Hundreds of sea turtles washing up dead on Southwest Florida beaches, likely victims of red tide

By Chad Gillis 25 July 2018 (Fort Myers News-Press) – Hundreds of sea turtles have washed up on Southwest Florida beaches this year in a mass mortality event that researchers say will impact the recovery of protected species. Seventeen have been recovered in Sanibel and Captiva waters in the past week. “Our average for the […]

Trump attacks Endangered Species Act – “This proposal turns the extinction-prevention tool of the ESA into a rubber stamp for powerful corporate interests”

WASHINGTON, DC, 23 July 2018 (ENS) – The Trump administration is proposing new rules for implementing the Endangered Species Act, ESA, that will make it more difficult to recover Threatened and Endangered species across the country. Conservation groups fear that the revisions would allow drilling, mining and ranching in what is now protected habitat, but […]

Trump’s Interior Department plans to let people kill endangered red wolves – “FWS is passing a death sentence on an animal as American as the bald eagle”

By Darryl Fears 27 June 2018 (The Washington Post) – In a proposal that would essentially end a 30-year effort to reestablish critically endangered American red wolves in North Carolina, the Interior Department on Wednesday announced a plan that would allow private landowners to kill wolves that stray onto their property from a protected federal […]

Only 40 red wolves remain in the wild in North Carolina as rising sea level reduces habitat

24 April 2018 (USFWS) – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today released a five-year status review and Species Status Assessment [pdf] outlining the latest science and data supporting its recommendation for no change in the red wolf’s overall status as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The status review is required every five years […]

Trump appoints endangered species foe to oversee protection of America’s most imperiled wildlife – “Putting Combs in charge of the Fish and Wildlife Service is like appointing an arsonist as the town fire marshal”

WASHINGTON, 30 March 2018 (CBD) – The Trump administration has quietly named Susan Combs — an outspoken foe of endangered species and a climate change denier — as acting assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks. She now oversees the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the endangered species it protects. “Putting Combs in charge […]

Trump wildlife protection board stuffed with trophy hunters

By Michael Biesecker, Jake Pearson, and Jeff Horwitz 16 March 2018 WASHINGTON (Associated Press) – A new U.S. advisory board created to help rewrite federal rules for importing the heads and hides of African elephants, lions and rhinos is stacked with trophy hunters, including some members with direct ties to President Donald Trump and his […]

Trump administration quietly makes it legal to bring elephant parts to the U.S. as trophies

By Michael Biesecker 6 March 2018 (Associated Press) – The Trump administration has quietly decided once again to allow Americans to import the body parts of African elephants shot for sport, despite presidential tweets decrying the practice as a “horror show.” President Donald Trump personally intervened in November 2017 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife […]

Judge approves waiving environmental laws to build U.S.-Mexico border wall

1 March 2018 (Mongabay) – On Tuesday, a federal judge in California ruled that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not abuse its authority in waiving dozens of environmental laws to build sections of wall along the border between the U.S. and Mexico. The ruling frees the department to waive laws for future border […]

Eastern U.S. cougar declared extinct 80 years after last sighting

By Laura Zuckerman; Editing by Steve Gorman and Sandra Maler 23 January 2018 (Reuters) – Eastern cougars that once prowled North America from Michigan to South Carolina were officially declared extinct and removed from the U.S. endangered species list on Monday, eight decades after the last confirmed sighting of the wild feline predator. The large […]

Nomination of climate denialist to head White House environmental office called “creative evil” and “nightmare scenario” – “She will more aggressively go after dismantling all environmental laws: the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Endangered Species Act”

By Hannah Northey 13 October 2017 (E&E News) – President Trump’s nomination of a former Texas regulator who’s touted the benefits of carbon dioxide to lead the Council on Environmental Quality is being praised by industry but derided by environmentalists as “creative evil” and a “nightmare scenario.” If confirmed by the Senate, Kathleen Hartnett White […]

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