Conservationists Call Trump’s Latest Endangered Species Policy ‘All-Out War on America’s Wildlife’

The new interpretation of the 1973 law “is not conservation,” warned one critic. “It is a license to destroy habitat, disrupt migration, pollute ecosystems, and drive endangered species toward extinction.”

Two American bald eagles are perched on a nesting stand at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge  in Cambridge, Maryland.
(Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Sep 17, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Wildlife defenders continued to call out President Donald Trump on Thursday after The New York Times exposed his administration’s latest attack on endangered species and the landmark law intended to protect them.

The Times reported late Wednesday that as the administration’s rule rescinding the regulatory definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act took effect earlier this week, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) internally circulated a memo interpreting the ESA to mean that only the intentional killing or wounding of a protected species is illegal.

“This memorandum—and other recent Endangered Species Act regulatory rollbacks such as the rescission of the long-standing interpretation of ‘harm’—make clear that the Trump administration has declared an all-out war on America’s wildlife,” said Andrew Bowman, president and CEO at Defenders of Wildlife.

“The administration’s absurdly narrow statutory reinterpretation hamstrings the ESA’s effectiveness and makes a mockery of our nation’s half-century commitment to saving and recovering America’s imperiled wildlife,” Bowman charged. “This reinterpretation flies in the face of the ESA’s plain language and common sense, as well as Congress’ intent more than 50 years ago in enacting the ESA to achieve the goal of protecting and fully recovering listed species.”

Oceana vice president Beth Lowell highlighted that “the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act will remove the core safeguards that have prevented the extinction of 99% of species protected under the act.”

“Federally permitted activities that incidentally injure and kill endangered species currently need to take into account their unintended impacts on wildlife, including nesting beaches for sea turtles or North Atlantic mother and calf pairs as they swim to their feeding grounds,” Lowell noted. “These changes upend the Endangered Species Act’s balance of economic activity and needed protections, pushing species to the brink of extinction.”



The US Department of the Interior, which oversees FWS, told The Hill that the memo “accurately reflects the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s guidance for implementing the Endangered Species Act following the final rule rescinding the regulatory definition of ‘harm.’”

“Under the guidance, the ESA’s prohibition on ‘take’ continues to prohibit conduct including harassing, pursuing, hunting, shooting, wounding, killing, trapping, capturing or collecting protected wildlife,” the department said.

Susan Holmes, executive director of the Endangered Species Coalition—which includes 475 member organizations and over half a million activists—argued that the new interpretation of the law “is not conservation. It is a license to destroy habitat, disrupt migration, pollute ecosystems, and drive endangered species toward extinction.”

“The administration has already eliminated habitat protection for endangered species with its extreme ESA ‘harm’ rule. It is using the so-called ‘God Squad’ to exempt oil and gas drilling in the Gulf from the ESA, and is threatening to eliminate protections for wolves,” she pointed out. “This coordinated effort aims to strip the ESA of its power.”

“If the Trump administration has its way, piping plovers will lose the beaches where they nest,” Holmes warned. “Salmon will be pushed closer to extinction by dams, pollution, water diversions, and destroyed habitat. Grizzly bears will lose the connected landscapes they need to survive as roads, energy development, logging, and other activities fragment their habitat. Rice’s whale—the only whale to live only in American waters—will be lost forever.”

The coalition leader added that “the Endangered Species Act is our most popular and effective wildlife law, with support from 84% of Americans. We must not accept the destruction of a law that has protected our natural heritage for generations. The ESA must be defended, strengthened, and fully enforced—not gutted by political appointees acting on behalf of powerful industries.”



Humane World for Animals president and CEO Kitty Block and Sara Amundson, head of Humane World Action Fund, also cataloged the administration’s various attacks on protected species—and drew attention to a clear pattern regarding “who stands to benefit from these continued assaults on one of America’s most popular laws for animals.”

“It’s certainly not the average American,” they wrote in a Thursday blog post. “Instead, the beneficiaries are the massive industries that profit from destroying vital habitat and the animals who depend on it for survival. Oil and gas companies and other developers that have to (horror of horrors!) apply for a permit when their activities [pose] a risk of killing animals with federal endangered species protections—such as North Atlantic right whales, gray wolves, and black-footed ferrets, to name just a few—could be handed a pass.”

“If this reinterpretation takes effect, more endangered animals will surely die,” the pair declared. “And we will all be worse off for it.”

