Articles

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 ...

PLF attorneys filed public comments today urging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its proposal to list a distinct population segment (DPS) of wolverines in the United States as a threatened species.  We argue that the proposed rule, if adopted, would violate the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  The Service’s conclusion that th ...

Environment — Endangered Species – Wolverine We filed our comments on the listing of the Wolverine as a “distinct population segment” of a subspecies.  The problem here is that the Endangered Species Act does not countenance the listing of such a thing.  The government may list species, subspecies, and even “distinct ...

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 ...

Well-doers often forget the costs that the Endangered Species Act imposes on others. The listing of an animal as threatened or endangered saddles people within its range with some heavy burdens. Property owners may lose control over portions of their own property, which they must leave untouched as conservation easements. Farmers risk severe ...

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 ...

The fight over whether to list the wolverine under the Endangered Species Act has dragged on for twenty years. Yesterday, a federal district court in Montana decided to prolong the battle. … ...