WASHINGTON, DC, January 21, 2009 (ENS) – In one of his first presidential acts, President Barack Obama has ordered federal agencies to halt all pending regulations until his administration can review them.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel issued the memorandum Tuesday shortly after Obama took the oath of office at noon on the steps of the Capitol Building.

The freeze halts publication of federal regulations planned under the Bush administration but not yet published in the Federal Register.

President George W. Bush used his executive powers to issue new regulations before leaving office, a usual practice during transitions.

Wildlife conservationists say the freeze will delay and possibly prevent the removal of gray wolves from the federal endangered species list in Montana, Idaho, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, and also in portions of Washington, Oregon, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.

Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity says the pause will afford President Obama and his new Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar the opportunity to rethink the previous administration’s efforts to remove wolves from the endangered species list.

Salazar, a fifth-generation Coloradan who served as the state’s U.S. senator, attorney general and director of natural resources, was confirmed Tuesday by a unanimous vote in the U.S. Senate to head the Department of the Interior, the nation’s largest land and wildlife conservation agency. He started work in his new job this morning.

Gray wolf in the northern Rockies (Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

“Rather than remove protections from wolves in a piecemeal fashion, in the isolated locations where they have finally begun to recover from past persecution,” Robinson said, “the Obama administration should develop and implement a national gray-wolf recovery plan that will ensure the survival of these magnificent animals.”

On January 14, in what conservationists view as a last-ditch effort by the Bush administration to undermine environmental protections, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the Northern Rockies gray wolf will be taken off the Endangered Species List.

Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife, said, “This blatantly political maneuver is hardly surprising. The Bush administration has been trying to strip Endangered Species Act protections from the Northern Rockies wolf since the day it took office – no matter the dire consequences of delisting wolves prematurely and without adequate state protections in place.”

Two previous attempts to remove protections from the wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains have been struck down by federal courts.

“The Bush administration is forcing the future of wolves in the region to play out in the courts by finalizing a delisting rule in its last hours in office,” Schlickeisen said. “We intend to challenge this poorly constructed decision in court as soon as the law allows. It is outrageous that the Bush administration has chosen to create this unnecessary legal problem for the new Obama administration to deal with as it takes office.”

Announding the delisting, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett said the success of gray wolf recovery efforts in the northern Rockies has contributed to expanding populations of wolves that no longer require the protection of the Act.

“Wolves have recovered in the Great Lakes and the northern Rocky Mountains because of the hard work, cooperation and flexibility shown by States, tribes, conservation groups, federal agencies and citizens of both regions,” said Scarlett. “We can all be proud of our various roles in saving this icon of the American wilderness.”

But wildlife conservationists disagree. Gray wolves are gone from over 95 percent of their historic range, including on millions of acres of national forests, national parks and Bureau of Land Management public lands whose ecological health has suffered in the absence of wolves, conservationists contend.

In the northern Rocky Mountains, wolf numbers are too low and populations too fragmented to ensure long-term survival, Robinson says.

The Bush administration intended to delist wolves in Idaho and Montana even though those states are inhabited by only 75 breeding pairs of wolves, far below the hundreds of breeding animals wildlife scientists say are necessary to maintain population viability without debilitating genetic problems.

Even these 75 breeding pairs are not secure since the Idaho and Montana state wolf management plans allow for killing of wolves, including a majority of the wolves in Idaho.

Schlickeisen said, “If allowed to stand, this rule would mean that the Northern Rockies wolf population could be slashed by as much as two-thirds, placing approximately 1,000 of the region’s roughly 1,450 wolves in peril. This is a loss from which they most likely would be unable to recover.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service and its predecessor agency were responsible for the extermination of wolves throughout much of the 20th century on behalf of the livestock industry.

Gray wolves survived in small numbers in the upper Midwest and expanded under the protections of the 1973 Endangered Species Act. Wolves began recolonizing northern Montana and Idaho on their own in the 1980s, and numbers grew significantly after the 1995 and 1996 reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho.

Under an exception to the Endangered Species Act, Fish and Wildlife Service actions have resulted in the federal killing on behalf of the livestock industry of 931 wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains and at least 1,951 wolves in the Great Lakes region from 1996 through 2008.

