Looks like it's time to win again

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening readers,

It is almost time for the Wild Green Tradition to end all traditions, the meme trend that never ends, the conservation competition extraordinaire. It’s the eighth-ever Wild Green Charity Battle!

For those of you new to Wild Green Memos, we typically pick some chaotic theme and use it to tell a silly, meme-and-nature-driven story. This issue, though, is a bit different.

For a few weeks each year, we switch Wild Green Modes and activate the Charity Battle, in which everyone divides into nature-themed “gangs” based on their favorite ecological interests and competes to see which gang can raise the most money for conservation through the official group nonprofit, Wild Green Future. The winning gang gets a spot in the Hall of Champions and bragging rights for a year, and everyone who donates $10 or more gets a sticker specific to their gang. No matter which gang wins, the money all goes to the same causes, and we all get to make the world just a little bit greener.

Here’s how that works as a newsletter:
In true nature-nerd fashion, we have written a dichotomous key to help you discover your gang! Each sticker design links to that gang’s donation portal, where you can go to donate (or just admire our beautiful photoshop skills).

The Charity Battle is underway now, and continues through Saturday, March 1st at 11:59 PM EST. We’ve also included information on each of the grants we are fundraising for this year. You can read all that below, and participate in the Wild Green Memes for Ecological Fiends Facebook group.

We’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming next month. Until then, enjoy!

Charismatic Megaflora are for those of us who just love a good tree. It also has the first gang sticker to ever feature an organism Wild Green Future is directly helping to conserve: All four of these pictures are of Brazil nut trees that live at or around the Finca las Piedras field station in Peru!

Hey✨besties ✨! Girlboss Raptor Chapter 🦖is here with a ✨Great✨ Opportunity✨ for you to gaslight gatekeep girlboss your way to the top of the

food chain 💸⬆️💸 ! It’s definitely not a pyramid scheme, why do you ask???

Winners of the first two, and seventh, Charity Battles, Herp Gang is for anyone interested in herpetology, the study of reptiles and amphibians. While these two animal groups are not closely related, it’s the humans who adore them that share so much in common. Signs of belonging to Herp Gang include, but are not limited to: trekking through the rainy woods at night during a salamander migration, getting stinky snake musk on your hands, failing to find that especially loud unseen calling frog, declaring “I like turtles!” on a regular basis, and involuntarily shouting “Crikey!” at the sight of a crocodilian.

Herp Gang is the ONLY gang to participate in every Charity Battle, and after years outside the champion’s box, they managed to pull off a surprise comeback victory in 2025! Like a hidden Budgett’s frog in murky water, Herp Gang patiently awaits an opportunity, ready to strike when the time is right with a victorious

“WAEAEAEAAAAWWEEEEEW!”

Goth Gang is for all those animals that know it’s not just a phase, it’s a way of life. Though they are new to the Charity Battle scene, they have had a solid lead for the entirety of the competition so far!

Special note: Due to a surprise switcheroo, anyone who donates to Goth Gang between now and March 5th at 8:00 PM EST will instead receive the MS Paint version of their sticker, pictured below. If you would like the photorealistic version, donated after that time!

Does anyone feel a chill?

Frosty Fiends is the gang for those of us with a penchant for the cold, for an adorable cast of polar characters, and for a certain actor who is in no way affiliated with Wild Green Future! The Frosty Fiends were nearly the champion of Charity Battle IV, but Corvid Council stole the shiny trinket of victory from them in literally the last minute of that year’s fund raiser.

Special note: Due to a surprise switcheroo, anyone who donates to Frosty Fiends between now and March 4th at 8:00 PM EST will instead receive the MS Paint version of their sticker, pictured below. If you would like the photorealistic version, donated after that time!

Cave Crew is for the bold of heart and weak of vision. Explore the Earth’s dark, damp depths, and become a pale creature of the tunnels!

A gang that last competed in Charity Battle III, Weird Nose Compose has come sneezing back into the race. Voted “Most Likely to be Carrying Tissues”, Weird Nose Compose never fails to sniff out the competition!

