The Ellesmere Wolves
The isolated, white-furred wolves of Ellesmere Island, Canada, are distinctive among their species in that they have not been conditioned over generations to fear humans. On the second closest land mass to the North Pole...
Please see the below articles about Terrestrial Wildlife from past editions of the AWI Quarterly.
Slither
In Slither: How Nature’s Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World, science writer Stephen S. Hall offers a fascinating exploration of snakes. Drawing from the humanities and science, Hall reframes these animals not as cold-blooded symbols...
CEQ Guts NEPA by Rescinding Regulations
In April, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)—an arm of the White House that coordinates federal environmental activities and policy development—took the most drastic action since its creation in 1970 by rescinding nearly 50 years’...
Colorado Cracks Down on Wildlife Trafficking
In May, Colorado enacted SB25-168, the nation’s most comprehensive state law to combat wildlife trafficking. The law is unique among state laws in that it prohibits the selling, possessing, transporting, importing, or exporting of any...
Study Shows Steep Decline in US Butterfly Population
Insects, though often maligned, are critically important to the planet and to our own survival. A vast array of species depend on them for food; other ecological services they provide include pollination, pest control, and...
Executive Order Opens America’s Forests to Unchecked Logging
On March 1, President Trump issued an executive order entitled “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production,” to massively accelerate and increase logging on US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands. The USFS and...
Monitoring Salt Marsh Harvest Mice via Novel, Noninvasive Genetic Surveys
The salt marsh harvest mouse is an endangered species restricted to the coastal wetlands of the San Francisco Estuary (SFE). Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, approximately 90 percent of the historical tidal marsh...
Trump Administration Seeks to Slash Habitat Protections for Endangered Wildlife
In April, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued a proposed rule that would undermine protections for habitat that threatened and endangered species need to survive by...
Captive Primate Safety Act Reintroduced
On May 5, the Captive Primate Safety Act (CPSA) was reintroduced in Congress. This bipartisan bill, sponsored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Reps. Mike Quigley (D-IL), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Julia Brownley (D-CA), and Nancy...
Funding Freeze Puts Key Red Wolf Recovery Project on Ice
In December, the Federal Highway Administration announced that the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) had won a Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program grant competition and would receive $25 million to build new wildlife crossing structures...