 

Italy and wolves: living with a growing population amid myths and alarmism

By Euronews Roma

Published on 14/09/2026 - 

The latest data put Italy's wolf population at around 3,500 animals spread nationwide, and experts say it has since grown. Amid sightings and scares, what is being done and what must be known so farmers, residents and wolves can live side by side?

From the attacks in Puglia to sightings in Emilia-Romagna, Umbria and Lazio, the summer of 2026 was dominated by alarmism about wolves.

The wolves currently present in Italy are around 3,500 according to the data from the latest national monitoring exercise carried out by Ispra (source in Italian), the Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, which dates back to 2022. Since then the population has increased by around 150 animals, mainly in the Alpine area.

However, it is not only the growing number of wolves or the sightings near built-up areas that have reopened the debate about the species.

In March 2026 Italy transposed the 2025 EU directive on the wolf's protection status, which amends the previous 1992 rules. The animal has thus gone from "highly protected species" to "protected species", raising questions among experts about how useful this downgrading really is.

Are there too many wolves in Italy? How real is the risk for people living in towns and cities and how should they behave? Euronews asked experts in the field to respond, debunking myths and scaremongering.

Should we be afraid of wolves?

"Wolf attacks remain an extremely rare phenomenon, so there is no real risk to people, but in recent years we have seen an increase in these cases, which we monitor very closely," says Piero Genovesi, head of the wildlife coordination service at Ispra, speaking to Euronews.

The institute was the first to carry out nationwide monitoring of the number and distribution of wolves in Italy using rigorous scientific methods. In the past, animals were counted at local and regional level on the basis of sightings and estimates, but the methods were not standardised.

Ispra's study was conducted between 2018 and 2022 and used a single protocol for sampling and data analysis across the country, as well as the most sophisticated statistical methods currently available. The figure of 3,500 animals is therefore an accurate estimate of the number of wolves actually present in the country; it is not a minimum figure, the experts stress.

"Numbers tell only part of the story: wolves are territorial animals that live in packs and they do not accept other animals in their territory. This means that numerical increases are not explosive, but that the species tends to colonise any area left free," explains Genovesi, noting that the wolf has gone from being a species almost extinct 50 years ago to one that is now found virtually everywhere, from the beaches of Rome and Puglia to the Po Valley.

The species' remarkable adaptability is the reason why sightings near cities are no longer so rare.

There were 19 incidents of wolves attacking humans between 2017 and 2024, according to Ispra data gathered thanks to cooperation with Life Wild Wolf, (source in Italian) an EU co-financed project that supports the authorities in preventing and managing interactions between humans and wolves.

The most significant figure, however, concerns the number of wolves involved in these attacks: only seven animals were responsible for all the cases, and a single female wolf committed 11 of them. Looking at the numbers, it is clear that these episodes are exceptional and that these particular wolves have developed abnormal behaviour, as confirmed by experts and by studies that have been focusing on this species for decades.

What is "confident behaviour"?

"In reality there is no need to be afraid of wolves: it is a species that keeps its distance; it is a shy, nocturnal animal that tends to avoid coming into contact with humans," says Marco Antonelli, zoologist and large carnivore specialist for WWF Italy.

Ispra has drawn up a specific protocol for the management of urban and 'confident' wolves, classifying wolf behaviour according to the level of risk it poses. While sightings near homes have always occurred and pose no risk, permanent settlements close to people carry a higher level of risk, up to increasingly worrying behaviour such as the predation of domestic animals and, ultimately, aggressive reactions towards humans.

"There may be different reasons why this kind of behaviour develops: certain human actions lead wolves to become used to and comfortable around people," explains Antonelli, adding that in some cases these are individual traits of specific animals that develop behaviour that departs from the norm.

Image of a wolf captured by a camera trap Foto concesse dall'Istituto di Ecologia applicata, in collaborazione con il progetto Life Wild Wolf

Downlisting and legislation in other European countries

The major novelty in 2026 is the so-called "downlisting", the move from the category of "highly protected" species to "protected" species. The difference is just a single word, but we will have to wait and see what changes in practice.

In March Italy approved the transposition of the 2025 EU directive and will have to bring previous rules into line with it by January 2027. The decision is triggering a wave of changes at national level: Germany, for example, has already transposed the new directive and is preparing to amend its national hunting law.

Related

• EU DECODED: How and why is EU downgrading protection status of wolves?

