NEW WEST FEATURE
Wildlife Agency Agrees to Timetable for Endangered Species Backlog
Some endangered species candidates have been in limbo for decades.By David Frey, 5-10-11
Greater sage grouse.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced on Tuesday a plan to handle a backlog of 251 threatened plants and animals that might merit Endangered Species Act protections, including some species that have languished in conservation limbo for more than three decades.
The schedule is part of a proposed settlement with the environmental group WildEarth Guardians to dismiss a dozen cases in which the group claimed the federal government failed to move fast enough to protect disappearing species. The agency agreed to make a decision on all those cases within six years, and to set up a timetable to weigh other species that have been petitioned for the list by WildEarth Guardians and other conservation groups. The agreement is awaiting approval by a federal judge.
The work plan is “an important step forward … in our efforts to protect and recover endangered species,” said Deputy Secretary of the Interior Dennis Hayes. He said the delays were largely caused by environmental groups petitioning and litigating over new species before officials could act on existing candidates.
“Priorities are being set by plaintiffs in court instead of by wildlife professionals, by litigation instead of science,” he said.
The settlement would require Fish and Wildlife to make final listing determinations by September 2016 for the 251 candidate species. In return, WildEarth Guardians would agree to dismiss its lawsuits and refrain from suing over delays for six years. It would also limit its new petitions for endangered species to no more than 10 each year.
“We and the government agree that the day has come to address the future of the endangered species candidates,” said Nicole Rosmarino, wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians. “This will be an important step toward protecting the rich biodiversity in the U.S. and stemming the extinction crisis.”
The group complains that of the 251 candidate species noted by the agency last November, 150 have been waiting for listing for more than 20 years, and 57 have been waiting for more than 30 years. In the meantime, these species, which include the greater sage grouse, whose habitat could be threatened by oil and gas drilling in the West, and plants and animals ranging from the Tucson shovel-nosed snake to White River beardstongue, a flower that grows in oil shale country, have often dwindled while their threats have grown.
Officials complain they have been inundated with petitions for listings, preventing them from working on the neediest of candidates. Because the agency is required to act first on petitions and court actions, endangered species candidates “have languished,” Hayes said.
For the dozen years before 2007, he said, the agency received petitions for an average of 20 species each year. Since then, more than 1,230 petitions have been filed, “nearly as many as the service had listed during the previous 30 years,” he said.
“The candidate list has been the black hole of the Endangered Species Act, where animals and plants that deserve the protection of the act were consigned to an endless queue,” said WildEarth Guardians attorney Jay Tutchton.
Follow David Frey at www.davidmfrey.com and on Twitter.
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Kick the people off the land. Stop all development of our natural resources. Kill the job market.
Same ol, Same ol
The larger problem is that instead of the govt. people being able to address the issues, they will have to go to extreme levels to appease these antipeople groups.
People live here now. Get use to it.
Destruction of the economy is just what the Eco-fascists want. After all, they love death.
Scratch beneath a committed environmentalist and you will certainly find a fascist. The romantic ideals of the Nazis went hand in hand with environmentalism, out of which emerged the eugenics, euthanasia and Final Solution policies of National Socialism. The ideals of environmentalism are all found in the writings of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist party and have simply been recycled by modern ‘Greens’. But remember folks, the greens are claiming they are a "civilized" society and civilized societies live with wolf crap in their yards.
The enviro-nazis and their endless stream of lawsuits is the problem-look at CA-can't even draw RESIDENTIAL DRINKING WATER from an EXISTING reservoir,due to the presence of a 3" fish (Santa Ana sucker) the fish exists in other rivers and streams in southern CA.
The enviro nazis and the Delta smelt,also in CA. farmers who have farmed the San Joaquin river delta for many generations now can not draw irrigation water from the river-because of another small fish.
When does it stop? People live in these areas-economies depend on farming,ranching,commercial and recreational fishing. Entire small town economies in Montana,Wyoming,and Idaho depend on elk hunting,and the hunters coming from other states,and staying in motels/hotels,eating in local restaurants.
The wolf fiasco has ruined elk hunting in many areas-yet the enviros say elk populations are healthy-and they are-in areas with no wolves.
There are plenty of wolves in Canada,plenty in Alaska,and too many in the Northern Rockies,let the states manage them,get the enviro-nazis out of the picture-they had a gravy train of federal grant money and have clogged the courts since the reintroduction-time for it to stop.
As the article states-things are being done via litigation in the courts,not wildlife professionals-get the enviro-nazis out of the picture,and things will be fine.
I'm all for clean air,clean water,and responsible wildlife and fisheries management,sustainable logging,and responsible extraction of natural resources.
This BS of you can't do anything here because there is a small flower,bird, or fish that lives here is absurd-more species have gone extinct than exist on the planet,and most went extinct before the arrival of humans.
which is why your posts, in particular, are pain free