Endangered Species

The White House will announce today that it is reconsidering another controversial last-minute environmental rule by President George W. Bush, an Obama administration official said Monday night. The Bush-era rule loosened the way the Endangered Species Act guides federal projects, such as roads and dams.

With four gray wolves having been killed in Idaho since Sept. 1, a federal judge has cleared the way for legal hunting of the once-endangered predators to proceed. U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy in Montana found that there would be no irreparable harm if the limited hunt in that state and Idaho were allowed to go forward. But the judge also wrote that the Fish and Wildlife Service, in continuing to list Wyoming wolves under the Endangered Species Act while delisting them in the two neighboring states, "has distinguished a natural population of wolves based on a political line, not the best available science."

The crraaaack! was so loud that James Tolbert looked out his town house window to investigate, and that's when he saw it -- a snowy white head with yellow eyes soaring into the woods across the street, a tree branch the size of a baseball bat locked in its beak. The National Park Service soon confirmed what this blighted community 1.5 miles from the Capitol could scarcely believe: A pair of American bald eagles had built a nest in the nation's capital for the first time since Harry S.

The wild fox population on Santa Catalina Island is so robust that biologists said Tuesday they may seek to have the small animals taken off the federal endangered species list next year.

The news was mixed this week as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it would move forward on a review of 29 plant and animal species and assess their inclusion on the federal endangered species list. The fact that the agency is considering listing any species represents a change from the last eight years. But the service also rejected petitions for nine species, including the ashy storm-petrel, a California seabird. For those who submitted petitions that were denied, the situation appeared dire.

President Obama on Tuesday overrode the Bush administration on a key step in applying the Endangered Species Act, restoring a requirement that federal agencies consult with experts before launching construction projects that could affect the well-being of threatened species. Environmentalists said reinstating the requirement blocks the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Forest Service and others from "nibbling away" at crucial wildlife habitat.

Bush administration officials said Wednesday that they would remove gray wolves in the Midwest and the northern Rocky Mountains from the endangered species list -- the latest, but probably not last, chapter in the wolf's on-again, off-again federal protection. The Interior Department decision would apply to wolves in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Idaho and Montana.

The federal government on Friday proposed declaring the black abalone an endangered species, the first step in an effort to bring back the once-abundant mollusk ravaged by disease and excessive harvesting. The final decision, expected to come after a year of further study, would not have an immediate impact on the hunting of black abalone in California, which has been illegal here since 1993.

State game agencies and private citizens would be allowed to kill federally protected gray wolves that threatened dogs or seriously decreased deer, elk or moose populations in parts of the northern Rocky Mountains, under a federal rule announced Thursday. The regulation comes a month ahead of the expected federal decision to take the gray wolf off the endangered species list, which would allow wolves to be hunted. That decision is likely to face protracted litigation. U.S.

Environmental groups have sued to block a federal rule that would allow state wildlife agents and private citizens to kill more endangered gray wolves in the northern Rockies. Federal officials want to empower state wildlife agencies to kill off packs of wolves in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana if they are having a "major impact" on big-game herds, particularly elk. The rule also would allow for the killing of wolves caught attacking stock animals or dogs.