Environmentalists sued the Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday in a bid to secure Endangered Species Act protections for coastal black-throated green warblers.
Citing a missed regulatory deadline and a dramatic decline in the bird’s population, the Center for Biological Diversity alleged it’s well-past time for the federal agency to make up its mind about the bird’s status.
“These warblers are one of the most imperiled birds anywhere in the world, and they urgently need Endangered Species Act protection,” Will Harlan, a senior scientist at the CBD, said, adding that the warbler’s song is “the enchanting soundtrack of ancient Southern forests, but they’re falling silent as these birds and their big trees vanish.”
The CBD and five allied organizations petitioned the FWS in November of 2023 to list the warblers as threatened or endangered under the ESA. The coastal black-throated green warbler is a subspecies of the black-throated green warbler and inhabits coastal plain wetland forests of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