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HONOLULU, Hawaii, October 5. 2008 (ENS) – Conservationists are expressing mixed reactions to the federal government’s proposal to add 48 species found only on the island of Kauai to the federal endangered species list and also to designate critical habitat for them. While advocates support the ecosystem approach proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, some say it was used during the Clinton administration but abandoned under President Bush.

The proposal, made on Tuesday by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne includes 45 plants, two Kauai birds – the ‘akikiki and ‘akeke’e – and one Hawaiian picture-wing fly.

Kempthorne said the proposal applies “a newly developed, ecosystem-based approach to species conservation.”

“By addressing the common threats that occur across these ecosystems, we can more effectively focus our conservation efforts on restoring the functions of these shared habitats,” said Kempthorne. “This holistic approach will benefit the recovery of the listed species and also all the species within the native ecological community.”

The akeke’e uses its offset bill to pry open
leaves and flower buds of just one tree,
the Åhi‘a. (Photo by Eric
VanderWerf courtesy American
Bird Conservancy)

The species are found in six ecosystem types from rainforest mountains to moist lowlands and dry cliffs. Twenty-two separate geographic areas covering 27,674 acres are being proposed as critical habitat.

But only 1,646 acres are proposed as new critical habitat. The Service says 26,028 acres overlap existing critical habitat set aside for other species.

The majority of the proposed critical habitat is located on State of Hawaii lands, while 5,970 acres are located on private lands owned by approximately 12 different landowners.

Some conservationists say the proposal holds promise for species protection.

“We are pleased about the ecosystem approach – it makes sense. It looks like for the first time they’re combining plants and animals, and taking an ecosystem approach toward recovery,” said Marjorie Ziegler, who heads the 58 year-old Honolulu-based Conservation Council for Hawaii.

“Kauai is really hammered,” Ziegler said. “We’re really glad they’re listing the two birds. They are being pushed up to the upper elevations of the Alakai Swamp and if they don’t get protection from pigs, we’re going to lose them very quickly.”

But Mike Senatore, senior counsel with the Center for Biological Diversity, takes issue with Kempthorne’s assertion that the ecosystem approach is new.

“It was the Clinton administration that developed and implemented an ecosystem-based approach to species conservation – an approach that the Bush administration all but disregarded,” he said.

“Most, if not all of these species, have been the subject of listing petitions and ongoing litigation by the Center for Biological Diversity to force the administration to protect hundreds of species that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service previously had determined warranted protection under the Endangered Species Act,” said Senatore.

Other conservation organizations also have been requesting protection for the rare birds.

The American Bird Conservancy and Hawaiian bird expert Eric VanderWerf had petitioned the agency requesting protection for them. There are estimated to be fewer than 1,400 ‘akikiki and fewer than 3,500 ‘akeke’e in 2007. The populations of both birds dropped drastically since 2000, the group says.

George Fenwick, president of the bird conservation group, called the listing proposal “an important victory for the ‘akikiki and ‘akeke’e, which need every bit of help that they can get.”

The akikiki lives only on the high, wet
slopes of Kauai’s highest mountain.
(Photo by Eric VanderWerf courtesy
American Bird Conservancy)

“Recent population surveys indicate that these species are on the brink of extinction,” he said.

The ‘akikiki is categorized as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species due to its extremely small and declining population and geographic range.

The ‘akeke’e is categorized as Endangered by the IUCN due to its small and declining geographic range and declines in habitat quality.

Patrick Leonard, field supervisor with the Pacific Islands office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that over the next few years, the Service plans to use the ecosystem approach to propose listing and designating critical habitat for all of the endemic candidate species from the Hawaiian Islands.

There will be one rule each for Oahu and the Big Island of Hawaii and a single rule for the three islands of Maui, Molokai and Lanai.

The Service will also propose a single rule for Hawaiian species that are found on multiple islands. Each rule will propose endangered or threatened status for each species and will also propose critical habitat for species “when prudent,” said Leonard.

“Kauai, the oldest island of the main Hawaiian Islands, has been called a ‘treasure trove of biodiversity’ and is believed to house the greatest diversity of plants in the state,” said “Therefore, it is appropriate that we begin this new approach to listing species and designating critical habitat in Kauai.”

All of the Kauai species are threatened by ongoing destruction or modification of habitat due to feral ungulates such as pigs and goats, nonnative plants and hurricanes.

Several Kauai species are threatened by destruction or modification of habitat due to fire, landslides and flooding.

