The Brief

One in five species of migratory birds, fish, reptiles, mammals, and insects tracked by the United Nations is threatened with extinction due to escalating environmental pressures and overexploitation by humans, according to a recent landmark report.

The U.N. report, “State of the World’s Migratory Species,” represents the first-ever comprehensive assessment of the conservation status and population trends of species whose members “cyclically and predictably cross one or more national jurisdictional boundaries.” Some familiar examples include green turtles, snowy owls, and Monarch butterflies.

The U.N. Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, or CMS, tracks more than 1,180 species that are already endangered or that would “significantly benefit” from being protected under an international agreement. The report finds that 44 percent of these species are experiencing population declines and 22 percent are threatened with extinction. Its release coincides with the beginning of a high-profile U.N. wildlife conservation conference in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where experts are calling for greater international collaboration to combat climate change, habitat loss, pollution, and excessive animal exploitation, such as hunting and fishing.

“Conservation of migratory species is extremely difficult because they cross nations, continents, even hemispheres,” Amanda Rodwald, director of the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, told Grist. “That requires a lot of coordination among different countries … and thinking across geopolitical boundaries.”

The report reinforces previous research on the deteriorating health of wild animal species worldwide, almost entirely due to human activities like agriculture, hunting, and fishing, as well as the pressures of climate change. In 2019, a separate U.N. panel reported that an “unprecedented” 1 million species globally were threatened with extinction. A subsequent study from late last year doubled that number to 2 million by taking into account a greater number of insects, which make up the majority of species worldwide.

Migratory species are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic pressures. Their migratory journeys require large, intact tracts of land, water, or airspace — and these tracts are getting harder to come by, whether because of dams, boat traffic, roads, skyscrapers, or other development. According to the CMS report, 75 percent of listed migratory species are affected by lost, degraded, or fragmented habitats, which can prevent them from finding mating partners or food.

A previous report of the CMS, published during the U.N.’s annual climate conference in Dubai last December, highlighted how climate change is affecting the timing of some species’ migrations and making it harder for them to reproduce and survive. As climate change progresses, other studies suggest that fragmented landscapes will preclude species from moving to cooler areas where they are more likely to survive.

The most pervasive threat to migratory species, however, is overexploitation, which the new report says is affecting three-quarters of the species it tracks. It says humans are intentionally — and often illegally — hunting too many wild birds and terrestrial mammals for their populations to be able to recover. They’re also unintentionally killing too many marine species as bycatch — fish, dolphins, and other non-targeted animals that get caught in the industrial fishing process. Since the 1970s, populations of migratory fish species have declined by 90 percent, and nearly every fish species the CMS tracks now faces a “high risk of extinction.”

A green sea turtle rests on the bottom of the Arashi reef off the coast of Noord in Aruba

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The decline of migratory species also has severe implications for humans. As noted in the new report, migratory species provide critical “ecosystem services” that benefit humans by dispersing seeds and pollinating food crops that people eat, as well as supporting livelihoods for fishers and farmers and maintaining healthy ecosystems. “If environments aren’t healthy for other species, then they’re unlikely to be healthy for people,” Rodewald said. 

Migratory species can also directly mitigate climate change. Large migratory animals — like humpback whales, for example — sequester carbon in their bodies and then transfer it into long-term storage in the soil or seabed after they die. Other migratory animals preserve carbon storage in grasslands by walking on and compacting the snow or soil, or producing nutrient-rich feces that keep plants healthy and prevent erosion.

To reverse migratory species’ decline, the CMS lists more than two dozen priority actions for policymakers. These include cracking down on illegal and unsustainable hunting, fishing, and bycatch; creating and protecting more natural habitats; and phasing out toxic pollution from sources like plastics, pesticides, and lead weights used in fishing. The report also recommends global coordination to limit light and noise pollution, which kill millions of birds and marine animals every year.

Monarch butterflies gather in eucalyptus trees at Pismo State Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove in Pismo Beach, California.

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Crucially, many of the interventions recommended by the CMS would have co-benefits for the climate. Restoring mangrove ecosystems, for instance, could support migratory green turtles and dugongs while also pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it into biomass. And stopping destructive overfishing practices can protect fish while helping to preserve the ocean’s crucial role as a carbon sink.

The U.N.’s conservation conference in Uzbekistan began on Monday and is scheduled to end on Saturday. Delegates are expected to review more specific action plans for a number of particularly vulnerable migratory species, and to consider new species for inclusion under the CMS — the report says there are nearly 400 “threatened and near-threatened” species that could benefit from being listed. Nonbinding global guidelines for light pollution, under development since last year, are also expected to be presented for adoption. 

Longer wait times for graffiti removal and streetlight repair. Fewer police officers per shift. Completely eliminating school crossing guards.

Those are just some of the service cuts the city of South Gate made earlier this year as it stared down a $9.4 million annual budget deficit and a looming fiscal emergency.

But none of that was enough to convince South Gate voters to approve an 8% utility user tax that would have been tacked onto a wide range of utility bills, including electricity, water, cable and phone service. Now, the city is gearing up for more cuts, including closing sports fields and the city pool for the winter months.

South Gate’s utility tax was just one of the many ways Southern California cities asked their residents to give them more money via local tax initiatives this November, with proposed taxes on everything from hotel stays to cannabis businesses.

And those early results suggest South Gate is an outlier: Of the 32 total local tax measures on the ballot in Los Angeles and Orange counties, all but six appear poised to pass, according to early results. (There are still several more days of vote counting to come.)

Eleven transient occupancy tax measures, which tax overnight stays in hotels or short-term rentals, passed in cities from Burbank to Los Alamitos. Most cities sought to increase their existing hotel taxes by anywhere from 1 to 5 percentage points, while Lynwood residents voted to establish a hotel tax for the first time.

Business-related taxes, such as taxes on business licenses or on certain businesses, also mostly passed, as did most parcel taxes in cities including Pasadena and Culver City.

But sales taxes saw more mixed results. Cudahy, San Gabriel, Orange, Santa Ana and Los Angeles all approved sales tax measures, while voters in Diamond Bar, Hermosa Beach and San Clemente all voted down their local sales tax proposals.

Most of those sales taxes focused on maintaining basic city services in communities facing big budget deficits, driven by the rising costs of insurance, maintenance and infrastructure projects, and employee pensions, among other factors. But in San Clemente, the proposed 1% sales tax would have specifically funded sand replenishment and other beach projects, along with wildfire prevention work. That measure appeared to be headed for failure, with just 36% of voters in support as of Wednesday afternoon.

Voters in San Marino approved an extension of their utility tax, and increased it from 5% to 6%. Last year, the tax provided almost $2.2 million in revenue.

City officials in South Gate had hoped for a similar boon, and projected the utility tax would bring in an estimated $10.4 million per year in general fund revenue, while raising total utility costs by about $39 per month for a typical household.

Leading up to the election, the city of South Gate pointed to other neighboring cities that have their own utility taxes, including Downey, Lakewood and Norwalk, where the tax mostly hovers around 5%. “South Gate is the exception, not the rule,” noted one city presentation that pointed to these other taxes in a bid to coax voters to go along.

Voters weren’t convinced. “I’m extremely frustrated that you now want to do electricity, water, sewer, cable, cell phone, gas. ... That hurts us. You’re passing that on to us and that is absolutely not acceptable,” said one resident at a City Council meeting on the measure earlier this year.

LAist has reached out to the city of South Gate about what’s next for the city.

The city of West Hollywood has approved an ordinance to create a domestic partnership registry for people in polyamorous relationships.

The domestic partnership registry extends certain legal protections for people in the city, including visitation rights to hospitals and jails in West Hollywood and some tenant protections. The registry doesn’t replace the state’s marriage or the state’s domestic partnership laws.

