US Fish and Wildlife Service to consider climate change protection for Pika under ESA
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to determine whether the American Pika warrants protection from global warming effects under the Endangered Species Act by May 2009. If the Service determines that protection is warranted, it has nine months to decide whether the pika should be designated an endangered species. This agreement is part of a settlement resolving a lawsuit filed against the Service in August 2008 by the Center for Biological Diversity. The Center alleged that the Service had improperly failed to take action on an October 1, 2007 petition to evaluate whether the pika was an endangered species due to rising temperatures. At the time the lawsuit was filed, the Service had fallen nearly eight months behind the legal deadline to evaluate the petition.
Biologists for the Center claim that more than a third of documented pika populations in the Great Basin mountains of Nevada and Oregon have gone extinct in the past century as temperatures warm, and those that remain are found an average of 900 feet further upslope.
As a result of this agreement, the pika will become the first mammal considered for protection under the Act based on the claimed effects of global warming in the continental United States outside of Alaska. Last May, the government listed polar bears as threatened because their sea ice habitat was melting away as a result of increased temperatures.
Given the success of attempts to protect species like the pika and polar bears from the effects of global warming, and given yesterday’s announcement that the Center for Biological Diversity intends to commit even greater resources to climate litigation through its Climate Law Institute, we expect to see similar lawsuits in the future, as environmentalists increasingly attempt to address global climate change issues through litigation.
http://www.globalclimatelaw.com/admin/trackback/113197
