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Environmentalists sue feds over endangered species inaction by whrget hegh
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Environmentalists sue feds over endangered species inaction |
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Western environmentalists are suing the federal government, claiming promises by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to whittle down a backlog of plants and animals being considered for endangered species protection amount to "smoke and mirrors" and hundreds of species need protection now.
WildEarth Guardians alleges Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service, has failed to act on petitions seeking protection for 681 species across a dozen western and midwestern states.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., contends many of the species ???C ranging from butterflies and snails to grasshoppers and cactus - could face extinction if action isn't taken.
"In a world that's bombarded by climate change, pollution, habitat destruction and human over-population, clearly few of our rare species are going to be secure in the long term," Nicole Rosmarino, director of WildEarth Guardians' wildlife program, said Monday. "That's the basis for the petition."
WildEarth Guardians is asking the court to order Kempthorne to review species outlined in the petition and issue preliminary findings on whether they warrant becoming candidates for protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The group also is asking that Kempthorne be found in violation of the act for failing to issue findings on the species within 90 days of the original petitions.
The Interior Department referred questions about the lawsuit to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Valerie Fellows, a Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman in Washington, said Monday she had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment.
It's been nearly two years since a domestic species has been listed under the Endangered Species Act, but Fish and Wildlife Service director Dale Hall said his agency has made progress on a backlog that stems from years of litigation and will begin moving quickly on decisions.
Each year, the agency reviews species recommended for protection under the act. It can decide whether a species remains on the candidate list, is removed or warrants endangered species protection.
Hall testified before a House committee last month that his agency would make decisions on 71 species this year and 21 species the following year.
Despite the promise, Rosmarino said many of the 282 species on the candidate list have languished there for years without any real protection. She said that out of the decisions to be made this year, only one -the polar bear - will involve a final determination and that it has been more than three years since conservation groups first petitioned for that animal's listing.
"We think it is smoke and mirrors. It's basically sound and fury signifying nothing from this administration," Rosmarino said.
"They've made this exact promise before that they'll propose for listing all of these species and then they don't," she said.
WildEarth Guardians contends more than half the creatures on the list are in the most urgent category but fewer than a third of them will be addressed in Hall's plan.
Conservation groups have alleged the Bush administration has been dragging its feet on listing actions to appease big money interests. Interior Department spokesman Hugh Vickery denied the accusations.
Hundreds of lawsuits filed over the last decade by groups like WildEarth Guardians left biologists scrambling to meet court orders with no time or money to work on new listings or petitions that stacked up, Vickery said.
Fellows described it as "a bit of a vicious cycle."
"Because of listing and critical habitat, most of the budget is dictated by court orders, lawsuits or litigation," she said. "So what happens is if we get a petition to add a species to the list of endangered species, it becomes our priority because of a court order. If you don't meet a court-ordered deadline, someone could technically go to jail."
The Bush administration, Vickery said, should get credit for making it possible to do listings again by carving out money specifically for determining whether a species warrants protection.
"In my view, we are a lot closer now to having the program actually run the way the law suggests it should be run than we were 10 years ago," he said.
WildEarth Guardians argues that its lawsuit for action on 681 species shows that Fish and Wildlife has a long way to go before ensuring protection for imperiled species.
"With our mass listing petitions, we aim to narrow the gap between the large number of species at risk and small number of species that are federally protected," Rosmarino said. "The current list misrepresents the scale of the extinction crisis, and we seek to remedy that."
The Fish and Wildlife Service has the power to emergency list species, and Rosmarino said that's what it should do - especially in the case such animals as the sand dune lizard, found only in a few small pockets of southeastern New Mexico and West Texas.
Fish and Wildlife biologists have received funding to begin work on a listing package for the lizard and expect to have it done within a year. But Rosmarino noted the lizard has been on the candidate list since 2001 and said it's being pushed closer to extinction every year.
"The big deal is that 34 years ago we made a pledge as a country to never again allow a plant or animal to disappear because of our actions, and that pledge was the Endangered Species Act," Rosmarino said. I am a professional writer from China Hardware Suppliers, which contains a great deal of information about reverso watches , claude valentini watches, welcome to visit!
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