Legal action threatened over Tinian songbird

Transcript

RYAN SHANNON: The Tinian monarch is a small flycatcher that is found only on Tinian. It originally was severely impacted by agriculture and then especially military activities with a beginning in World War Two and then following World War Two that destroyed most of its native habitat on Tinian. To begin with Tinian's not a very large island. It's approximately 39 square miles total and following the historic impacts from military activities and then increased development and proposed future increases in new military activities we're just seeing severe threats to this small portion of its historic habitat. At this point only 5 percent of the island contains native limestone forest which is really the ideal habitat for the species. The main problem that they face is that they're endemic to this small island and because of that the likelihood of them becoming extinct is very high even from random events like a strong typhoon, climate change and wildfire and that threat is only enhanced by the fact that they've been reduced to about 5 percent of their historic native habitat.

SR: You petitioned in 2013 for the protection of the monarch. That was to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. So what's happened since?

RS: Not too much and that is the whole point of our notice of intent to sue. Legally under the Endangered Species Act you can petition to have a species recognised as endangered or threatened and once that petition's submitted the agency faces several timelines. Once they'd received our petition they made an initial finding that we presented enough information that they're legally required to do a 12 month finding to determine whether or not the species is endangered or threatened and it's that 12 month violation which is now several years overdue. So we're hoping that with out notice of intent to sue they will finally issue that 12 month finding however if they don't we'll be ready to go to court to get an order for them to do so. Importantly this is a species that the service itself has already recognised is critically imperiled so we don't think there's any reason why they should delay issuing an endangerment finding for this species.

SR: Any idea as to why they're being slow on this?

RS: You're guess is as good as mine. I can't speculate exactly why they're being slower in this specific instance. I will say that in general under the Trump administration we've certainly seen a step back from attempts to protect endangered and threatened species. The emphasis seems now to be removing Endangered Species Act protections not providing new ones. We are seeing a roll back of Endangered Species Act protections, not only species but also their habitat, the likes of which we haven't seen before and we are fighting on all fronts to ensure that imperilled species get the critical protections that they need and the protections that they need today, you know, not at some unknown point down the line and that is why we're engaging in lawsuits like this one that are looking to hold the agencies and the administration accountable to the law.