After decades of protection and conservation efforts, Texas’ critically endangered Attwater’s prairie-chicken population is at its highest since 1993. Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and The Nature Conservancy in Texas estimate the current population is at least 178 birds. During the 2021 spring count, a total of 89 males were spotted performing breeding displays known as “booming” at the Service’s Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge and on private ranch lands.
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A Remarkable Return »
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that the Yangtze sturgeon, a freshwater fish found within the upper and middle Yangtze River system in China, warrants listing as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Threats to the fish are principally the presence of dams and partly bycatch. The species is also negatively impacted by industrial pollution, riverbed modification and hybridization with non-native sturgeon.
Partnerships across the Carolinas have led to the latest Endangered Species Act success story: the recovery of the dwarf-flowered heartleaf. Because of its comeback, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to remove the plant from the endangered species list.