Latest news with #EndangeredSpeciesAct
The Hill
15 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Environmental groups sue to block ‘Alligator Alcatraz'
A coalition of environmental groups on Friday sued over Trump administration plans to build a new detention center in the Everglades that critics have dubbed 'Alligator Alcatraz.' The suit seeks to block the Trump administration from building the new facility on a Florida airfield, the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport (TNT) near Big Cypress National Preserve. 'This massive detention center will blight one of the most iconic ecosystems in the world,' Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. 'This reckless attack on the Everglades — the lifeblood of Florida — risks polluting sensitive waters and turning more endangered Florida panthers into roadkill. It makes no sense to build what's essentially a new development in the Everglades for any reason, but this reason is particularly despicable.' Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has cited the remote nature of the area — as well as its proximity to dangerous wildlife — as top features for tapping the area for construction. 'This 30-square mile area is completely surrounded by the Everglades. It presents an efficient, low-cost opportunity to build a temporary detention facility because you don't need to invest that much in the perimeter,' he said. 'If people get out, there's not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons.' Environmental groups have argued the project violates the National Environmental Policy Act as well as procedures for rulemaking. 'The decision to construct a mass migrant detention and deportation center at the TNT Site was made without conducting any environmental reviews as required under NEPA, without public notice or comment, and without compliance with other federal statutes such as the Endangered Species Act, or state or local land-use laws,' they wrote in the suit filed in federal court in Florida. The facility is projected to cost about $450 million a year, which will come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Shelter and Services Program that was used to house asylum-seekers during the Biden administration. The Trump administration is largely envisioning the facility as a series of tents along with the construction of other facilities, hoping to house as many as 5,000 migrants at the facility.
Vox
a day ago
- General
- Vox
Cancel the grizzly bear
is a freelance journalist who covers science, the environment, wildlife, and the outdoors. She is based in Laramie, Wyoming. In the early 1900s, long before smartphones and selfie sticks, tourists flocked to Yellowstone National Park — not for the geysers or scenery, but for a grotesque show: A nightly spectacle of grizzly bears raiding cafeteria scraps from open-pit landfills like desperate, starving pirates. The bears were in dangerous proximity to humans: Hungry bears tore at open car windows. Tourists posed a little too close with their film cameras. Yellowstone park rangers logged dozens of injuries each year — nearly 50 on average. Eventually, the Park Service ended the nightly landfill shows: feeding wild animals human food wasn't just dangerous, it was unnatural. Bears, ecologists argued, should eat berries, nuts, elk — not leftover Twinkies. In 1970, the park finally shut down the landfills for good. By then, though, grizzlies were in deep trouble. As few as 700 remained in the lower 48 states, down from the estimated 50,000 that once roamed the 18 Western states. Decades of trapping, shooting, and poisoning had brought them to the brink. The ones that clung to survival in Yellowstone National Park learned to take what scraps they could get and when they were forced to forage elsewhere, it didn't go so well. More bears died. Their already fragile population in the Yellowstone region dipped to fewer than 250, though one publication says the number could have been as low as 136, according to Frank van Manen, who spent 14 years leading the US Geological Survey's grizzly bear study team and now serves as an emeritus ecologist. The Yellowstone bears had been trained to rely on us. And when we cut them off, their population tanked. In 1957, Yellowstone tourists often got a little too close for comfort — like this driver, who leans out the window to snap a photo of a mother bear and her cubs. Today, this kind of wildlife encounter would be a big no-no for safety reasons. Corbis via Getty Images And so in 1975, the US Fish and Wildlife Service placed grizzly bears on the endangered species list, the country's most powerful legal mechanism to stave off extinction. The grizzly's place on the list afforded them some important protections under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Hunting was off limits, as was trapping or poisoning, and the listing included rigorous habitat protections. Grizzlies slowly came back. Today, more than 1,000 grizzly bears live in and around Yellowstone alone, and tourists who visit the park by the millions every year can observe the bears — no longer desperately feeding on trash but lumbering in and out of meadows with their trailing cubs, or sitting on their haunches feasting on elk carcasses. The recovery effort was a major success, but it's brought a whole new slate of issues. In recent years, grizzlies have spilled out of their stronghold in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem — a broad swath of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming — and into human territory, where coexistence gets messy. In 2024 alone, more than 60 grizzlies were killed in Wyoming, most of them lethally removed by wildlife officials after killing cattle, breaking into cabins and trash cans, or lingering in residential neighborhoods. It's the classic species recovery paradox: the more bears succeed and their populations expand, the more trouble they get into with humans. And now, a controversial debate rages over whether or not to delist the grizzly bear. No species is meant to be a permanent resident on the Endangered Species List. The whole point of the ESA is to help species recover to the point where they're no longer endangered. A delisting would underscore that the grizzlies didn't just scrape by in the Yellowstone area — they exceeded every population requirement in becoming a thriving, self-sustaining population of at least 500 bears. But to remove federal protection would mean grizzly bears would face increasing threats to their survival at a time when some biologists argue the species' recovery is shaky at best. The stakes here are bigger than just the grizzly bear alone — what happens next is about proving that the ESA works, and that sustained recovery is possible, and that ESA protection leads to progress. Because if a species like the grizzly, which has met every biological benchmark, still can't graduate from the list, then what is the list for? 'The [ESA] is literally one of the strictest wildlife protection laws in the world…but in order for people to buy into it, they have to have respect for it,' says Kelly Heber Dunning, a University of Wyoming professor who studies wildlife conflict. 'If it starts to be seen as…part of the culture war, that buy-in will go away.' What's the Endangered Species Act for anyway? Since President Donald Trump has taken office, the Republican Party's assault on the Endangered Species Act hasn't been subtle. But ironically, to prevent a full unraveling of one of the world's most powerful protections for wildlife and wild places, conservationists need to grapple with the mission creep of the ESA. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, left, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright deliver remarks outside the White House on March 19, 2025, in Washington, Republican President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act in 1973, the country's wildlife had been in a century-long nosedive. After decades of habitat destruction, unregulated hunting and industrial expansion, federal officials had already flagged more than 70 species at risk of extinction — with many more lining up behind them. In the decades that followed, the ESA proved to be one of the most powerful conservation tools in the world. More than 50 species, including the Canada goose and bald eagle, thrived with their newfound federal protections and were later delisted; another 56 species were downgraded from endangered to threatened. But others, like the black-footed ferret, Houston toad and the red wolf, for example, remain endangered — even after almost 60 years of federal attention. Today the act protects more than 2,300 plant and animal species in the US and abroad. And still more wait in line, as overworked federal biologists triage petitions amid dwindling resources, aggressive layoffs and budget cuts. But when it comes to the grizzly bear, the debate has become bigger than just biology — it's become a referendum on what the Endangered Species Act is for, says David Willms, a National Wildlife Federation associate vice president and adjunct faculty at the University of Wyoming. 'The ESA is a science-based act,' he says. 'You have a species that is struggling, and you need to recover it and make it not struggle anymore. And based on the best available science at the end of the day, you're supposed to delist a species if it met those objectives.' The trouble begins when species linger on the list indefinitely, not because they haven't recovered but because of what might happen next, out of fears of possible future threats. But the ESA was only meant to safeguard against 'reasonably foreseeable future threats,' Willms argues. Congress has the ability to protect species indefinitely — like it did for wild horses under the 1971 Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act or for numerous species of birds under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. But those were specific, deliberate laws. 'If there are other reasons why somebody or groups of people think grizzly bears should be protected forever, then that is a different conversation than the Endangered Species Act,' he says. But this power works in the opposite direction, too. If grizzly bears stay on the list for too long, Congress may well decide to delist the species, as lawmakers did in 2011 when they removed gray wolves from the endangered species list in Montana and Idaho. Those kinds of decisions happen when people living alongside recovered species, especially the toothy, livestock-loving kind, spend enough time lobbying their state's lawmakers, says Dunning, the wildlife conflict researcher. When Congress steps in, science tends to step out. A political delisting doesn't just sideline biologists, it sets a precedent, one that opens the potential for lawmakers to start cherry-picking species they see as obstacles to grazing, logging, drilling, or building. The flamboyant lesser prairie chicken has already made the list of legislative targets. 'Right now, the idea of scientific research has lost its magic quality,' she says. 