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Millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) roost on the Chincua Mountain near Angangueo, Mexico. This is one of five wintering roosts for monarchs, where the cool mountain climate slows their metabolism enough for them to overwinter before migrating back northward in the spring. Logging threatens this spectacle–Already one of the five sites is no longer used by the butterflies due to the forest being cleared.

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Millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) roost on the Chincua Mountain near Angangueo, Mexico. This is one of five wintering roosts for monarchs, where the cool mountain climate slows their metabolism enough for them to overwinter before migrating back northward in the spring. Logging threatens this spectacle–Already one of the five sites is no longer used by the butterflies due to the forest being cleared.

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A clear-cut in Salmon National Forest, Idaho. The reserve covers a 1.8- million -acre tract.

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A mountain biker and tire tracks that threaten to destroy living desert crust near Arches National Park, Utah.

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South of Los Angeles the implacable sprawl of single-family homes like these has reached critical mass. Or so think local environmentalists, who are challenging new developments to safeguard dwindling parcels of coastal sage scrub, habitat of the California gnatcatcher. Increasingly, developers compromise by setting aside land for imperiled species.

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Aerials of the Jonah Field in the Green River Basin, Wyoming. A once-wild area that’s now an industrial zone due to natural gas drilling. Sage grouse, mule deer and pronghorn antelope habitat has mostly been ruined here, with no end in sight as the drilling increases across the Pinedale Anticline, the large mesa that caps the gas deposits.

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Aerials of the Jonah Field in the Green River Basin, Wyoming. A once-wild area that’s now an industrial zone due to natural gas drilling. Sage grouse, mule deer and pronghorn antelope habitat has mostly been ruined here, with no end in sight as the drilling increases across the Pinedale Anticline, the large mesa that caps the gas deposits.

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Millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) roost on the Sierra Chincua (Chincua mountain) near Angangueo, Mexico. This is one of five wintering roosts for monarchs, where the cool mountain climate slows their metabolism enough for them to overwinter before migrating back northward in the spring. Logging threatens this spectacle: already one of the five sites is no longer used by the butterflies due to the forest being cleared.

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Millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) roost on the Sierra Chincua (Chincua mountain) near Angangueo, Mexico. This is one of five wintering roosts for monarchs, where the cool mountain climate slows their metabolism enough for them to overwinter before migrating back northward in the spring. Logging threatens this spectacle: already one of the five sites is no longer used by the butterflies due to the forest being cleared.

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Millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) roost on the Sierra Chincua (Chincua mountain) near Angangueo, Mexico. This is one of five wintering roosts for monarchs, where the cool mountain climate slows their metabolism enough for them to overwinter before migrating back northward in the spring. Logging threatens this spectacle: already one of the five sites is no longer used by the butterflies due to the forest being cleared.

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Millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) roost on the Sierra Chincua (Chincua mountain) near Angangueo, Mexico. This is one of five wintering roosts for monarchs, where the cool mountain climate slows their metabolism enough for them to overwinter before migrating back northward in the spring. Logging threatens this spectacle: already one of the five sites is no longer used by the butterflies due to the forest being cleared.

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Millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) roost on the Sierra Chincua (Chincua mountain) near Angangueo, Mexico. This is one of five wintering roosts for monarchs, where the cool mountain climate slows their metabolism enough for them to overwinter before migrating back northward in the spring. Logging threatens this spectacle: already one of the five sites is no longer used by the butterflies due to the forest being cleared.

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Millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) roost on the Sierra Chincua (Chincua mountain) near Angangueo, Mexico. This is one of five wintering roosts for monarchs, where the cool mountain climate slows their metabolism enough for them to overwinter before migrating back northward in the spring. Logging threatens this spectacle: already one of the five sites is no longer used by the butterflies due to the forest being cleared.

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Joel Sartore on assignment at Sierra Chincua in Mexico, home to the world’s largest gathering of monarch butterflies.

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Logging has taken its toll on a former wintering roost for monarch butterflies near Angangueo, Mexico.

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Logging has taken its toll on a former wintering roost for monarch butterflies near Angangueo, Mexico.

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Logging has taken its toll on a former wintering roost for monarch butterflies near Angangueo, Mexico.

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Millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) roost on the Sierra Chincua (Chincua mountain) near Angangueo, Mexico. This is one of five wintering roosts for monarchs, where the cool mountain climate slows their metabolism enough for them to overwinter before migrating back northward in the spring. Logging threatens this spectacle: already one of the five sites is no longer used by the butterflies due to the forest being cleared.

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Millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) roost on the Sierra Chincua (Chincua mountain) near Angangueo, Mexico. This is one of five wintering roosts for monarchs, where the cool mountain climate slows their metabolism enough for them to overwinter before migrating back northward in the spring. Logging threatens this spectacle: already one of the five sites is no longer used by the butterflies due to the forest being cleared.

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Millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) roost on the Sierra Chincua (Chincua mountain) near Angangueo, Mexico. This is one of five wintering roosts for monarchs, where the cool mountain climate slows their metabolism enough for them to overwinter before migrating back northward in the spring. Logging threatens this spectacle: already one of the five sites is no longer used by the butterflies due to the forest being cleared.

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Monarchs (Danaus plexippus) in the Sierra Chincua sanctuary, Mexico.

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Millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) roost on the Sierra Chincua (Chincua mountain) near Angangueo, Mexico. This is one of five wintering roosts for monarchs, where the cool mountain climate slows their metabolism enough for them to overwinter before migrating back northward in the spring. Logging threatens this spectacle: already one of the five sites is no longer used by the butterflies due to the forest being cleared.

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A bobcat (Lynx rufus) photographed by a camera trap along the Tex-Mex border wall. The border wall cuts through many places of the last habitat left along the lower Rio Grande river, the wall is a huge impediment to the movement of wildlife species that can’t fly over it.

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A bobcat (Lynx rufus) photographed by a camera trap along the Texas-Mexico border in Texas. Cutting in many places through the last of the habitat left along the lower Rio Grande river, the wall is a huge impediment to the movement of wildlife species that can’t fly over it. Photograph by Joel Sartore with Mitch Sternberg, Jennifer Lowry, and Naghma Malik, all U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

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Hundreds of pipeline canals and shipping lanes have been cut into the coastal marshes of Louisiana. Each one allows more saltwater to intrude from the Gulf, killing the marsh and allowing more oil to penetrate from the Deepwater Horizon spill.

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Aerial of the marshlands that have literally been cut to pieces by pipeline canals and shipping channels that have been put in by the oil industry over the years. Such huge canals have allowed saltwater to intrude, killing off the marsh and eliminating its resistance to catastrophic events in the Gulf such as storms, and now, oil spills like the Deepwater Horizon.

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A failed boom lies washed up in a marsh, showing the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

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A dead sea turtle floating in an oil slick from the Deepwater Horizon spill, in Barataria Bay, Louisiana.

Photo: Julie Jensen Director of Marketing | WVC O: 866.800.7326 | D: 702.443.9249 | E: j.jensen@wvc.org

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