Endangered Species Act

The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service wants to delist the wood stork from endangered to threatened, which has Florida conservation groups at odds

"Time and time again, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has missed these deadlines for species. They have an incredible backlog of decisions to make, not just for the ghost orchid, and we're really concerned about that," said Elise Bennett with the Center for Biological Diversity.

“Florida bonneted bats desperately need critical habitat protection, and the Fish and Wildlife Service has excluded crucial areas threatened by development right now,” said attorney Ragan Whitlock with the Center for Biological Diversity.

"These agencies are basically pretending that another catastrophic oil spill cannot possibly occur, cannot possibly be a risk for the Gulf of Mexico. And we know that that risk is real, and they need to be paying attention to that," said Chris Eaton, Earthjustice attorney.

A 77-year-old Florida Keys woman has been charged in federal court with shooting one of the endangered Key deer unique to the Keys.

While an original plan was presented in 2020, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now wants to designate approximately 1.2 million acres as critical habitat across 13 counties - this marks a 21% reduction from the previous proposal.

All species of sea turtles are threatened or endangered and protected by Florida law and the federal Endangered Species Act.

"There's an implication that the Fish Wildlife Service removed protections for gopher tortoises. They did not. If we wanted to think of the immediate protection level changes for the species, this finding document found no change," said Jeffrey Goessling of Eckerd College.

The flower is found only in Florida and Cuba, and only 1,500 are believed to remain in the state.

Put on your hiking boots because we're trekking through the USF Forest Preserve in Tampa. The University of South Florida has requested and received proposals to build on this undeveloped property. Student researchers, turned activists, show us what makes this parcel of land so special.

The groups say Florida's application was riddled with errors and fast-tracked to get a decision before the Trump Administration leaves office.

Environmental groups have asked a federal court to toss out the Trump administration's assessment of how oil and gas activity could affect endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico.