Month 11, Day 14: To the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

A very dry day for climate change news. On days like today, when the search engines don’t give me much to work with, I just hunt around for action items from environmental advocacy groups, such as the Center for Biological Diversity, one of my favorites. They note that the current administration hasn’t done such a good job when it comes to protecting the least among us:

WASHINGTON— The Obama administration Tuesday denied Endangered Species Act protection to 251 plants and animals that government scientists have said need those protections to avoid extinction. Instead, the administration has placed them indefinitely on a list of “candidate” species, where many have already languished for years without help.

“The Obama administration has no sense of urgency when it comes to protecting imperiled plants and animals,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “With extinction looming, imperiled species need more than promises of hope and change. They need real protection, and they need it now.”

So far, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Obama administration has provided Endangered Species Act protection to just 51 plants and animals, and only one of those occurs in the continental United States. By comparison, the Clinton administration protected 522 species; the George H.W. Bush administration protected 231. The average annual rate for the Obama administration is 26, while for the Clinton administration it was 65 and for the first Bush administration it was 58.

Gary Frazer is the head poobah of the Endangered Species Program, so I wrote him a letter. It took quite a while to locate his address.

Mr. Gary Frazer
Assistant Director
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Endangered Species Program
4401 N. Fairfax Drive, Room 420
Arlington, VA 22203

Dear Mr. Frazer,

I write to urge you and your office to move expeditiously in granting Endangered Species status to the two hundred and fifty-one plant and animal varieties recently relegated to “candidate” status by your office. Some of these creatures have been waiting for over twenty years for their status to be recognized; many others went extinct while awaiting protected status.

This is a sad commentary on the current administration’s attitude towards America’s biodiversity. There should be no political downside to granting Endangered status to animal species that are genuinely threatened; is President Obama’s team afraid of getting “environmentalist cooties” by demonstrating an awareness of the threat they face?

The more species we lose, the less robust our larger ecosystem becomes. With the terribly grave threat of climate change already making itself felt across the country and the world, we should be more conscientious in protecting all of America’s flora and fauna, not less.

While charismatic megafauna are excellent poster children for fundraising drives, smaller creatures like the Red Knot, the Aboriginal Pricklyapple, and the Pacific Fisher are just as deserving of our attention and protection. This administration’s record on biodiversity and species endangerment is, sadly, full of missed opportunities and a tragic fear of action.

Please reconsider the decision by the Fish and Wildlife Service, and move forward rapidly on awarding Endangered status to the two hundred and fifty-one species your office recently relegated to Candidate level.

We can do better than this.

Yours Sincerely,

Warren Senders