A vibrant installation at today's SHINE St. Petersburg Mural Festival is designed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act while spreading awareness about the listed smalltooth sawfish.
Imagine a fish with the back end of a shark, the midsection flattened and broad like a stingray, and the front looking like a gnarly hedge trimmer in your garage; that's what a smalltooth sawfish looks like.
Kelly Quinn, artist and art director with Canvas of the Wild, illustrated the little-known species found in Florida's coastal waters on a mural in a scene underneath mangroves, surrounded by other wildlife.
"Bringing this realistic aspect, something really colorful, really fun, into the environment and then also having that touch point of education so people can take the next step to learn more and feel empowered to do something with that knowledge," she explained.
Quinn's mural will be featured during the SHINE festival, which runs all this week in St. Pete. She added the piece will be interactive; visitors can put their phones up to the eye of a particular species, and it will ping asking if they'd like to learn more - her way of driving education through art.
Congress passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973 to protect wildlife from extinction.
Adam Brame, recovery coordinator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said they have yet to be able to de-list many species, but he sees success in the protections given to the species still thriving today.
"I think it's important to buoy the act up and show the successes that we've been able to achieve over the last 50 years," he explained. "In the case of smalltooth sawfish, this species is celebrating its 20th anniversary on the endangered species list."
According to the Interior Department, the Endangered Species Act has helped save 99% of listed species.
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A small fox that lives on the Channel Islands off the coast of southern California is thriving after near extinction. The island fox - found nowhere else on Earth - was listed as endangered in 2004 when only about 30 remained.
A multi-agency recovery effort that started in 1999 resulted in the fastest comeback of any terrestrial mammal under the Endangered Species Act.
Chuck Graham, a photographer, traveled to the islands to chronicle their recovery and share the story.
"It wouldn't have happened without all the work of the biologists and everything," said Graham. "I mean otherwise, if it wasn't successful, it would have been a really big disappointment - but everything worked out."
Revered by the islands early Indigenous people, the fox weighs just four pounds, smaller than the average house cat. A photo exhibit by Graham is currently on display at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum.
The population began plummeting in the 1960s after predatory golden eagles replaced bald eagles who could no longer breed on the islands due the effects of runoff from the pesticide DDT. Before the island fox could recover, golden eagles were relocated to the mainland and 61 bald eagles were reintroduced starting in 2002.
With the predators gone, the fox survival rate increased to 90% and the population rebounded to more than 2,000 in 2015. Graham said he wanted to document not just the Island Fox, but its environment and the urgency of preserving it.
"I knew the foxes were an item and I knew the bald eagles were, but it was one of those things that you just have to go to know," he explained. "I definitely broadened awareness."
Scientists still debate how the foxes got to the islands some 10,000 years ago. Some speculate they rafted there on storm debris when ocean levels were lower, or were more likely introduced by the Native American Chumash Tribe who considered them a sacred animal.
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June is National Pollinator Month and a local agricultural group which aims to empower women in conservation is bringing awareness to how prairie restoration can aid the declining population of bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Through its Wisconsin Women in Conservation program, the Michael Fields Agriculture Institute is showing how reintroducing native plant species, among other practices, can reestablish endangered habitats supporting an entire ecosystem.
Christine Johnson, farmer education coordinator at the institute, said the current focus of pollinating lands and communities is intentional for many reasons.
"Besides being a place of empowerment for women in this space, which has traditionally been male-led and focused, we are also reminding folks that conservation is a practice that should persist even as our resources are depleted," Johnson explained.
Johnson pointed out many people in their network want to do the work but lack resources. She added despite DEI and conservation guts to their programming, the institute will continue to host events throughout the year. One on Thursday for women in Wisconsin will focus on prairie restoration.
Wisconsin Women in Conservation connects women landowners and stewards to conservation initiatives through networking and education.
Sally Farrar, conservation coach for the program, often shares her experience of restoring 13 acres of prairie land using grant funds from the National Resource Conservation Service. She said the first couple of years were not successful but vividly remembers when things started to click for her.
"One summer, there were hundreds of monarchs, flocks of dragonflies, and the most rare and interesting insects I had ever imagined in my life, just such a variety of bees," Farrar recounted. "That is the sacred bond with the land."
Farrar stressed conservation is a land-management practice which takes time and may not always initially work. She acknowledged the process can feel unattainable but emphasized how everyone can play a role in nurturing community lands and addressing the declining wildlife populations, even if they do not own that land.
"I think it's an overwhelming thing to witness the collapse of some of the bird, insect and plant populations, but I think that we can all do something," Farrar added. "If you cannot steward land, please consider donating and volunteering."
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Most gray wolves in the U.S. are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, but not those in the Northern Rockies. A federal judge in Missoula will hear arguments Wednesday over the validity of the exception.
In the Northern Rockies, state wildlife agencies are in charge of managing wolf populations, even though the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last year determined some state regulations are "at odds with modern professional wildlife management."
Erik Molvar, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project, one of 10 plaintiffs in the case, said gray wolves have not received a "fair shake" under either the Biden or Trump administrations.
"We're hoping that having the court step in and really dive into the best available science and the facts of the matter will help get the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service past its political impasse in blocking wolf protections," Molvar explained.
According to its 2024 analysis, the federal agency said gray wolves are "not at risk of extinction in the Western United States, now or in the foreseeable future." But Molvar countered wolf populations there are struggling and genetic diversity is taking a hit.
The plaintiffs argued human-caused wolf mortalities through legal practices, including hunting, trapping, baiting and even hitting wolves with vehicles, were not adequately reviewed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in last year's decision. Molvar added the agency failed to use the best available science in population estimate methodologies.
"We are hoping the judge will highlight the fact that the aggressive wolf-killing policies are so extreme that they cannot be relied upon as a conservation framework for rare species, like wolves," Molvar emphasized.
He added the presiding judge has decided wolf cases before and acknowledged deliberations may take months.
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