying and advocating for wolves in the wilds of Montana near Glacier National Park. When she started in the 1970s, she was the only female biologist in the United States researching and radio-collaring wild wolves… Boyd fearlessly forded icy rivers, strapped on skis to navigate thick stands of lodgepole pine, and monitored packs from the air in a tiny bush plane that skimmed the treetops so she could count wolves and see what they were feeding on. She faced down grizzly bears, mountain lions, wolverines — and the occasional trapper — as she stalked her quarry: a handful of wolves that were making their way south from Canada into Montana… Her writing resonates with her indomitable spirit as she explores the intricate balance of human and wolf coexistence.”

The Rise of Wolf 8: Witnessing the Triumph of Yellowstone’s Underdog by Rick McIntyre, Foreword by Robert Redford

“The astonishing true story of one of the first wolves to roam Yellowstone in more than 60 years. Yellowstone National Park was once home to an abundance of wild wolves—but park rangers killed the last of their kind in the 1920s. Decades later, the rangers brought them back, with the first wolves arriving from Canada in 1995. This is the incredible true story of one of those wolves. Wolf 8 struggles at first — he is smaller than the other pups, and often bullied — but soon he bonds with an alpha female whose mate was shot. An unusually young alpha male, barely a teenager in human years, Wolf 8 rises to the occasion, hunting skillfully, and even defending his family from the wolf who killed his father. But soon he faces a new opponent: his adopted son, who mates with a violent alpha female. Can Wolf 8 protect his valley without harming his protege?”

The Unlikely Hero: The Story of Wolf 8 by David A. Poulsen and Rick McIntyre (A Young Readers’ Edition)

“For readers of Pax and A Wolf Called Wander comes the action and adventure story of one of Yellowstone’s most famous animals, Wolf 8: a runt of the litter who surprised scientists by becoming a powerful leader. A true story… Wolf 8 is newly reintroduced along with his pack to Yellowstone National Park… He must learn to fend for himself in his new home, learn to hunt, compete for food, and even stand up to a grizzly bear 10 times his size. One day, Wolf 8 meets an alpha female raising a litter of pups on her own. Her mate was killed by humans. Can he rise to the occasion and help the young family survive? Is he ready to be an alpha wolf?”

A Wolf Called Fire: A Voice of the Wilderness Novel by Rosanne Parry

“A Wolf Called Fire is a stand-alone companion novel to A Wolf Called Wander. It is inspired by Wolf 8, a real Yellowstone wolf who was the smallest of his pack and constantly bullied by his bigger brothers. Wolf 8 survived a tumultuous first year and grew up to be a different sort of leader—one who fought many rival wolves to submission but never killed any. He had a rare talent for mentoring young wolves and became the patriarch of the largest and most successful pack in Yellowstone by choosing a more collaborative and generous leadership style.” (Available Feb. 4, 2025)

Wild Chorus: Finding Harmony With Whales, Wolves, and Other Animals by Brenda Peterson

“Peterson explores how wild animals can become our guides and fellow travelers, helping us navigate the stresses of daily life and a rapidly changing planet. From beluga whales to wolves, raccoons to bears, elk to herons, the stories in this collection offer insights into the intricacies of animals’ intuitive communication, compassionate attention, and peaceful adaptation. Featuring vivid, visionary stories, Wild Chorus reveals a world filled with inspiring lessons of kinship, connection, and living in the present. “

Lone Wolf: Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wildness by Adam Weymouth

“In 2011 a wolf named Slavc left his home territory of Slovenia for a wide-ranging journey across the Alps. Tracked by a GPS collar, he traveled over 1,200 miles, where he would mate with a female wolf on a walkabout of her own — the only two wolves for hundreds of square miles — and start the first pack to call the Italian Alps home in more than a century. A decade later and there are more than a hundred wolves in the area, the result of their remarkable meeting. Journalist Adam Weymouth follows Slavc’s path on foot, and in doing so, reports the fears and realities of those living on the land that is being repopulated by wolves. A metaphor for economic, political, and climate upheaval in a region that is seeing a centuries-old way of life being upended.”  (Available June 3, 2025)

