Ringling Brothers Decision — Justice Denied

David Cassuto
The decision is in.  It’s a debacle.  Read about it here.  I’ll have more to say when I’ve studied the opinion.

Desert Rock Power Plant to Be Reassessed in Light of Threat to Fish

David Cassuto

From the Things that Never Would Have Happened Under W Desk:
The Bureau of Indian Affairs has withdrawn its Biological Assessment and the  EPA has also withdrawn the air quality permit they respectively issued last summer for the Desert Rock coal-fired power plant sited for the Navajo Nation in the Four Corners region of New [...]

Throwing the Wolves Out With the Bathwater

David Cassuto
Odd editorial in today’s NYT.  On the one hand, it lays bare the hypocrisy and bloodlust behind the wolf hunt in the Northern Rockies.  For example, after several wolves were killed just outside of Yellowstone (outside the park boundary, you can kill them), Montana’s wolf program director said, ““We didn’t think wolves would be that vulnerable [...]

Protecting Animals, One Mouthful at a Time

David Cassuto
Emory University is attempting to preserve “heritage” turkeys by feeding them to its students.  The Standard Bronze and Bourbon Red turkeys are in danger of dying out due to lack of demand.  So, apparently, is the Tennessee Fainting Goat and other species that don’t fit the factory farm mold.  The lede of this Chronicle [...]

NEPA, Preliminary Injunctions, and Animals

David Cassuto
A few days ago, I and a few colleagues from Pace and several other American law schools met at Shanghai Jiao Tong  University School of Law with a number of Chinese academics and members of the Chinese Ministry of Environment.  We were there because the Chinese government wanted our input as it attempts to [...]

Interior Proposes Polar Bear Habitat

David Cassuto
A while back, the Bush Administration reluctantly declared the polar bear threatened (under the Endangered Species Act) due to global warming and shrinking habitat.  It determined, however, that it would not use the ESA as the basis to require steps to curtail climate change.  Indeed, the Bushies had no intention of curtailing climate change [...]

Conservation Groups Sue EPA Over Prairie Dog Poison

Jessica Morowitz           
On September 23, Defenders of Wildlife and Audubon Kansas filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., against the EPA for its decision to register pesticides that kill prairie dogs.  The pesticides at issue are chlorophacinone and diphacinone, found in the products Rozol and Kaput-D.  The lawsuit alleges that by registering the use [...]

Florida’s Python Predicament

Jonathan Vandina
It’s 4 PM. The hot Florida sun has warmed the thermo regulated American alligator (Alligator missipiensis) with the ability to satisfy its day long hunger. The tiny touch receptors on the mouth of the apex predator feel an unexpected yet familiar sensation. It’s a slight ripple, a change in water motion coming from the [...]

Nonhuman Animals, Human-Created Environments

Karl Coplan
Sunday’s New York Times article about the threat to the La Cienega marsh on the Mexico-US border raises interesting questions about human responsibilities to maintain human-created environments that have been occupied by natural species.  The La Cienega marsh was created by the diversion of Arizona agricultural runoff too high in salt content to be [...]

A Sub-Optimal Ruling on the Rocky Mountain Wolf Hunt

Judge Molloy has refused to stop the wolf hunt that has already begun in Idaho and will soon begin (September 15th) in Montana.  Yet his decision to deny the preliminary injunction sought by Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club, the Humane Society & others does  acknowledge that the plaintiffs will likely prevail (eventually) on the merits.
Courts [...]

Wolf Hunt Update

The wolf hunt in Idaho and Montana has begun (I first blogged about it here).  A number of environmental groups sued, asking for an injunction but, since Idaho released the details of its plan of the hunt only 2 weeks ago, the court was left with very little time to consider the case.  Consequently, while [...]

Panthers in the Suburbs

[The op-ed below appeared in the Westchester Herald (ten or so pages after Ed Koch's movie review and immediately following  Congressmember Nina Lowey's piece on health care reform).  It deals with recent sightings of what appear to be a large cat in the New York suburbs.  For some good background on the issue, see this [...]

Canned Hunting of Endangered Species is Illegal

From the Stuff You Probably Thought Was Too Obvious to Have to Sue About Desk:
A district court in Washington D.C. has struck down a Bush Era U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service rule that allowed canned hunting of endangered species.  Canned hunting is the shooting of semi-tame animals on fenced  “ranches” (see here for some previous [...]

Polar Bears, Secretary Salazar and Climate Change

Polar bears cannot catch a break.  The Bush Administration reluctantly declared the bear a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) a year or so ago.  The threat arose because of shrinking habitat caused by polar ice melting.  That ice melt is, of course, a result of climate change.
Once a species is classified as [...]

Wolf-delisting: The Politics of Blood

George Bush and his peeps thought gray wolves should be delisted as endangered species in Montana and Idaho.  So does Ken Salazar and, we must assume, Barack Obama.  Bush and peeps also thought it okay to ignore allies.  So, apparently, do Ken Salazar and Barack Obama.  But never mind politics.
Wolves were hunted to near extinction [...]

And Now For A Brief Survey of the News…

First, I want to live in a world where no member of my species thinks the best way to relax a cat is to stuff it into a bong.
Second, President Obama has re-empowered the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  One of our former president’s last minute parting gifts was to decree that federal agencies could decide [...]

Uncoupling Circuses and Cruelty

If you follow the news and care about such things, then you know that the long-awaited circus trial has begun.  In brief, Ringling Bros. circus must defend against charges that its use and (mis)treatment of exotic animals in its care violates the Endangered Species Act.  Plaintiffs include the ASPCA, the Animal Welfare Institute, and the [...]