Free Republic

SAN ANTONIO, - Construction of a Texas water pipeline was halted due to the discovery of the same spider that halted a highway project. The San Antonio Water System said construction of the six-mile pipeline was halted with less than 1,500 feet to go when a Texas Department of Transportation crew working on a different project uncovered a cave containing the endangered Braken Bat Cave meshweaver spider, a federally protected species, the San Antonio Express-News reported Tuesday. SAWS spokeswoman Anne Hayden said the spider, which also caused construction at Loop 1604 and Texas 151 to be halted, has left the...

Respect for private property at riskAt least you have to give President Obama high marks for creativity in his latest attempt to curtail freedom and individual rights. Specifically, I’m talking about Mr. Obama’s assault on private property rights through the abuse of the Endangered Species Act. I strongly support protecting endangered species. No one I know wants to see a species go anywhere near extinction. The far-left environmentalists in the Obama administration, however, have gone way beyond this by settling litigation with their allies in environmental groups behind closed doors. Through these secret settlements, they are advancing a much more...

Elephant rides are becoming endangered species at SoCal parades, zoos, fairs and festival. Several organizations have yanked elephant rides from street fairs, festivals and zoos in SoCal, thanks to the lobbying efforts of Animal Defenders International.

It's the eight-legged discovery of the millennium! An endangered species of spider not seen in more than three decades unexpectedly appeared in Northwest San Antonio two weeks ago. Biologists and science buffs, rejoice. There's just one downside if you're an area commuter: The spider, no bigger than a dime, showed up in the middle of a $15.1 million highway underpass project on Texas 151 at Loop 1604. And in this particular case of nature vs. man-made road, the arachnid wins. The highway project is on hold indefinitely. SNIP . . . No other spiders have been spotted in the hole...

The humble yellow flower, no bigger than a quarter, shows itself only three months a year, in places where few people will ever see it. The Texas golden gladecress, it seems, is as close as a living thing can be to not being there at all. In fact, the plant, found only in the wet glades of East Texas, has all but disappeared because of mining activity, oil and gas development and more, prompting the federal government this week to propose listing it as an endangered species.............................................

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing that 838,000 acres near the U.S.-Mexico border be designated as critical habitat for jaguars. While a small section of the proposed zone is in New Mexico, most of the land is in Southern Arizona, including the area of the proposed Rosemont Mine. The move was hailed by the environmental group that has long worked for jaguar protection. "Jaguars once roamed across the United States, from California to Louisiana, but have been virtually extinct here since the 1950s," said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, which sued to...

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ("FWS") is the federal agency in charge of "listing" most species under the Endangered Species Act ("ESA"). This legislation was passed in 1973 and explicitly stated its goal was "to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a 'consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation'...". The general purpose and specific language of the ESA has been broadly construed by federal courts over the years. Once a species is officially listed as endangered or threatened, the ESA regulations kick in and theoretically prevent any "person" (including corporations) from performing an...

Among those arrested were a father and son from Orange County, as well as the father's girlfriend, on charges related to trafficking in a commodity that largely has been banned by international trade laws since 1976.

MONTROSE, CO - Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum took a new jab at Newt Gingrich, saying he wants to "endanger" the former Speaker. The dig came during a campaign rally in Montrose, CO., as Santorum railed against the federal government's environmental regulations. "These are your lands! Oh but they always say we're doing it for your benefit," Santorum decried. "We'll make sure that you don't do something to scar the land or you don't do something to endanger a newt. No not that Newt, different newt. I want to endanger that Newt - that's a different story." The line drew...

Following approval of a revised wolf management plan by the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today proposed to remove the gray wolf population in Wyoming from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. Due to recovery efforts and the provisions of the revised state plan, the Wyoming wolf population is healthy and stable, current and future threats to wolves have been addressed, and a post-delisting monitoring and management framework has been developed. Today’s formal proposal follows an agreement with the state of Wyoming that serves as the blueprint for returning wolf management to...

LONDON (AP) -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is appealing for other donors to join Britain in a multi-million dollar campaign to wipe out guinea worm, a crippling and painful parasitic disease that now exists only in four African countries. At a press briefing in London on Wednesday, British officials are expected to pledge 20 million pounds (US$31 million) over four years to the cause - but only if other donors also open their wallets. The global campaign to eradicate guinea worm started in 1980, when there were about 3.5 million cases of the disease, also known as dracunculiasis, every...

