USFWS Archives

Migrating monarchs are in trouble. Here’s how we can all help them.

September 23, 2020

Animals, Conservation, Environment, Wildlife,

Can a plan that brings together government and private landowners create enough habitat for monarch butterflies?

The endangered species list is full of ghosts

February 26, 2019

Animals, Endangered Species, Environment, Fish, Wildlife,

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, which organizes the international species lists, declared the Scioto madtom extinct in 2013. It had last been seen alive in 1957. But the United States still classifies the catfish as endangered, despite the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—the federal organization in charge of the endangered species list—agreeing that the fish is gone. Without clear incentive to delist the Scioto madtom, yet also without proof that there are any left to save, the catfish has drifted into extinction purgatory.

The fate of future endangered species could hinge on a semantic argument

July 30, 2018

Animals, Climate Change, Endangered Species, Environment, Wildlife,

Everyone agrees that the Pacific walrus is stressed. The large, tusked pinnipeds depend on floating sea ice to rest and give birth in the spring and summers, when the Goldilocks-sized not-too-thin, not-too-thick ice floes they require are becoming increasingly rare. But coming to a consensus on how the large marine mammals will react to that stress is less straightforward.

Here are 10 plants and animals that might have gone extinct without the Endangered Species Act

July 23, 2018

Animals, Endangered Species, Environment, Wildlife,

Last Thursday, the Trump administration proposed cutting provisions in the Endangered Species Act (ESA)—the law protecting plants and animals threatened by extinction.