The Environmental Protection Agency has determined that the endocrine-disrupting pesticide atrazine and cancer-linked pesticide glyphosate are each likely to harm more than 1,000 of the nation’s most endangered plants and animals. The finalized evaluations found that use of the herbicide glyphosate is likely causing harm to 1,676 of the plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act. Atrazine is likely harming 1,013 protected species.
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Many journalists have difficult beats — the specialized topics they cover exclusively or repeatedly. Some write about homicides, some cover local politics, others specialize in investigating sexual assault.
For the past 15-plus years, I’ve been on the extinction beat. I catalog the dead and the dying.
It’s important to me, but it’s not an easy assignment. It’s hard work, it’s emotional, it’s seemingly endless, and it doesn’t make me much fun at parties (well, the parties I still attended before the pandemic). My wife worries about me.
September 29 was a particularly difficult day.
That was the day the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared its intention to remove 23 long-unseen species — including the ivory-billed woodpecker and a mussel called the flat pigtoe — from the protection of the Endangered Species Act.
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It is an intentional act to seek out and cut large diameter dead trees to prevent them from becoming spotted owl and other endanger species habitat. Annual census of known spotted owl trees are conducted. Owls must be seen living in the trees. If the owls are scared off by nearby clear-cutting, road building, or the tree is downed, the habitat is delisted as critical and may now be clear-cut. If there are no potential habitat trees, owls are prevented from moving into an area.
This is an intentional act. Cutting large diameter dead trees is being conducted on gated locked Forest Service and BLM lands. Only staff and contractors can access these areas with vehicles. Not during clear-cuts, the trees are found, cut and left. Small diameter non-habitat trees are skipped.
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Washington, DC (Nov. 5, 2020) – The Environmental Protection Agency released an assessment today finding that the endocrine-disrupting pesticide atrazine is likely to harm more than 1,000 of the nation’s most endangered plants and animals.
The finding is a result of the agency’s first-ever nationwide assessment of an herbicide’s harm to protected species, an analysis that’s required by the Endangered Species Act.
The assessment’s release comes just two months after the EPA reapproved the pesticide’s use for another 15 years.
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