"It was a political choice, pushed by President von der Leyen. It was not necessary; wolves could already be culled under derogation, as provided for in the legislation," says Luigi Boitani, emeritus professor at La Sapienza University in Rome and one of the world's leading wolf experts.

His view is backed up by some figures: in Italy there have been cases of culls authorised as derogations from the rules, and there are countries where they took place regularly, such as France, which culled 250 wolves every year.

According to Piero Genovesi, by contrast, in the Italian system the downgrading brings technical changes, as it simplifies the bureaucratic procedure.

"Whereas previously authorisation from the Environment Ministry was required, based on a technical opinion from Ispra, now the regions can decide autonomously, still on the basis of a technical opinion," says Genovesi.

The current system should therefore be much more flexible, but it does not solve the real problem created by the growing number of wolves in Europe.

"The downgrading was essentially a political decision driven by very powerful farming lobbies at European level, in an attempt to solve the age-old issue of conflict between wolves and livestock farming," says Marco Antonelli, speaking to Euronews.

The difficult coexistence between wolves and farmers

Zootechnics is the science that deals with livestock breeding. And it is livestock farmers who have always been on the front line in denouncing the damage caused by wolves to their sector and the dangers faced by farm animals.

"Over the past 10 years, wolves are thought to have been responsible for preying on 0.6% of the livestock present in Europe, and the figures for Italy are very similar," says Antonelli, adding that the phenomenon should not be underestimated and should in fact be tackled with appropriate prevention strategies.

One of the most effective strategies is the use of so-called livestock guardian dogs, specially selected breeds of sheepdogs that look after and guard flocks. One of the best breeds for this job is found in Italy: the Maremma-Abruzzese sheepdog.

Other, more modern strategies include electrified and buried fences or raised night shelters, which provide effective protection for animals. Culls can be a solution to deal with animals that develop abnormal behaviour, but taken together these protective measures can ensure everyday coexistence between wolves and farmers.

"The data show that prevention strategies are much more effective than any culling strategy. A solution does exist, but it is not as simple as many make out, which is why the commitment of the authorities is also needed," Antonelli concludes.

Pack of wolves monitored by camera traps for the Life Wild Wolf project Foto concesse dall'Istituto di Ecologia applicata, in collaborazione con il progetto Life Wild Wolf

Beyond polarisation: "coexistence means compromise"

City dwellers can also play a part and need to know the right preventive behaviour to adopt. Above all, it is essential to ensure proper waste disposal, as rubbish is highly attractive to all kinds of wildlife.

Another important factor is the management of pets: in areas where sightings are frequent, experts advise against leaving pets unattended and, above all, against leaving pet food on the street, as it could attract wolves.

"The most dramatic change we are seeing today is the polarisation of opinion about wolves: the number of people wanting to defend them has grown a lot, and so has the number of people wanting to see them culled," says Luigi Boitani.

"The middle ground is still very small, yet that is what we should be aiming for: coexistence means compromise," the professor concludes. Knowledge of the species beyond opinions and myths is still limited, but pursuing it is the only long-term solution.

Don Jr’s lavish Bahamas wedding secretly bankrolled by oligarch linked to Putin

Justin Elliott, 

Brett Murphy, 

Joshua Kaplan,

Alex Mierjeski, 

ProPublica

September 14, 2026


Donald Trump Jr. and his partner Bettina Anderson sit on the day U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks to U.S. embassy personnel and business leaders at Deerfield Residence, the residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, in Dublin, Ireland, September 12, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper

On May 24, Donald Trump Jr. was celebrating in the Bahamas, as scantily clad dancers in stilettos and sailor caps performed for him and his guests. It was the last night of his wedding, a lavish, three-day party held across a pair of ultra-exclusive private islands. A five-tier funfetti cake had been airlifted in from Florida, and helicopters and seaplanes descended on the islands before guests settled into their oceanfront villas. That night on the beach, Trump Jr. lifted his bride into the air while fireworks launched from a barge over the sea.

“It was everything we dreamed of and more,” his wife later wrote on Instagram.

That dream was heavily funded by a secret benefactor: Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin.

Kremlev footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses, according to records reviewed by ProPublica and interviews with three people familiar with the event. The oligarch paid to rent out one of the private islands, where a reception was held and where guests slept. He also covered other big-ticket items, like the fireworks show, and his team helped plan the event. Kremlev is the head of the International Boxing Association, a scandal-plagued sports group that has been financed by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. The wedding payments came from an IBA-affiliated entity in Dubai that the boxing association uses for financial transactions.

