Federal government: No threatened species listing for walrus
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The Trump administration announced Wednesday it will not list the Pacific walrus as a threatened species based on diminished Arctic Ocean sea ice, concluding that the marine mammals have adapted to the loss by foraging from coastlines.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials said they cannot determine with certainty that walruses are likely to become endangered “in the foreseeable future,” which the agency defines as the year 2060.
The decision likely will be challenged in court, said Shaye Wolf, climate science director for the Center for Biological Diversity, who wrote the listing petition filed in 2008. She called the decision a misrepresentation of science to reach a predetermined conclusion.
“They did not want to list. This is an anti-science, anti-wildlife administration that denies the reality of climate change, which is the primary threat to the walrus,” Wolf said. “Admitting that the walrus is threatened by climate change acknowledges that climate change poses a real danger to people and wildlife, and they don’t want to do that.”