Articles

Author:  Damien M. Schiff Last Friday, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) filed two Endangered Species Act (ESA) lawsuits concerning two Sacramento Delta species.  One lawsuit challenges the failure of the United States Fish and Wildife Service to respond to a CBD petition to uplist the currently "threatened& ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff Jamie Rappaport Clark, the Service's director from 1997 to 2001, had this oped in last Friday's Washington Post, excoriating the Obama Administration and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar for going ahead, in March of 2009, with a Bush Administration proposal to delist the Northern Rockies "dist ...

Author:  Ralph W. Kasarda Today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a final 12-month determination denying the delisting petition of the American Forest Resource Council ("AFRC") in regard to the marbled murrelet. The rule can be found here.  The result of the Service's determination is that the marbled murrele ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff The Ninth Circuit this week issued another decision in the longrunning dispute over whether and how to protect populations of salmon and related fish under the Endangered Species Act.  In Modesto Irrigation District v. Gutierrez, the plaintiffs challenged the National Marine Fisheries Service's decision not ...

Late last month, the Center for Biological Diversity and others petitioned the California Fish and Game Commission to list the gray wolf as endangered under the California Endangered Species Act.  The impetus for the petition is a recent siting of an Oregon wolf that occasionally wanders into Northern California.  CBD et al. acknowledge that this ...

Earlier this week, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing a distinct population segment of the North American wolverine as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.  The Service contends that the proposed listing should not bode ill for recreational and productive uses of land where the wolverine is located, beca ...

Earlier this week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service re-opened the comment period and extended the deadline for acting on the agency’s proposal to list a distinct population segment of the North American wolverine under the Endangered Species Act.  Generally, the ESA requires that the Service finalize a listing proposal within one year, but ...

This week, PLF filed a comment letter on behalf of Bonner County and the Idaho State Snowmobile Association addressing the proposed downlisting of the caribou. The impetus for the Service’s decision was a petition that PLF filed two years ago explaining that the original listing violated the Endangered Species Act. PLF had to file not … ...

The tyrant porkers of Orwell’s Animal Farm expanded their power by manipulating language. Whenever the farm’s seven commandments stood in the way of the ruling class of pigs, they’d reinterpret the rules in subtle ways. For example, when the pigs began to sleep in beds, they changed the rule that “no animal shall sleep in ...