Environmentalists filed suit Thursday in a bid to secure Endangered Species Act protections for the striped newt, a little critter that’s no stranger to litigation.
Fifteen years after it was included among many other species in an earlier ESA lawsuit, the striped newt is now the sole focus of a fresh lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity. The suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenges the Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2018 decision not to list the species as threatened or endangered.
“These precious newts are disappearing before our eyes, but they have a real chance at recovering if they’re protected under the Endangered Species Act,” CBD attorney Chelsea Stewart-Fusek said in a statement.
Stewart-Fusek added that “striped newts are fascinating amphibians who need both wetlands and long-leaf pine forests to complete their life cycle” and that “we’re losing both of those ecosystems right now, so federal officials need to act quickly.”
