October, 29 2020, 12:00am EDT
![Center for Biological Diversity](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012680/origin.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Liz Trotter, Earthjustice, (305) 332-5395, etrotter@earthjustice.org
Collette Adkins, Center for Biological Diversity, (651) 955-3821, cadkins@biologicaldiversity.org
Endangered Species Act Protections Stripped From Gray Wolves
New rule halts wolf recovery in lower 48 states.
WASHINGTON
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized a rule today that removes protection from all gray wolves in the lower 48 states except for a small population of Mexican gray wolves in Arizona and New Mexico. The Service made its decision despite the fact that wolves are still functionally extinct in the vast majority of their former range across the continental United States.
"This is no 'Mission Accomplished' moment for wolf recovery," said Kristen Boyles, an Earthjustice attorney. "Wolves are only starting to get a toehold in places like Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, and wolves need federal protection to explore habitat in the Southern Rockies and the Northeast. This delisting decision is what happens when bad science drives bad policy -- and it's illegal, so we will see them in court."
"We should be putting much more effort into coexistence with wolves, working to ensure that populations in the lower 48 are thriving and are able to play out their ecological role balancing our natural systems, instead of stripping critical protections still needed for their full recovery," said Bonnie Rice, Sierra Club senior campaign representative. "The science is clear that to protect our communities and prevent future pandemics, we need to be doing more to protect nature and wildlife, not less."
"Again and again the courts have rejected premature removal of wolf protections," said Collette Adkins, carnivore conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "But instead of pursuing further wolf recovery, the Fish and Wildlife Service has just adopted its broadest, most destructive delisting rule yet. The courts recognize, even if the feds don't, that the Endangered Species Act requires real wolf recovery, including in the southern Rockies and other places with ideal wolf habitat."
"Removing protections for gray wolves amid a global extinction crisis is shortsighted and dangerous to America's conservation legacy," said Bart Melton, wildlife program director for the National Parks Conservation Association. "Rather than working alongside communities to support the return of wolves to parks and surrounding landscapes including Dinosaur National Monument, North Cascades and Lassen National Forest, the administration essentially today said 'good enough' and removed Endangered Species Act protections. The Fish and Wildlife Service's proposal ignores the requirements of the Endangered Species Act, science and common sense."
"Stripping protections for gray wolves is premature and reckless," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO for Defenders of Wildlife. "Gray wolves occupy only a fraction of their former range and need continued federal protection to fully recover. We will be taking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to court to defend this iconic species."
"It is far too early to declare wolves recovered and to strip protections from them in the Western two-thirds of Oregon," said Danielle Moser, wildlife program coordinator for Oregon Wild. "Removing wolves from the endangered species list would turn their management entirely over to Oregon's embattled Department of Fish and Wildlife, which continues to push for hunting and trapping of the state's already fragile wolf population."
Background
Gray wolf recovery in the United States should be an American success story. Once found nationwide, gray wolves were hunted, trapped and poisoned for decades; by 1967 there were fewer than 1,000 wolves in one small part of the Midwest. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service protected gray wolves under the Endangered Species Act in 1978. Today there are recovering wolf populations in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Montana, Michigan and Idaho; wolves have begun to inhabit Washington, Oregon and California; and unclaimed wolf habitat remains in states like Maine, Colorado and Utah.
Still, more than 6,300 wolves have been killed in state-sanctioned hunting and trapping seasons in states where wolves were delisted. There are now roughly 6,000 wolves in the lower 48 states.
Last year 1.8 million Americans submitted comments opposing this delisting. Additionally, 86 members of Congress (in both the House and Senate), 100 scientists, 230 businesses, and 367 veterinary professionals all submitted letters opposing the wolf delisting plan. Even the scientific peer reviews commissioned by the Fish and Wildlife Service itself found that the agency's proposal ignored science and appeared to come to a predetermined conclusion, with inadequate scientific support.
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.
(520) 623-5252LATEST NEWS
Video Game Actors Strike for AI Protections
"The video game industry generates billions of dollars in profit annually," said one union leader. "The driving force behind that success is the creative people who design and create those games."
Jul 25, 2024
After nearly two years of negotiations with video game giants and no deal that would protect performers from artificial intelligence, unionized voice and motion capture actors who work in video game development announced Thursday that they will go on strike starting at 12:01 am on Friday, July 26.
The performers are represented by Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), which last year won a contract for TV and film actors that included "unprecedented provisions for consent and compensation that will protect members from the threat of AI," after the union went on strike for four months.
