New Endangered Species Listings Wait as Obama Admin Charts New Course

The Obama administration is lagging behind the pace set by its predecessor for listing endangered species, and some environmentalists are not happy. So far, President Obama's Fish and Wildlife Service has offered protection to two U.S. species, both plants, out of nearly 250 on Endangered Species Act's "candidates" list. Candidate species have been deemed worthy of protection by federal biologists but are kept from formal listing because of other priorities for the department. The service also finalized listings for three foreign bird species and a segment of the Atlantic salmon population and edited the listings of two plants and two species of salamander that were previously listed as single species. Altogether, the new administration's total listings this year lag behind George W. Bush's administration, which finalized protections for 11 species in its first year. The Bush-era listings tapered off in subsequent years for an average annual listing rate of just under eight species per year -- far below the average 65 species listed each year under President Clinton and 58 under President George H.W. Bush...read more