Wolves Belong

Dec 12, 2024 | Wildlife

As morning light arrives just behind the hills of Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park, a distant song greets the gathering crowd. A hundred determined watchers bearing scopes and their trusty cameras line one plateau and another, eager to catch their first...

Wolverines listed as “threatened” under Endangered Species Act after 20-year conservation effort

Nov 29, 2023 | News Release, Victory! ESA Protection for Wolverine

Today, after more than 20 years of advocacy by wildlife conservation groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (the Service) found that wolverines warrant federal protections as a threatened species. Numbering only about 300 in the contiguous U.S., snow-dependent...

Advocates file lawsuit to overturn Trump-era permit to kill spotted owls

Nov 9, 2023 | News Release, Wildlands

The Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), represented by the Western Environmental Law Center, challenged a 50-year U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (the Service) permit issued to Sierra Pacific Industries, the nation’s largest private landowner, to “take”...

Interior Sec. Haaland protects Chaco Canyon from oil, gas drilling

Jun 2, 2023 | News Release, Protecting Chaco Canyon From Fracking

In response to Interior Sec. Deb Haaland’s decision today to prohibit new federal oil and gas leasing within 10 miles of Chaco Culture National Historical Park, members of the Greater Chaco Coalition called on the Biden administration to go further and end all new...

Landmark court ruling will protect water sources, ranchers near Bull Mountains underground coal mine

Feb 13, 2023 | Bull Mountains Mine Expansion, News Release

A federal judge in Montana District Court has halted the mining of federal coal at Signal Peak Energy’s Bull Mountains Underground Coal Mine near Roundup, pending a thorough analysis of the mine’s impacts on ranchers, vital water sources, and the surrounding...

Federal wildlife-killing program challenged in Montana

Jan 18, 2023 | News Release, Protecting Grizzly Bears, Wildlife

Today, four conservation organizations challenged the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Wildlife Services predator killing program in Montana. The legal challenge also includes the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service for approving the program’s killing and...

Legal complaint: Signal Peak Energy coal mine has damaged and destroyed Bull Mountains water sources

Dec 14, 2022 | Bull Mountains Mine Expansion, News Release

Conservation groups have filed a formal complaint with state and federal agencies against Signal Peak Energy, a criminally-convicted coal company operating an underground coal mine in the Bull Mountains just north of Billings, Montana. The complaint cites evidence of...

Advocates challenge Biden double-down on Trump-era fracking on sacred land in Greater Chaco

Oct 27, 2022 | News Release, Protecting Chaco Canyon From Fracking

Today, a group of Diné and conservation groups challenged the Biden administration’s approval of fracking on nearly 45,000 acres—70 square miles—of the Greater Chaco region of northwest New Mexico. In April, the groups entered a legal agreement with the Biden...

Wildlife advocates challenge U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule that fails endangered Mexican gray wolves

Oct 3, 2022 | News Release, Protecting Mexican Wolves

Today, wildlife advocates filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for its failure to adopt an adequate management rule for recovering the critically endangered population of Mexican gray wolves as required by the Endangered Species Act. The...

Indigenous and conservation groups to federal court: Protect Greater Chaco region from illegal fracking

Sep 29, 2022 | News Release, Protecting Chaco Canyon From Fracking

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit heard oral arguments related to the Trump administration’s illegal approval of more than 370 drilling permits in the Greater Chaco region of northwest New Mexico. Attorneys with the Biden administration defended...