Why I’m a fan of the Oxford comma.

New paper out of our team at Defenders of Wildlife today in Oryx on the implications of nonhuman animal culture on conservation: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... 🌎

Axolotl puppets by my daughter

New proposed shark listing under the Endangered Species Act just dropped. www.federalregister.gov/public-inspe...

Public Inspection: Endangered and Threatened Species: 12-Month Findings on a Petition to List the Tope Shark and Proposed Listing of Two Distinct Population Segments of Tope Shark

Endangered and Threatened Species: 12-Month Findings on a Petition to List the Tope Shark and Proposed Listing of Two Distinct Population Segments of Tope Shark

federalregister.gov

I remain an AI skeptic but Claude really is scarily good.

I wrote a paper with @ecoandrew.bsky.social that included some of the policy changes around this and we ended up developing a grad student drinking game around assertions that shark feeding and freedom were synonyms.

Blood in the Water: Shark Feeding, Tourism, and the Law | Center for Conservation Innovation

Shark tourism has become a significant driver of tourist dollars both in the United States and abroad over the past few decades, with shark provisioning (feeding), often used by shark tour companies t...

defenders-cci.org

David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈@whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 6mo ago

In fall 2001, the state of Florida banned using chum to attract sharks to SCUBA divers. One prominent Florida dive shop owner remarked "Americans' freedom was attacked twice this fall." (Yikes). A new proposed law would extend this ban into federal waters. ICYMI, here's my article about it. 🦑🧪🌍

A very good idea; even better would be for NOAA Fisheries to actually put in protections under the Endangered Species Act. It's already listed as threatened under the Act so it would not be a big lift.

Craig Pittman @craigtimes.bsky.social · 7mo ago

#Florida bill would ban the capture of endangered marine wildlife such as manta rays for aquariums www.tampabay.com/news/environ... via @maxchesnes.bsky.social

My new blog post on some Endangered Species Act success stories! 🦤 defenders.org/blog/2026/01...

Recovery Spotlight: Channel Island Foxes

Rising like a miniature mountain range out of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California is an eight-island archipelago called the Cha

defenders.org

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

Tip for iNaturalist users in the United States: If a species is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, you probably should not take a picture of you holding it for iNaturalist.

After a few days of travel, i walked into my office and something looked a bit off.

Published today by our team at Defenders of Wildlife's Center for Conservation Innovation on the Endangered Species Act's HCP program: conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... 🦤 Lead author is CCI's Heather Harl!

Unfortunately the administration is setting it up to deny migratory birds protection under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Good article (and not just because they quote me!) on this: www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Trump just weakened one of the nation’s oldest environmental laws

The Interior Department suspended a legal opinion holding companies liable for accidentally killing ducks, cranes, pelicans, owls and other bird species.

washingtonpost.com

90% of Americans accept the science on vaccines. Because they save millions of lives. Because they are safe and effective. Because it's the least we can do for each other. 🧪

New York Times Opinion@nytopinion.nytimes.com · last yr.

Americans don’t agree on much, but nine in 10 endorse childhood vaccines, Caitlin Rivers writes. Emphasizing the popularity of the shots is not just about correcting the record — it’s key to protecting them.

Score!

It is beyond annoying to get locked into an argument with a 4 year old then realize at the end that they are actually right about something.

So, yeah, shameless plug: Back my Patreon. Patreon contributions absolutely made the OpenCTD possible. Patreon contributions keep Southern Fried Science running. Patreon contributions let me take time to work on our town's Smart Buoy for sea level rise monitoring. www.patreon.com/Andrew_Thaler

Get more from Andrew Thaler on Patreon

creating tools for ocean science, education, and conservation.

patreon.com

This is so cool - this study used Chinese poetry to reconstruct 1400 years of range change for the Yangtze finless porpoise, and showed that most of the range loss happened in the last century papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

every truly quality poster i know treats this website like a dumping ground for the evil thoughts infesting their brain and posts like they're trying to get rid of their followers as quickly as possible

My 4-year old referred to my job as "writing animals" and I guess that's kind of a good, punchy description.

defenders.org/newsroom/def...

Found on my office desk this morning…

Do you know a government website with data that might be at risk in the new administration? Nominate sites for inclusion in the EOT Web Archive!

EOT End Of Term Web Archive@eotarchive.org · 2y ago

Every US presidential election period we do a wide crawl of all federal websites. YOU can contribute to the 2024 End of Term Web Archive eotarchive.org/contribute/ - Nominate Gov URLs - Upload bulk seed lists - Help surface database deep links - Spread the word #EOT2024 #EOTArchive

darmok and jalad at lunch

You can literally have a bath in real crude oil, just near #cop29 www.nytimes.com/2024/11/21/w...

National Parks Traveler@parkstraveler.bsky.social · 2y ago

Defenders of Wildlife disagrees with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to downlist red-cockaded woodpeckers from an endangered species to threatened. National Parks Traveler’s podcast explores Defenders’ position. www.nationalparkstraveler.org/podcast/2024...

❗ Big enviro law breaking news: DC Circuit holds that Council on Enviro Quality (CEQ) doesn't have lawful authority to issue binding regs interpreting NEPA (a position no party in the case advanced.) Still digesting what this could mean. CEQ had an Exec Order from Nixon to promulgate regs.

"The most common ranking across all five countries is ‘Grossly Unaligned’, with Norway coming out worst with seven ‘Grossly Unaligned’ ratings out of 11" Huge new OCI report out today on us North Sea fossil fuel suppliers - and our desires to supply even more priceofoil.org/2024/03/12/n...