In addition to the threats to their habitat, one or more of the 48 species are threatened by limited numbers, predation, competition from nonnative plants, lack of reproduction, avian diseases, vandalism and over collection.

Senatore says the proposal to protect the 48 species falls short of the Interior Department’s announcement earlier this year that it would propose adding 71 species to the list of endangered and threatened species.

“While we welcome this action to protect these incredibly rare and imperiled species, in no way does it make up for the administration’s abysmal track-record of listing and protecting endangered and threatened species,” said Senatore. “This action also does nothing for the hundreds of additional species that have languished for years awaiting protection under the Endangered Species Act.”

Hawaii leads the nation in the total number of endangered and threatened species with 329, and in extinctions – with over 1,000 plants and animals having disappeared since human colonization.

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WASHINGTON, DC, August 21, 2008 (ENS) – Saying the Bush administration’s most recent Endangered Species Act rulemaking is “anti-democratic,” 104 conservation and scientific organizations today submitted a letter to Cabinet officials calling for increased transparency and opportunities for public participation.

The new rule published in the Federal Register last week would change the way the Endangered Species Act is administered concerning both land and marine species.

The groups say the rule would “radically weaken” the Endangered Species Act yet only 30 days have been allowed for public comment and the public comment process has been restricted in other ways as well.

Their letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez requests an extension of the comment period to 120 days.

The groups say a longer comment period would allow the public adequate time “to address the breadth and depth that these changes to the Endangered Species Act regulations will have on protecting our most imperiled wildlife.”

The rule would, for the first time, give federal agencies the authority to decide without expert consultation whether their activities such as logging, mining or roadbuilding could harm endangered and threatened species. It also would prohibit consideration of the impacts of global warming on wildlife.

The rule states, “These regulations would reinforce the Services’ current view that there is no requirement to consult on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions’ contribution to global warming and its associated impacts on listed species (e.g., polar bears).”

Polar bears depend on sea ice as a platform
for hunting seals, their main food source.
(Photo courtesy Wikipedia)

Earlier this year, Secretary Kempthorne added the polar bear to the federal endangered species list, classifying it as Threatened. But he qualified the listing with a requirement that it cannot be used to limit greenhouse gas emissions although it is the warming climate that is destroying the sea ice needed for polar bear survival.

Administration officials maintain the proposed rule is a minor change that would make the law easier to implement, but the conservation groups say the rule is a fundamental change in the law.

“Rather than a narrow tweaking of the regulations, the proposal represents a back-door attack on the Endangered Species Act,” said Leda Huta, director of the Endangered Species Coalition, a national network of hundreds of conservation, scientific, sporting, religious, humane, business and community groups.

“The American people deserve and expect a full public process to vet such far-reaching changes to this landmark conservation law,” Huta said.

The administration is refusing to accept e-mail comments or hold public hearings on the proposed rule.

Instead, comments will be accepted by postal mail, or through a government website that warns reviewers their personal information will be posted on the Internet for public dissemination.

“It appears as if the administration is doing whatever it can to discourage participation in the democratic process,” said John Kostyack, of the National Wildlife Federation. “I think we can expect more sneaky assaults like this on our public land and wildlife laws as this administration heads for the exits.”

The proposed regulatory changes were published on August 15, while Congress was out for recess and many Americans were enjoying the summer holiday.

The groups warn that the abbreviated timeline and restrictive commenting options raise serious concerns that the Department of the Interior and the Department of Commerce is attempting to rewrite a bedrock environmental statute without allowing for adequate public involvement.

Sean Cosgrove with the Conservation Law Foundation said today, “For one of our nation’s most important and successful environmental laws, the 30 day comment period is woefully inadequate for the public to review and comment on this critical proposal.”

“The Bush administration proposal eliminates the critical checks and balances needed to protect imperiled birds and cuts species experts from the process of making decisions that need to be science-based,” said Mike Daulton, with National Audubon Society, a bird conservation organization.

“The Endangered Species Act is a safety net for our nation’s wildlife, fish and plants on the brink of extinction, said Bill Snape of the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Bush administration’s proposed regulations will cut a giant loophole in the safety net.”

Susan Holmes of Earthjustice, a nonprofit public interest law firm, said, “Animals on the brink of extinction need consideration and protection guided by the best experts in the federal government – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service biologists.”

