Old-Growth Nesting Seabird Keeps Threatened Species Protection
WASHINGTON, DC, February 6, 2008 (ENS) – A federal district court Tuesday turned back the timber industry’s latest attempt to remove federal protections from the marbled murrelet, a small seabird that nests in the old-growth trees of the Pacific Northwest.
In order to increase logging of trees over 100 years old, lawyers for the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry association, had sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, asking the court to remove Endangered Species Act protections for the marbled murrelet.
Represented by Earthjustice, the Audubon Society of Portland, the Seattle Audubon Society, the Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Northwest, the Environmental Protection Information Center, the Gifford Pinchot Task Force, Oregon Wild, Sierra Club, and The Wilderness Society intervened in the timber industry lawsuit to defend the murrelet.
Judge John Bates found that the timber industry had failed to petition the Fish and Wildlife Service to delist the murrelet. Failing such a petition, the federal agency had no duty to implement delisting or any other proposal resulting from its regular five year review of the murrelet’s conservation status, the judge ruled.
A marbled murrelet on
its nest in an old-growth
tree (Photo courtesy SFU)
In 1992, the Fish and Wildlife Service listed the marbled murrelet population in Washington, Oregon, and California as a threatened species due to logging of its old growth habitat.
The timber industry began its courtroom campaign against the murrelet more than seven years ago. The industry was assisted in 2004 by Julie MacDonald, a senior official in the Department of the Interior who resigned last May amid scandal over political interference with biological decisions.
MacDonald had ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to report that murrelets did not deserve protection in the lower 48 states. This finding reversed the opinions of government scientists who had concluded the birds continued to need protection.
Although currently under investigation by the Interior Department’s Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office, the MacDonald decision formed the basis of the timber industry’s lawsuit.
“The timber industry tried to play legal games with the fate of an entire species,” said Josh Osborne-Klein with Earthjustice. “Thankfully, the court refused to order the extinction of the murrelet.”
“Unfortunately, the timber industry attack on marbled murrelets is far from over,” said Noah Greenwald, a conservation biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Bush administration has a new proposal to slash protected murrelet habitat by almost 95 percent which may be finalized this spring, but we’ll be ready to fight that, too.”
Even with the Endangered Species Act protections in place, government scientists estimate that the marbled murrelet population in Washington, Oregon, and California continues to decline at a rate of four to seven percent per year.
A recent U.S. Geological Survey report estimated that the murrelet population in British Columbia and Alaska is also at risk, declining by 70 percent over the last 25 years.
View This Story On Eco-mmunity Map.
