Articles

Former Fish and Wildlife Director comments on wolf delisting

January 04, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

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 ...

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Fish and Wildlife Service proposes dramatically to expand bull trout critical habitat

January 20, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author:  Damien M. Schiff Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a proposal to revise the existing critical habitat for the bull trout.  The proposal, covering some 22,000 miles of streams and 500,000 acres of lakes of reservoirs in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Nevada, is a significant expansion over the trout's c ...

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Marbled Murrelet to remain listed

January 21, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

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 ...

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National Academy of Sciences releases report on Delta smelt

March 19, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author:  Damien M. Schiff The long-awaited report from the federal government's go-to group of scientists, dealing with the Delta smelt and other species protected under the Endangered Species Act, and whether water cutbacks to the San Joaquin Valley are justified to protect these species, is now available (an embargoed copy of the report ...

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PLF holds wildlife agency accountable

May 14, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Reed Hopper In 2005, Pacific Legal Foundation sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to conduct mandatory 5-year status reviews for approximately 100 California species listed as "threatened" or "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act. The purpose of these reviews is to determine if a species’ st ...

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Fish and Wildlife Service will review four species singled out in PLF lawsuit

November 24, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Daniel Himebaugh Today we learned that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service–the agency in charge of administering the Endangered Species Act–will be initiating status review of four species listed as endangered or threatened in Washington State: the northern spotted owl, Oregon silverspot butterfly, showy stickseed, and Wenatchee ...

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The polar bear economic farce

November 24, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author:  Damien M. Schiff Today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a final critical habitat designation for the polar bear.  The designation covers over 180,000 square miles.  Yet the Service estimates that the economic impact of the designation, over a 29-year period, will amount to less than $700,000 total, or just $54,00 ...

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The lizard slithers off into the sunset of recovery

March 17, 2011 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author:  Damien M. Schiff One of the most litigated-over species in the Southwest has been the flat-tailed horned lizard.  First noted as a species at risk by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in the early 1980s, the species was ultimately formally proposed for listing in 1993.  Fast forward nearly twenty years, and two appella ...

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More critical habitat proposed for the snowy plover

April 26, 2011 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author:  Damien M. Schiff As part of an unfortunate pattern, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed an expanded critical habitat designation, under the Endangered Species Act, for the western snowy plover, a small coastal bird.  In 1999, the Service designated nearly 20,000 acres of critical habitat for the bird in Ca ...