https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/biden-vetoes-two-republican-led-bills-to-undo-protections-for-the-prairie-bird-and-northern-bat/ar-AA1hlSGy?cvid=4fd1ddfd52834b10b1fd3a1560c04044&ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&ei=4

The Associated PressFollow

Story by By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press •2h

Biden Endangered Species© Provided by The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has vetoed Republican-sponsored bills intended to undo federal protections for two endangered species that have seen their populations plummet over the years: the lesser prairie chicken and northern long-eared bat.

The two GOP measures would overturn “science-based rulemaking” that offers important protections for the once-abundant species and would undermine the Endangered Species Act, Biden said.

“The lesser prairie-chicken serves as an indicator for healthy grasslands and prairies, making the species an important measure of the overall health of America’s grasslands,” the White House wrote late Tuesday in a veto statement about the prairie bird. It’s a member of the grouse family found in parts of the Midwest and Southwest, including the oil-rich Permian Basin in New Mexico and Texas. The bird’s range also extends into parts of Colorado, Oklahoma and Kansas.

Good Cat Food – Save 5% With Every Autoship

Ad

Chewy.com

Environmentalists have long sought stronger federal protections for the prairie bird, which they consider severely at risk due to oil and gas development, livestock grazing and farming, along with roads and power lines. The crow-size, terrestrial birds are known for spring courtship rituals that include flamboyant dances by the males as they make a cacophony of clucking, cackling and booming sounds.

The long-eared bat is one of 12 bat types decimated by a fungal disease called white-nose syndrome. The disease has spread across nearly 80% of the bat’s historic range in the eastern and north-central United States and has caused estimated population declines of at least 97%.

“Bats are critical to healthy, functioning ecosystems and contribute at least $3 billion annually to the United States agriculture economy through pest control and pollination,” Biden said in a separate veto statement. He said the GOP bill “would undermine America’s proud wildlife conservation traditions and risk extinction of the species.”

The two bills approved by Congress were backed mostly by Republicans and represent rare congressional involvement in matters usually left to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service. The Endangered Species Act tasks the executive agencies with deciding which animals and plants to list as endangered or threatened and how to rebuild their populations.

Republicans say protections for the lesser prairie chicken interfere with U.S. oil and gas production and jeopardize thousands of American jobs.

Designation of the bird as an endangered species “is another attack on low-cost energy for the American taxpayers,” said Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. “It’s an attack on jobs in America and it’s making us more dependent″ on hostile countries in the Middle East and South America, he said.

Republicans and the logging industry also criticized the endangered listing for the long-eared bat, contending it would hamper logging and other land uses that aren’t responsible for the bat’s sharp decline. The bat is found in 37 eastern and north-central states, plus Washington, D.C., and much of Canada.

The American Loggers Council, an industry group, said in a statement that changing the bat’s status from “threatened” to endangered would “do nothing to reduce the mortality of the bat, but will contribute to the declining numbers of loggers in the U.S. and threaten the forest products industry.”

Citing criteria used by the Fish and Wildlife Service, “the American logger should be considered for listing as threatened or endangered and afforded the same protection,″ the group said.

Environmental groups hailed Biden’s actions.

Veto of the lesser-prairie chicken measure puts the bird “on a more certain path to recovery,” said Michael Parr, president of American Bird Conservancy. “Present-day populations are thought to average a mere 32,000 birds. Every coordinated effort is needed to ensure a safer future for this iconic species.”

Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife, said conservationists are grateful for Biden’s actions “but remain greatly troubled that his veto is the only thing standing between grossly misguided, anti-wildlife members of Congress and the future of wildlife. The American public, regardless of party affiliation, overwhelmingly supports the Endangered Species Act and believes it should be fully funded to protect species from extinction. Congress needs to wake up to this fact and cease their continual attacks.”

West Virginia’s Joe Manchin was the only Democratic senator to back repeal of protections for the lesser prairie chicken, while Manchin and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., voted with unanimous Republicans to remove protections for the long-eared bat.

[I’m not sure which of the idiotic periodicals who have posted articles on this needs to hear this first…]

by Jim Robertson

I hate to burst Humans’ arrogant Bubble, but Homo sapiens are NOT going to be around in 250 MILLION years. I had long-since determined that human arrogance was going to be the planet’s ultimate undoing–already decided that swell-headed speciesism was getting us nowhere fast—but this nonsense about our evolutionary dead-end hominid types being one of the species of mammals possibly to be around to finally go extinct in a planet-wide mass extinction in 250 million years is nothing short of hyper-arrogant idiocy.  

On average, a species goes extinct and/or is evolutionarily replaced in just a couple of million years. Aside from sharks or crocodiles, the general rule is the lower on the food chain the longer a species might last. Complex mammals such as us don’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hell of existing another 250 MILLION years.

I’m not going to stoop groveling here by saying, “unless we change our ways and all 8 BILLION of us switch to electric cars in the next ten years…”. If being around for another 250 MILLION years is what’s important to us, all I can say is “Sorry folks, it ain’t gonna happen.”