'We get there by excluding people and not listening to their voices and them feeling like they're not part of the process.' And when people feel excluded for too long, she says, the danger isn't just that support for grizzly bears will erode. It's that the public will to protect any endangered species might start to collapse. The case for delisting the grizzly For Dan Thompson, Wyoming's large carnivore supervisor, the question of delisting grizzlies is pretty simple: 'Is the population recovered with all the regulatory mechanisms in place and data to support that it will remain recovered?' he says. 'If the answer is yes, then the answer to delisting is yes.' That's why Thompson believes it's time to delist the grizzly. And he's not alone. The Greater Yellowstone ecosystem population is 'doing very well,' says van Manen. In fact, grizzlies met their recovery goals about 20 years ago. Getting there wasn't easy. After the landfills closed and the bear population plummeted, it took a massive, decades-long effort from states, tribes, federal biologists, and nonprofits to bring the grizzlies back. The various entities funded bear-proof trash systems for people living in towns near the national parks and strung electric fences around tempting fruit orchards. They developed safety workshops for people living in or visiting bear country, and tracked down poachers. And little by little, it worked. Bear numbers swelled, and by the mid-2000s, more than 600 bears roamed the Yellowstone area. 'Grizzly bears are incredibly opportunistic and use their omnivorous traits to shift to other food sources,' says van Manen. So losing one food — even a high-calorie one — did little to change the population. The move to delist them paused as the federal government addressed the federal court's concerns, including researching the grizzly bear's diet. And bear numbers kept climbing. In 2016, the Fish and Wildlife Service — under President Barack Obama — updated delisting requirements including more expansive habitat protections, stricter conflict prevention, and enhanced monitoring. The agency then proposed a delisting. The following year — under Trump — it delisted the grizzly bear. This time the Crow Indian Tribe sued and — determining in part that delisting grizzlies in the Yellowstone region threatened the recovery of other populations of grizzlies — a federal judge overturned the government's decision to delist the bears and placed them back on the list. In 2022, Wyoming petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service to delist bears in the Yellowstone region. The service took a few years to analyze the issue, and then this January, days before the Biden administration ended, it issued a response to that petition: Grizzly bears would stay on the Endangered Species List. All of these years of back and forth reflected the change in how the federal government viewed the grizzly population, largely a result of the bear's own success. The Yellowstone region's bears, they argued, are no longer distinct from bear populations in northern Montana, Idaho, and Washington. And because northern populations haven't met the recovery benchmarks yet (with the exception of a population in and around Glacier National Park), the species as a whole is not yet recovered. But the goalposts for delisting grizzlies keep moving, Thompson told Vox. Grizzly bears would still be managed even after a delisting. States would be responsible for them, and — miracle of miracles — state and federal agencies actually agreed on how to manage grizzlies after ESA protections end. Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana are committed to maintaining between 800 and 950 grizzly bears if the creature ever leaves the endangered species list. And states like Wyoming know how to manage grizzly bears because for years, under the supervision of the feds, they've been doing the gritty, ground-level work. Wyoming's wildlife agency, for example, traps and relocates conflict bears (or kills problem bears if allowed by the Fish and Wildlife Service), knocks on doors to calm nervous landowners, hands out bear spray, and reminds campers not to cook chili in their tents. Despite all that, 'nobody trusts us,' Thompson, with Wyoming's state wildlife agency, said. 'There's always going to be a way to find a reason for [grizzlies] not to be delisted.' A grizzly bear cub forages for food on a hillside near the Lake Butte overlook in Yellowstone National Park, now might be the right decision. It would still be a gamble Even though grizzly bears may be thriving in numbers, they're not ready to go it alone, says Matt Cuzzocreo, interim wildlife program manager for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition Grizzlies. The Greater Yellowstone Coalition has spent millions of dollars over the past few decades helping bears and humans more successfully coexist. But whatever comes next needs to build on the past 50 years of working with locals. As bears expand into new territory, they're crossing into areas where residents aren't used to securing garbage and wouldn't know how to respond to 600-pound predators ambling down back roads or into neighborhoods. Simply removing bears from the list and handing management to the states, which is the default after a species delisting, isn't enough, says Chris Servheen — not when so much is still in flux. Servheen, who led the Fish and Wildlife Service's recovery program for 35 years, helped write the previous two recovery plans. He says a delisting could leave them dangerously exposed. 