Posted: Mar 30, 2016 7:20 PM GDTUpdated: Mar 30, 2016 10:11
PM GDT
By JANET McCONNAUGHEY
Associated Press
Associated Press
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acted improperly when it allowed
tens of thousands of migratory aquatic birds to be shot each year to protect
farmed and sport fish populations, a federal judge has ruled.
The agency said it lacked resources for a "hard look" at
either the long-range environmental effects of or possible alternatives to its
decisions about double-crested cormorants, and that just isn't a good reason,
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates wrote.
Letting that stand could gut the National Environmental Protection
Act, "since many an agency would frequently so argue," wrote Bates, a
federal judge in Washington
He ruled Tuesday on a pair of orders that opponents say let people
kill up to 160,000 double-crested cormorants each year to protect sport fish in
24 states east of the Mississippi
River
"The Service is reviewing and studying the decision," Fish
and Wildlife spokeswoman Laury Parramore said in an email Wednesday.
The advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
sued the government to stop the practice, which is known as "lethal
removal."
Fish and Wildlife has allowed fish farmers to kill cormorants that
were eating or about to eat fish in their ponds since 1998. Five years later,
it said Indian tribes and state and federal wildlife agents could kill those
eating or about to eat "public resources of fish." Those orders have
been renewed every five years.
