Join Jay Petrequin for a recap of wildlife news from the month of October!
Transcript:
A victory for horseshoe crabs. Failure to protect Pinyon Jays. And a step in the right direction for Burrowing Owls. I’m Jay Petrequin and this is your Wildlife News for October 2024.
Starting off strong on the East coast, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will prohibit a bait harvest of female horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay next year, maintaining a key protection in place since 2013. This decision reflects broad public support for stabilizing the ecosystem by ensuring that enough crabs’ eggs exist to feed shorebirds at a vital stopover during their global migratory journey. Delaware Bay’s horseshoe crab population remains greatly depleted after decades of rampant exploitation, but there is still time to save the Red Knot and other shorebirds, which rely on horseshoe crab eggs to survive, and have suffered from this overexploitation.
Flying over to the Southwest, Defenders of Wildlife recently notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that it intends to sue the agency for its delay in deciding whether the Pinyon Jay — an iconic Southwest songbird — needs protection under the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has yet to make a final determination in response to the listing petition Defenders filed more than two years ago but Defenders asserts that this delay is a clear violation of the ESA’s mandatory deadline for a 12-month finding. The Pinyon Jay’s alarming decline is undisputed. In fact, an internal FWS email acknowledged that it “seems very possible” the Pinyon Jay population will decline by at least 50 percent by the end of the century.
And finally on the West coast, the California Fish and Game Commission has unanimously voted to protect Western Burrowing Owls throughout California as a “candidate” species under the state’s Endangered Species Act. These protections are desperately needed for California Burrowing Owls, who only occupy two thirds of their traditional territory. Burrowing Owls statewide will be protected while the California Department of Fish and Wildlife conducts a full status review, which could last 12 to 18 months. The commission will then vote on whether to protect the Burrowing Owls as endangered or threatened under state law.
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Defenders Of Wildlife works on the ground, in the courts, and on Capitol Hill to protect and restore imperiled wildlife and habitats across North America.
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