Winner of Charity Battle V, this gang is for all those with a passion for wildlife yet no super sciencey credentials. If you think sharkskin feels like olives, you qualify! If you think a mountain chicken is a featherless biped, you qualify! If you can’t remember the genus names for the common octopus, bison, gorilla, iguana, or sequoia, you qualify! If you think that shrimps is bugs, you qualify! If you think El Chupacabra is an especially friendly rodent of unusual size that looks like a giant guinea pig, you qualify! If you’re feeling unqualified in any way, then you immediately qualify (this phenomenon is known as the loco’s Unqualification Paradox)! If you have a PhD in botany but cannot ID a single mushroom species, you qualify! If you have a PhD in mycology but cannot ID a single plant species, you qualify! If you are extremely qualified, but still have imposter syndrome (don’t we all), you qualify! Members of Wild Green Unqualified team enjoy long walks on the beach, which are only long because they have to stop and ask a more qualified person the names of all the seashells and seaweed.

Special note: Due to a surprise switcheroo, anyone who donates to Wild Green Unqualified Team between now and March 4th at 8:00 PM EST will instead receive the photorealistic version of their sticker, pictured below. If you would like the MS Paint version, donated after that time!

sometimes u can be a great big handsome plant. n sometimes u r just a little ugly bug. but little ugly bugs deserve love too. that is why we are releasing the uncharismatic minifauna. pleas show the small uglies u love them too.

Everyone loves a capybara, and gosh darnit, they love everyone back!

A wise Muppet once said, “Oh, I love trash! “ The winner of Charity Battle Ill, Trash Mob is a truly cosmopolitan gang, whose dumpster-diving lifestyle has made its way across the globe. From the pizza-nabbing rats of the New York City subways to the bin chickens (aka Australian white ibis) of Sydney, from the gulls that prowl New England’s dumps to that one housefly that refuses to leave your kitchen (the door is wide open, buddy!) these creatures, great and small, are true opportunists.

Don’t let their team name fool you - this gang is just as committed to habitat conservation as the rest of them, even if its human members can’t help but find solace in the anxiety of a hissing opossum or hope in the perseverance of a seemingly indestructible cockroach.

So whether your life is feeling like a dumpster fire or you embrace your chaotic raccoon energy, there’s no shame in feeling a little trashy while also dreaming of a brighter, cleaner, wilder, greener future.

CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW

Translation: Charity Battle IV winners, Corvid Council is comprised of crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, treepies, choughs, nutcrackers, and (non-Australian) magpies. Members of Corvid Council enjoy shiny things, knick knacks, baubles, doodads, trinkets, curios, tchotchkes, and things that are shiny.

The Charity Battle has a tiered structure, with each tier going to a different purpose. Here are this year’s!

Pictured: A researcher working at ASA. 📷Gerry Carbonel

Alliance for a Sustainable Amazon (ASA) is working to ensure a secure future for the people and ecosystems of the Peruvian Amazon through collaboration with local communities and research into the ecology and wildlife of the region. They are a young but already accomplished organization, rapidly expanding in both size and impact.

To help sustain this growth, the last two years’ Charity Battles provided funding to contribute to ASA’s staff salaries for positions including a lead naturalist, lepidoptera project lead, and assistant researchers. ​

In Tier 1, we are continuing to support the work of these natural resource professionals. It takes people power to conserve nature, and these positions have had an exponential effect on ASA’s work, allowing them to bring even more capacity and expertise to their efforts.

Pictured: A frosted elfin on sundial lupine, one of its two host plants. 📷 Geena Hill

The frosted elfin is a small brown butterfly considered to be rare and declining throughout its geographic range, which extends from New Hampshire and Wisconsin south to Florida and west to Texas. It is likely extirpated in several states and provinces of its former range, and is listed as a species of special concern, threatened, or endangered in 11 states. It occurs in small, localized populations, and its caterpillars specialize on sundial lupine and wild indigo. Extremely vulnerable to habitat destruction and fragmentation, frosted elfin populations have been lost from 7 of the 10 locations in Florida where they were present as recently as 2017.

