Oregon

New Protections for the Mysterious Marbled Murrelet

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In February, Oregon’s Fish and Wildlife Commission voted to reclassify the marbled murrelet from threatened to endangered. The vote is good news, considering that murrelets have lost an estimated 78,600 acres of nesting habitat in Oregon since 1993. By some models cited by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, the species risks an 80 percent chance of extinction by 2060 in certain parts of the state.