U.S. flooded with endangered species requests

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By Valerie Richardson

DENVER | When WildEarth Guardians filed two petitions in the space of a month to list 681 species under the Endangered Species Act, it came as a shock to biologists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Organizations normally seek protection for just one animal or plant at a time. The Center for Native Ecosystems, another group active in petitioning under the Endangered Species Act, has filed requests involving 27 species over the last 10 years.

So the filing of nearly 700 offerings at once struck federal officials as excessive. The Endangered Species Act requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to make and publish specific findings for petitioned species within 90 days, to the extent practicable.

"This was not envisioned by the [act] and it's not helpful to us at all because it takes an enormous amount of resources to look at this," said Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Ann Carlson. "Very few of those [in the petition] need our help, and it's taking away from the species that do need our help."

The massive filings came under fire on several fronts. Federal biologists argued that flooding the agency with petitions for hundreds of species at once wasn't what Congress had in mind when it enacted the Endangered Species Act in 1973. Moreover, they said, it's not in the best interest of endangered wildlife.

Nicole Rosmarino, wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians, said the massive filing was necessary to protect species that have recently "slipped through the cracks."

She cited the Clinton administration's removal of 2,000 species from its candidate rolls in 1996.

"It's a big deal, a very big deal for us," said Ms. Carlson, who was in charge of conducting administrative reviews on 206 of the species filed in July 2007 with the agency's Mountain-Prairie regional office in Denver. Petitions on behalf of 475 other species had been filed a month earlier with the Southwest regional office in New Mexico.

The agency in August approved 29 of the 206 species for further comment and review, which ultimately could result in threatened or endangered listings. The 475-species petition is still under review.

What touched off the filings on behalf of nearly 700 species, Ms. Rosmarino said, was the scandal surrounding former Fish and Wildlife official Julie MacDonald. A Bush administration appointee, Ms. MacDonald was found to have violated agency policies on tampering with scientific data and improperly removing species and habitats from the endangered species list.