The Daniels Lab at the Florida Museum of Natural History’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity has over 30 years’ experience in captive breeding of at-risk taxa, including the federally endangered Miami Blue Butterfly and Schaus’ Swallowtail.

Two years ago, Wild Green Future supported the augmentation of the Daniels Lab’s frosted elfin captive breeding program with new individuals and diverse DNA from remaining wild Florida populations. Funds from Charity Battle VI also enabled the creation of a manual containing the comprehensive set of husbandry and breeding best practices for conservationists across the butterfly’s range.

Last year’s grant supported the creation of a separate captive population with genetics from frosted elfins in Virginia to ensure the survival of that region’s genetic variation. It also allowed for the collection of nondestructive tissue samples to enable further genetic analysis of the Virginian populations.

Additionally, funding from last year’s Charity Battle allowed the Daniels Lab to train natural resource professionals in Louisiana and Virginia on frosted elfin detection and population survey methods. This helped these state agencies to better monitor their local populations!

Every stage of this project has progressed successfully, and now we are reaching the most exciting step: reintroduction. Last year, the Daniels Lab began reintroducing the butterfly on protected lands it once occupied, starting with Ichetucknee Springs State Park in north central Florida.

In Tier 2, we are seeking funds to support the Daniels Lab’s continued reintroduction efforts at Ichetucknee Springs State Park and the expansion to an additional site in the region!

Funding from Tier 2 will also help support post-release monitoring at the reintroduction sites, a vital step in ensuring the project’s success.

Pictured: A road near Finca las Piedras. 📷Alex Tran

Alliance for a Sustainable Amazon (ASA) conducts most of its activities from its field station in the Peruvian Amazon, Finca las Piedras.

Their location allows them to conduct research in the forest and to interface directly and organically with local communities, but the field station’s capacity to support staff and visiting researchers was limited by the lack of facilities in the region. To help remedy this limitation, Wild Green Future has worked with ASA over the past five years to support the construction of resilient infrastructure, including solar panels, bathroom and shower facilities, a biodigester for waste treatment, new staff housing, expanded storage facilities, and necessary building maintenance and repairs at Finca las Piedras. We have also supported the construction of a new work and collections space in Puerto Maldonado, the nearest major city to the field station.

This year, Tier 3’s infrastructure fundraising goals will support necessary work to improve the access road leading to Finca las Piedras. It will also support the further development of the work and collections space in Puerto Maldonado.

Pictured: Brazil nut seedlings in a vivero paid for by donors to previous Charity Battles!

📷 Alex Tran

Most of the world’s supply of Brazil nuts comes from the Madre de Dios department of Peru. Because Brazil nut trees are dependent on intact rainforest to complete their life cycle, the Peruvian government has designated family-owned concessions where most extractive activities are limited and the sustainable harvest of Brazil nuts can be maintained. As long as the Brazil nut harvest continues to support the concessionaires who live there, this globally-significant region of the Peruvian Amazon will remain intact.

At the request of local concessionaires, Alliance for a Sustainable Amazon (ASA) is working to ensure the sustainability of the Brazil nut harvest and by extension the survival of this essential piece of the Peruvian Amazon. They do this through the Brazil Nut Corridor Project. Participating concessionaires are provided with workshops on the cultivation and planting of Brazil nut seedlings in forest gaps, and those who complete the program receive Brazil nut seedlings for the lands they manage. Transportation assistance is provided when needed to attend the workshops, and concessionaires are given a guidebook created by ASA and a forestry expert in the region as a reference.

This year, ASA is continuing to expand the program, providing workshops for new concessionaires and checking in with participants from last year to see their progress. Wild Green Future has had the pleasure of supporting this excellent community-based conservation project since its start in 2021, and we are excited to provide continued funding through Tier 4 of the Charity Battle.

Pictured: Monarch caterpillars on a host plant planted as part of a Wild Green Future microgrant. 📷 Wild Green Fiend Jennifer

Any funds donated beyond Tier 4 will support further Wild Green Future grants, projects, and initiatives. Learn more about what we’ve funded in the past at wildgreenfuture.org!