88,000 Developments Potentially Affecting Endangered Species In 7 Years; 2 Protective Moves By FWS

The US government has not halted a single project out of the 88,000 actions and developments considered potentially harmful to the nation’s endangered species over the past seven years, a new study has found.

An analysis of assessments made by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the agency very rarely used its powers to intervene in projects that could imperil any of the US’s endangered plants and animals, which currently number almost 1,600.

Of 88,000 actions assessed by the FWS between January 2008 and April 2015, just two triggered significant further action. A 2007 plan to drop fire retardant in California was deemed by the FWS to be prohibitively harmful to forest-dwelling endangered species, although this was challenged in court. The FWS also stepped in over a plan to divert water from the San Francisco Bay Delta due to concerns over the impact to threatened fish.

In both cases the FWS used a regulation called section seven, which requires a federal agency to consult with the wildlife regulator if it is undertaking, funding or authorizing an action that may be detrimental to an endangered species.

EDIT

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/14/government-rarely-intervened-projects-endangered-species