The union has been negotiating on behalf of video game actors with major production companies including Disney Character Voices Inc., Activision Productions Inc., and WB Games Inc., and has won concessions over wages and job safety—but "AI protections remain the sticking point," said SAG-AFTRA on Thursday as the impending strike was announced.
Unionized actors want protections that would stop video game companies from training AI to replicate actors' voices or likeness without their consent and without compensating them.
"The video game industry generates billions of dollars in profit annually," said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, national executive director and chief negotiator for SAG-AFTRA. "The driving force behind that success is the creative people who design and create those games. That includes the SAG-AFTRA members who bring memorable and beloved game characters to life, and they deserve and demand the same fundamental protections as performers in film, television, streaming, and music: fair compensation and the right of informed consent for the AI use of their faces, voices, and bodies."
"Frankly, it's stunning that these video game studios haven't learned anything from the lessons of last year—that our members can and will stand up and demand fair and equitable treatment with respect to AI, and the public supports us in that," he added.
Sarah Elmaleh, negotiating committee chair for the union's interactive media agreement, said the negotiations have shown the companies "are not interested in fair, reasonable AI protections, but rather flagrant exploitation."
"We look forward to collaborating with teams on our interim and independent contracts, which provide AI transparency, consent, and compensation to all performers, and to continuing to negotiate in good faith with this bargaining group when they are ready to join us in the world we all deserve," said Elmaleh.
The unionized actors voted in favor of the strike authorization with a 98.32% yes vote, said SAG-AFTRA.
The strike was announced as more than 500 workers who help develop the popular World of Warcraft video game franchise voted to join the Communications Workers of America (CWA), with the games publisher, Blizzard Entertainment, recognizing the bargaining unit.
CWA noted that the workers' journey to union representation began with a walkout in 2021 at Activision Blizzard, which was later bought by Microsoft, over sexual harassment and discrimination.
"What we've accomplished at World of Warcraft is just the beginning," Eric Lanham, a World of Warcraft test analyst, said in a statement. "We know that when workers have a protected voice, it's a win-win for employee standards, the studio, and World of Warcraft fans looking for the best gaming experience."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Cowardice': Homeless Advocates Condemn Newsom Order to Remove Encampments
"The only way to end homeless encampments in California is to end the need for homeless encampments," an expert said.
Jul 25, 2024
Civil rights advocates and progressive commentators on Thursday condemned California Gov. Gavin Newsom after the Democrat issued an executive order to shut down homeless encampments on state property and to incentivize local authorities to do the same.
The order marks the first notable state policy shift to result from a momentous U.S. Supreme Court ruling on June 28, decided 6-3 on ideological lines, that the liberal dissenting justices argued criminalized homelessness.
Eric Tars, a policy director at the National Homelessness Law Center, toldThe New York Times that the executive order effectively blamed the victims of a systemic problem.
"The only way to end homeless encampments in California is to end the need for homeless encampments," he said. "California has an affordable housing crisis, and unless Newsom's executive order is coming with sufficient resources to address that, this new push isn't going to work."
In a direct response to Newsom on social media, Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said that the governor hadn't provided the fundamental ingredient needed to solve the homelessness problem.
"You didn't provide the needed affordable housing," she wrote. "You're choosing political expediency over real solutions. That's not leadership, it's cowardice. This will only worsen homelessness."
Echoing the need for more housing, Nina Turner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy, called the Newsom decision "shameful," while Jordan Chariton, a journalist at Status Coup, a progressive media outlet, called it "disgusting," saying Newsom's solution was to "sweep them all up like it's taking out the trash."
Mel Buer, a reporter for The Real News Network, indicated on social media that the decision was in keeping with the political approach of the governor, who is widely believed to have presidential ambitions.
"Saw this one coming from a mile off," Buer wrote of Thursday's executive order. "Newsom's a fucking heartless dipshit who would rather court billionaire donors to his 2028 presidential run than be a real human being."
You didn’t provide the needed affordable housing.
You’re choosing political expediency over real solutions. That’s not leadership, it’s cowardice.
This will only worsen homelessness. https://t.co/2tHk5awTo8
— Diane Yentel (@dianeyentel) July 25, 2024
Critics of last month's Supreme Court ruling in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson argued that it would lead to a crackdown on homelessness throughout the country. The conservative justices ruled that the Oregon city could ban sleeping in public places—sidewalks, streets, parks—overturning a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that the local law was unconstitutional.
The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit is one of the most liberal courts in the country and had issued a number of rulings in favor of the rights of homeless people in recent years, frustrating Republicans and some Democrats including Newsom.
California is home to roughly one-third of the nation's homeless population and the reasons for the problem are the subject of fierce ideological debate, as are the solutions. This was evident in the response to the Supreme Court ruling, which led one Republican mayor in California to declare that he was "warming up the bulldozer."
Newsom welcomed the ruling but other Democrats, such as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, expressed dismay and concern.
"This ruling must not be used as an excuse for cities across the country to attempt to arrest their way out of this problem or hide the homelessness crisis in neighboring cities or in jail," Bass said a statement at the time.
Newsom doesn't have the power to force local authorities such as Bass to remove homeless encampments but could wield influence at the municipal level because of his control over billions in funding to address homelessness, The New York Timesreported.
Newsom's administration has spent $24 billion in responding to the homelessness crisis since he took office in 2019, including $1 billion to help municipalities remove encampments and $3.3 billion to expand housing for homeless people, the executive order says.
Homeless people still have civil rights, advocacy groups say, warning that they will sue local governments that mistreat the unsheltered. They also point to research showing that sweeping encampments is ineffective, as it doesn't address the root problems of homelessness. A Rand Corporation survey last year showed that sweeps affect homeless populations in an area only temporarily.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Israeli Snipers Firing at 'Anyone Who Is Moving' in Khan Younis
The southern Gaza city is the latest region where Israeli forces have issued an evacuation order, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
Jul 25, 2024
At least 129 people have been killed in the last five days of Israeli shelling and artillery fire in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where the Israel Defense Forces earlier this week gave people "a couple of minutes only" to evacuate earlier this week, according to Al Jazeera reporter Hind Khoudary, before the bombardment began.
Al Jazeera reported on Thursday that "the vast majority of dead and injured are women and children," as Israeli snipers have also been deployed in the city and are firing at Palestinians indiscriminately.
The snipers "are shooting anyone who is moving," wrote Tareq Abu Azzoum in a dispatch, reporting that the eastern part of Khan Younis is the main target of Israel's current assault.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) noted that the latest evacuation order reduced the area that Israel has claimed is a "humanitarian zone," as the order covered about 15% of al-Mawasi, where people from cities including Rafah and Gaza City have fled in recent months as the IDF has launched assaults in those cities.
The group told Al Jazeera that "there is no more space, even for a single tent, in the so-called 'humanitarian area' of al-Mawasi because of the overwhelming number of people displaced there."
Israel's reported indiscriminate assault on the city has included medical workers, said PRCS, which posted a video on social media Thursday of an ambulance that had been hit by live bullets fired by the IDF while medics were transporting an injured person.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor noted on Monday that the true death toll in Khan Younis—as with the rest of Gaza—may not be known for months, "with many victims remaining trapped under the rubble and in the streets, where rescue workers have not been able to retrieve their bodies."
The group also said the IDF had perpetrated "a kind of deception of the residents" of Khan Younis and villages in the area, including Bali Suhaila, where soldiers entered "amid very violent bombardment, even though the Israeli army had said in its orders that the displacement was going to be temporary."
The forced evacuation, false information about the order, and shrinking of the humanitarian zone were "all part of Israel's media disinformation campaign and psychological warfare tactics, since military assaults on forcibly displaced people and their tents have occurred continually in this area for several weeks now, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries," the Euro-Med Monitor.
The reports of indiscriminate shooting by snipers also bolster an account given by Dr. Mark Perlmutter, who volunteered at European Hospital in Khan Younis in April, to CBS News earlier this week.
"I had sniper bullets," said Perlmutter. "I have children that were shot twice... I have two children that I have photographs of, that were shot so perfectly in the chest... and directly on the side of the head on the same child. No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by the world's best sniper. And they're dead-center shots."
Perlmutter is among nearly four dozen doctors and nurses who wrote to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and First Lady Jill Biden on Thursday, describing what they saw while volunteering at hospitals across Gaza since Israel began bombarding the enclave and blocking nearly all humanitarian aid, including medications and medical supplies, nearly 10 months ago.
"Children are universally considered innocents in armed conflict," wrote the medical workers. "However, every single signatory to this letter treated children in Gaza who suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them. Specifically, every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head and chest."
"We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget," they added. "We cannot believe that anyone would continue arming the country that is deliberately killing these children after seeing what we have seen."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular