July 19, 2016 — WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has introduced legislation meant to prevent the importation of species that pose at as a threat to New York’s natural resources.
It’s called the Invasive Fish and Wildlife Prevention Act, and it would give federal wildlife officials the ability the block potentially harmful species from being imported into the country and across state lines.
“The Invasive Fish and Wildlife Prevention Act would give federal wildlife officials new tools to keep out invasive species that pose an imminent threat to Western New York,” said Senator Gillibrand, a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “In recent years, we’ve seen many cases of invasive species from other countries – dangerous animals that aren’t meant to live in our ecosystems here – being introduced into bodies of water around our state and around Western New York. We need to do more to prevent harmful species from coming here from overseas and harming our ecosystems, and this bill would finally let us begin to address this problem.”