Biodiversity & Species
Guest Blogger Justin Pidot: The Gray Wolf Delisting Revisited
Last week, Holly posted an excellent discussion of the latest wranglings in the Fish & Wildlife Service’s ongoing effort to delist the gray wolf in the mountain west. I share her discomfort with Congress’s decision to reinstate the delisting decision through an appropriations rider. But stepping back from the arcane separation of powers questions dominant …
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CONTINUE READINGGray wolf update: rider upheld and Wyoming delisting a step closer
A few months ago, Rhead summarized litigation over the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s multiple attempts to remove the gray wolf from the list of endangered and threatened species, and noted environmental groups’ filing of a challenge to the appropriations rider which called for FWS to re-delist (is that a word?) the wolf in Montana …
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CONTINUE READINGThird time not the charm for Columbia River salmon BiOp
U.S. District Judge James Redden has once again found the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Biological Opinion for operations of the Columbia River hydropower system inadequate to satisfy the Endangered Species Act. This is the third time in a decade that Judge Redden has been asked to review a Columbia River BiOp, the third presidential administration …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia suction dredging moratorium extended
California Governor Jerry Brown has signed into law an extension of the existing moratorium on suction dredge gold mining. I confess that the appeal of recreational mining in any form escapes me, and that I don’t even like to vacuum my own living room. So it mystifies me to learn that there are people who …
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CONTINUE READINGWhitebark pine in ESA limbo
Cross-posted at The Berkeley Blog. Today the Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the whitebark pine, an iconic tree of the high-elevation American west, qualifies for listing as an endangered or threatened species. The combined impacts of disease, insect infestation, climate change, and fire suppression mean that the whitebark pine could disappear within a couple …
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CONTINUE READINGWhite paper on Habitat Conservation Plans and Climate Change
Cross-posted at CPRBlog. Melinda Taylor at the University of Texas School of Law and I have just put out a white paper on Habitat Conservation Plans and Climate Change: Recommendations for Policy. It can be accessed here through Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, or here through UT’s Center for Global Energy, …
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CONTINUE READINGCourt upholds polar bear “threatened” status
The first big opinion in the polar bear listing case is out. Score two for the Fish and Wildlife Service: the agency’s decision to list the bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act prevailed against challenges from the Center for Biological Diversity on one side and the state of Alaska and hunting groups on …
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CONTINUE READINGPoor grades on Delta progress
Delta Vision Foundation, the non-profit formed to continue the work of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s Delta Vision Task Force, has released its second annual report card on Delta progress. (Legal Planeteer Rick Frank is a member of the Foundation’s Board of Directors.) If you had to bring this one home to your parents, you’d likely be grounded …
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CONTINUE READINGGood news for Hawaiian wetland birds
Regular readers know that we try to report good news when we can. This positive report caught my eye because I recently returned from an extended stay in the islands, where I had the opportunity to see these beautiful birds. Conservation magazine reports on a recent study showing that populations of three endangered Hawaiian wetland …
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CONTINUE READINGWolf delisting rule challenged in federal court
Yesterday, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Clearwater and WildEarth Guardians filed a compliant in the federal district court of Montana challenging the wolf delisting rider. You can check out a press release from WildEarth Guardians here. My previous posts describe the wolf delisting rider and the past litigation on the wolf delisting. …
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