TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Julia Wilburn on May 10, 2024

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has filed suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its refusal to grant a rare southern salamander Endangered Species Act protections. The Tennessee Lookout reports that the Berry Cave Salamander, which stretches to a little over 9 inches long, has been found in only a handful of isolated caves — most in east Tennessee — where rapid growth combined with farm runoff, climate change and a legacy of contamination from old quarry mines continues to degrade the creatures’ environment. The largest known population of the salamander lives in the Mead’s Quarry Cave in Knoxville, where its numbers have shrunk by at least 60% over the last decade, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center, which is representing the CBD.