By Caleigh Wells for KCRW.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the KCRW-Public News Service Collaboration

The California Fish and Game Commission delayed the decision again today over whether to grant state protection to the western Joshua tree.

The petition to protect the plant under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA) was submitted in 2019. If it is listed, it would be the first species to earn protection in the state because of climate change.

But the process has been contentious. And even when the decision is made, the fate of the plant is far from sealed.

How to save a tree

A member of the public must make a case to the California Fish and Game Commission that a species needs protection. In this case, the case is over the western Joshua tree, which primarily grows in California.

Their champion is Brendan Cummings. As conservation director for the Center for Biological DiversityCenter for Biological Diversity, he's litigated plenty of endangered species cases. "Fifteen or so years ago, I did the ... litigation that forced the Bush administration to protect the polar bear under the Federal Endangered Species Act."

But this species is personal. He's got dozens of them in his backyard in the town of Joshua Tree. "If you look around us here, the adult Joshua trees we're seeing were recruited into the population under a climate that no longer exists," he says.

But the case he's making isn't easy. Millions of these trees are still spanning thousands of square miles. Listing a species means businesses and residents must either avoid killing it if possible, or move it, or pay a fee if it must be killed. With so many trees left, that could be burdensome.

Kelly Herbinson says it's worth the trouble. She's the co-executive director of the Mojave Desert Land Trust, whose whole mission is to set aside acres of desert habitat for preservation.

"What we're seeing right now is unprecedented. This is serious. And I don't know that that's always obvious if you're not doing this every day and working on the land every day," she says.

At lower elevations, the western Joshua tree is facing the effects of the worst drought in more than a thousand years. "If you were to go to, say, the West Mojave, or even areas nearby where the drought has been really bad, I mean, they're mostly brown," she says.

In its middle elevations, the Joshua tree has been separated into small island habitats by decades of development as the human population in the desert continues to grow. That cuts off genetic flow between populations and creates problems like what LA's mountain lions are facing.

And then of course, at its middle and higher elevations, the Joshua tree is facing a threat it rarely encountered before: increased wildfire.

On a protected parcel of land across the street from where Herbinson works, a stray cigarette in 2020 burned most of the Joshua trees on a quarter of the 600 acres that the Mojave Desert Land Trust saved from becoming a housing development.

"That is not something that happened historically," she says. "There's this massive overgrowth of invasive plant species that are blanketing the desert and creating this massive fuel load. And then it dries out because we're in a drought. And then you just have this carpet of dried up plants that are ripe to burn."

There's also the problem of the tree's lifelong partner: the yucca moth. They're completely reliant on each other to survive.

The moth lives underground at the base of its tree for years, waiting for it to flower, and in the spring when it finally does, it emerges and pollinates the tree in exchange for food and a safe place to produce larvae.

But as the climate changes, scientists have found that the moths aren't reproducing like they used to.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife spent months studying the trees. Their job is to provide all the data and expertise that the commission needs to make a decision. In June, the department determined that there isn't compelling evidence that the western Joshua tree is in danger of going extinct in the foreseeable future. It said the plant has time to adapt to climate change.

Almost all of the peer-reviewed scientists disagreed. At the meeting in June, hundreds of members of the public showed up to throw in their opinion too.

Local politicians, the local water board, building developers, and labor unions all argued that listing an abundant plant in the desert as endangered would hurt development and jobs.

National politicians, conservationists, scientists, local residents, and tribal groups all made the case that the western Joshua tree is disappearing, and needs to be protected.

The commission reached a stalemate in June, and then on Wednesday they decided unanimously to delay the decision again, to leave room for more tribal consultation.

Cummings says he is not surprised by the delay. But even if the commission lists the western Joshua tree next year, he doubts the fight will end there either.

"If they vote to protect Joshua trees, various business interests will undoubtedly sue, trying to overturn that protection. And conversely, if the commission votes against protecting Joshua trees, I will sue, attempting to overturn that unlawful, unscientific decision. So the future of the species is likely to be contested for the next few years," he says.

For now, the Joshua tree has temporary protection, since it is a candidate species for CESA. The commission will revisit the decision in February 2023.

Caleigh Wells wrote this article for KCRW.


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The United States has a national mammal, tree and flower but the status of America's most treasured bird was not always so clear officially or ecologically until now.

Last week, the bald eagle officially became the national bird of the U.S. More than 50 years ago, pesticide use had decimated bald eagle populations. Researchers recorded the lowest number of nesting pairs in 1963, at just 417.

Aimee Delach, senior policy analyst at Defenders of Wildlife, said pesticides like DDT worked their way up the food chain in a process known as biomagnification.

