Legal Agreement Spurs Deadline for U.S. Finding on Hippo Protections

[jpr9954]

I came across this the other day and wonder how "endangered" hippos really are. Further, how many of these dubious lawsuits were settled by the Biden Administration with lawyers fees being paid to the anti-hunting organizations like Humane Society International, etc.

https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/n...or-us-finding-on-hippo-protections-2025-02-03

WASHINGTON— A federal court approved an agreement today that requires the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine by July 27, 2028, whether the common hippopotamus should be protected under the Endangered Species Act.

The agreement was reached after Humane Society International, the Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society Legislative Fund and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit last year, challenging the agency’s failure to respond to the groups’ 2022 legal petition seeking Endangered Species Act protection for hippos. The Service was required by law to determine whether hippos should be protected under the Act by March 2023, but did not do so, prompting the 2024 lawsuit.

More in the link above.

The agreement was reached in the last days of the Biden Administration with then Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. The agreement was approved by Judge Sparkle (I kid you not!) Sooknanan who assumed her seat on the US District Court for the District of Columbia in early January 2025.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.273013/gov.uscourts.dcd.273013.13.0.pdf

 

[RR 314]

I quit reading when the woman described hippos as “delightfully chunky creatures”. Oh dear. Perhaps she should row into a pod of these delightful creatures in a dugout.