The guest list numbered around 50. It included Trump Jr.’s brother-in-law Jared Kushner, Eric Trump — and Kremlev, an imposing man with a shaved head who speaks limited English. The oligarch was part of a large group whose presence puzzled other attendees. They sometimes stood off by themselves, speaking Russian.

“It was really small, like, just really close friends,” Trump Jr. later said on his podcast. “Tried to keep it really tight. And it was just awesome.”

Kremlev’s previously unreported relationship with Trump Jr. represents an extraordinary development: a member of Putin’s circle financially supporting the president’s son and gaining intimate access to the Trump family. For a decade, Putin’s government, regarded as a chief adversary of the U.S., has been accused of efforts to influence American elections. Attempts by Russia to make inroads with the Trumps before the 2016 election exploded into controversy that dogged much of the president’s first term.

National security experts expressed alarm at Trump Jr. accepting the oligarch’s largesse, saying it raised an urgent question: What motivated Kremlev to spend a fortune cultivating the connection?

“If I’m paying for your wedding, at some point, you’re going to owe me something,” said Frank Montoya Jr., a retired career FBI official who held senior counterintelligence roles. Oligarchs like Kremlev often act in coordination with the Russian government. While it’s unclear if that happened here, Trump Jr. put himself in a precarious position, Montoya said. “This should be unthinkable for the son of the president. End of story.”

Holden Triplett, who served as Trump’s counterintelligence director on the National Security Council during his first term, said Russian intelligence frequently seeks to build ties with U.S. government officials and their family members. “Money is a tried-and-true method to gain access,” said Triplett, who also worked for the FBI in Moscow.

In the days leading up to Trump Jr.’s wedding, Kremlev was in China as part of the delegation accompanying Putin, according to Chinese state media. The month before, Putin had bestowed him with a state honor, the Order of Friendship. The Ukrainian government has imposed sanctions on Kremlev personally, citing his closeness to Putin and Russian security services.
It’s not

clear why Kremlev helped pay for Trump Jr.’s wedding. The men appear to have met only recently. Public reporting suggests Trump Jr. could have afforded it himself, with Forbes recently estimating his net worth at roughly $300 million.

In response to detailed questions, a spokesperson for Trump Jr. did not dispute the wedding payments from Kremlev. “Umar is a personal friend of Don,” he said. The spokesman said that Kremlev is “not someone he has a business relationship with” and that the men met through a mutual friend in the hunting world and bonded over their love of boxing and the outdoors.

A spokesperson for Trump Jr.’s brother Eric said of Kremlev: “Eric has absolutely no clue who this person is, nor has never heard his name.”

In a statement, Kremlev’s press office said, “Mr. Kremlev and Mr. Trump Jr have a friendly relationship” and they first met “a couple of years ago.”

The press office described Kremlev as a businessman and philanthropist, adding, “Mr. Kremlev has never discussed political matters with any of his American friends and acquaintances,” including Trump Jr. They said the boxing organization itself did not incur expenses for the wedding but did not comment on the payments from the Dubai entity. The press office also said that when Putin and Kremlev were in China recently, Kremlev was not part of Putin’s “official delegation.”

Kushner, who has been helping lead the U.S. government’s negotiations with Russia over Ukraine, did not respond to requests for comment. The White House and the Russian government did not respond either.

The revelations come as Trump Jr. has emerged as a political power center in his own right. Beloved by the MAGA base, he reportedly played an active role in vetting White House cabinet picks for Trump’s second term and was dubbed his father’s “most essential political adviser” by The Wall Street Journal. “I certainly don’t think I’d be sitting here as the VP nominee without Don’s help,” Vice President JD Vance told the outlet in late 2024.

This account is based on records and interviews with dozens of current and former IBA officials and contractors, wedding attendees and other people in Trump Jr.’s and Kremlev’s circles.

Trump Jr. exchanged vows with socialite Bettina Anderson on a private island that was featured in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and the 2006 James Bond movie “Casino Royale.” They had their first dance on a second private island nearby that can rent for around $100,000 a night, paid for by Kremlev. The company that put on the fireworks display charges around $70,000 for such shows. (Kremlev did not attend the ceremony itself, which was held on the first day and had just 18 guests, Trump Jr.’s spokesperson said.)