Once There Were Wolves

Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy

In this award-winning novel, “Inti Flynn arrives in Scotland with her twin sister, Aggie, to lead a team of biologists tasked with reintroducing fourteen gray wolves into the remote Highlands. She hopes to heal not only the dying landscape, but Aggie, too, unmade by the terrible secrets that drove the sisters out of Alaska. Inti is also not the woman she once was, either, changed by the harm she’s witnessed — inflicted by humans on both the wild and each other. Yet as the wolves surprise everyone by thriving, Inti begins to let her guard down, even opening herself up to the possibility of love. But when a farmer is found dead, Inti knows where the town will lay blame. Unable to accept her wolves could be responsible; Inti makes a reckless decision to protect them. But if the wolves didn’t make the kill, then who did? And what will Inti do when the man she is falling for seems to be the prime suspect?”

Earthly Bodies: Embracing Animal Nature by Vanessa Chakour

“Examining the cultural belief that our animal instincts are to be corrected or controlled, nature advocate and rewilding facilitator Vanessa Chakour explores our inner and outer landscapes through the lens of wild animals. How can wolves, misunderstood in myths but vital to ecosystems, teach us to rewrite dangerous stories and respect nature’s wisdom? How do the peaceful coexistence strategies of black bears offer insights into sharing resources? How can the engineering feats of beavers guide us in fostering regenerative building solutions and vibrant ecosystems? What can the loyal partnership of seahorses teach us about nurturing and love? Chakour draws parallels from struggles she has weathered in her own life to those endured by 23 wild animals — from wolves to sea lions — exploring our unease of feeling like prey; challenging the entrapment of our limiting beliefs; contextualizing the turmoil of fractured landscapes; and affirming our primal ache to belong.”

The Wolf Connection: What Wolves Can Teach Us About Being Human by Teo Alfero

“Teo Alfero, shamanic practitioner and wolf conservancy founder, shows how interacting with wolves and wolfdogs can benefit people from all walks of life. By restoring our ancestral bond with these resourceful beings, we can reclaim the best of what it means to be human. The Wolf Connection offers twelve Wolf Principles to awaken our intuition, live more authentically, and heal from trauma. The principles draw on knowledge that Teo and the Wolf Connection sanctuary team have gleaned firsthand through their Wolf Therapy® education and empowerment program, as well as the findings of wolf biologists and the wisdom of First Nation elders. Stories from myriad sources, including Wolf Heart Ranch provide a compelling understanding of the lessons wolves have to offer us.”

Yellowstone Cougars: Ecology Before and During Wolf Restoration by Toni K. Ruth, Polly C. Buotte, and Maurice G. Hornocker

“Yellowstone Cougars examines the effect of wolf restoration on the cougar population in Yellowstone National Park — one of the largest national parks in the American West. No other study has ever specifically addressed the theoretical and practical aspects of competition between large carnivores in North America. The authors provide a thorough analysis of cougar ecology, how they interact with and are influenced by wolves — their main competitor — and how this knowledge informs management and conservation of both species across the West.”

Return of the Wolf: Conflict and Coexistence by Paula Wild

“Wolves were once common throughout North America and Eurasia. But by the early twentieth century, bounties and organized hunts had drastically reduced their numbers. Today, the wolf is returning to its ancestral territories, and the “coywolf” — a smaller, bolder wolf-coyote hybrid — is becoming more common. Paula Wild gathers first-hand accounts of encounters with wolves and consults with wildlife experts for suggestions on how minimize conflict, respond to aggressive wolves and coexist with the apex predator… As a highly social, intelligent animal, the wolf is proving adept at navigating the challenges of an ever-changing landscape. But their fate remains uncertain. Wolves are adapting to humans; can humans adapt to wolves?”

