Endangered Species

Florida residents own rights to decide if 5,000 acres of farmland in Charlotte, Hardee, and Highlands counties will ever be developed now part of Rural and Family Lands

Fifty years after the Endangered Species Act took effect, environmental advocates and scientists say the law is as essential as ever. Habitat loss, pollution, climate change and disease are putting an estimated 1 million species worldwide at risk.

Florida Ports Council President and CEO Mike Rubin is raising alarms that proposed changes to protect an endangered whale species could economically hurt ports from Tampa to Pensacola.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is nearing the end of a public-comment period on a petition from conservation organizations to establish a year-round 10-knot vessel speed limit in the “core” habitat area of the endangered Rice’s whale.Rubin wants the petition tossed.

A mysterious disease is spreading through the already endangered Florida panther population, and dozens of wildlife scientists working to figure out how to stop it before any more of the beloved and endangered species remain crippled from it or die trying to live with it.

The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service wants to delist the wood stork from endangered to threatened, which has Florida conservation groups at odds

"These agencies are basically pretending that another catastrophic oil spill cannot possibly occur, cannot possibly be a risk for the Gulf of Mexico. And we know that that risk is real, and they need to be paying attention to that," said Chris Eaton, Earthjustice attorney.

The death of five black skimmers on a Marco Island beach prompted an investigation by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission and Marco Island police and the arrest of a Bonita Springs man.

The death of five black skimmers on a Marco Island beach has prompted an investigation by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission and Marco Island police.

We talk with Earthjustice Oceans Program Senior Attorney Chris Eaton about the ongoing legal battle to protect Rice’s whales from extinction. The species small population of under 100 animals lives year-round in the northeaster Gulf of Mexico where they face threats from ocean noise, marine vessel traffic, oil and gas activity, and the threat of future oil spills.

"There's an implication that the Fish Wildlife Service removed protections for gopher tortoises. They did not. If we wanted to think of the immediate protection level changes for the species, this finding document found no change," said Jeffrey Goessling of Eckerd College.