Lawsuits pile up over endangered species decisions made by Trump administration

The Biden administration is continuing to field lawsuits filed over Endangered Species Act decisions made by the Trump administration. The Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Thursday over its failure to provide protections under the Endangered Species Act for 10 species "it admitted needed them," according to the organization. Among the species are the monarch butterfly, which in December the Trump administration decided that adding it to the list of threatened species was "warranted but precluded." This meant that while the monarch butterfly became a candidate for listing as an endangered species, it was not yet listed as the agency prioritizes other candidates...Other species that the lawsuit describe as being left in "regulatory purgatory" are the northern spotted owl, which was found in December to warrant an uplisting from threatened to endangered, and the Eastern gopher tortoise, which has been awaiting protections since 1982... There have been a number of additional lawsuits brought against the federal government since Biden took office. Multiple conservation groups sued the USFWS on March 25 over a decision by the Trump administration to deny the north Oregon coast population of red tree voles protection under the Endangered Species Act...The Center sued the USFWS on March 25 to challenge the Trump administration's downlisting of the American burying beetle from endangered to threatened...Multiple conservation groups sued the USFWS on March 24 for refusing to designate critical habitat for the highly endangered rusty patched bumblebee...The Center sued the USFWS on March 3 for failing to designate critical habitat and develop a recovery plan for Hawaii's threatened 'i'iwi, or "honeycreeper" bird...the Center also filed a notice of intent to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service to make a decision on whether the Oregon coast spring-run chinook salmon warrants protection...MORE