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The Department of the Interior issued a Notice of Intent today to prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement to reassess options for travel between King Cove and Cold Bay, Alaska, near the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. Past road proposals cut through the designated wilderness and the refuge’s internationally recognized ecological habitat.

Today, the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries began their first hearings on three bills that would drastically undermine the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) and efforts to combat the dire climate change and biodiversity crises. The bills under consideration are among the 13 anti-ESA bills that have already been introduced in the House this Congress.

The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately chose not to hear a challenge to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) authority to manage wildlife on national wildlife refuge land. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had upheld a 2016 FWS regulation that, among other things, prohibits brown bear baiting on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

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.

New public opinion research from Defenders of Wildlife reveals that 80% of voters polled support increasing funding for the National Wildlife Refuge System, the nation’s only system of lands dedicated to wildlife conservation.