Latest Conservation laws and regulations News

FILE - In this Monday, May 13, 2019 file photo, A female red wolf emerges from her den sheltering newborn pups at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, N.C. A judge has ordered the federal government to come up with a plan to release more endangered red wolves from breeding programs to bolster the dwindling wild population. U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle signed an order Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021 directing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to draft a plan by March 1 for releasing captive-bred wolves into the wolves’ designated habitat in North Carolina. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File)

Judge orders plan for releasing more red wolves into wild

Jan. 22, 2021 6:26 PM EST

A judge has ordered the federal government to come up with a plan to release more endangered red wolves from breeding programs to bolster the dwindling wild population. U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle signed an order Thursday directing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to draft a plan by March 1 for...

FILE - This June 29, 2017, file remote camera image provided by the U.S. Forest Service shows a female gray wolf and two of the three pups born in 2017 in the wilds of Lassen National Forest in Northern California. Trump administration officials on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020, stripped Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in most of the U.S., ending longstanding federal safeguards and putting states in charge of overseeing the predators. (U.S. Forest Service via AP, File)

Groups ask court to restore protections for US gray wolves

Jan. 14, 2021 5:54 PM EST

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Wildlife advocates on Thursday asked a federal court to overturn a U.S. government decision that stripped Endangered Species Act protections for wolves across most of the nation. Two coalitions of advocacy groups filed lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Northern California seeking to...

FILE - This July 16, 2004, file photo, shows a gray wolf at the Wildlife Science Center in Forest Lake, Minn. Two groups opposing a Colorado ballot initiative to reintroduce the gray wolf into the state conceded the race Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020, even though the race is too early to call because thousands of ballots are still uncounted. (AP Photo/Dawn Villella, File)

Colorado begins wolf reintroduction plans OK'd by voters

Jan. 14, 2021 3:52 PM EST

DENVER (AP) — Colorado could have to navigate years of pending litigation over the Trump administration’s delisting of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act as it tries to enact its own voter-approved initiative to reintroduce the predator to the state, top wildlife officials were told...

FILE - In this May 8, 2003, file photo, a Northern Spotted Owl flies after an elusive mouse jumping off the end of a stick in the Deschutes National Forest near Camp Sherman, Ore. The Trump administration has slashed more than 3 million acres of protected habitat for the northern spotted owl in Oregon, Washington and northern California, much of it in prime timber locations in Oregon's coastal ranges. Environmentalists are accusing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under President Donald Trump of taking a

Trump administration slashes imperiled spotted owls' habitat

Jan. 14, 2021 1:27 PM EST

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Trump administration said Wednesday that it would slash millions of acres of protected habitat designated for the imperiled northern spotted owl in Oregon, Washington state and Northern California, much of it in prime timber locations in Oregon’s coastal ranges....

Environmentalists move toward lawsuit over fuel break plan

Jan. 13, 2021 9:19 PM EST

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Environmentalists have filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S government to block plans to build up to 11,000 miles (17,700 kilometers) of fuel breaks they contend would violate the Endangered Species Act in a misguided effort to slow the advance of wildfires in six Western states....

FILE - In this March 28, 2018 file photo, a North Atlantic right whale feeds on the surface of Cape Cod bay off the coast of Plymouth, Mass. The Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation of Nature said Thursday, July 9, 2020, it is moving the North Atlantic right whale from

Lawsuit seeks more protection for endangered right whales

Jan. 13, 2021 3:04 PM EST

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Conservation groups filed suit Wednesday against the federal government, saying it has taken too long to act on proposals to expand protections for critically endangered right whales. The lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington says the National Marine Fisheries Service for more...

FILE - In this Saturday, May 1, 2010 file photo, a least tern checks her two eggs on the beach in Gulfport, Miss. The interior least tern, a hardy Midwestern bird that survived a craze for its plumage and dam-building that destroyed much of its habitat, has soared off the endangered species list. Federal officials said Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2020, that 35 years of legal protection and habitat restoration efforts had brought the tern back from the brink of extinction. (AP Photo/Dave Martin File)

Recovered Midwestern bird soars off endangered species list

Jan. 12, 2021 12:53 PM EST

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — The interior least tern, a hardy Midwestern bird that survived a craze for its plumage and dam-building that destroyed much of its habitat, has soared off the endangered species list. Federal officials said Tuesday that 35 years of legal protection and habitat restoration...

Officials: Manatee in Florida had 'Trump' drawn on back

Jan. 11, 2021 11:07 PM EST

HOMOSASSA SPRINGS, Fla. (AP) — State and federal wildlife officials are investigating reports of a manatee found with “Trump” drawn on its back in a Florida river. The aquatic mammal was spotted over the weekend in the Homosassa River in Citrus County, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and...

FILE - In this undated file photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an airplane flies over caribou from the Porcupine caribou herd on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska. Conservationists will try to persuade a U.S. judge to stop the Trump administration from issuing leases to oil and gas companies in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Anchorage Daily News reported that the videoconference Monday, Jan. 4, 2021, in U.S. District Court in Anchorage is expected to determine whether the Bureau of Land Management can open bids in an online lease sale scheduled for Wednesday. The agency has offered 10-year leases on 22 tracts covering about 1,563 square miles in the coastal plain, which accounts for about 5% of the refuge's area. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via AP, File)

Alaska court hears challenge to Arctic refuge oil leases

Jan. 4, 2021 7:57 PM EST

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Attorneys for conservation groups asked a U.S. judge Monday to halt the issuance of oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ahead of a planned sale this week. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason said she would try to issue a decision by late Tuesday, the day...

This Jan. 23, 2020, photo shows the National Archives on Sand Point, Wash., that has about a million boxes of generally unique, original source documents and public records. More than two dozen Native American tribes and cultural groups from the Northwest and Alaska are suing the federal government to stop the sale of the National Archives building in Seattle, a plan that would force the relocation of millions of invaluable historical records to California and Missouri. (Alan Berner/The Seattle Times via AP)

Washington, Oregon, 29 tribes sue over plan to move archives

Jan. 4, 2021 7:08 PM EST

SEATTLE (AP) — Washington, Oregon, more than two dozen Native American and Alaska Native tribes and cultural groups from the Northwest are suing the federal government to stop the sale of the National Archives building in Seattle, a plan that would force the relocation of millions of invaluable historical...

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