The Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed under court pressure to make an Endangered Species Act decision on the highly prized Bornean earless monitor lizard.
It will also be paying litigation expenses to environmentalists, under a long-standing practice that House Republicans are now trying again to curtail.
In a settlement filed in federal court Thursday, the Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to make an ESA listing decision by Aug. 25, 2025, on the lizard that lives on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo.
Adult earless monitor lizards can grow to about 16 inches in length. According to a listing petition, they are “believed to be very rare” and threatened by habitat loss that has included the disappearance of over 30 percent of forests in Borneo due to logging, fires and land conversion to plantations.
