The Latest On: The Wild
Conservationists Win Court Challenge to Give Manatees and Sea Turtles Constitutional Protection
Florida conservationists claimed a major victory today when a Leon County Circuit Court Judge ruled that the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWCC), which was created by voters in a constitutional revision in November 1998, has constitutional authority over endangered and threatened marine species.
Court Backs Forest Service Decision Not to Offer Oil and Gas Leases on Rocky Mountain Front
Court Asked to Close Lobster Fishery to Protect Monk Seal in Hawaii
Greenpeace Foundation, Center for Biological Diversity, and Turtle Island Restoration Network, plaintiffs in a federal court lawsuit filed in January seeking to protect the critically endangered Hawaiian monk seal from the impacts of commercial fishing in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, have gone into court asking Judge Samuel P. King to issue a preliminary injunction preventing the commercial lobster fishery from opening this year.
Lawsuit Filed over Deepening of Columbia River Channel
A coalition of environmental organizations today filed the first lawsuit aimed at the proposed deepening of the Columbia River shipping channel in order to protect endangered salmon.
Judge Orders Full Evaluation of North Pacific Fishery to Protect Steller Sea Lions
Lawsuit Seeks Fishery Closures to Save Endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal
Today three conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal district court in an effort to save the critically endangered Hawaiian monk seal.
Appeals Court Overturns Death Sentence for Yellowstone Wolves
A three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals today overturned a district court ruling that the wolves reintroduced to Yellowstone and central Idaho by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ("FWS") must be removed. Had the December 1997 ruling by Wyoming Judge William Downes not been reversed, the reintroduced wolves would have been put to death because of the so-called "poison pill" provision of the wolf regulations developed by FWS.
Court Upholds Forest Service Interim Roadless Area Protection Plan
U.S. Federal District Court Judge Clarence Brimmer has issued a ruling upholding the U.S. Forest Service's 18-month moratorium on road building in many of the Nation's remaining roadless areas.
In February 1999, the Forest Service imposed the moratorium in order to reevaluate its approach to managing the more than 373,000 miles of road that now criss-cross the National Forests. The Forest Service has been using this break to consider the mountain of evidence that its road system is the single-most cause of environmental damage on national forests and is a fiscal disaster.