Monarch butterfly denied immediate protection, despite growing extinction dangers bendbulletin.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bendbulletin.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Despite being perilously close to extinction, monarch butterflies will not receive federal protection because 161 other species are a higher priority, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday.
“We conducted an intensive, thorough review using a rigorous, transparent science-based process and found that the monarch meets listing criteria under the Endangered Species Act. However, before we can propose listing, we must focus resources on our higher-priority listing actions,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Aurelia Skipwith in a news release.
The announcement highlights the severity of the ongoing extinction crisis, said Sarina Jepsen, the director of endangered species and aquatic programs for the Portland-based Xerces Society. The Xerces Society is a nonprofit environmental organization that focuses on the conservation of invertebrates. It is named after the first butterfly to go extinct due to human activity in North America.
December 15, 2020 Brian Hires, 703-358-2191, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service have finalized a regulatory definition of the term “habitat” that will be used for designating critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The definition is part of the efforts of the Trump Administration to balance effective, science-based conservation with common-sense policy designed to bring the ESA into the 21st century. “This action will bring greater clarity and consistency to how the Service designates critical habitat,”
said Rob Wallace, Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks . “Making the Endangered Species Act more effective at conserving imperiled wildlife and more transparent and user friendly for stakeholders represents a win-win for everyone.”
Monarch butterflies flutter toward extinction union-bulletin.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from union-bulletin.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Feds to delay seeking legal protection for monarch butterfly
FILE - In this June 2, 2019, file photo, a fresh monarch butterfly rests on a Swedish Ivy plant soon after emerging in Washington. Trump administration officials are expected to say this week whether the monarch butterfly, a colorful and familiar backyard visitor now caught in a global extinction crisis, should receive federal designation as a threatened species. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
FILE - In this July 29, 2019, file photo, a monarch butterfly rests on a plant at Abbott s Mill Nature Center in Milford, Del. Trump administration officials are expected to say this week whether the monarch butterfly, a colorful and familiar backyard visitor now caught in a global extinction crisis, should receive federal designation as a threatened species. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)