The atmosphere was Monte Carlo meets frat party — helicopters in and out, a beachside DJ set, beer pong tournaments. One day, the men went spearfishing. Artisans at the London fashion house Safiyaa spent 150 hours embroidering Anderson’s bespoke silk reception outfit. The president’s son had undergone treatment to better define his jawline for the occasion.


Some longtime friends of Trump Jr. told associates they were disappointed not to be invited, though a few of his closest business partners — executives at the Trump family crypto company, World Liberty Financial, and the venture capital firm 1789 Capital — did make the cut. President Trump himself skipped it. (“He’d like me to go, but it’s going to be just a small, little private affair,” the president told reporters beforehand. “I said, you know, this is not good timing for me.”) But many of the guests were immediate family of the bride and groom.

That made the large contingent of Russians all the more conspicuous. “What are they doing here?” one person recalled thinking. At least one of the Russian guests had been with Kremlev on his China trip: Alexander Lagutin, a businessperson who has served in senior roles at a Russian defense contractor and a state-backed energy company. Kremlev’s right hand at the IBA, Elena Sobol, attended the wedding too.

Since the wedding, the Trumps have released scores of photos and videos of the festivities. While they show many of the guests, the Russians have been absent from all of them. (The top of Kremlev’s head is visible in the back of one group photo posted on Instagram by a friend of the bride.) After the party was over, on his “Triggered” podcast, Trump Jr. emphasized the event’s privacy: “The people that were there — if you’re on that list, you weren’t talking.”

In 2009, Umar Kremlev did not yet exist.


He was in his late 20s, with a criminal record for extortion and battery, still going by his birth name, Umar Lutfulloyev, according to the Russian independent news outlet Proekt. But he was about to rapidly ascend in Russia to a position of wealth and influence, with the help of a powerful friend. (“Mr. Kremlev has a completely clean legal record,” his press office said.)

In 2010, he changed his name to Kremlev. He soon joined a Russian government-backed biker gang called the Night Wolves, eventually taking a leadership role, according to news reports. That is what first brought him close to Alexei Rubezhnoi, who now leads Putin’s presidential security service, Proekt reported. In 2017, Kremlev took over the Russian Boxing Federation, after Rubezhnoi personally intervened to put him at the helm.

In 2020, Kremlev became president of the IBA. The association was something akin to FIFA but for boxing and had long overseen the sport in the Olympics. But it had been beset by corruption allegations and was on the brink of insolvency. Kremlev brought money to the table from Gazprom, the state-owned company that operates as an arm of Putin’s government. Gazprom publicly became the IBA’s financial backer, filling its coffers with tens of millions of dollars.


Former high-level IBA officials said that Kremlev had a clear political agenda. “Umar is guided by Putin. It was using the sport for soft political power,” a former IBA board member told ProPublica. “It’s geopolitics. That it’s boxing is just happenstance.” Kremlev, 43, is also heavily involved in an organization called Healthy Fatherland, run by his 23-year-old wife’s twin sister. The group — which promotes healthy eating and youth sports — is under Ukrainian sanctions for its alleged role in a program of abducting Ukrainian children from occupied territories and relocating them under the guise of “rehabilitation.” (Healthy Fatherland did not respond to a request for comment.)

Kremlev’s cozy relationship with the government has made him rich. Putin used the levers of the state to make Kremlev a dominant player in the Russian sports betting industry, according to Proekt, and one of his companies was chosen to operate the national lottery. After Putin nationalized Russia’s largest car dealership company in 2023, Kremlev became the owner of that too.

He now flaunts that wealth through his boisterous public persona. In one video Kremlev posted on social media, he surprises a young mother by giving her a free car. In another, he criticizes his young female aide’s outfit as not feminine enough and makes her change. He shadowboxes with ostriches and brings in celebrities like Rick Ross and Naomi Campbell for IBA events; he praises Stalin and rides private jets.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the U.S. began to indict Russian oligarchs and seize yachts and other assets. Kremlev repeatedly told associates he was worried about being targeted by a U.S. government probe, according to a person close to IBA leadership. “He was very afraid of American sanctions,” the person added. (Kremlev does not appear on public U.S. sanction lists.)

With the business environment in Europe growing more hostile to Russia, Kremlev moved much of the IBA’s operations from Switzerland to the United Arab Emirates. A new Dubai entity, IB Challenger, would later pay wedding expenses for Trump Jr. The current sources of the IBA’s funds are murky, and, in recent years, top executives have given conflicting accounts of the status of its relationship with Gazprom. (Kremlev’s press office told ProPublica the IBA’s sponsorship contract with Gazprom “expired long ago.”) People close to the organization said they understood that its money still comes from Russia.

