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Tag: endangered species act

  • Endangered ferrets in more jeopardy as government shutdown drags on, wildlife expert warns

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    Of all the communities across America impacted by the government shutdown, the population of endangered black-footed ferrets may be among the smallest and most vulnerable. 

    This rare species, safeguarded under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, teeters on the brink of extinction, with about 300 existing in the wild. 

    Now, with biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service furloughed because of the shutdown, a critical release of 400 captive-bred ferrets, designed to strengthen their wild populations, is in jeopardy. 

    “It just really makes us all very nervous,” said Chamois Andersen, a senior leader at Defenders of Wildlife, a key non-profit partner on the federal agency’s Black-Footed Ferret Recovery Plan. “It’s not something we can play around with, in terms of the timing and the funding. It’s that endangered of a species.”

    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service breeds black-footed ferret in captivity in northern Colorado. 

    Kathryn Scott Osler / The Denver Post via Getty Images


    The government has been partially shut down for more than a week after a budget standoff in Congress over federal spending limits and extending expiring tax credits for health insurance.

    Andersen warns the next two months are critical for successfully introducing the captive ferrets. Fall provides the essential window for new ferrets to hone their hunting skills and begin mating before winter arrives. While many won’t survive the cold, those that do will help stabilize the fragile, wild population.

    The Fish and Wildlife Service maintains a captive breeding program facility in Fort Collins, Colorado, where many of the ferrets await release. The facility is currently at full capacity, Andersen said.

    While it may be possible to keep the ferrets captive for another year, this uncharted territory risks halting any future breeding efforts until more space becomes available.

    “That’s the pipeline of animals going out to the wild,” Andersen said. “Anything that goes wrong with our system could be detrimental to the overall survival of the species.”

    The Fish and Wildlife Service referred CBS News to the Department of the Interior, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    In prairie environments, such as the Badlands National Park in South Dakota, the black-footed ferret plays an indispensable role controlling the population of prairie dogs, which are known as a keystone species, essential to the health of the entire ecosystem. Without ferrets, unchecked prairie dog colonies can throw the entire system out of balance, impacting dozens of other species.

    “I always attribute it to a rug and you have a frayed edge. If you start to pull on that piece of the rug it really unravels fast,” Andersen said. “We just hope there can be some resolve to the shutdown and people can return to their jobs and reintroductions can go on as scheduled.”

    David Schechter

    David Schechter is a national environmental correspondent and the host of “On the Dot with David Schechter,” a guided journey to explore how we’re changing the earth and earth is changing us.

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  • Federal judge refuses to toss lawsuit alleging Florida failed to prevent sewage dumps that led to manatee deaths

    Federal judge refuses to toss lawsuit alleging Florida failed to prevent sewage dumps that led to manatee deaths

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    A federal judge this week refused to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that Florida has violated the Endangered Species Act because of sewage discharges into the Indian River Lagoon that have helped lead to manatee deaths.

    U.S. District Judge Carlos Mendoza issued a 30-page ruling that rejected a motion by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to toss out the lawsuit filed in 2022 by the environmental group Bear Warriors United.

    Bear Warriors United contends that the department has not adequately regulated sewage-treatment plants and septic systems, leading to discharges that killed seagrass — a vital food source for manatees — in a northern stretch of the Indian River Lagoon. Manatees have died in recent years because of starvation.

    The state raised a series of arguments in seeking dismissal, including that Bear Warriors United did not have legal standing to pursue the case. But Mendoza wrote, for example, that the group is seeking a series of steps to curb manatee deaths and that he can “easily conclude that if this court were to find in favor of plaintiff, it is likely that fewer protected manatees would be harmed by pollutive sewage.”

    “FDEP (the department) is responsible for regulating, permitting, and revoking (septic systems) and wastewater treatment facilities,” Mendoza wrote. “FDEP has designed and implemented remediation plans to address the nutrient pollution problem in the North IRL (Indian River Lagoon). The (lawsuit) alleged that FDEP’s ongoing failure to use its authority to regulate the sewage more efficiently continues to harm manatees, and thus constitutes an unlawful taking. Therefore, plaintiff has met its causation requirement for standing purposes because its alleged injury is fairly traceable to defendant’s action or inaction.”

    The ruling does not resolve the underlying issues in the lawsuit. Bear Warriors United and the state in June filed competing motions for summary judgment. If Mendoza grants summary judgment to either side, it would short-circuit the need for a trial.

    In its motion for summary judgment, Bear Warriors United said the department “has known for decades that the septic tanks and wastewater plants it authorizes release human nitrogen” that causes such problems as algae blooms in the lagoon.

    “DEP thus authorizes the destruction of the lagoon’s ability to sustain seagrass and other macroalgae which are essential food sources for the manatees’ survival,” the group’s attorneys wrote. “As such, DEP’s regulatory regime for septic tanks and wastewater plants directly and indirectly results in the ongoing unlawful ‘take’ of manatees, in violation of (a section of the Endangered Species Act), and this court must issue an injunction requiring compliance with the ESA (Endangered Species Act) to prevent further take of manatees.”

