Settlement Requires Feds to Act on Protecting 82 Coral Species From Extinction

In an agreement filed today in federal court, the U.S. government pledged to determine by April 15, 2012, whether Endangered Species Act protections are needed for 82 species of coral. The settlement is the result of a 2009 petition from the Center for Biological Diversity asking the federal government to list the corals as threatened or endangered; that decision is now overdue. The corals, which occur in U.S. waters ranging from Florida and Hawaii to American territories in the Caribbean and Pacific, have all declined by more than 30 percent over a 30-year period. Coral reefs around the world are facing extinction due to overfishing, pollution and the overarching threats of global warming and ocean acidification...more