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The Endangered Species Act (ESA), signed into law December 28, 1973 was created to conserve our Nation’s natural heritage for the enjoyment and benefit of current and future generations. The central purpose of the ESA is to seek to conserve endangered and threatened species and the ecosystems on which these species depend. The National Fish and Wildlife Service is in charge of listing species, creating recovery plans that outline how these species will recover and designating critical habitat for listed species.
Unfortunately, humans pose a substantial threat to endangered species and the destruction of critical habitat due to pollution, sprawl development, population growth, and destructive land practices. The Endangered Species Act, however, has proven to be a successful tool for maintaining and conserving the rich biodiversity of our environment and offers considerable protection to wildlife, fish and plant species. Habitat and species loss is generally irreversible and therefore it is absolutely essential that the ESA is not weakened or gutted by the current administration.
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The true cost of coal often goes unnoticed until we witness a catastrophe on the scale of Tennessee's recent ash pond spill. But coal production extracts a cost sometimes so subtle, you would have to be a freshwater biologist to notice.
The Southeast has long been considered the world's center of diversity for freshwater mussels, but that status is now in jeopardy. Mussel populations in the Southern Appalachians (and around the world) have steadily declined over the past century. One mussel, the tan riffleshell, illustrates the global crisis of freshwater mussel decline and extinction.
Tan riffleshells require excellent water quality and prefer well-oxygenated, stable shoal or riffle habitat. Unfortunately, water pollution from industry and coal mining and sedimentation from logging have contributed to the mussel’s march towards extinction. Today, the last remaining naturally reproducing population of tan riffleshell mussels can be found in Virginia's Indian Creek, a small tributary to the Clinch River in Tazwell County, VA.
In 2005, the US Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit to expand a coal mine along Indian Creek. The mine is located directly upstream of populations of three endangered mussels, including the tan ... |
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Wildlife Protection 