    But in the department’s motion for summary judgment, attorneys wrote that the state has taken steps in recent years to try to reduce discharges into the lagoon and disputed that it has violated the Endangered Species Act. The motion said the department’s “actions are not the proximate cause of any harm” to manatees, which are classified as a threatened species.

    “The record shows that DEP has not authorized or entitled any party to cause a violation of water quality standards,” the state’s motion said. “It has, instead, worked diligently to restore an impaired water. There is no proximate cause. DEP is entitled to judgment as a matter of law because with no dispute of material fact, it has not violated the ESA.”

    The lawsuit involves part of the Indian River Lagoon from the Melbourne Causeway in Brevard County to Turnbull Creek in southern Volusia County.

    Florida had a record 1,100 manatee deaths in 2021, with the largest number, 358, in Brevard County, the focus of the lawsuit.

    The state had 800 manatee deaths in 2022, before the number dropped to 555 in 2023, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission data. As of last week, the state had totaled 451 manatee deaths this year, with the most, 76, in Brevard County.

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    Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida

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  • Rare “highly toxic” viper found in Ohio. Here’s what to know about the eastern Massasauga rattlesnake.

    Rare “highly toxic” viper found in Ohio. Here’s what to know about the eastern Massasauga rattlesnake.

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    An annual snake survey in Ohio revealed an unexpected find – an eastern Massasauga rattlesnake, an “increasingly rare” snake in the state that is considered threatened. 

    The Ohio Department of Natural Resources said one of its officers in Huron County found the rattler in May. Officials captured the snake, recorded its measurements, and then released it back into the wild. 

    Huron County wildlife officer Matthew Smith found a rare rattlesnake during an annual survey with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in May 2024. 

    Ohio Department of Natural Resources/Facebook


    Eastern Massasaugas are “small snakes with thick bodies, heart-shaped heads and vertical pupils,” according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They only grow to be about 2 feet long and have gray or light brown skin with “chocolate brown blotches on the back.” Those considered melanistic appear as all black. They’ve been found in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. 

    They’ve also been found in more than 30 counties in Ohio, but according to Ohio State University, Massasaugas have “become increasingly rare” – both through the state and its range as a whole. They’ve only been seen in nine counties since 1976. Extensive farming significantly reduced their populations in the state, though many of their colonies continue to exist in bogs, swamps and wet prairies, according to the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s reptile field guide. 

    screenshot-2024-06-07-at-9-18-55-am.png
    Eastern massasauga rattlesnakes have been found in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio, although in Ohio, they are becoming “increasingly rare.” 

    U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service


    Otherwise known as “swamp rattlers” or “black snappers,” Massasaugas are not the most active of snakes. According to the Division of Wildlife, they are typically “very sluggish and make little or no attempt to bite unless thoroughly provoked.” Their diet mostly consists of small rodents, but they will also eat frogs and other snakes. 

    And that is a good thing, as their venom “is highly toxic,” the division said. A typical Massasauga bite doesn’t deliver a high enough quantity of venom to be fatal to healthy adults, but officials warned that “this is still a venomous snake…and should be treated with utmost caution and respect.” 

    The species is considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and is one of only three venomous snake species in Ohio. 

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  • Push to add horseshoe crab to endangered species list as biomedical companies harvest their blood – WTOP News

    Push to add horseshoe crab to endangered species list as biomedical companies harvest their blood – WTOP News

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    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been petitioned to add the American horseshoe crab as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.

    Horseshoe crab populations have crashed and their habitat is disappearing. Advocates say Endangered Species Act protections are urgently needed.(Courtesy Gregory Breese/USFWS)

    When you walk down the beach and see the brown, armored shell of a horseshoe crab, with its 10 eyes and spiked tail, it’s like looking at a living fossil. Now 23 conservation groups are concerned the ancient creatures are disappearing from Atlantic shores.

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been petitioned to add the American horseshoe crab as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.

    Despite their intimidating appearance, horseshoe crabs are harmless to humans. Each spring, along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, horseshoe crabs lay their eggs to spawn.

    Nearly twice as old as dinosaurs, American horseshoe crabs are thought to have lived 450 million years. However, in the past three decades, horseshoe crab populations have declined by two-thirds.

    Horseshoe crabs are harvested for use as bait by commercial whelk and eel fisheries.

    In addition, biomedical companies harvest horseshoe crabs and drain their blue blood, which is used to detect toxins in drugs and medical devices. Sensitive tests, using crab blood, are thought to be the gold standard in determining whether something is sterile.

    According to the conservancy groups, horseshoe crab blood harvests have doubled since 2017.

    “We’re wiping out one of the world’s oldest and toughest creatures,” said Will Harlan, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Horseshoe crabs have saved countless human lives, and now we should return the favor.”

    Synthetic alternatives to horseshoe crab blood tests are already being used in Europe, but U.S. drug companies have been slow to adopt the alternatives, according to the petitioning groups.

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    Neal Augenstein

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