Group: Feds hid plans to weaken whooping crane protection

The Associated Press

An environmental group says the Biden administration has made secret plans to weaken protection for the world’s rarest crane. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it has not decided whether to propose reclassifying whooping cranes from endangered to threatened. The Center for Biological Diversity says documents obtained through open records requests show that agency officials “seem to have been deliberately misleading the public” about their plans. Those documents include a draft press release about a proposal to change the only natural flock’s status from endangered to threatened. There are about 500 birds in that flock and a total of about 150 in two flocks authorities are trying to establish.