U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)

Today we honor the night shift. While you're asleep, bats are out here working overtime, pollinating plants, eating pests, and quietly saving the U.S. economy billions of dollars a year. That's right. Billions. With a "B." Agricultural pests like moths, beetles, and leafhoppers are a deliciuos food source for bats. Without bats, farmers would need more pesticides, crops would suffer, and prices would spike. So next time you enjoy a bowl of guacamole, a bushel of peaches, or literally any food that didn't get chewed on by bugs, thank a bat. Photo of a little brown bats courtesy of Troy Gipps/Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife

Meet the Guardians of the Great Outdoors! From restoring trails to fixing fishing piers, the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) Maintenance Team works to ensure that future generations have access to hike, fish, hunt, and explore the outdoors we all love. Check out the team in action at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge and their work on the Kuralt Trail. https://ow.ly/Ugkn50VBMl1

By mid-April, most osprey have arrived at their summer breeding grounds. You may be lucky enough to see them year-round in parts of the west, southeast and Central America! Have you seen any lately? 📷 Tom Koerner/USFWS

Have you ever held a small, wet stick in your hand? What if, upon taking a closer look, you noticed it was a fish? Time to go explore Florida and get to know its most underappreciated and remarkable native fish: the Opossum Pipefish! This week, Fish Biologist Eddy Perri with our Peninsular Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office is going to get you pumped about this straightened-out seahorse relative. 🐟 Catch new episodes of Fish of the Week! every Monday at FWS.gov or wherever you get your podcasts. 🎣🎧🎙️ We love to hear from you! Send us your "Fanmail" Darter: questions about fish, guest ideas, fish you want to hear about, what we're doing well/what we could do better etc. You can also give us a review on Apple Podcasts. A female Opossum Pipefish. 📷 Florida Museum/Zachary Randall Fanmail Darter. 🖌️Jess Milner

This post was brought to you by… fishing rods and boat fuel. No, really. Every time someone buys a fishing lure or fuels up their boat, a small federal excise tax is collected. That money? It’s been quietly funding some of the biggest wins in fish conservation for decades, including the epic comeback of Utah’s native cutthroat trout. Sport Fish Restoration funds have been behind nearly every step of Utah’s multi-decade effort to bring back native cutthroats. That includes surveying fish, restoring habitat, feeding hatchery-raised trout, and putting those fish back into wild waters. Restoring native fish doesn’t just help wildlife, it creates wild new opportunities for you. Alpine lakes and clear mountain streams are once again home to native trout, just waiting for the right cast. So if you’ve ever dreamed of catching a cutthroat in its home waters, that fishing gear you bought helped make it happen. Read the full story here: https://ow.ly/HRjx50Vygvj Photo of a biologist holding a Utah cutthroat trout. Photo courtesy of Utah Division of Wildlife Resources

These black-tailed deer are showing off their velvet! Their antlers fork as they grow and reach full growth in late summer/early fall, when the velvet is shed. Photo by Hazel Holby at Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge in California.

Hotel Beaver is very posh. For over a decade, partner groups have used empty space at Winthrop National Fish Hatchery and Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery in Washington to temporarily house beavers in the process of being relocated. Biologists are carefully relocating beavers from areas where they cause a bit too much chaos (think flooded roads and displeased landowners) to places where their engineering skills are desperately needed, aka, prime salmon habitat. Why Move a Beaver? ✔ Their dams slow down water, creating deep, cool pools for young salmon. ✔ They improve water quality and restore natural wetlands. ✔ They’re literally ecosystem architects, helping entire food webs thrive. So instead of eviction, these furry contractors get a second chance to do what they do best, which is help restore rivers and streams for salmon and other wildlife. It’s a win-win for nature and people. Check out the comments for more on this dam good story. *obligatory beaver joke Video by USFWS Video description: Three beavers hang out and gnaw on sticks at a beaver house with a ramp that is partially submerged in water; at 16 seconds, video cuts to different beavers in similar locale jumping from ramp into water, with camera moving to show one beaver swimming.

The fish never stood a chance. Watch as American white pelicans form a terrifyingly efficient scoop squad at Port Louisa National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa. It’s like a flash mob, but everyone’s flapping, scooping, and eating. Video of pelicans sifting through a school of fish in a wooded wetland by USFWS

Last month, Maryland Fish & Wildlife Conservation Office biologists collected environmental DNA (eDNA) at Camp Conowingo Dam on Conowingo Creek. eDNA technology allows biologists to detect genetic material shed into the environment—whether from skin cells, scales, or even fecal matter—providing an efficient way to monitor species ranges and assess community health. Biologists will send the samples to a USFWS genetics lab to monitor the presence of Chesapeake logperch, a rare species of darter fish only found in Susquehanna River tributaries, and invasive Northern snakehead.📸 USFWS

Merlins are returning to summer breeding grounds across much of Canada and parts of northern states. Some spend winters as far as South America! Listen for their shrill, chattering calls. 🎥 Courtney Celley/USFWS