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Defenders of Wildlife, Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, Topaz and SunPower have reached an agreement to provide additional conservation protections for the Carrizo Plain in eastern San Luis Obispo County, Calif., where SunPower’s 250- megawatt California Valley Solar Ranch and Topaz’s 550-megawatt Topaz Solar Farm are planned for the generation of renewable solar power for delivery to California’s grid.
The U.S. Department of the Interior took a dangerous and disappointing leap towards drilling in the remote and fragile waters of America’s Arctic Ocean today. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) approved a plan by Shell Oil to conduct the first drilling in the harsh and remote Arctic Ocean since the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. Under this plan, Shell would start drilling in the Beaufort Sea in summer 2012.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (August 3, 2011) – The U.S. Department of the Interior released more details today about its agreement with Wyoming on a wolf management plan that would allow wolves to be shot on sight across most of the state for most of the year. Under the plan, wolves would only have a reprieve in a small northwest corner of the state, but even there they could be hunted with a license.
SALMON, Idaho (July 28, 2011) – The Idaho Fish & Game Commission approved today a proposal allowing hunting throughout the state and trapping in five wolf management units. There will be no hunt quotas across a majority of hunting zones.
WASHINGTON (July 27, 2011) – The U.S. House of Representatives approved (224-202) an amendment today to the Interior appropriations bill (H.R. 2584) that preserves critical protections for America’s imperiled wildlife. The amendment—introduced by Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) and co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) and Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI)—strikes the so-called “extinction rider,” a provision that would have increased the risk of extinction for imperiled species by blocking protections for adding new species under the Endangered Species Act.
WASHINGTON, D.C./MUNICH (July 26, 2011) – International wildlife conservation groups Pro Wildlife, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Animal Welfare Institute, issued a report today titled Canapés to Extinction: The international trade in frogs’ legs and its ecological impact. The report is the first comprehensive study of the frog leg market ever conducted and reveals an industry that is systematically devastating frog populations throughout the world and, subsequently, causing severe environmental impacts to natural ecosystems.
The Bureau of Land Management will further evaluate the potential impacts of solar energy development on public lands in six western states before finalizing its solar energy program, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced today.
BOZEMAN, Mont.— The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today that it will determine whether wolverines deserve full protection of the Endangered Species Act by 2013. Wolverines in the contiguous U.S. were added to the Candidate species list last December because of their low numbers and the threats posed to their habitat by global warming, but continue to await federal protection. The best data available suggests there are fewer than 300 animals across the entire western U.S., with only 35 individuals--just a tenth of the population--successfully breeding.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 12, 2011) – The House Appropriations Committee advanced legislation today containing dozens of anti-environmental riders and slashing funds for protecting America’s public lands, imperiled wildlife and natural resources.
WASHINGTON (July 8, 2011) – Conservation groups welcomed the news that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has decided to speed up the initiation of the process to formally add the highly imperiled rufa subspecies of red knot to the list of threatened and endangered species.