“It's a landmark ordinance and really puts and continues to elevate West Hollywood as a city that is here to support queer people and queer families as they evolve in their needs,” said Chelsea Byers, a West Hollywood City Council member. “I think that's a real joy that we can bring to people — that they can live in a greater sense of being seen and understood.”

How it works

To file, people in a multi-partner relationship will submit a form in person that will be provided by the City Clerk’s office — all members of the relationship will have to provide identification to the clerk.

The ordinance also offers an option by mail, if the signatures are notarized.

The ordinance builds on historical precedent

In 1985, the city became the first city in the nation to create a similar domestic partnership registry for same-sex couples. Similar to that registry, people outside the city can also register.

“This new law not only gives polyamorous unions legal recognition, it also gives people permission to imagine a future together and to plan their lives openly,” said Christina Fialho, president and founder of Rewrite the BiLine, an advocacy group for bisexual people and nonnuclear families, who advocated for the ordinance.

Several cities in Massachusetts have also passed multipartner domestic partnership laws.

Among the sweeping victories by Democrats on Tuesday were wins in several congressional districts that Republicans had redrawn explicitly to boost their party ahead of the midterms.

Republicans were bracing for some losses this election cycle, so last year President Donald Trump urged his party to take the extraordinary step of engaging in mid-decade redistricting efforts.

As of Tuesday night, many of those efforts had failed.

That included in Florida, where multiple Democrats — Kathy Castor, Pia Dandiya and Jared Moskowitz — won in redrawn districts, according to race calls by the Associated Press.

In North Carolina, Democratic Rep. Don Davis held on to his 1st District seat, even though Republicans in the state redrew it to be more competitive for the GOP. Trump would have won the redrawn 1st by nearly 12 percentage points, according to the Downballot.

Trump would have won by even more in Alabama's redrawn 2nd Congressional District, which Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures held on to, according to the AP race call.

Republicans in Alabama redid the state's congressional map after the U.S. Supreme Court further weakened the Voting Rights Act earlier this year.

And in Texas, which was the first state to redistrict at Trump's urging, a few of the redrawn districts had gone to Democrats.

Republicans redrew their maps with the expectation that the coalition of voters Trump won over in 2024 would support them this cycle. In Texas, Republicans were banking on gains made with Latino voters in new maps.

But many of those voters shifted their support to Democrats this year.
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Nationwide election results came at a relentless pace Tuesday night, each more of a Democratic upset than the last. But you may not have known if you were attending the California Republican Party's election night event in Garden Grove.

In the dimly lit Hyatt ballroom where gubernatorial longshot Steve Hilton and his supporters gathered, the news channels were off, the music was turned up and “Don’t Stop Believin’” blasted throughout.

Minutes after the polls closed at 8 p.m., the Associated Press called the governor’s race for Democratic favorite Xavier Becerra.

Around the room, the occasional person glanced at their phone to sneak a peek at the growing GOP carnage. More of the crowd instead looked at each other or toward the empty stage, where a lectern stood in front of a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset.

Not long after, Hilton took the stage to concede the race — which had always been heavily favored against him in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1.

“Maybe this isn’t the best year to be running for office as a Republican,” Hilton told his supporters, alluding to the election results that would soon lead the Democratic Party to win so big in the House and the Senate that many dubbed it a blue tsunami. “We see what’s going on around the country.”

Hilton knew the odds were long. He’d tried a number of tactics to win over California, including a suggestive advertisement suggesting voters should “Just Try” voting for him. He’d done his best to separate himself from President Donald Trump, who backed his campaign. He also attacked Becerra for staying largely out of the limelight since making it out on top of a chaotic primary.

None of Hilton’s appeals made a significant mark on the result, which trailed at around 36% of the vote as of Wednesday afternoon.

Standing outside the ballroom, Matt Shupe, a spokesperson for the California GOP, conceded it was challenging terrain for Republicans this year across the country — and always in California.

“It’s pretty typical that the party that's not in power gains some seats, so I think that was pretty expected for the most part,” he said. “We'll plan on bringing the fight more intensely than ever in 2028.”

By 9:30 p.m., people were headed to their cars to go home.