October, 29 2020, 12:00am EDT
![Western Environmental Law Center](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012626/origin.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
John Mellgren, Western Environmental Law Center, 541-359-0990, mellgren@westernlaw.org
Kelly Nokes, Western Environmental Law Center, 575-613-8051, nokes@westernlaw.org
Wolves: Groups Will Challenge Trump Admin Removal of Endangered Species Protections in Lower 48
WASHINGTON
Today, the Trump administration will announce its decision to prematurely remove endangered species protections for wolves in the lower 48 states, in violation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The most recent data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its state partners show an estimated 4,400 wolves inhabit the western Great Lakes states, but only 108 wolves in Washington state, 158 in Oregon, and a scant 15 in California. These numbers lay the groundwork for a legal challenge planned by a coalition of Western conservation groups.
In delisting wolves, the Service ignores the science showing they are not recovered in the West. The Service concluded that because in its belief there are sufficient wolves in the Great Lakes states, it does not matter that wolves in the West are not yet recovered. The ESA demands more, including restoring the species in the ample suitable habitats afforded by the wild public lands throughout the West. Indeed, wolves are listed as endangered under state laws in Washington and California, and wolves only occupy a small portion of available, suitable habitat in Oregon. Likewise, wolves also remain absent across vast swaths of their historical, wild, public lands habitat in the West, including in Colorado and the southern Rockies.
"Given that gray wolves in the lower 48 states occupy a fraction of their historical and currently available habitat, the Fish and Wildlife Service determining they are successfully recovered does not pass the straight-face test," said John Mellgren, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center. "On its face, this appears to be politically motivated. While the Trump administration may believe it can disregard science, the law does not support such a stance. We look forward to having a court hear our science-based arguments for why wolves desperately need Endangered Species Act protections to fully recover."
The conservation groups have long been active on wolf recovery issues in the American West, including working with western states to develop science-based wolf management plans, mounting cases to rein in rogue federal government wolf-killing programs, promoting recovery efforts in the Southwest for critically imperiled Mexican gray wolves, and furthering non-lethal methods to prevent wolf-livestock conflicts before they occur.
"Wolves are a keystone species whose presence on landscapes regulates animal populations and improves ecosystem health - something the Service has acknowledged for at least 44 years," said Kelly Nokes, an attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. "Allowing people to kill wolves in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana has already stunted recovery in those states. Applying this same death sentence to wolves throughout the contiguous U.S., would nationalize these negative effects, with potentially catastrophic ripple effects on ecosystems wherever wolves are found today."
The best available science says gray wolves are not recovered. Should the Trump administration decline to correct its legal violations by rescinding the delisting decision, WELC and its partners will challenge the premature removal of endangered species protections for gray wolves in federal court at the first opportunity, 60 days after the rule is published in the Federal Register.
The Western Environmental Law Center uses the power of the law to safeguard the public lands, wildlife, and communities of the American West in the face of a changing climate. We envision a thriving, resilient West, abundant with protected public lands and wildlife, powered by clean energy, and defended by communities rooted in an ethic of conservation.
(541) 485-2471LATEST 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