“Landmark Agreement Moves 757 Species Toward Federal Protection
(T)he Center for Biological Diversity struck a historic legal settlement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, requiring the agency to make initial or final decisions on whether to add hundreds of imperiled plants and animals to the endangered species list by 2018. The Endangered Species Act is America’s strongest environmental law and surest way to save species threatened with extinction.
Some of the latest species to benefit from the settlement — which was signed and approved by a federal judge on September 9 — are 374 Southeast freshwater species, the unique Casey’s June beetle, 35 springsnail species, the Miami blue butterfly and 23 species native to Oahu.
The settlement caps a decade-long effort by the Center’s scientists, attorneys and activists to safeguard 1,000 of America’s most imperiled, least protected species including the walrus, wolverine, Mexican grey wolf, fisher, New England cottontail rabbit, three species of sage grouse, scarlet Hawaiian honeycreeper, California golden trout, Miami blue butterfly, Rio Grande cutthroat trout, 403 southeastern river-dependent species, 42 Great Basin springsnails and 32 Pacific Northwest mollusks.
The Center’s wrote scientific petitions and/or filed lawsuits to win federal protection for each of the 757 species.
Click to see the species:
(via thejives)
