On May 1, 2019, the Pacific Standard magazine reported that the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) had denied Endangered Species Act protections to many at-risk species, notably the Florida Keys mole skink. The agency justified their decision using sea level rise projections that extended only to 2060 instead of 2100.
The delisting of the Florida Keys mole skink was part of a larger pattern at FWS. Public records revealed that in December 2017, FWS leadership issued a directive pushing officials to “conserve 30 species [a year] by delisting, downlisting, or precluding the need to list them."
The directive, referred to as the “Wildly Important Goal” or WIG, did not explain how denying vulnerable species Endangered Species Act protections would help conserve them. Critics of the WIG, such as Sam Evans, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, argued that the directive “encourages declaring victory prematurely for species that still need protection." The spokesperson for the southeastern region of FWS actively denied the directive’s existence, stating that “no quota system or mandatory number of delistings, downlistings, or not-warranted 12-month findings that would violate this requirement has ever been made at the Service.”