Here’s the text of an FWS press release that just came out: Contacts: Tom Buckley, (505) 248-6455, Tom_Buckley@fws.gov Bruce Sitko, (928) 367-4281, bsitko@azgfd.gov Necropsy Results Show Mexican Wolf Died From Illegal Gunshot; Reward Offered for Information The National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory in Ashland, Oregon, has determined that Mexican wolf mp1242 died as the [...]

Latest issue is here Recent news links: GAO releases report on “quantity, quality, and management of water produced during oil and gas production (full report in PDF) In 2-1 ruling, Ninth Circuit orders Forest Service to take another look at Sierra Nevada plan (2/3) Budget released: Obama Administration keeps FWS funding steady, proposes hike in [...]

Ed. note: There’s more coming on this, including audio from the Supreme Court press conference and the GU Law Center forum. Below is the video clip posted by Pacific Legal Foundation on YouTube of the post-argument press conference. It ends before reporters began asking questions. When you finally get around to covering a Monday story [...]

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has declined to order the Interior Department to withdraw its legal filings in a case in Oregon challenging the Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR) on BLM lands (Douglas Timber Operators v. Salazar, 09-1704 JDB, D.D.C.). U.S. District Judge John Bates previously found that DOI Secretary Ken Salazar’s withdrawal of [...]

Press release is here and below. Final rule from FWS Midwest Region wolf page Salazar Announces Recovery of Gray Wolves in the Western Great Lakes, Removal from Threatened and Endangered Species List States, tribes to assume management responsibility 12/21/2011 Contact: Adam Fetcher, (DOI) 202-208-6416 Georgia Parham, (FWS) 812-334-4261 x 1203 Laura Ragan, (FWS) 612-713-5157   WASHINGTON — [...]

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has issued conditional approval to Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc.’s revised Exploration Plan under leases in the Chukchi Sea Planning Area. “In its Exploration Plan, Shell proposes drilling up to six exploration wells in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea beginning in the 2012 drilling season,” BOEM said in a news [...]

Here’s an interesting story on the Web: The Casper Star-Tribune is reporting that the White House prevailed upon congressional negotiators to remove a provision in the recently agreed-to budget package that would have prohibited lawsuits challenging a pending gray wolf agreement between Wyoming and the Fish and Wildlife Service. Rep. Cynthia Lummis was the key [...]

More than 100 beluga whales are trapped in the ice in the Bering Sea. See NPR’s coverage here and CNN’s here (12/14/11). Also, this Alaska Dispatch account by Mia Bennett: Will Russian icebreaker make it in time to save 100 whales trapped in Arctic ice? (12/15/2011) The story is eerily similar to that of a [...]

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected a lawsuit from the National Association of Home Builders challenging Nationwide Permit 46. The court concluded NAHB did not have standing to pursue the litigation (Nat’l Ass’n of Home Builders v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 10-5619) Here’s a paragraph from the court’s ruling, authored by Senior [...]

The American Bird Conservancy is pressing the Interior Department to issue regulations “establishing a mandatory permitting system for the operation of wind energy projects and mitigation of their impacts on migratory birds,” ABC said in a news release announcing the filing of a rulemaking petition with the Fish and Wildlife Service. Here’s the petition, and [...]