United States Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Congresswoman Louise Slaughter are introducing an “Invasive Fish and Wildlife Prevention Act” aimed at preventing potentially harmful species from being imported into the United States.
The two held a news conference at the Sea Breeze Volunteer Fire Department in Irondequoit. They say the current system allows the Fish and Wildlife Service to block a plant or animal from being imported into the country only after it’s been listed as “injurious” to natural resources. But by then it’s already here and gotten established.
Slaughter and Gillibrand want the regulators to work out a new system based on potential risk to natural resources and ban importation of possibly dangerous species.