'Politicians are making decisions on the fate of animals like grizzly bears and taking decisions out of the hands of biologists,' Servheen says. Montana and Idaho, Servheen points out, already allow neck-snaring and wolf trapping just outside Yellowstone's borders — traps that also pose a lethal threat to grizzlies. And now, the Trump administration has slashed funding for the very biologists and forest managers tasked with protecting wildlife. Once states take over, many are expected to push for grizzly hunting seasons, and some, like Wyoming, have already set grizzly bear hunting regulations for when the creatures are no longer protected. Layer that on top of existing threats — roadkill, livestock conflicts, illegal kills — and it's easy to imagine a swift population slide.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists alarmed after finding whale in heartbreaking predicament: 'I would temper expectations for this case'
Scientists discovered a young, North Atlantic right whale entangled in fishing gear off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the Cape Cod Times reported. While the Center for Coastal Studies' Marine Animal Entanglement Response (MAER) team has attempted to free the whale from the debris, he –– and his species –– remain in danger. Scientists first noticed the whale in December 2024, according to the Cape Cod Times, when they found ropes constraining his jaw and buoys following him. The team was unable to rescue the whale at that time, and they did not spot him again until three months later in April. Using a grappling hook, the team removed some of the fishing gear from the whale on April 10, but full disentanglement is challenging due to the techniques and conditions required. The items entangling the whale are close to his body, so the team has to make close contact with him, which "whales generally do not like," explained MAER director Scott Landry. The entanglement has not prevented the whale from moving or eating, according to Landry, but "he is starting to show signs of poor health." While he could continue to live with the entanglement, the debris could embed into the whale without intervention. "I would temper expectations for this case," Landry said. This whale is not the first of its kind to suffer entanglement. Entanglement threatens North Atlantic right whales as a leading cause of death, according to NOAA Fisheries, and the species is one of the most endangered whales. The Endangered Species Act has included North Atlantic right whales since 1970, and only about 370 individuals exist in the wild. Plastic pollution increases the risk of entanglement for whales and other marine wildlife. The world produces about 386 tons of plastic waste annually, Our World in Data reported, and around 0.5% of this waste ends up in the ocean. Plastic waste and fishing gear entangle marine animals, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths every year, according to NOAA Fisheries. Such debris can drown or starve animals by restricting their movement, while other individuals experience infection or exhaustion trying to escape their entanglement. Organizations like the Center for Coastal Studies' Marine Animal Entanglement Response in Cape Cod rescue entangled animals. The group has saved more than 200 whales and marine animals from life-threatening entanglement since its inception in 1984. The Marine Animal Entanglement Response team is authorized by NOAA Fisheries to disentangle marine wildlife. NOAA Fisheries works with organizations around the country to mitigate entanglement, using satellite tracking to monitor entangled animals and developing disentanglement guidelines. Do you think America has a plastic waste problem? Definitely Only in some areas Not really I'm not sure Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. Reducing plastic pollution so less ends up in the ocean can prevent marine wildlife entanglement. Participating in actions like beach cleanups also serves as an opportunity to connect with local groups and efforts making a difference in your community. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
E&E News
19-06-2025
- Politics
- E&E News
Judge sees ‘troubling' issues in courtroom clash over gray wolf
A Montana-based federal judge sounded a tad skeptical about some of the Fish and Wildlife Service's gray-wolf decision-making Wednesday in a briskly paced and unusually long court hearing. The live-streamed oral argument held in Missoula's federal courthouse zeroed in on whether the agency must reconsider the wolf's Endangered Species Act status. Several times, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy pushed back against the government's assertions. 'There are some issues that are troubling to me,' Molloy told a Justice Department lawyer after he frequently interrupted her initial argument. Advertisement The FWS has tried to remove the gray wolf from the list of ESA-protected species, but a federal judge in California stopped the nationwide delisting in a separate case that's now before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
CBS News
18-06-2025
- General
- CBS News
Court refuses to halt judge's order requiring Florida agency to protect manatees in Indian River Lagoon
