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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced that it will begin a comprehensive Endangered Species Act (ESA) status review of the grizzly bear in two specific regions of the lower 48 states. The announcement, in today’s Federal Register, follows the agency’s review of three petitions to delist the bear, two of which they say presented “substantial, credible information” that may warrant action.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a disappointing final supplemental environmental impact statement for the proposed Willow Master Development Plan oil and gas project today, relying again on hasty and deficient analysis to assess the impacts that the massive ConocoPhillips’ proposal would have on local communities, Arctic wilderness, water and animals and the global climate. If approved, this project would be the largest on public lands and would set back our national climate goals tremendously.

Defenders of Wildlife applauds the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal today to deny a mining permit that would adversely affect the unrivaled natural resources of the Bristol Bay region, the world’s largest wild salmon fishery and habitat for the critically endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale.

Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reinstated the national Roadless Area Conservation Rule in the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska. The move restricts development on roughly 9.3 million acres in North America’s largest temperate rainforest.

On a cold winter beach in New Jersey, onlookers huddled around a 30-foot dead humpback whale lying on the sand. This was one of more than a dozen whales that have washed up on beaches along the U.S. East Coast since the beginning of December 2022. Five of these whales washed up in New Jersey, two in New York and others on the coasts of states from Maine to Florida. A total of 178 humpback whales have washed up along East Coast beaches since 2016, leading the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to declare an “unusual mortality event.” An investigation is underway.