Lawsuit Targets Federal Fish and Wildlife Service’s Failure to Protect Endangered Species From Toxic Pesticides

TUCSON, Ariz.— The Center for Biological Diversity filed new legal challenges today to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to stop allowing some of the most dangerous pesticides from threatening up to 97% of endangered species.

“From rusty patched bumblebees to Florida panthers, hundreds of plants and animals are really suffering while they wait for basic protections from toxic pesticides,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center. “The Endangered Species Act is incredibly effective, but it can’t stop extinctions if the agency tasked with protecting wildlife refuses to do its job.”

In 2022 the Center sued the Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to protect imperiled wildlife from the insecticides chlorpyrifos and diazinon, as required under the Endangered Species Act.

Today’s amended complaint expands the case to include four additional pesticides the Environmental Protection Agency has found to be widely harming the wildlife: carbaryl (91%), methomyl (61%), atrazine (56%), and simazine (55%). The agency’s assessment of the dangers of these four chemicals to endangered species resulted from a 2019 legal agreement with the Center.

Over six years ago, the EPA determined that 97% of the more than 1,800 animals and plants protected by the Endangered Species Act are likely to be harmed by chlorpyrifos and 78% are likely to be hurt by diazinon.