Notice of intent to sue for giraffes; suit planned for wolverines
The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a notice of intent to sue the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to act after announcing that giraffes may deserve protection from extinction under the Endangered Species Act.
According to the Center, giraffe populations are down 40 percent due to habitat loss, civil unrest and poaching for the international trade in bone carvings, skins, and trophies.
The U. S is a top importer of those trophies and products.
The Center and its allies petitioned for protection under the Endangered Species Act in 2017 and followed up in 2019 with a lawsuit.
When USFWS said giraffes may deserve protection but took no action, the Center filed a notice of intent to sue the Service Oct. 14 to force USFWS to act. The agency has 60 days to pursue protections for giraffes.
Last year, the Trump Administration rolled back protections for endangered species.
ACTION ON BEHALF OF WOLVERINES
The largest land-dwelling species in the mustelid family, the wolverine, is barely holding on in the U. S. due to trapping and habitat loss which have been dramatically shrinking its populations for more than a century.
With human threats such as snowmobiles tearing through its habitat and global warming threatening the deep snow it relies on for activities from traveling to denning and raising kits, the American wolverine is in danger.
The USFWS denied protection to the wolverine Oct. 8 prompting a coalition of conservation groups to announce their intention to file a notice of intent to sue as soon as the final rule is published in the Federal Register.
“Recent scientific information makes clear that wolverines face threats from destruction of their snowy habitat due to climate change,” Earthjustice attorney Timothy Preso said. “We intend to take action to make sure that the administration’s disregard of the real impacts of climate change does not doom the wolverine to extinction in the lower-48 states.”
There are now fewer than 300 wolverines left in the U. S. Listing wolverines as threatened or endangered would trigger new efforts to save them.
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