"A species like a bald eagle, which eats a lot of fish, they're essentially getting a dose from everything that those fish have eaten in their lifetimes," Delach pointed out. "Biomagnification is why these pesticide issues show up worst in some of the 'top of the food chain' animals, like bald eagles."

Delach noted pesticides interfered with the bald eagle's calcium levels, which caused eggshells to be weak and less likely to hatch. The federal government banned the use of DDTin 1972 and a conservation law brought the bald eagle back from the brink. In 1973, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act and ever since, bald eagles have made major rebounds.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates the bald eagle population now stands at more than 300,000. Many people assume the bald eagle has always been our national bird but while it has been a symbol on our country's seal for centuries, it had never been officially designated.

Delach added the decision is long overdue.

"It's really fitting that the bald eagle be our national bird," Delach asserted. "There are almost 70 species of eagle across the world but the bald eagle is the only one that's found only in North America. So it really is our national bird, as far as its territory and range."

The Endangered Species Act will celebrate its 51st anniversary Saturday.

The federal Department of the Interior has awarded the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission more than $800,000 for recovery efforts for American martens, Wisconsin's only state endangered mammal - that many people have never heard of.

Martens have been trapped for their fur for various purposes. Jonathan Pauli is a professor of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He said silvicultural practices and logging within local national forests altered martens' preferred habitats.

"This work is really trying to understand how do we manage habitat in a meaningful way," said Pauli, "on these working landscapes, to increase marten habitat, and connectivity of these different subpopulations, to ensure martens are here for the foreseeable future."

Pauli said the grant money - from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's America The Beautiful Challenge - will bring together a diverse group of folks from the federal, state, tribal, and academic levels over four years. They'll create a forest management proposal - with recommended habitat improvements for marten recovery in Wisconsin.

The project will also include training for future biologists and ecologists.

In the 1930s, martens were considered regionally extinct. A series of regional reintroduction efforts has spanned nearly 60 years.

Pauli said martens play important cultural, economic, and ecological roles - including the ability, as predators, to keep rodent populations at bay that are important carriers of diseases such as Lyme's Disease.

Martens are also good dispersers of seeds for foods such as blueberries, and are culturally significant to the Ojibwe or Chippewa people.

With varying degrees of chestnut brown furs, they have distinct golden throats and are the size of a cat, with semi-retractable claws that help them navigate through forests and snow.

"They actually live and hunt underneath that snowpack," said Pauli, "that they can slink in and out from underneath the snow where they can hunt all the mice that are living underneath the snow - and then pop up out of the snow bank. And they have big feet like snowshoe hares, almost, where they can surf on top of the snow."

Pauli said it's a real treat when you actually get to see one because they are so rare and cryptic.

For the first time in a century, martens were spotted this year on Lake Superior's Madeline Island in northern Wisconsin.

Ecology experts say this gives them hope for a positive recovery trend for the rare mammal.




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The southern Appalachian Mountains, known as the salamander capital of the world, are home to some of the most distinct wildlife in the country but Hurricane Helene's strong winds and flooding have left a trail of destruction across Western North Carolina.

Communities and businesses are working to recover and conservationists are raising concerns about how the storm has affected endangered species.

JJ Apodaca, executive director of the Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy, said one species in particular, the hellbender salamander, has suffered greatly.

"Hellbenders are a large aquatic salamander and several of those have been found dead across the region," Apodaca reported. "You can just imagine that something that's two feet long and doesn't really swim that well can't really escape the devastation."

Apodaca described the damage to habitats such as the Hickory Nut Gorge as catastrophic. He noted entire slopes and hillsides of trees have been wiped out, resulting in a complete loss of habitat for many species. While conservationists are still assessing the long-term effects, he stressed the outlook raises serious concerns for the future of the ecosystems.

Dalton George, national grassroots organizer for the Endangered Species Coalition and mayor pro tem of Boone, emphasized the importance of prioritizing wildlife and environmental health during recovery efforts. He pointed to greener infrastructure as a solution, prioritizing designs allowing wildlife to move freely, protecting clean water and managing stormwater effectively. He said the steps are essential to balancing recovery with long-term sustainability.

"With salamanders, with wildlife, here in the Appalachian Mountains, they need those protections now more than ever as we see the impacts of climate change and the extinction crisis happening globally," George asserted.

George highlighted the importance of the Endangered Species Act as a critical tool for preserving wildlife and their habitats. However, the act has faced repeated attacks in Congress. Conservationists say continued public support and advocacy are key to ensuring it remains a strong safeguard for the region's wildlife and ecosystems.


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