June, 18 2010, 12:00am EDT
Feds Issue Permit to "Take" Jaguar and Ocelot: Arizona Game Department Allowed to Kill More Endangered Felines
TUSCON, AZ
The Center for Biological Diversity has learned that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a permit on June 14 to the Arizona Game and Fish Department allowing the state agency to "take" jaguars and ocelots, which can include killing, injuring or otherwise harming the rare felines. The permit was issued 15 months after Arizona Game and Fish killed the last known jaguar in the United States, an animal called Macho B.
"The Fish and Wildlife Service is legalizing what an Arizona Game and Fish contractor did illegally in 2009," said Michael Robinson of the Center. "Both agencies are back to denying science and pretending that jaguars and ocelots are disposable."
The new permit, issued June 14, authorizes intentional capture of both a jaguar and an ocelot to affix a radio collar, as well as unintentional take of both species in the course of seeking to capture other animals. The permit requires submission of plans to minimize the likelihood that jaguars or ocelots will be injured or killed. The plan for intentional take must be reviewed by the respective recovery teams for each species; a jaguar recovery team has not yet been appointed but will be as a result of a Center lawsuit. But in planning for the possibility of an unintentional jaguar capture, the Jaguar Conservation Team -- an interagency group chaired by Arizona Game and Fish -- could approve standards even before a recovery team is appointed.
"The Jaguar Conservation Team served as a cheerleader for capture of jaguars before Macho B's sad and unnecessary death," said Robinson. "It would be a mistake to let this group watchdog Arizona Game and Fish."
In September 2009, the Center sued Game and Fish based on the threat of future unpermitted jaguar captures. Despite this suit and an investigation by the Interior Department's inspector general that found the state agency lacked the necessary permits to capture jaguars, the agency has maintained that it does not need a permit to take additional jaguars. This untenable position is now superseded by issuance of the new permit.
"Jaguars and ocelots help maintain the balance of southwestern wildlands," said Robinson. "These beautiful and very rare animals deserve much more consideration and protection from the federal and state agencies that should be their guardians."
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
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Corporate Prosecutions Up Under Biden, Says Watchdog, But Not Nearly Enough
"The increase in corporate prosecutions is a welcome shift from the previous decline, and the new policy of rewarding corporate crime whistleblowers could go further toward restoring enforcement."
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While welcoming a "modest uptick" in corporate prosecutions by the U.S. Department of Justice last year, the watchdog Public Citizen on Monday called for the "bold ramp-up Biden DOJ leadership promised early in the administration."
Federal prosecutions of corporations over the past 25 years peaked in 2000, at 304, according to the organization's analysis of various datasets. After the turn of the century, figures trended down, with a low of 90 in 2021, the year that President Joe Biden was sworn in. Since then, the numbers have started to climb again—hitting 99 in 2022 and 113 in 2023.
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Still, "the increase in corporate prosecutions is a welcome shift from the previous decline, and the new policy of rewarding corporate crime whistleblowers could go further toward restoring enforcement," said Rick Claypool, a Public Citizen research director who authored the report, in a statement Monday.
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While calling out the DOJ for creating "the appearance that some businesses are 'too big to jail'" with its leniency agreements, Public Citizen also lauded Monaco's recent remarks about "delivering consequences for corporate recidivists."
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In a February letter to DOJ leaders including Monaco and Attorney General Merrick Garland, Weissman wrote that "if the DOJ finds that Boeing again violated the law, Boeing should be prosecuted both for its original and its subsequent misconduct."
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Robert Weissman, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in response to the news of Calhoun's coming departure that "if Boeing had been held criminally accountable after the... 737 MAX disasters, the more recent quality debacles quite likely could have been averted."
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