As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Sunday, 20 May 2018

The Trump Administration Is Being Sued Over a Very Weird Bird



Oil and gas companies are destroying sage-grouse habitat—with Ryan Zinke’s blessing.

JACKIE FLYNN MOGENSENMAY. 2, 2018 6:00 AM

Environmental groups have filed two lawsuits against US Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke for approving oil and gas leases on habitat that is home to the greater sage-grouse, an imperiled bird species native to the American West.

Both lawsuits urge the courts to reverse the recent oil and gas land sales, claiming that the Trump administration is ignoring Obama-era conservation plans intended to protect the greater sage-grouse from development, and therefore breaking the law.

“This is politically-driven—it comes from Trump’s ‘America-first’ agenda,” says Laird Lucas, lead counsel on one of the lawsuits and executive director of legal firm Advocates for the West. “The oil and gas industry basically gave Zinke and the Interior Department their wish list of what would happen, and the department is following that.”

Continued 


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