Florida ranks seventh among U.S. states in biodiversity, with over 4500 different animal species and 3000 plant species, according to the USDA.
Over 100 of those species are currently endangered or threatened.
The Endangered Species Act prohibits any federal activities that will damage or destroy the critical habitat of a protected species.
Beginning January 20, the Trump administration instated a regulatory freeze, halting new or pending regulations. Three weeks later, 420 staff members from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were fired.
These actions could hinder efforts to protect 11 species pending protections since 2022.
These eleven species are endemic to Florida. They include three reptiles: the Florida Keys mole skink (pictured above), the Key ring-necked snake, and the Rim Rock crowned snake.
The Big Pine partridge pea, the Blodgett’s silverbush, the Everglades bully, the Florida pineland crabgrass, the Florida prairie clover, the Pineland sandmat, Sand flax, and the Wedge spurge are the plant species in danger. Recent decades have seen an at least 98% reduction in the pine rockland habitats where these plants can be found.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed granting urgently needed protections for the animals and plants but missed the mandatory deadlines to finalize those protections.
“But to date, those protections have not been finalized for the reptiles, and protections for habitat have not been finalized for plants,” said Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “So, here we are with these species that the Fish and Wildlife Service has acknowledged are in trouble, they’re facing extinction, but they’re still not protected.”
On Thursday, March 13, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to protect 11 endemic Florida species.
Bennett wants this lawsuit to set a timeline to finalize the protections needed.
Jaclyn Lopez, director of the Jacobs Law Clinic for Democracy and the Environment at Stetson University College of Law, represents the case and says these species lack basic protections, including prohibitions against taking the plants and animals and inner-agency consultation, which prevents habitat destruction.
Without a federally protected critical habitat, species are less equipped for survival. The Center for Biological Diversity says that plants and animals with them are more than twice as likely to recover than species without it.
Lopez urges Floridians to be vocal in their support for endangered species as the lawsuit proceeds.
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