Have a little patience with this New York Times article on how the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s settlements with WildEarth Guardians and the Center for BioDiversity mean “an unprecedented flurry” of Endangered Species Act listings in Texas. (There are 96 species under consideration in the state under the settlement.)

The top of the story tells you what you should already know. (Settlement. 250 species under consideration, total. Six years.) The middle tells you something that should come as no big surprise. (Oil companies sincerely oppose the listing of a couple of lizard species that will really cramp their drilling style.)

But the end, ah, the end, raises some important questions. Just how does a state manage such a flurry of listings? Who is paying the academic researchers whose work is so crucial to the listing discussion? Where will the feds find researchers? Where will the researchers find the time? All food for thought.

Read the New York Times article here.

Read our previous postings on:
the Houston toad and
the WildEarth Guardians/Center for Biodiversity settlement.

 Photo: Houston frog; courtesy of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.