In 2023, the International Olympic Committee stripped Kremlev’s IBA of its role organizing Olympic boxing. It has cited a host of governance issues and the group’s refusal to “transparently explain the sources of its financing or to explain its full financial dependency, at the time, on a single state-owned company.”

It was a major setback that deprived the IBA of a key source of its international influence. Kremlev has raged against the Olympic committee ever since and has said that his IBA predecessor, who he blames for the problems, “must be shot.”

Kremlev saw a potential ally in President Trump. After Trump’s second inauguration, in January 2025, Kremlev sent an open letter to the president asking him to look into the Olympic committee’s actions in advance of the 2028 Los Angeles Games. “We look forward with great optimism to the possibility of working together to make the Olympic movement great again,” he wrote.

In September 2025, the IBA brought in Trump Jr. for a panel discussion in Istanbul about boxing. With his then-girlfriend, Anderson, sitting offstage, he criticized transgender women competing in women’s sports and reminisced about watching Saturday night fights as a child. Trump Jr. shared the stage with Kremlev, the boxer Manny Pacquiao and Muhammad Ali’s daughter Rasheda. (Trump Jr.’s spokesperson said he was not paid for the appearance and was already in Turkey for an unrelated event.)

The president’s son had reason to be attuned to the sensitivity of cozying up with a Putin associate, especially while his father navigates the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with a Russian attorney in Trump Tower became a major focus of the Robert Mueller investigation.

The Trump Tower meeting was arranged after an email offering Trump Jr. damaging information about Hillary Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Trump Jr. famously responded, “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.” Trump Jr. later dismissed the matter as a “witch hunt,” and the Mueller report concluded that there was not enough evidence to convict him of a crime.

Recently, Kremlev has been working to expand into the U.S. market. In July, his group hosted a bare-knuckle boxing event in Miami, a chance to showcase a particularly bloody form of the sport in which contenders fight without gloves. But the debut was overshadowed when manosphere influencer Andrew Tate, who the IBA had brought in to host, was arrested by U.S. Marshals outside the arena. (Tate is facing rape and sex trafficking charges in the United Kingdom, which he has denied.)

Much about Kremlev’s relationship with Trump Jr., and where it is headed, remains unknown. In a press release after the Istanbul panel, the IBA hinted there was more to come.

“President Kremlev and Donald Trump Jr made it clear – this alliance will not remain symbolic,” the press release read. “More joint initiatives will follow.”

 9/11 changed the world forever. This is the story of the brutality that followed

It’s been 25 years since 9/11. What lasting imprint did the attacks leave on the global political order? Season of Wolves argues that the post-9/11 era has been overwhelmingly understood through the language of terrorism and security. Against these state-spoken and media-echoed narratives, Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou reconstructs a deeper history of the last 25 years. Through a comprehensive recasting of the events of September 11th to the mid-2020s he traces the emergence of a new political order marked by war, racism, propaganda, authoritarianism and technological oppression. Season of Wolves lays bare the structures and forces that continue to define our times.   Find out more... Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou (1968 – 2024) was a political historian, diplomat and acclaimed public intellectual. His books include a trilogy of the post-9/11 era: Contre-Croisade – Le 11 Septembre et le Retournement du monde, Understanding Al Qaeda and A Theory of ISIS. His writing brought a fresh approach to the studies of extremism, conflict, political violence and peace-building. He was a committed pan-Africanist and pan-Arabist. He worked as Professor of International History at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, and served as Mauritania’s youngest foreign minister in 2008.

 

Not a cheetah: Ancient DNA reveals the surprising Arctic life of extinct North American cat

New paleogenomics research by UC Santa Cruz reveals how the so-called American 'cheetah’ adapted to harsh Arctic conditions by preying on fish

University of California - Santa Cruz

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Illustration of a Miracinonyx trumani chasing after a Saiga antelope

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Credit: By Velizar Simeonovski

 

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. – A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has overturned decades of assumptions about Miracinonyx trumani, the extinct predator popularly known as the American cheetah.” By analyzing nuclear paleogenomes and stable isotopes from fossils found as far north as the Yukon, scientists have discovered that this iconic cat was not a true cheetah, but a highly adaptable relative of the puma that specialized in eating fish to survive the Arctic.

