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. 

The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration for recent television advertisements that promoted his political message while costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them.

Trump has faced bipartisan backlash for the ads, which glorify him and echo his campaign pitch as voters cast early ballots with the midterm elections less than a month away.

The spots, which began airing in September, already have cost more than $12 million to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, and a total of $20 million in Homeland Security Department funding has been tapped to pay for them.

Responding Monday to the criticism, Trump defended the ads as “positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.” but said he’d pay for them using his MAGA Inc. super PAC going forward.

But on Tuesday, the fifth ad in the campaign began airing with the notice “paid for by the U.S. Government,” promoting Trump’s military actions in Venezuela earlier this year. The same day, Trump made it clear he hasn’t committed to reimbursing any money that has already been spent, telling reporters “we’ll decide.”

DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement that Trump is misusing taxpayer dollars in “a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November.”

“Americans deserve better than to have their hard-earned tax dollars used for Trump’s illegal schemes,” he added.

Legal experts have suggested the ads run afoul of a federal statute against congressionally appropriated money being used for “publicity or propaganda,” and potentially other federal laws. The Homeland Security money tapped for the ads comes from a $175 million package Congress gave to the department as part of Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.

The White House has defended the ads as public service announcements akin to what past administrations have done to promote various policies. Legal experts have said the recent ads differ from many past public service announcements because they aren’t aimed at helping members of the public benefit from specific government programs.

The defendants in the lawsuit — Trump, the White House, DHS and the Office of Management and Budget — didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Fall has only just begun, but it's already time to start thinking about the quintessential winter bug: the flu.

The annual flu season usually starts in October or November. But this year, it looks like the flu started to pick up in early September.

"There are enough signs pointing in the same direction to make me think, 'OK, yes. This is the start of flu season,'" says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The percentage of people testing positive for the flu in the West has been rising steadily since around the beginning of September, she says. And the number of people showing up in emergency departments because of the flu has also been rising for weeks, she adds.

"It's very uncommon to see flu activity rising this early. It's activity that we might normally see more like November or December," she says.

The timing of the flu season isn't the only thing that's odd. It's also unusual that flu activity seems to have started in Western states, such as California, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska.

"It typically starts in the South and then expands from there," Rivers says. "So two uncommon developments there."

Rivers stresses that the amount of flu activity is still very low in most parts of the country. But that's starting to change as the flu picks up nationwide.

It's unclear why flu activity would have started so early, and in such an unusual part of the country. But one clue might be a new variant that evolved a mutation, which appears to make it better at evading existing immunity, especially among teenagers.

"That's our best argument for what's going on right now in terms of this early flu season," says Dr. Alex Greninger, a virologist who heads infectious disease diagnostics at the University of Washington. Doctors there are seeing as much flu right now as they usually would around Christmas, and the mutated variant appears to be common, he says.

So Greninger, Rivers and others are urging people to think about getting their flu shot earlier than usual.

"It's crucial that people get an influenza vaccine," says Scott Hensley, a virologist at the University of Pennsylvania. "And this might be a year that people might want to get a vaccine early."

But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn't been promoting flu shots as it usually does. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the CDC, is a long-time vaccine skeptic.

"It is disappointing that CDC is quiet given that flu kills of hundreds of kids a year and can result in tens of thousands of hospitalizations and tens of thousands of deaths," says Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned last year as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to protest what he called political interference at the agency.

The CDC declined to make an official available to NPR for this story. In a statement, a CDC spokesperson said, "CDC is developing a communications strategy to provide clear, accessible information about influenza vaccination and other critical steps people can take to protect themselves during respiratory virus season. This includes information about the benefits and risks of vaccination to support informed decision-making."
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