Green Options

The gray wolf population in Idaho, Montana, Washington, Utah, Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan has recovered enough since being listed as endangered in 1974 to be removed from the list of species that are threatened and endangered.

Secrectary of the Interior Ken Salazaar concurred with the January decison of the US Fish and Wildlife Service to delist the animal.

The Whitebark Pine Tree may be the first widely dispersed tree to receive endangered species protection. Conservationists have filed a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stating the tree’s extinction could leave huge holes in some of the continent’s most spectacular landscapes and eliminate food sources for wildlife, including grizzly bears.

With a background as an art activist that cares deeply for endangered species, I am pleased to present this darling poster from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which illustrates some of our planet’s most threatened species. Now you can educate your children, in the classroom and out, about modern day extinction and what we can do to prevent it. Entitled What’s Weird, Wonderful, and Needs Help? this educational illustration asks questions such as: “What does a Black Warrior Waterdog look like?” How about a Spectacled Eider? Ever see a Running Buffalo Clover, or something like it in a field?

This new endangered species poster is for kids and the young at heart alike.

Feds suggest a delay in 3 projects so they can study dying bats

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service has sent a letter to to the developers of three wind farms in upstate New York strongly urging they consider other locations for their proposed projects. Biologists for the agency are concerned that the wind farms will further threaten imperiled bat populations suffering from an unprecedented die-off.

One of the wind energy developers, Iberdrola Renewables has decided to hold off on moving forward with the Horse Creek project until the impacts of white nose syndrome on bat populations are better understood. But developers of the other two projects have yet to make similar moves.

There is little known about the so-called “white nose syndrome,” so-named because of the white substance found on the face of the sick bats. The unexplained illness has killed of tens of thousands of small brown bats throughout the northeast over the past two winters. As temperatures warm and bats emerge from a winter of hibernation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has sent letters to three Jefferson County (NY) wind developers “strongly urging them to look at other places” for their proposed wind energy projects.