Environmental activist groups are not too happy with the President Barack Obama’s administration, saying that the government is continuing to ignore piling needs for giving protection to several endangered species of both fauna and flora as entailed by the Endangered Species Act. This comes after a review by the Fish and Wildlife Service which advices that a total of 251 species have been put as candidates under the endangered species watch list and protection program. That number exceeds the previous year’s review by at least four species.
Groups are thus criticizing the president for showing poor appreciation of the environment and has executed far too little to bring about any improvements to what former president George W. Bush had left behind. They say that Obama’s administration is quite similar to Bush’s which failed to implement immediate protection of species that are facing serious threats of extinction. Endangered Species Program under the Center for Biological Diversity Director Noah Greenwald reveals that the said species include the plains bisons, sage grouse and hundreds of different other endangered species of animals and plants.
Greenwald further criticizes Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for failing to fix a chronic culture of “delay and foot-dragging” in the Fish and Wildlife Service agency, despite being responsible for its endangered species program. The agency had been left without fixed leadership ever since former Director Sam Hamilton died in February this year. All that’s left in the agency are eight regional directors who were all appointed by the Bush administration.
