Conservationists went before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today, in a lawsuit filed by Earthjustice challenging the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) initial management plan for the Vermilion Cliffs and Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monuments.

In response to a scientific petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity in November, the federal government announced today that Alaska’s Iliamna Lake seals may need protection under the Endangered Species Act. They are threatened by the development of the proposed Pebble mine as well as by climate change. The National Marine Fisheries Service will now launch a year-long status review of the freshwater seals.

The leaders of six of the nation’s most prominent conservation groups today called on the U.S. Department of the Interior to cancel plans by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove federal Endangered Species Act protections for wolves across nearly the entire lower-48 states, stating the plan would be disastrous for gray wolf recovery in the United States.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revised its proposed listing rule today for the lesser prairie chicken — a rare grouse — to include a special rule that would weaken protections for the bird once it is listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The prairie chicken was proposed for Endangered Species Act protection in December, but under a special rule added to the proposal today, habitat-destroying activities would be allowed to continue in the bird’s range.

Endangered loggerhead sea turtles won a federal commitment to protect critical nesting-beach and ocean habitat in a legal settlement filed late Thursday in U.S. District Court between conservation groups Center for Biological Diversity, Oceana and Turtle Island Restoration Network and the U.S. government.