The findings, published on September 4 in Current Biology, reveal that the species’ range extended 20 degrees of latitude further north than previously recognized. While southern populations in regions like Wyoming and Florida lived as generalist predators in temperate grasslands, their northern counterparts in the Arctic Yukon carved out a unique niche as tertiary consumers, likely specializing in anadromous fish such as salmon.

With slender bodies and long front legs that may have helped them move efficiently across the open landscapes of Pleistocene North America, an adult Miracinonyx trumani was thought to weigh around 150 pounds on average and stand about 3 feet tall and measure about 8 feet long to the tip of its tail. Despite its cheetah-like appearance, this and other recent research suggest they were a versatile predator, capable of both terrestrial pursuit and grasping prey with powerful forelimbs. 

“These cats were remarkably flexible, much like pumas are across their range today,” said Molly Cassatt-Johnstone, a Ph.D. candidate in the Paleogenomics Lab at UC Santa Cruz and lead author of the study. “We found loss-of-function mutations in certain genes that regulate circadian rhythms, suggesting they may have adapted to the extreme light cycles of summers and winters in northern latitudes.”

The ghosts of predators past

For decades, M. trumani has been a staple of North American paleoecology, often cited as the evolutionary reason why the American pronghorn is so fast. This “ghosts of predators past” hypothesis suggested that the pronghorn’s extreme speed was a co-evolved defense against the high-speed pursuit of a cheetah-like hunter.

However, the new genomic data confirm that M. trumani was actually a sister species to the modern puma, having diverged from that lineage roughly 2.6 million years ago. Its slender, “cheetah-like” body is now understood as a striking example of evolutionary convergence, where two unrelated species evolve similar traits to survive in similar environments.

Arctic adaptations and a lost sense of taste

By sequencing high-coverage genomes from fossils dating back 23,000 to 31,000 years, the team identified specific genetic blueprints that allowed these cats to thrive in the extreme environments of the Late Pleistocene.

Fossil specimens analyzed in this study from Yukon Territory were recovered from the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and Vuntut Gwitchin Traditional Territories, with respect for their deep-rooted relationship to and stewardship of these lands.

The study also revealed a unique sensory loss: M. trumani and all lineages of felids sampled in this study lacked a functional gene that encodes a receptor for sour taste. While all cats are known to lack a “sweet tooth,” this is the first recorded instance in felids of inactivation of genes involved in perception of sour flavors, a trait sometimes associated with highly specialized diets.

“This species of carnivore has this massive range, all the way from the Arctic to the Lower 48,” said co-author Matthew Wooller, a professor in the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). “They’re demonstrating uber-specialization at two ends of their range, while also feeding on two completely different food sources.”

A legacy of low diversity

Beyond its diet and appearance, the study offers sobering insights into the species’ extinction at the end of the Pleistocene. The researchers found that M. trumani in Wyoming and the Yukon had low genetic diversity. But unlike pumas, their modern relatives, they didn’t show any signs of inbreeding or sharp bottlenecks—just a slow, long-term decline from the early to the late Pleistocene, which may explain their scarcity in the fossil record and ultimate extinction vulnerability.

Low genetic diversity didn’t doom this species by itself, said senior author Beth Shapiro, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz and co-director of the Paleogenomics Lab. “Miracinonyx persisted for a very long time without the signs of inbreeding we’d expect before a collapse,” she explained. “The decline was slow, not sudden, and that may be what left it unable to adapt when the climate shifted.”

The research highlights the danger of naming extinct species based solely on how they look. According to the authors, the name American "cheetah” is doubly misleading, as it implies a close relationship and a shared specialized hunting style that the data simply do not support.

This study was a collaborative effort involving researchers from UAF, the Yukon Palaeontology Program, and Des Moines University.

Miracinonyx radius recovered from Natural Trap Cave, Wyo.

Miracinonyx skull samples from Natural Trap Cave, Wyoming.

Credit

Julie Meachen

Usage Restric

Journal

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2026.07.072 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animal tissue samples

Article Title

Range and diet diversity in the Pleistocene American "cheetah," Miracinonyx trumani

Article Publication Date

4-Sep-2026

COI Statement

Beth Shapiro is employed by and holds stock options in Colossal Biosciences.

The extinct American ‘cheetah’ was not a cheetah after all

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An artistic rendering of two Miracinonyx, one in Beringia preying mainly on fish and one in the Lower 48 feeding on pronghorn antelope. 

