Endangered Species

Environmental groups Monday urged a federal appeals court to reject Florida’s request for a stay of a district judge’s ruling in a battle about permitting authority for projects that affect wetlands. Attorneys from the Earthjustice legal organization filed a 37-page brief at the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia disputing Florida’s arguments that the ruling by U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss should be put on hold while an appeal plays out.

Since passage of the Endangered Species Act 50 years ago, more than 1,700 plants, mammals, fish, insects and other species in the U.S. have been listed as threatened or endangered with extinction. Yet federal government data reveals striking disparities in how much money is allocated to save various biological kingdoms.Of the roughly $1.2 billion a year spent on endangered and threatened species, about half goes toward recovery of just two types of fish: salmon and steelhead trout along the West Coast. Tens of millions of dollars go to other widely known animals including manatees, right whales, grizzly bears and spotted owls.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has nearly halved the acreage involved in its plan to establish a large conservation area in Southwest Florida

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.