Endangered Species List

(Runtime 0:57)Washington’s Western gray squirrels are in trouble. So much so that state officials are considering uplisting the squirrels from threatened…

(Runtime 0:57)A once-rare flowering prairie plant has recovered enough in Washington and Oregon for federal officials to remove it from the Endangered…

(Runtime 0:59) The West’s iconic whitebark pine trees are in trouble. The federal government announced Wednesday it’s designating whitebark pine trees as…

If you’ve ever been hiking in the Cascades, high up in the alpine meadows, and were spooked by a streak of a bird, a plume of feathers that darted right in front of your face, you may have come across the Mount Rainier white-tailed ptarmigan.

A new survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found there are more than 70,000 breeding pairs of the iconic raptor in the contiguous U.S. In the late 1960s, there were fewer than 500.

The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service ruled against upgrading the iconic Northern spotted owl’s protection status Monday under the Endangered Species Act.

The federal government says it will remove endangered species protections for gray wolves in the Lower 48. The move will reduce protections for the predators in the western two-thirds of Washington and Oregon.

A 2017 analysis that looked at historic versus recent distributing areas of the species and found that the populations have declined by almost 50% of its historic range and it has been accelerating in recent years.

Conservation groups say the animals need to be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Ten groups want to force the federal government to protect the elusive wolverines. The groups estimate there are around 300 wolverines left, sparsely scattered across the Mountain West, including Idaho, Washington and Oregon.