The Trump administration has lifted an Obama-era ban on the use of genetically modified crops and pesticides linked to bee decline in certain national wildlife refuges where farming is allowed, Reuters reported Saturday. In a memo signed Aug. 2, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Principal Deputy Director Gregory J. Sheehan said the move was necessary […]
The Humboldt marten—a rare, house cat-sized cousin to the weasel found in old-growth forests in northern California and Oregon—is being driven to the brink of extinction due to over-trapping, deforestation, road construction, wildfires, climate change and even pesticides associated with marijuana cultivation, the Associated Press reported. In recent years, a number of conservation organizations, including […]
Federal officials and conservation groups reached an agreement Wednesday that will finally end Nestlé Corp.’s ability to rely on a permit that expired 30 years ago to siphon water from the San Bernardino National Forest for its massive bottled-water operation. The company’s diversion has severely reduced water in spring-fed Strawberry Creek, which forest wildlife and […]
Conservation and public health groups sued the Trump administration and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt on Wednesday for failing to protect endangered wildlife and the environment from the dangerous pesticide malathion. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that the EPA and the U.S. […]
The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to approve the largest grizzly bear hunt in the lower 48 states, despite opposition from environmental groups, tribal nations and wildlife photographers, The Washington Post reported. The vote comes less than a month after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service affirmed its June 2017 decision to […]
A new Trump administration plan proposes to auction off 4,200 acres of public land for oil and gas development in northern Arizona. The lands straddle the Little Colorado River, are within three miles of Petrified Forest National Park, and are near habitat for a federally threatened fish called the Little Colorado spinedace. Drilling and fracking […]
The newest version of the 2018 Farm Bill, set for a vote on Friday, includes an unprecedented provision allowing the widespread killing of endangered plants and animals with pesticides. The bill launches the broadest attack on the Endangered Species Act in 45 years, eliminating the requirement that federal agencies analyze pesticides’ harm to the nation’s […]
On Thursday the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service changed the designation of a rare New Mexico cactus from “endangered” to the less-dire “threatened,” reflecting its progress toward recovery under the Endangered Species Act. The Kuenzler hedgehog cactus lives in 11 locations in southeastern New Mexico. It was known from just two populations when first protected […]
America’s national wildlife refuges are being doused with hundreds of thousands of pounds of dangerous agricultural pesticides every year, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis by the Center for Biological Diversity. The Center for Biological Diversity report, No Refuge, reveals that an estimated 490,000 pounds of pesticides were dumped on commodity crops like corn, soybeans and […]