Enviros Jump Government Over Canada Lynx

Despite eight years of prodding, the federal government refuses to protect the threatened Canada lynx, environmental groups claim in two federal lawsuits. America's wild snow cat was listed as a threatened species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2000. The essence of the fight lies in the millions of acres of boreal and subalpine forests in Canada and the United States. Environmentalists claim Fish and Wildlife has failed, after several tries, to designate enough acreage in the northern states as critical lynx habitat. Environmental groups sued in 2010, and filed two more lawsuits Monday after Fish and Wildlife's latest habitat designation. WildEarth Guardians, Conservation Northwest, Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands sued Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and Fish and Wildlife Service Director Daniel Ashe, under the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. The groups claim that Fish and Wildlife's 2014 revised designation excludes important areas critical to the lynx. The designation includes areas in the Northern Rockies and North Cascades in Montana, Wyoming and Washington, but excludes habitat in the southern Rocky Mountain range, where Fish and Wildlife claims reintroduction of the lynx is not necessary. It excludes other areas in Washington, Idaho, Montana and Oregon where the lynx has traditionally thrived. The environmentalists say the exclusions were made "without any analysis." "The best available science reveals many of these areas were occupied by lynx at the time of listing, remain currently occupied by lynx and contain the habitat elements essential to the species' conservation in the contiguous United States," according to the WildEarth complaint...more