BILLINGS, Mont. - The Obama administration is taking steps to extend new federal protections to a list of imperiled animals and plants that reads like a manifest for Noah's Ark -snip- key Republicans vowed Thursday to press forward with their plans to put the brakes on a law they blame for jeopardizing economic growth. Still, said Patrick Parenteau, an environmental law professor at the Vermont Law School, "Here at a single glance, you see the sweep of the Endangered Species Act. They are moving through this large backlog at a fairly crisp clip now. -snip- The flurry of action could...

The Obama administration is taking steps to extend new federal protections to a list of imperiled animals and plants that reads like a manifest for Noah's Ark - from the melodic golden-winged warbler and slow-moving gopher tortoise, to the slimy American eel and tiny Texas kangaroo rat. ... With a Friday deadline to act on more than 700 pending cases, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service already has issued decisions advancing more than 500 species toward potential new protections under the Endangered Species Act... Patrick Parenteau, an environmental lawprofessor at the University of Vermont. "They are moving through this large...

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Wading through a muddy river bed to reach shallow pools of water, wildlife biologists scooped up hundreds of minnows Friday in one of the first rescues of fish threatened by the state's worst drought in decades. The scientists collected smalleye shiners and sharpnose shiners from the Brazos River — about 2,300 on Thursday and 800 Friday. The fish, which are found only in the Brazos and nowhere else in the world,.. ... With the water drying up in the drought, the minnows don't have the 100 miles of river they need to reproduce. .. A...

Wolf sightings in the Blue Mountains are becoming more frequent this summer, but wildlife officials for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have yet to document firm evidence of a pack forming in the southeastern corner of the state. Paul Wik, district biologist for the department at Clarkston, said the canyons and timbered ridges southeast of Dayton have been a hot spot for wolf reports this year. Some hunters have even captured images of wolves with trail cameras, he said. "It's definitely no secret they are here," Wik said. "The only question to us is what their status is."...

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — Federal officials are readying plans to evacuate a small number of endangered species in Texas as a severe drought lowers water levels and threatens the survival of rare wildlife in the state's huge ecosystem. Months with almost no rain have caused water levels to drop by half or more in many rivers, lakes and other bodies of water, including springs in the central Texas Hill Country that are the only remaining habitat for populations of small fish, amphibians and other creatures. If the water continues to drop sharply, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials are preparing...

History tells us that listing a critter as an endangered species does little for the species and can do a great deal of harm to the local economies—the spotted owl and the delta smelt are two oft-cited cases. But there is not a big body of evidence showing how these listing decisions were made. It was just assumed that the species plight warranted protection. But that was before the listing proposal for the dunes sagebrush lizard threatened a large segment of U.S. domestic oil production and the economies of Southeastern New Mexico and West Texas. Rallies in opposition to the listing...

The Wildlife Conservation Society has discovered a surprisingly healthy population of rare snow leopards living in the mountainous reaches of northeastern Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor, according to a new study. The discovery gives hope to the world's most elusive big cat, which calls home to some of the world's tallest mountains. Between 4,500 and 7,500 snow leopards remain in the wild scattered across a dozen countries in Central Asia. The study, which appears in the June 29th issue of the International Journal of Environmental Studies, is by WCS conservationists Anthony Simms, Zalmai Moheb, Salahudin, Hussain Ali, Inayat Ali and Timothy Wood....

Scientists scouring the mountains of Borneo spotted a toad species last seen in 1924 by European explorers and provided the world with the first photographs of the colorful, spindly legged creature, a researcher said Thursday. In recent years, the Washington-based Conservation International placed the Sambas stream toad, also known as the Bornean rainbow toad, on a world "Top 10 Most Wanted Lost Frogs" and voiced fears it might be extinct. Researchers found three of the slender-limbed toads living on trees during a night search last month in a remote mountainous region of Malaysia's eastern Sarawak state in Borneo, said Indraneil...

A University of Exeter biologist has discovered a 'lost' species of bat breeding on the Isles of Scilly (UK). A pregnant female brown long-eared bat is the first of its species to be found on the islands for at least 40 years. It was discovered by Dr Fiona Mathews, Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter, a postgraduate student and a team from the Wiltshire Bat Group. The Scilly Isles Bat Group called in Dr Mathews and her team to help them find out more about bats on the islands. The researchers set up a radiotracking study, with funding from...