Although\u00a0northern long-eared bat\u00a0populations have declined by 90 percent in their core range, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today said it will not protect any of its critical habitat, saying it would not be \u201cprudent\u201d for the species. Under the Endangered Species Act, the government can opt not to designate critical habitat if there is factual evidence that a species would be placed at greater risk of extinction from poachers, collectors or vandals. But in the case of the northern long-eared bat, which is listed as \u201cthreatened\u201d under the Endangered Species Act, there is almost no evidence that the species is at risk from these types of threats. Instead its dramatic decline has been driven mostly by disease and habitat loss.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThis is a terrible turn of events for the northern long-eared bat,\u201d said Tanya Sanerib, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. \u201cIf you don\u2019t protect the places endangered species live, it becomes that much harder to save them. This is yet another instance where the Fish and Wildlife Service has gone out of its way to appease special interests rather than protecting our most vulnerable animals.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-2159447","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n