A metal fence marked with the U.S. Border Patrol sign prevents people to get close to the barbed/concertina wire covering the U.S./Mexico border fence, in Nogales, Arizona, on Feb. 9. ARIANA DREHSLER / AFP / Getty Images
President Donald Trump issued the first veto of his presidency Friday, overturning Congress' vote to block his national emergency declaration to fund a border wall that environmental advocates say would put 93 endangered species at risk. However, the president's decision came the same day as an in-depth report from UPI revealing how razor wire placed at the border in the last four months already threatens wildlife.
The Senate vote comes a little over two weeks after a similar vote by the House of Representatives. Trump announced his intention to "VETO!" the resolution on Twitter Thursday, and Congress needs a two-thirds majority to override a veto, which is seen as unlikely. Nevertheless, the Senate vote will be seen as an embarrassment for the president, BBC News reported.
President Donald Trump speaks to the press before boarding Marine One at the White House on March 8. MANDEL NGAN / AFP / Getty Images
President Donald Trump's 2020 budget calls for $8.6 billion in funding for his proposed border wall, NPR reported Monday, signaling that Trump is intent on a project that environmental groups say would be devastating to borderland communities and wildlife and that he is willing to keep fighting Congress to get it.
Two cubs belonging to an extremely endangered subspecies of leopard were born at Connecticut's Beardsley Zoo and have now survived a "critical" six weeks, the zoo announced in a Facebook post last Thursday.
Animals today live in a shrinking world. Development, resource extraction and roadbuilding have fragmented landscapes and reduced wild spaces making it harder for animals to find food, search for a mate and adapt to a changing climate. To help address these problems, ecologists and conservationists have been working for decades to create wildlife corridors — areas of natural habitat that can reconnect fragmented habitats. These projects have ranged from small-scale efforts to build safe passage over highways to major conservation efforts protecting millions of acres.
A gray wolf. Andy Skillen Photography / Getty Images
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) will attempt to strip Endangered Species Act protections from gray wolves in the lower 48 states, Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced Wednesday.
Bernhardt, who took over from former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in January, has been a key force behind efforts by the Trump administration's Department of Interior(DOI) to weaken the landmark conservation act.
A vaquita photographed in Mexico in 2008. Paula Olson, NOAA
My organization, the Elephant Action League (EAL), spent 14 months investigating and infiltrating the illicit totoaba swim bladder supply chain, from Baja California in Mexico to Southern China. We released a public report on what we called Operation Fake Gold in July 2018. Since then, we have continued to submit intelligence to Mexican, U.S. and Chinese authorities in order to facilitate disruption of the totoaba supply chain. As a result, further review of the situation surrounding the totoaba trade and its effect on the extinction of the vaquita is warranted.
Osprey on a nesting platform in Massachusetts. Craig Gibson, CC BY-ND
By Alan Poole
A hundred years ago, a person wandering the back roads of coastal New England might have come across an odd sight: at the edge of a farmyard, cheek by jowl with pigs and chickens and cows, a tall pole topped with a massive stick nest. And standing guard in the nest, a large brown-backed, white-headed wild bird of prey — an osprey (Pandion haliaetus).
Farmers in this region knew that nesting ospreys were vigilant watchdogs, quick to chase "chicken-hawks" and other predators away. But as fish eaters, ospreys were no threat to farm animals. And they were trusting enough to live comfortably near humans. So farmers lured them by building them places to nest — generally, an old wagon wheel atop a bare pole, mimicking the dead trees in which ospreys had nested for millennia.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi holds a press conference about a resolution to override Trump's national emergency declaration. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution Tuesday to overturn President Donald Trump's emergency declaration to fund the construction of a border wall that would put 93 endangered species at risk. Trump issued the declaration to secure around $8 billion in funding for the wall after a bipartisan spending bill passed by Congress Feb. 15 allocated only $1.375 billion to border security. Trump had originally requested $5.7 billion for the wall during a stand-off with Congress that resulted in the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
