Category: Endangered Species Act

House GOP Looks to Reform Endangered Species Act

Rolling back the regulatory restraints and costs imposed on industry and agriculture by the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been among conservative objectives since the 1990s. With the ESA in 2023 marking the 50th year since it was adopted under President Richard Nixon and a GOP-led Congress, a House Republican working group is developing proposed…


Environmental Groups Ask for Manatees to Be Reclassified as ‘Endangered’ Again

Five conservation groups petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Nov. 21 to reclassify the manatee from threatened to endangered status because the mammal’s population is rapidly declining, largely due to starvation. Save the Manatee Club, Miami Waterkeeper, Harvard Animal Law and Policy Clinic, the Center for Biological Diversity, and [engineer] Frank S. González Garcia,…


Judge Reinstates Endangered Species Protections Rescinded Under Trump Administration

A federal judge in California has revoked changes to the Endangered Species Act that were made under the Trump administration, giving a win to environmental groups that filed a lawsuit over the move. Due to the changes brought by the Trump administration in 2019, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was no longer able to…


‘IndividuWhale’ Introduces Users to ‘Solé,’ ‘Scarlett,’ and Other Gray Whales Along The Oregon Coast

Oregon State University marine ecologist Leigh Torres has studied the gray whales along the Oregon coast for more than six years. That raises a natural question: does she have a favorite? “I like that one whale, Solé,” she told The Epoch Times. “She has a really distinct place she likes to be and foraging style.”…


San Diego Butterfly Declared a Threatened Species for Protection

SAN DIEGO—The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Dec. 20 declared one of Southern California’s rarest butterflies—the Hermes copper butterfly—as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The agency also designated 35,000 acres in San Diego County as a protected critical habitat. The butterfly declined from at least 57 historical populations to only 26 populations in a survey…


Senators Ponder $1.4 Billion Wildlife Recovery Bill

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee heard expert testimony Dec. 8 on the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (RAWA), a bipartisan wildlife protection bill that would be funded by fines and other money collected from environmental or natural resource-related violations. RAWA revises the 1937 Pittman-Robertson Act, which gave the tax money collected on firearms and…