endangered species

As Pacific bluefin tuna stocks dwindle to 2.6 percent of their historic population, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission have promised to increase the fish’s population sevenfold.

A group representing farmers in Washington State and Oregon is urging the Interior Department to convene the “God squad” — an interagency committee empowered to override the Endangered Species Act — over complaints that the act's protections on salmon are hurting growers and others.

The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol says it could use a 2005 anti-terrorism law — the Real ID Act — to all President Trump’s border wall to be built through a national wildlife refuge in Texas, without having to conduct an environmental impact studies. The studies are usually mandated for any new construction on federal lands under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

More than one-third of Australian waters are are protected by law, and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is asking Parliament to allow fishing in 80 percent of those waters, up from the current 64 percent, reports the New York Times. If approved, "it will be the first time a nation has scaled back its regulations in protected maritime areas."

GOP leaders in Congress are targeting the Endangered Species Act with new bills in both the House and Senate. "The House Natural Resources Committee discussed five bills whose effects would include allowing the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to use economic costs to deny listing a species as threatened, require the agency to prioritize input in listing decisions from states, remove the gray wolf from the endangered list and limit payouts of attorneys’ fees in Endangered Species Act (ESA) litigation," says The Hill.

Wildlife managers in Wyoming killed a record number of wolves last year — 113 — after attacks on livestock almost doubled. A report released “by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that wolves killed 243 livestock, including 154 cattle, 88 sheep and one horse, in 2016.

A sixth mass extinction of the planet’s species is already underway — and worse than thought, says new research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The grizzly bear will soon be delisted as an endangered species in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, according to a statement from the Department of the Interior. The area around Yellowstone National Park covers more than 20,000 square miles of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.

The Trump administration is considering a different way to manage endangered species. The new approach is based on an algorithm that would channel funds toward plants and animals that have the greatest chance of survival—and away from others.

At a time when sustainability carries cachet with consumers, companies known for top-quality products are putting their money into the farms and ranches that provide their raw materials, says Business of Fashion.

The Trump administration is canceling a proposed rule that would have shut down any gill net fishery that killed or seriously injured sensitive species like sea turtles, whales and dolphins in West Coast fishing nets. The rule — proposed in 2015 by the “14-member Pacific Fishery Management Council, which manages fisheries in California, Oregon and Washington”— was deemed unnecessary and a cost burden to fishermen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Unless critical habitat is protected and restored, researchers say three-quarters of California's 31 native trout, steelhead and salmon species "will be extinct in the next 100 years," says the Sacramento Bee. "California’s record-breaking drought that officially ended this winter wreaked havoc on many of the already-struggling fish, which depend on cold water."

Experts worry that as the gray wolf population just outside of Yellowstone National Park continues to grow, looser hunting restrictions in surrounding states could change pack behavior and hurt one of the most comprehensive research studies on the species anywhere in the world.

A small, red Chinese berry is at the heart of a radical new approach to conservation, “helping to save both the forest where it grows in the Upper Yangtze region — one of the most biodiverse places on the planet — and the villagers who harvest it,” writes FERN associate editor Kristina Johnson in a story co-produced with NPR’s The Salt.

Wolves can now by shot on site in 85 percent of Wyoming, after a federal court of appeals in Washington, D.C., ruled last month that the animal no longer warrants endangered species protection in the state, says the Casper Star Tribune.

Pesticide makers sent letters to federal regulators asking them to "set aside" agency research into the risks to endangered species from three organophosphate pesticides — chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion — says The Associated Press. Dow Chemical (whose chief executive "is a close adviser" to President Trump), FMC Corp. and Adama, sent letters to the EPA and the Commerce and Interior Departments to argue the studies should not be used.