Endangered Species Act

The move comes after a U.S. district judge rejected a 2020 decision by the federal government to shift permitting authority to the state for projects that affect wetlands.

Although federal wildlife officials protected areas where bonneted bats currently live, conservation advocates say protections need to go further to include locations the bats will eventually migrate to due to sea-level rise.

Atalas are small butterflies with inky black wings that are speckled with iridescent blue spots, and a bright red body.

His ruling that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency violated the Endangered Species Act shifts power away from the state.

The Key deer is losing the only place it lives, raising uncomfortable questions for the people tasked with keeping endangered species alive.

A coalition of environmental groups have filed paperwork threatening to sue the federal government for not moving quickly enough to protect the few ghost orchids that remain — an estimated 1,500. A formal lawsuit could come as early as this month.

Fifty years after the Endangered Species Act took effect, environmental advocates and scientists say the law is as essential as ever. Habitat loss, pollution, climate change and disease are putting an estimated 1 million species worldwide at risk.

The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service wants to delist the wood stork from endangered to threatened, which has Florida conservation groups at odds

"Time and time again, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has missed these deadlines for species. They have an incredible backlog of decisions to make, not just for the ghost orchid, and we're really concerned about that," said Elise Bennett with the Center for Biological Diversity.

“Florida bonneted bats desperately need critical habitat protection, and the Fish and Wildlife Service has excluded crucial areas threatened by development right now,” said attorney Ragan Whitlock with the Center for Biological Diversity.

"These agencies are basically pretending that another catastrophic oil spill cannot possibly occur, cannot possibly be a risk for the Gulf of Mexico. And we know that that risk is real, and they need to be paying attention to that," said Chris Eaton, Earthjustice attorney.

While an original plan was presented in 2020, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now wants to designate approximately 1.2 million acres as critical habitat across 13 counties - this marks a 21% reduction from the previous proposal.