Can the Endangered Species Act save the stonefly?

Even with immediate and massive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, most of the glaciers in the northern Rockies are likely to vanish in the next few decades. That means there won’t be any habitat left for the western glacier stonefly, which depends on cold glacial meltwater for habitat.  Even though their demise is all but certain, environmental activists say the insect needs protection under the Endangered Species Act, and last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to make that decision within the next year.Conservation groups had previously petitioned the agency to list the stonefly as endangered, and in 2011, the USFWS said that the rare bug may qualify for listing. “The western glacier stonefly is rapidly losing its habitat to global warming and deserves protection as an endangered species,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This stonefly is a canary in the coalmine for global warming. Without efforts to curb our emissions, all the glaciers in Glacier National Park will disappear within as little as 15 years.”...more