National News

Watch Rare Footage of the World’s Most Endangered Rhino. “Conservationists have released footage and photographs of the world’s rarest rhino, which counts fewer than 70 members among its population and is confined to a single national park in Indonesia. While camera-trap images of the Javan rhino have occasionally surfaced, a WWF spokesperson says the photographs released Monday are only the third manually captured set ever published. They offer a rare glimpse of the critically endangered mammal wallowing in near-dusk light. ‘Very few people have seen a Javan rhino in the wild,’ says photographer Robin Moore, who snapped the images with a team from Global Wildlife Conservation and WWF-Indonesia last October. ‘Even some of the people who have been working on their conservation for decades have never seen one,’ he says.” [Time, 11/19/18 (=)]

US House Votes to Remove Gray Wolves from Endangered Species Act List. “The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a bill that would remove gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act list and open them to state hunting and trapping seasons. In the latest act of the ongoing wolf saga, the lame-duck House voted 196-180, along heavily partisan lines, to approve H.R. 6784 that would take wolves off the endangered list nationwide and block courts from considering violations of federal law for wolves under the Endangered Species Act. While the bill is seen as good news for farmers, ranchers and some sportsmen groups that want to see wolf numbers reduced in several states, similar bills have passed the House in recent years but stalled in the Senate, leaving wolves under court-ordered federal protections.” [Los Angeles Times, 11/16/18 (=)]