MAINE ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS • October 15, 2020
In 1993, RESTORE: The North Woods petitioned to put the imperiled Atlantic salmon on the national Endangered Species list. Every relevant public agency, conservation organization, and elected official opposed the effort. But after nearly a decade the species was listed because the truth was unavoidable. Then, for years, RESTORE pushed for Maine to put Atlantic salmon on the state’s endangered species list. The agencies refused and the silence from other conservation groups was deafening. In June 2020, ten groups and half a dozen experts petitioned Maine to list the species as endangered because it is. Now, they too have been rebuffed. The State agencies have said, incorrectly, "state listing of Atlantic salmon…does not offer any conservation benefits beyond the existing protections..." Both the petitioning experts and the State have failed. The experts waited too long. The State bureaucracy just does not want to bother. Two decades ago we had a chance. Today, the species is nearly extinct in the US and climate change is not helping. Extinction does not wait for convenient politics.