Ten new American species considered for endangered list

(CN) — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Friday that it is considering adding ten species found across the country to the list of endangered and threatened wildlife and plants.

The announcement follows petitions filed in 2024 by the Center for Biological Diversity and other conservation groups seeking new protections under the Endangered Species Act.

It also comes amid recent efforts by President Donald Trump to strip protections for imperiled species and weaken the Endangered Species Act, which has prevented 99% of listed species — including bald eagles, Florida manatees, humpback whales and polar bears — from going extinct.

Like many species worldwide, those named in the petitions face growing threats from habitat loss, climate change, water overuse and the degradation of ecosystems that support both wildlife and humans.

They include Washington’s Olympic marmot and gray cat’s-eye plant, Oregon’s Alvord chub, Donner und Blitzen pebblesnail and wonder caddisfly, and California’s Mount Pinos sooty grouse and San Joaquin tiger beetle.

Also included is the Wilson’s phalarope, a migratory bird threatened by the decline of the Great Salt Lake and other saline lakes that serve as key stopover sites on its route to South America.

Alabama’s stippled studfish is affected by development, pollution and drought in the Tallapoosa River system, and the lantern firefly in Delaware and Maryland is also under consideration for protection.

Olympic marmots, large ground-dwelling squirrels found almost entirely in Washington’s Olympic National Park, face shrinking alpine and subalpine meadows as warming temperatures, reduced snowpack and longer wildfire seasons degrade their habitat.

The sooty grouse, a large game bird, now survives in a shrinking portion of the Sierra Nevada, with its population declining because of hunting, logging and livestock grazing in the meadows used for breeding and rearing young.

Once widespread in Oregon’s Alvord Basin and northwestern Nevada, Alvord chubs now face mounting pressure from cattle grazing, water diversions and climate change.

The agency said the petitions presented enough evidence to warrant further review and that it will examine natural and human-caused factors that could affect the species’ survival.

Under federal law, a species is considered “endangered” if it faces extinction across all or a significant part of its range, and a “threatened species” if it is likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future.

“I’m relieved to see these 10 precious plants and animals move closer to the protection they so desperately need,” Noah Greenwald, endangered species co-director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, they’re joining a backlog of hundreds of species waiting for safeguards during an administration that didn’t protect a single species last year — the first time that’s happened since 1981. As the global extinction crisis deepens, imperiled wildlife need the Endangered Species Act’s strong protections now more than ever," Greenwald added.

The first Trump administration protected just 25 species, compared with 361 under Barack Obama and 62 under Joe Biden. The current Trump administration listed no new species in its first year, cut U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staffing by 18% and sought deep reductions in funding for the listing program.

The Center for Biological Diversity says the Fish and Wildlife Service has long been slow to act under the Endangered Species Act, often taking more than 10 years to list species, a process meant to last two years. More than 400 species are now awaiting protection decisions.

“If we’re going to save these ten species and so many more from extinction, we have to protect more of the natural world,” Greenwald said. “This is critical not just for these hard-pressed creatures but for our own livable future.”

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