The Fish and Wildlife Service is giving the public more time to weigh in on a proposal to strip federal protections from a small dryland plant with purple flowers.
For more than two years, the agency has planned to delist the North Park phacelia, an endangered species since 1982 that is native to northern Colorado and has seen population rebounds in recent decades.
Based on the public comments it receives over the next month, the agency said it may continue with its plan to remove the species’s protections under the Endangered Species Act. It could also choose to retain the plant’s endangered listing or downgrade it to a “threatened” species.
The federal agency initially proposed delisting the plant in 2024, under the Biden administration. At the time, some outside experts said they considered the plant to still be imperiled.