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Credit: Julius Csotonyi

With their slender bodies and long front legs, Miracinonyx trumani—often nicknamed the “American cheetah”—was long thought to be a North American analog of the African big cat. But in a new study publishing September 4 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology, researchers reveal that the extinct cat was more closely related to pumas. Some populations living near the Arctic preyed almost exclusively on fish, challenging the long-held assumption that these “cheetahs” chased fast-running prey, such as pronghorns. 

“It’s very hard to imagine a prehistoric species we’ve never seen without comparing it to something we know,” says Molly Cassatt-Johnstone, the paper’s first author from the University of California, Santa Cruz. “But this approach can limit our understanding of ancient animals’ complexity, unique evolutionary histories, and behaviors.” 

The American cheetah roamed North America’s open grasslands during the Pleistocene epoch, about 2.5 million to 16,000 years ago. Based on fossils uncovered to date, M. trumani had a slender body shape, long forelimbs, and large nasal cavities—features that are characteristic of modern fast-running animals such as  cheetahs or horses. In addition, paleontologists have discovered some M. trumani remains alongside those of pronghorns, fast-running animals known colloquially as the “American antelope," leading researchers to assume that the extinct cat had a similar lifestyle to modern African cheetahs.  

However, in recent years, increasing evidence has suggested that M. trumani may not have been as cheetah-like as its appearance suggests. To delve deeper, Cassatt-Johnstone and her team sequenced the most complete M. trumani ancient DNA set to date from four specimens, one from Wyoming and three from Canada’s Yukon territory. The Yukon samples were previously thought to be a different species, but the team confirmed that they belong to M. trumani, extending the known range of M. trumani more than 20 degrees of latitude farther north than previously known.  

The researchers then compared M. trumani’s DNA with that of nine other cat species, ranging from lions to house cats. They found that M. trumani shared a common ancestor with modern cheetahs about 4.7 million years ago. The species was most closely related to modern pumas, having diverged from a common ancestor about 2.6 million years ago.  

Curious about what M. trumani ate in the absence of pronghorn, which aren’t found as far north as Canada’s Yukon territory, the team analyzed the nitrogen and carbon in the Yukon fossils to determine their diet and where they sat in the food chain.   

The team found that despite being discovered in different locations and having lived hundreds of years apart, the Yukon M. trumani individuals all showed signals indicating that they preyed almost exclusively on fish. The fossils’ nitrogen profiles were similar to those observed in fish-specialist orcas and sea wolves living along the coast of British Columbia, which eat mainly marine animals. In contrast, the M. trumani in Wyoming had the nitrogen markers of a terrestrial predator that mostly eats herbivores, similar to lions. 

The drastic range of M. trumani’s diet suggests that the animals were able to adapt to a variety of food sources. Such flexibility may have helped the species survive across diverse environments, from the subtropics to the Arctic, Cassatt-Johnstone says. 

The researchers also found that two of M. trumani’s genes involved in circadian rhythm regulation were nonfunctional. These genes help control animals’ internal clocks, which use cues like sunlight to determine when to sleep. In M. trumani, the loss of these functional genes may suggest that populations living at high latitudes adapted to extreme periods of daylight and darkness, or that the animals were nocturnal. 

“It’s really surprising and exciting to identify another predator present in Beringia,” Cassatt-Johnstone says, referring to the ancient land region connecting northeastern Asia and northwestern North America during the Pleistocene, where woolly mammoths and other large mammals roamed. 

Like the woolly mammoth, M. trumani likely went extinct as the last ice age transitioned to the warmer Holocene. 

“There are probably other extinct species that, unfortunately, have been reduced to fewer dimensions than they deserve,” Cassatt-Johnstone says. “The M. trumani fossils suggest that this ‘American cheetah’ was far more adaptable than its nickname implies.” 

### 

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. 

Current Biology, Cassatt-Johnstone et al., “Range and diet diversity in the Pleistocene American 'cheetah,' Miracinonyx trumani” https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(26)01003-1

Current Biology (@CurrentBiology), published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that features papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. Visit: http://www.cell.com/current-biology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.

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Journal

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2026.07.072 

Method of Research

Observational study

Article Title

Range and diet diversity in the Pleistocene American “cheetah”, Miracinonyx trumani

Article Publication Date

4-Sep-2026

An artistic rendering of Miracinonyx.

An artistic rending of Miracinonyx and the ecosystem they lived in.

Credit

Julius Csotonyi