Free Republic

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...

A unique and mysterious guinea-pig-sized rodent, not seen since 1898 despite several organized searches, bizarrely showed up at the front door of an ecolodge at a nature reserve in Colombia, South America. The magnificent red-crested tree rat (Santamartamys rufodorsalis), stayed for almost two hours while two research volunteers took the first photos ever of a creature the world thought would never be seen again. The charming nocturnal rodent made his re-debut to the world at 9:30PM on May 4, 2011 at the El Dorado Nature Reserve in the far north of the country. The Reserve was established in 2005 by...

Dr. Michael Collins, Naval Research Laboratory scientist and bird watcher, has published an article titled "Putative audio recordings of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis)" which appears in the March issue of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. The audio recordings were captured in two videos of birds with characteristics consistent with the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. This footage was obtained near the Pearl River in Louisiana, where there is a history of unconfirmed reports of this species. During five years of fieldwork, Collins had ten sightings and also heard the characteristic "kent" calls of this species on two occasions. Scientists...

A coalition of Central California farm bureaus, flood-control agencies and reclamation districts on Friday filed a lawsuit to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to delist an inch-long beetle that has saddled them with severe land-use restrictions and levee maintenance costs.

Oregon Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli doesn't cotton to foreigners offering legislative advice. When Louise du Toit, a singer from South Africa living in Greece, wrote the John Day Republican asking him to oppose a bill sponsored by Sen. Doug Whitsett, R-Klamath Falls, that would remove wolves from Oregon's endangered species list, Ferrioli whipped out this reply: "Are you kidding? Why do you expect that input from [European Union] residents make any difference at all to me? I'll be supporting Dr. Whitsett's bill (he is a VETERINARIAN). By the way, perhaps I should be writing to EU ministers to stop...

The California red-legged frog, threatened for decades by spreading subdivisions, pesticides and logging, has found a sanctuary in the Sierra Nevada. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife has approved an agreement between two conservation organizations permanently protecting a 48-acre site known as the Big Gun Preserve near Foresthill in Placer County. The wildlife service listed the frogs as threatened in 1966 under the Endangered Species Act. The land is owned by a unique nonprofit company called Westervelt Ecological Services, the conservation arm of a century-old Alabama lumber company, which buys up properties to preserve wildlife habitats and endangered natural environments. The...

KALISPELL, Mont. — Rep. Denny Rehberg, who manages a ranch outside Billings, Mont., knows quite literally what it means to have the wolf at the door: A single wolf killed 51 prized cashmere goats in his pasture years ago. " 'Shoot, shovel and shut up' is a joke in Montana," said Rehberg, referring to a long-standing reference among landowners across the West — perhaps only half in jest — to the best way to deal with a federally protected endangered species like the gray wolf. The reintroduction of the wolf in the northern Rocky Mountains has been so contentious that...

BOISE - After talks with the federal government collapsed, Gov. C.L. (Butch) Otter ordered Idaho wildlife managers today to relinquish their duty to arrest poachers or to even investigate when wolves are killed illegally. Otter rejected the wolf management Idaho has conducted for years as the federal government's "designated agent" after a federal judge in Montana returned wolves to Endangered Species Act protections earlier this year. This means Idaho Department of Fish and Game managers will no longer perform statewide monitoring for wolves, conduct investigations into illegal killings, provide law enforcement when wolves are poached or participate in a program...

We are constantly told that Americans are the ones destroying the planet and thus creating many species on the earth to become extinct, but maybe, just maybe we are not the problem. At I have always said that America is the friendliest country when it comes to the environment and animals. So for some proof that Sea Turtles are not becoming extinct because of the lights on beaches during the season that the sea turtles hatch their eggs, take a look at what the citizens of Costa Rica are doing to help save the sea turtles. OK they are...

The endangered tree kangaroo of Papua New Guinea captured on film.

Habitat protection for the endangered arroyo toad, which lives along slow-moving pools and sandy streams in Southern California, would cost $789 million over 25 years, according to a new analysis by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Most of the costs are expected to occur in new development, primarily in San Diego County, the study shows. The analysis also considered losses from grazing, mining, road construction and utility projects, and possible prices increases for water customers. The financial study was required as part of the agency's proposed designation of 112,765 acres as critical habitat for the small, buff-colored toad with...

At the present time the federal government has listed 2,269 species on the official “endangered or threatened” species list. The list includes plants, insects, mammals, birds, crustaceans and anything alive that is facing an uncertain future as a species, through no fault of its own. To be listed, and thus given special protection and benefits, a species must be diminishing in numbers, whether due to problems in reproducing, to diminishing habitat, encroachment by other species, predation, changes in environment or other threats to its survival. The specific benefit to us in protecting a specific species seems to be irrelevant....

BP officials could be prosecuted under the Clean Water Act, the Oil Pollution Act, and the Endangered Species Act. So could federal officials if they aided and abetted any illegal acts.

Immigration: Arizona moves to protect its citizens from a raging border war, and the administration and its activist supporters cry racism. Why is antelope protection more important than protecting American lives?

A campaign to declare the mass destruction of ecosystems an international crime against peace - alongside genocide and crimes against humanity - is being launched in the UK. The proposal for the United Nations to accept "ecocide" as a fifth "crime against peace", which could be tried at the International Criminal Court (ICC), is the brainchild of British lawyer-turned-campaigner Polly Higgins. The radical idea would have a profound effect on industries blamed for widespread damage to the environment like fossil fuels, mining, agriculture, chemicals and forestry. Supporters of a new ecocide law also believe it could be used to prosecute...

Controversial cuts in water deliveries to farms in California's San Joaquin Valley appear to be "scientifically justified" but still in need of further study, elite scientists have concluded in a report to be issued Friday. In a politically sensitive study, the National Research Council determined two federal agencies had a "sound conceptual basis" for their actions protecting Chinook salmon, delta smelt and other endangered fish. The conclusion undercuts a common farmer criticism. But the 65-page report may give some ammunition, as well, to those skeptical of water delivery restrictions imposed by the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries...