WASHINGTON, DC, March 12, 2008 (ENS) – The Bush administration announced today that it has no obligation to protect endangered wildlife, provided their U.S. populations are contiguous with larger populations in Canada or Mexico. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it has determined that protecting the wolverine in the contiguous United States as a…
SAN FRANCISCO, California, March 11, 2008 (ENS) – Three conservation groups filed a lawsuit against the Bush administration on Monday for missing the legal deadline to issue a final decision on whether or not to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. The Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense…
WASHINGTON, DC, February 28, 2008 (ENS) – Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released revised plans to establish critical habitat for Canada lynx in Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Washington and Wyoming. The new habitat protection plan is in response to an investigation that found that a Bush administration political appointees interfered with the scientific…
WASHINGTON, DC, February 28, 2008 (ENS) – Emergency protections are needed to prevent further declines in numbers of a small migratory shorebird called the red knot, warns a letter submitted to federal officials Wednesday by the American Bird Conservancy and eight other conservation groups. The red knot makes one of the longest yearly migrations of…
WASHINGTON, DC, February 27, 2008 (ENS) – Eleven conservation groups fighting to protect wolves in the northern Rockies today notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that the agency has violated the Endangered Species Act by removing the northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf population from the federal list of endangered species. The groups put the…
WASHINGTON, DC, February 19, 2008 (ENS) – A federal appeals court today ordered the Federal Communications Commission to establish safeguards to protect the millions of birds killed each year in collisions with telephone, radio, cellular and other communications towers in the Gulf Coast region. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that at least five…
February 15th, Phoenix, AZ – The federal district court in Phoenix has upheld protection of 8.6 million acres of critical habitat for the threatened Mexican spotted owl in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. For the Mexican spotted owl, critical habitat ensures that Forest Service logging does not drive the owl to extinction or limit…
SAN FRANCISCO, California, February 7, 2008 (ENS) – The Pacific walrus is threatened by global warming and oil development throughout its range and needs the shelter of the federal Endangered Species Act, the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity warned today, filing a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the walrus for…
WASHINGTON, DC, February 6, 2008 (ENS) – A federal district court Tuesday turned back the timber industry’s latest attempt to remove federal protections from the marbled murrelet, a small seabird that nests in the old-growth trees of the Pacific Northwest. In order to increase logging of trees over 100 years old, lawyers for the American…
MISSOULA, Montana, January 28, 2008 (ENS) – In a bid to bar states from aerial gunning and other state-sponsored killing of wolves, seven conservation groups today filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Missoula to stop the implementation of a new Bush administration rule that lowers the bar for wolf killing when a state…
SILVER CITY, New Mexico, January 23, 2008 (ENS) – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Thursday that it will not prepare a recovery plan for the endangered jaguar and will not attempt to recover the species in the United States or throughout its range in North and South America. The decision was signed by…
WASHINGTON, DC, January 23, 2008 (ENS) – Even as it seeks to downgrade protections for the endangered Florida manatee, the Bush administration is withholding records about how well key protections are being implemented, claims a lawsuit filed Tuesday by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER, a national nonprofit association of government workers in natural resource…
WASHINGTON, DC, January 24, 2008 (ENS) – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced new regulations that will allow states to kill gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains, despite the fact that wolves are currently protected under the Endangered Species Act. The Service says the revision allows states and tribes with approved wolf management…
WASHINGTON, DC, January 17, 2008 (ENS) – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has listed six rare birds from around the world as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Fourteen years after first determining these species warranted protection, the Service responded to a series of lawsuits by the Center for Biological Diversity and listed…
DENVER, Colorado, January 11, 2008 (ENS) – Guitar picks and violin bows made from the shells of endangered hawksbill sea turtles plus several pounds of raw hawksbill shell sent to the United States from China were intercepted by U.S. authorities, who busted a group of Chinese nationals and charged them with smuggling. Fu Yiner, a…
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada, January 9, 2008 (ENS) – An 18 month long investigation into trafficking of meat from the endangered Caribbean Queen conch into Florida has resulted in a British Columbia company being fined a Canadian record high wildlife fine of over $78,000. On Friday, Pacific Marine Union Corporation entered a guilty plea in…
WASHINGTON, DC, January 7, 2008 (ENS) – Three environmental groups today said they will sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to make a decision about whether or not to place the polar bear on the federal Endangered Species List by this coming Wednesday. To survive, polar bears must contend with shrinking sea…
WASHINGTON, DC, January 4, 2008 (ENS) – Twenty-nine conservation projects encompassing nearly 10,000 acres of coastal wetlands will be funded with $20.5 million from 2008 National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grants, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced Friday. The grants will be used to acquire, restore or enhance coastal wetlands to provide long-term conservation benefits to fish,…
MIDWAY ATOLL, Near Hawaii, January 3, 2007 (ENS) – The rarest native waterfowl in the United States, a species of duck called the Laysan teal, has increased its numbers five-fold over the past year at a rat-free refuge that was once part of its historic range. Biologists with the U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Fish…
SACRAMENTO, California, January 2, 2008 (ENS) – Two islands in the Sacramento River owned by the federal government have been closed to filing of new mining claims and are proposed to be withdrawn from the general land laws and transferred from the Bureau of Land Management to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Todd Island…
HOUSTON, Texas, January 2, 2008 (ENS) – Two wind power projects under construction in Kenedy County, Texas will pose a threat to migratory and resident birds and bats, according to a scientific study released today by the Coastal Habitat Alliance. The two projects, both being built on private ranch land, will be the first wind…
Global Warming is causing a 9 degree Fahrenheit average temperature change in arctic areas. This temperature change is wreaking havoc on the polar bear hunting grounds (sea ice) and disrupting their natural feeding habits. Polar bears hunt seals and other fish for sustenance, and they cannot do this without ample supply of sea ice. Depleting…