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MISSOULA, Montana, July 21, 2008 (ENS) – A federal judge has issued a temporary injunction restoring gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains to the endangered species list and halting the indiscrimate killing of wolves for the duration of a trial in which conservationist plaintiffs contest the removal of the wolves from the protected list.

The case involves 12 plaintiff conservation organizations against defendant U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the governments of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, and livestock and trophy hunting organizations that have intervened on the side of the government.

Dozens of wolves have been shot since March 28, 2008, when wolves in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and parts of Oregon, Washington and Washington lost the protections of the Endangered Species Act.

In his order granting the injunction handed down on Friday, Judge Molloy wrote, “This case, like a cloud larger than a man’s hand, will hang over the northwest states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming until there has been a final determination of the complex issues presented. Those issues must be answered in accordance with the intent of Congress as stated in the Endangered Species Act and its implementing regulations.”

Wolf in Yellowstone National Park
(Photo by Tut99)

In order to be granted the injunction, plaintiff groups had to demonstrate to Federal Judge Donald Molloy that they were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims, and that irreparable injury was occuring to the wolves during adjudication of the case.

The judge ruled that plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the majority of the claims relied upon in their request for a preliminary injunction.

“In particular,” wrote Judge Molloy, “(1) the Fish & Wildlife Service acted arbitrarily in delisting the wolf despite a lack of evidence of genetic exchange between subpopulations; and (2) it acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it approved Wyoming’s 2007 plan despite the State’s failure to commit to managing for 15 breeding pairs and the plan’s malleable trophy game area. In both instances, the Fish & Wildlife Service altered its earlier position without providing a reasoned decision for the change.”

“The wolf slaughter is halted,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity. “We’re elated. This injunction will give the wolves a fighting chance.”

“Recovery requires allowing wolves in different populations to reach each other in order to mate and raise their pups,” said Robinson. “Even before they were unlawfully removed from the endangered species list, the government was gunning down so many wolves that the Yellowstone population was reproductively isolated, a recipe for extinction.”

Gray wolves were exterminated from the western United States by the Fish and Wildlife Service and its predecessor agencies between 1915 and 1945, on behalf of the livestock industry.

Passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973 led to placement of wolves on the endangered species list, development of a recovery plan, and reintroduction of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains in 1995.

Suzanne Asha Stone, northern Rockies wolf conservation specialist for Defenders of Wildlife, said, “The delisting of wolves was inappropriate and illegal in large part because existing state management plans are inadequate to ensure the long term conservation of wolves in the region, allowing far too many wolves to be unnecessarily killed.”

“Responsible, balanced management by the states would benefit wolves, ranchers, hunters and all Northern Rockies residents,” said Stone. “While the court continues to weigh our challenge to the delisting decision, we will continue to work to improve the current state plans so that they maintain a healthy wolf population.”

The public interest law firm Earthjustice filed the lawsuit on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, The Humane Society of the United States, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Western Watersheds Project, and Wildlands Project.

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GALVESTON, Texas, May 9, 2008 (ENS) – Three bird species of concern have been conserved by completion of an erosion-protection project on North Deer Island in West Galveston Bay. Project partners protected the densely populated bird nesting habitat by armoring 1.7 miles of shoreline, including the north side of the island adjacent to the Intracoastal Waterway.

This project protects nesting habitat for the endangered brown pelican, the threatened reddish egret and the white-faced ibis, which are species of concern in Texas, and more than a dozen other bird species. Up to 40,000 pairs of birds nest on the island.

Endangered brown pelicans on North Deer Island.
(Photo courtesy U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers)

North Deer is one of the few natural islands left in Galveston Bay, as most natural islands have been lost due to subsidence and erosion. The most productive bird nesting island on the Texas Gulf coast, North Deer Island has experienced up to 10 feet of erosion per year.

“This island has been extremely important to the recovery of the Brown pelican in Galveston Bay. Based on a strong and healthy population, our agency has proposed removal of the Brown pelican from the endangered species list,” said Benjamin Tuggle, regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The young produced here are likely the birds that everyone sees wading in marshes and bayous throughout the Houston-Galveston area, Tuggle said.

The erosion-protection project is part of the region’s habitat conservation goals established by the Galveston Bay Estuary Program partnership, whose mission is to preserve the bay’s economic and ecologic health. Partners worked for eight years to restore and protect North Deer Island’s eroding shoreline.