The Wanderer: An Alaska Wolf’s Final Journey by Tom Walker

“The Wanderer is the first book ever to chart a wolf’s movements for an extended period of time, almost to the day. Award-winning author Tom Walker draws on unparalleled access to a research study of wolves in Alaska to share the story of Wolf 258, nicknamed ‘The Wanderer.’ Relying on a GPS collar that recorded the animal’s coordinates each day, biologists tracked Wolf 258 as he moved through the wilderness, and, astonishingly, traveled more than 2,600 miles in less than six months. Through the lens of one wolf’s epic journey, Walker highlights connections to terrain, history, looming threats, and other animals… The Wanderer explores not only the natural history of wolves but the relationship of people — Indigenous, pioneers and settlers, biologists, politicians — with this predator, shedding light on the long-established northern traditions of trapping and hunting, the tangled politics of wolf management, and how artificial borders fail to contain this iconic species.”

The Return of Wolves: An Iconic Predator’s Struggle to Survive in the American West by Eli Francovich

“The gray wolf has made an astonishing comeback in Washington. Nearly eradicated by the 1990s, conservationists and environmentalists have cheered its robust return to the state over the last two decades. But Washington ranchers are not so joyous. When wolves prey on livestock, ranchers view their livelihood as under attack… Journalist Eli Francovich investigates how we might mend this divide while keeping wolf populations thriving. He finds an answer in the time-honored tradition of range riding and one passionate range rider, Daniel Curry, who has jumped directly into the fray by patrolling the rural Washington landscape on horseback.”

Restoring the Balance: What Wolves Tell Us About Our Relationship With Nature by John A. Vucetich

“For more than a quarter century, celebrated biologist John Vucetich has studied the wolves, and the moose that sustain them, of the boreal forest of Isle Royale National Park, an island in the northwest corner of Lake Superior. During this time, he has witnessed both the near extinction of the local wolf population, driven largely by climate change, and the intensely debated relocation of other wolves to the island to stabilize and maintain Isle Royale’s ecosystem health. In Restoring the Balance, Vucetich combines environmental philosophy with field notes chronicling his day-to-day experience as a scientist. Examining the fate of wolves in the wild, he shares lessons from these wolves and explains their impact on humanity’s fundamental responsibilities to the natural world.”

Wolves: Western Warriors by Julie Argyle

“In Wolves: Western Warriors, the life of the powerful and majestic North American wolf, often considered to be vermin and dangerous, is presented, showing the struggle they have to simply survive in the wild and in a world where many people don’t appreciate wolves and often set out to exterminate them. Argyle explores their behavior, their family dynamics, and what it means to be a wolf in the wilderness of the greater Yellowstone area through her stunning photography. She includes information about the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone and the ongoing struggle with keeping wolves listed as endangered species, while also offering her personal observations about the Wapiti Lake pack, among others, and several notable individual wolves.”

The Pipestone Wolves: The Rise and Fall of a Wolf Family by Günther Bloch (text) and John E. Marriott (photographs)

“In the winter of 2008–09, a new wolf family from the Pipestone Valley suddenly appeared in the Bow Valley of Banff National Park, taking up residence alongside a family that had ruled there for over a decade. Within a year, these new wolves had eliminated the Bow Valley wolves and established a dominance that would last for five years in the heart of Canada’s most famous national park. The book chronicles not only the rise of the Pipestones and how they established and maintained dominance in the valley, but also how an increase in mass tourism in Banff led to a decrease in prey density for the Pipestones, which in turn led to the wolves changing their hunting strategies and expanding their summer range… Have we passed the point of no return? And will our Banff wolves live forever after in a wildlife ghetto devoid of true wilderness characteristics?”

We’ll have several new environmental book reviews for you next month. Until then explore the “Revelator Reads” archive for hundreds of additional books — on wolves and a wide range of other environmental topics.

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Previously in The Revelator:

The Ethics of Saving Wolves