Dear Audubon Advocate,
Groups representing mining and other industries have asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to remove Endangered Species Act protections from the Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo, part of a coordinated attempt to chip away at the Endangered Species Act species by species.
Send your comments to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and tell them to reject efforts to delist the Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Western Yellow-billed Cuckoos are only found in a fraction of their former range in the American West, a decline linked to the
loss of more than 90 percent of their breeding habitat. Dams built across many southwestern river corridors have wiped out the cottonwood and willow forests that once lined the riverbanks. Yellow-billed Cuckoos are still extremely vulnerable to additional habitat loss along streams and rivers.
The USFWS had originally set out to protect the Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo by saving critical habitat through promoting water and land management practices that would have allowed for the recovery of their streamside habitats.
Now, the USFWS may go back on their plan to protect Western Yellow-billed Cuckoos as industries put pressure on the agency to delist this threatened species, despite recent surveys documenting that its population is still declining.
We are particularly concerned about continued efforts to delist subspecies by organizations working to undermine the Endangered Species Act. This current delisting petition was filed by groups that claim to be “leading a movement to remove species that do not warrant protection from the Federal Endangered List.” But nothing in this latest petition casts doubt on USFWS’ original findings that the Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo is a distinct subspecies worthy of protection.
Send an urgent message to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and tell them to continue protecting the Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo.