President Obama places African lions on the Endangered Species List. This ones for you Cecil.

Source

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

Five months after a lion named Cecil was shot and killed in Zimbabwe by a Minnesota dentist, the Obama administration has decided to place lions in Africa under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, an action that will set a higher bar for hunters who want to bring lion trophies into the United States. 

Lions in central and West Africa will be listed as endangered, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, which announced the change on Monday. Lions in southern and East Africa will be classified as threatened, with a special rule that prods countries to regulate sport hunting of lions in ways that promote conservation. 

Both designations, the agency said, will result in stricter criteria for the import of live lions and lion parts, like heads, paws or skins. 

Trophies from countries where lions are endangered will be “generally prohibited,” except in very limited circumstances, the agency said.

I guess Walter Palmer's careless murder of a magnificent and noble creature had at least ONE positive outcome.

Hopefully this will help stem the tide of pathetically hung man children from slaughtering these animals in order to impress their friends and try to get laid.

President Obama just used a Presidential Memorandum to protect Alaska's Bristol Bay.

Courtesy of Newsweek:  

In a YouTube video released Tuesday evening, President Barack Obama announced a ban on future oil and gas drilling in Bristol Bay, Alaska by way of a Presidential Memorandum. 

Bristol Bay is the most productive wild salmon fishery in the world, and is surrounded by sensitive tundra. Environmental groups and Native Alaskans have been working for years to secure protection for the area. “Bristol Bay has supported Native Americans in the Alaska region for centuries," Obama said in the video announcement. 

"It supports about $2 billion in the commercial fishing industry. It supplies America with 40 percent of its wild-caught seafood." "It is a beautiful natural wonder, and its something that is too precious for us to just be putting out to the highest bidder," Obama said.

Apparently this does not extend to mineral mining so it will not stop the Pebble Mine, though it may not make a difference since the EPA is already on that case.

Well I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that a certain half term governor/failed reality star is certainly going to have a rant about this in the next couple of hours or so.

However I will also say that Obama just made a lot of native Alaskans, commercial fishermen, and nature lovers very, very happy.