Interior Department
Adds Just 17 Species to Endangered List
By Sarah Okeson
 |
| Trump's sons Eric and Donald Jr. love endangered species....to death |
Under Trump, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have listed just 17 species as
endangered or threatened, the worst record of protection in a president’s first
two years since the Reagan administration protected a dozen species.
“We are in the midst of an extinction crisis, and there is an
extensive backlog of imperiled species waiting for protection,” said Elise
Bennett, an attorney for the Center
for Biological Diversity.
Species that got protection from the Trump administration
include Guadalupe fescue, a
rare grass found in Big
Bend National Park in Texas that doesn’t pose a threat to industry, and ‘I’iwi, a
scarlet bird found only on Hawaiian mountaintops that also doesn’t financially
threaten industry.
The Trump administration rejected federal protection for more
than 50 species such as the Pacific walrus which
the Fish and Wildlife Service concluded wasn’t threatened by melting sea ice because they could rest on land.
Watt, who promised that “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber,” prompted Congress to amend the Endangered Species Act because so few species were protected under his watch. The act has strict deadlines for deciding which species should be protected.
The Center
for Biological Diversity recently sued the
Trump administration and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt for violating those
deadlines in failing to make decisions under the Endangered Species Act for
about 24 species of animals and plants.
“Bernhardt and the Trump administration’s highest priorities are corporate profits,” said Noah Greenwald, the center’s endangered
species director. “They’re not interested in protecting wildlife like the Franklin’s bumblebee and
others that are on the brink of extinction.”
Since the Endangered Species Act was signed into law by former President Richard Nixon in 1973, at least 47 species have gone extinct while waiting for protection.
In December, Margaret Everson, the principal deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, rejected federal protection for the Ozark pyrg, a snail originally found in the White River near Cotter, Ark., because it is now extinct.
Bernhardt is trying to strip federal protections for gray wolves. He wrote the legal memo underpinning
Republican efforts to weaken protections for gray wolves in 2008 under former
President George W. Bush.
Red wolves, once found across the eastern United States, are now perhaps the most endangered mammal on the planet, rarer than the world’s 2,300 Bengal tigers in the wild.
Red wolves, once found across the eastern United States, are now perhaps the most endangered mammal on the planet, rarer than the world’s 2,300 Bengal tigers in the wild.
ACTION
BOX/What You Can Do About It
Comment online about keeping federal protections for gray wolves or mail comments to Public Comments Processing, Attn: Docket No. FWS-HQ-ES-2018-0097, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Headquarters, MS: BPHC, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, Va. 22041-3803.
Contact
the Center for BiologicalDiversity at
520-623-5252 or center@biologicaldiversity.org