WildEarth Guardians

Saturday, June 14, 2008
Emergency Listing Sought For Dozens Of Species On The Brink

Group Files Endangered Species Act Request for 32 Western Plants and Animals
Contact: WildEarth Guardians

Santa Fe, NM. - WildEarth Guardians requested on Thursday that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) protect 32 plant and animal species under an emergency provision of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The species are currently found on one or no known sites and most face multiple threats. They include U.S. flowering plants that have not been seen for decades, a silkworm vanishing due to cotton crops, a mayfly not seen since 1934 but rediscovered in 2005, a snail that was missing for 33 years but rediscovered in 1997, and another snail found on only six feet of habitat.

"These species deserve immediate, emergency protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service has the authority to save them from vanishing forever, and we're urging them to use that authority," stated John Horning, WildEarth Guardians' Executive Director.

The dozens of species were selected from petitions filed by WildEarth Guardians in June and July 2007 requesting protection of a total of 674 species under the ESA. The group filed suit in Washington, D.C. federal court in March because the Service failed to provide a timely finding on their petitions, due last fall.

WildEarth Guardians' emergency petition is an attempt to turn up the pressure on the Service given that the endangered species listing program has nearly ground to a halt nationally. The polar bear was the first U.S. species to be listed in over two years, which was the longest listing hiatus in the 35-year history of the ESA. The George W. Bush administration has listed fewer than nine species annually, in contrast with 58 species listed per year under George H.W. Bush, and 65 per year under Bill Clinton. Unlike any prior administration, all of the listings under George W. Bush have been prompted by citizen petitions and lawsuits.

The slow pace of listings is despite nearly 300 species awaiting ESA protection as formal "candidates" for listing determined by the Service to warrant protection. WildEarth Guardians charges that not only should the Service list the backlog of ESA candidates, there are thousands of additional species deserving protection that are not even in the queue, including the 32 animal and plant species for which the group is seeking emergency listing.

"We're requesting emergency protection for plants and animals that are a hair's breadth from extinction. Some haven't been seen for decades, others are located at only one site on earth - they all deserve the chance at survival that the Endangered Species Act provides," stated Horning.

View the petition (PDF)