Obama Administration Denies American Pika Endangered Species Act Protection

By Chris Clarke | Posted on February 4, 2010

Today the Obama administration denied Endangered Species Act protection to the American pika, a small mountain-dwelling mammal that is on the frontlines of global-warming-driven endangerment. The decision, issued by Interior Secretary Salazar, comes in response to a scientific petition submitted in 2007 by the Center for Biological Diversity, represented by Earthjustice.

Destroying the Joshua trees in order to save them

By Chris Clarke | Posted on July 2, 2009

The soil here is tawny, pale with a reddish cast, alluvium washed down out of the Black and Date Creek mountain ranges, and the Grayback and Weaver mountains behind them. Wind and flash flood have rendered the rock, pulverized it. Soft lava and old sandstone mix with flecks of harder, brighter granite.

A Harris’ hawk perches atop a saguaro, regards the landscape blankly.

The broad plain slopes southwest, toward Bullard Wash about four miles away. The soil is mainly bare, easily washed away,  and so the plain is striped with broad washes that storms have carved into the earth. They run into Bullard Wash as well. The sediment they carry will eventually reach the Colorado, 60 miles away as the Raven flies. It may take a thousand years to get there, or ten thousand, but it will get there.

Obama: Still Lousy on Endangered Species

By Chris Clarke | Posted on June 23, 2009

From a press release by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility:

Washington, DC — The man named by the Obama administration to administer the Endangered Species Act almost never invoked it to protect wildlife, according to agency statistics released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In fact, Sam Hamilton, whose nomination to head the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) is now pending, had by far the weakest record on Endangered Species Act enforcement of any comparable official in the country.