Congress recently advanced a pair of disastrous measures that could push a bat and bird species past the tipping point to extinction. In an enormous win for these species and the Endangered Species Act, President Biden vetoed them this week!
These bills could have been the death knell for Northern long eared bats and lesser prairie chickens by preventing them from receiving needed Endangered Species Act protections.
Northern long-eared bat populations have decreased by a shocking 99 percent since the early-2000’s due to human activity and disease. And lesser prairie-chickens have declined by 97 percent from their historical numbers.
President Biden deserves our thanks for vetoing these outrageous measures. But there is more that he can–and must–do. The White House recently reversed some of the Trump revisions to the Endangered Species act. But they left in place some of the most dangerous rollbacks to the Endangered Species Act in the law’s 50-year history. Of the 38 Trump-era changes to the Act’s regulations, the Biden administration proposes fixing only seven.1
Gray wolves in the Northern Rockies continue to pay the price for the Administration’s inaction. Despite overwhelming scientific, legal, and activist support, the Department of the Interior has failed to restore Endangered protections for gray wolves in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. Already in Montana’s hunting season that began on the 15th, at least 8 wolves have been slaughtered–including two near the border of Yellowstone National Park. President Biden must direct the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to restore these protections immediately.