A divided federal appeals court Tuesday refused to halt a district judge's order that requires the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to take steps to protect manatees in the northern Indian River Lagoon, including temporarily preventing new septic tanks in the area. A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, rejected the department's request for a stay of an order issued last month by U.S. District Judge Carlos Mendoza. The stay, if granted, would have put Mendoza's order on hold while an underlying appeal plays out. Mendoza in April ruled the department violated the federal Endangered Species Act in the northern Indian River Lagoon, which is primarily in Brevard County. Getty Images Mendoza in April ruled the department violated the federal Endangered Species Act in the northern Indian River Lagoon, which is primarily in Brevard County. He followed with the May order, an injunction that included a moratorium on constructing and installing septic systems in a northern Indian River Lagoon watershed and requiring establishment of biomedical-assessment and supplemental-feeding programs for manatees in the area. The environmental group Bear Warriors United in 2022 filed the lawsuit against the department, arguing, in part, that wastewater discharges into the lagoon led to the demise of seagrass, a key food source for manatees, and resulted in deaths and other harm to the animals. The appeals-court panel decision Tuesday cited what are known as manatee "takings" because of water-quality problems. "The district court found that FDEP's (the department's) current wastewater regulations prolong manatee takings: it found a clear, definitive causal link between the FDEP's current wastewater regulations, the water pollution that is killing manatees' primary food source and is creating harmful algae blooms, and the length of time over which manatees will continue to be harmed. … We see no likely clear error in that finding," said the decision, shared by Judges Robin Rosenbaum and Jill Pryor. But Judge Britt Grant dissented, writing that Mendoza's injunction "is infirm in several respects and raises many serious questions about the scope of federal judicial power." "The district court below ordered the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to stop issuing sewage and disposal system permits near Florida's North Indian River Lagoon, and to establish from whole cloth (and in a matter of days) a program for assessing, feeding, and monitoring manatees and their habitat — a task that agency has neither the expertise nor the authority to complete," Grant wrote. A key part of Mendoza's injunction calls for the state to seek what is known as an "incidental take" permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That process would include the state developing a conservation plan, which could provide "permanent protection and management of habitat for the species," according to information about such permits on the federal agency's website. While the incidental-take permit request is pending, Mendoza ordered the department to not issue permits for constructing and installing septic systems in the area and required the other steps about a biomedical assessment and supplemental feeding. The septic-tank moratorium is slated to start July 17, while Mendoza ordered the assessment and feeding requirements to take effect Tuesday. FILE - A group of manatees are pictured in a canal where discharge from a nearby Florida Power & Light plant warms the water in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Dec. 28, 2010. Manatee deaths dropped in 2022 from a record high the year before, but Florida wildlife officials said Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023, that chronic starvation caused by water pollution remains a major concern. Lynne Sladky / AP Bear Warriors United filed the lawsuit after Florida had a record 1,100 manatee deaths in 2021, with the largest number, 358, in Brevard County. Many deaths were linked to starvation. The state had 800 manatee deaths in 2022, before the number dropped to 555 in 2023 and 565 in 2024, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission data. As of Friday, 414 manatees deaths had been reported this year, including 85 in Brevard County, the most in any county. Manatees are classified by the federal government as a threatened species. In seeking the stay of Mendoza's injunction, the department raised a series of issues, including targeting the septic-tank moratorium. Septic tanks discharge nitrogen that can cause harmful algae blooms in waterways. "The indefinite moratorium on the construction of new septic systems further threatens to impede commercial and residential development in the state," the department's motion for a stay said. "Florida law specifically authorizes construction using 'nutrient-reducing onsite sewage treatment and disposal systems' or similar nitrogen-reducing 'wastewater treatment systems.' And the third-party property owners and developers affected by the court's decree have no ready means to challenge this moratorium, as they are not parties to this action (the lawsuit)." But Mendoza wrote in his April ruling that under the department's regulations, it would take at least a decade for conditions in the northern Indian River Lagoon, which also goes into Volusia County, to start to recover. "This is due to the previously and currently permitted discharge of legacy pollutants via wastewater into the north IRL (Indian River Lagoon)," Mendoza wrote. "These legacy pollutants caused the death of seagrasses — the manatee's natural forage — and the proliferation of harmful macroalgae. Legacy pollutants, as their name suggests, persist in the environment and cause harmful effects long after they have entered the system."
