Progress! The highly endangered North Atlantic right whale is one step closer to safer waters, thanks to the settlement agreement we reached just before Thanksgiving with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), which the courts made official this week.

The U.S. Forest Service recently gave the green light to the “Sunnyside ”mineral exploratory drilling project — a plan to drill 18 bore holes at six sites in the Patagonia Mountains in hopes of finding silver ore and creating larger mines.

Cactus ferruginous pygmy owls could fit in the palm of your hand. These tiny birds are diurnal (that is, not nocturnal), feed on all manner of birds, lizards, insects, small mammals, and frogs, and nest in large cacti in southern Arizona, Texas, and throughout Mexico.

Last week, Defenders and our allies chalked up another courtroom victory – this time, to protect endangered salmon and steelhead from five deadly pesticides in the Pacific Northwest.