Lawsuit Seeks to Get Fox, Tree, Fish Onto Trump’s Endangered Species List

(Bloomberg) -- A fox, a butterfly, a fish and five other species of wildlife were on their way to the endangered list as President Barack Obama was on his way out of the White House. Two years later, the Trump administration has yet to formally confer the highest protected status for the imperiled animals and plants.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the Sierra Nevada red fox, the Puerto Rican harlequin butterfly and the longfin smelt, among others, aren’t a high enough priority for the list, according to a lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court on behalf of eight species. The Center for Biological Diversity wants a judge to force the government to add the species --which also include the Hermes copper butterfly, redtree vole, gopher tortoise, Berry Cave salamander and a plant called Marron bacora -- to the endangered list.

”The species are being deprived of urgently needed protections despite the fact that the service is not making expeditious progress in listing other species," according to the complaint. ”To the contrary, the service is listing far fewer species under the Trump administration than the Obama administration was able to accomplish with an equivalent level of resources, and the rate of listing has now plummeted to the lowest level in decades."

The wildlife agency didn’t immediately respond to an email request for comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kartikay Mehrotra in San Francisco at kmehrotra2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg, Joe Schneider

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