New research suggests Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction event, on par with the one that ended the age of dinosaurs, already is under way.

Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the recent findings add to a growing pile of troubling news, including projections more than a million species are likely to be lost in coming decades due to human activity.

Greenwald emphasized it is a problem because species make up ecosystems, and ecosystems provide critical services for people.

"They clean our air, they clean our water, they moderate climate, they cycle nutrients, they pollinate crops," Greenwald outlined. "As we lose more and more species, we begin to lose those ecosystem functions."

Scientists studied extinction rates for invertebrate species including snails, clams and slugs, in part because vertebrate species such as birds and mammals received the lion's share of attention in the past. Researchers contended their work answers skeptics who have argued extinctions are happening at roughly the same rates occurring as a natural part of evolution.

Habitat loss because of human activity is seen as a major driver of species loss, with climate change acting as an increasingly potent accelerant as fossil fuels continue to burn.

Greenwald noted while it is true species have gone extinct in the past, the sheer scale of species loss over such a brief time period is alarming.

"Because of all the changes that people are causing on the planet, species are now going extinct much, much, much faster," Greenwald explained. "That should be a cause for concern; essentially, we are fouling our own nest."

Researchers called for biologists to collect and document as many species as possible before they disappear. Greenwald believes conservation efforts also should be a priority. He pointed to the black-footed ferret as one example of what can be done to save species on the brink of extinction.

"We were able to find a small population in Wyoming, and now we are working to save them," Greenwald stressed. "That's what we can do as people; we can undo this. We can save species if we protect them, and we take this problem seriously."

Following the torture of a wolf by a Wyoming man, a state panel is seeking a bill to protect the killing of predators with vehicles, but Federal lawmakers are pushing back.

After Cody Roberts in February hit a gray wolf with his snowmobile, taped its mouth shut and brought the injured animal to a bar, he was fined just $250 and an international outcry followed.

The gray wolf was removed from the federal endangered species list in 2021. In Wyoming, it is considered a "predator" and is legal to kill. The state's newly formed Treatment of Predators Working Group approved a bill, which clarified using vehicles to run over "predators," a practice called "whacking," is legal, as long as all "reasonable efforts to kill" the injured animal are then taken.

Elaine Leslie, retired agency chief of biological resources for the National Park Service, said Wyoming "sanctions this kind of behavior."

"The dialogue during that meeting was focused on, 'Oh, we can't identify or articulate the exact meaning of the word humane or ethical. So let's take that out of the bill,'" Leslie recounted.

In an opposing move, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., last week introduced a bill to prohibit the intentional use of motor vehicles to harm wildlife on federal lands, establish a protocol for enforcement and penalties and maintain exemptions for human safety.

The bill is co-sponsored by legislators in North Carolina, Florida and Louisiana but notably none in the Mountain West, where the practice of "whacking" coyotes and wolves is legal in several states, as a practice distinct from hunting.

Leslie pointed out the behavior is likely happening elsewhere, too.

"We have no idea what the extent of this behavior is nationally," Leslie acknowledged. "I think it does need to have national attention and be a national bill right now."

A Wyoming legislative committee will hear recommendations from the Treatment of Predators Working Group Sept. 30.


get more stories like this via email

Two conservation groups have filed suit in a federal court in Montana to stop a U.S. Forest Service logging project that would clear cut large stands of trees, and carve over 24 miles of new logging roads into the Bitterroot National Forest.

The Forest Service says this is the most efficient way to manage the old growth forest.

But Alliance for the Wild Rockies Executive Director Mike Garrity said the Forest Service's plan for logging on the Gold Butterfly project threatens critical habitat for a host of species, because it leaves only eight trees standing on each acre of old growth forest in the project area in the Bitterroot.

"Eight trees on an area a little bigger than a football field," said Garrity. "Nobody would call that an old-growth forest. Old-growth forests are very thick forests with big trees, younger trees, standing dead trees, and fallen over trees."

The Forest Service says based on an Environmental Impact Statement, the Gold Butterfly project is the best and most efficient way to manage old growth in the Bitterroot.

The suit awaits action in a U.S. District Court in Missoula.

Garrity said the Forest Service's logging plan to leave that part of the Bitterroot so barren threatens habitats of the pileated woodpecker, pine martin and goshawk, among others.

"There are also grizzly bears in the area," said Garrity. "There was a successful wolverine den there recently, where the wolverine produced kits. Both are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act."

The groups that filed the suit are asking the federal court to rule the project illegal.

They offer the opinions of over 3,000 people who weighed in against the project as evidence that the public doesn't want any more logging roads in old-growth forests.

Groups in Oregon are warning wolf poaching poses a threat, not just to the creatures targeted but to people who enjoy the outdoors.

Poaching was a big issue in 2023 and again this year, especially through poisoning.

Bethany Cotton, conservation director for nonprofit conservation organization Cascadia Wildlands, said the wolf population did not grow in 2023 for the first time since the species returned to the state and a high rate of deaths has continued in 2024, largely caused by humans.

In May, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife started warning recreationists to keep their dogs on leashes because of potential exposure to poisoning meant to illegally kill wolves.

Cotton noted she decided against visiting eastern Oregon because of it.

"I have two rescue dogs, and I was invited to some friends' property out there and to spend some time out there this summer and I chose not to go," Cotton recounted. "Because it's too high a risk to go camp or hike in that part of the state right now knowing that this is happening."

Cotton acknowledged the investigation into a wolf's death takes time but poisonings are indiscriminate. In February, a poisoned cow carcass in Hells Canyon National Recreation Area killed three wolves, two golden eagles, a mountain lion and a coyote. The poaching led to the Department of Fish and Wildlife's May warning. The wolf count was 178 at the end of 2023.

Groups have banded together to take on poachers with the Turn-In-Poachers program. The collaboration is between O-D-F-W, the Oregon State Police, the Oregon Hunters Association, the Oregon Wildlife Coalition, the Oregon Outfitter and Guides Association and the Oregon State Marine Board. Rewards have been offered for tips on poachers but have not led to any arrests or convictions.

Cotton wants to see the silence around poaching events broken.

"We really do hope that those with knowledge about this poisoning incidents or future poisonings will come forward because of the possibility and the reality that it impacts far more than wolves," Cotton emphasized. "It impacts lots of other species and has impacted dogs and very likely will again in the future."

Cotton added healthy wolf populations are good for humans, including controlling diseases like chronic wasting disease in deer and elk and reducing vehicular accidents with deer.

"They bring a lot of benefits to the landscape," Cotton stressed. "It's been a huge success story that wolves naturally recolonized Oregon after having been absent for so many decades, and we just need to really learn to coexist with them like humans and wolves did for millennia."