Erosion destroyed habitat for up to 30,000 nesting pairs of birds that were using the island as well as nursery areas for commercially and recreationally important finfish and shellfish.

Project partners barged in 24,100 tons of rock from a quarry in Missouri, using the Mississippi River and the Intracoastal Waterway as a route, to create 6,450 feet of stone breakwater and armored shoreline.

The planning, engineering, and construction costs for the eight year endeavor totaled more than $3.2 million dollars.

“These group efforts demonstrate that by working together we can turn good ideas into tangible results,” said Jamie Schubert, a biologist and project manager for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

“These habitats are important to our economy,” said Schubert. “Fish and wildlife resources in Texas contribute over $8 billion to the economy. These resources also are part of our natural heritage and deserve our consideration for their intrinsic value. By protecting the island, we ensure that these benefits will be there for our children.”

The 144 acre island is co-owned by Houston and Texas Audubon. The island is managed as a bird sanctuary. No trespassing signs are posted and predators are removed.

The salt marshes on the southeast side of North Deer Island are nurseries for fish and shellfish, and these salt marshes are important foraging sites for birds breeding on the island, according to the Houston Audubon Society.

All species nesting on North Deer Island are migratory to some degree, and in winter, island marshes are used by migrating waterfowl.

The partnership includes Audubon Texas, the Houston Audubon Society, EcoNRG, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Gulf of Mexico Program, the Kempner Foundation, Meadows Foundation, Reliant Energy, Shell Marine, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Galveston Bay Estuary Program, the Texas General Land Office, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

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JEFFERSON CITY, Missouri, March 26, 2008 (ENS) – Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon did not succeed in his effort to prevent the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from releasing millions of gallons of water from a South Dakota dam on the Missouri River in a man-made “spring rise.”

The Corps plans to raise water levels in the Missouri River twice each spring – in March and again in May – to encourage spawning by the pallid sturgeon, a fish on the federal endangered species list.

Nixon sued the Corps to stop the rise because many parts of Missouri are undergoing severe flooding caused by last week’s record rainfall.

On Tuesday, the federal district court in St. Louis declined to grant the attorney general a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Corps from proceeding with the spring rise.

District Judge Jean Hamilton ruled that there was no proof the Corps’ plan violated any law.

High water on the Missouri River as
it flowed through Kansas City in
March 2007. (Photo
courtesy USACE)

On Tuesday afternoon, Missouri lawyers and the head of water resources for Missouri’s Department of Natural Resources, Mike Wells, appealed the district court’s ruling to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but lost in that court as well.

For months, Attorney General Nixon has been objecting to the Corps’ planned spring rise.

In October 2007, the attorney general’s staff sent a letter to Col. Steven Miles, commander of the Corps’ Northwestern Division, expressing concern that the Corps would consider a man-made rise while widespread flooding in Missouri was responsible for several deaths and massive property damage.

A return letter from the Corps received by the attorney general on March 21 said that the Corps intended to proceed with the spring rise beginning in the middle of the week of March 24, prompting Nixon to file suit.

“In addition to the flooding Missouri is suffering, the Corps also should not consider doing a man-made rise because many of the levees along the Missouri River that were breached by the floods of 2007 have not been fully repaired,” Nixon said.

The estimated rise in the river’s level is estimated at 12 inches at Kansas City and six inches at Hermann, but Missouri officials fear that reservoirs and waterways are topped up and the ground is saturated.

Warning of more rain forecast for later this week, they argued that the endangered sturgeon does not need more water for its recovery.

Lawrence Cieslik, chief of Missouri River Basin water management for the corps, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick Llewellyn argued that water levels are already receding.

“Many Missourians have spent the last week putting sandbags in place in order to protect homes, businesses, farms and roads from flooding,” Nixon maintained.

“We need this order to ensure the Corps does not make this catastrophe even worse by sending more water downstream for the pallid sturgeon, where any rise would only add to the devastation along the streams and rivers that empty into the Missouri and Mississippi,” he said.

The spring rise first took place in May 2006. Plans for similar water releases have not been carried out due to drought and low reservoir levels upriver.

Despite years of study, Nixon said, the science behind the spring rise remains uncertain. He says scientists are beginning to question the benefit of a man-made rise for the sturgeon that is intended to substitute for natural seasonal river fluctuations before the upstream dam was constructed.

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WASHINGTON, DC, February 21, 2008 (ENS) – Environmental groups from across the United States are planning legal action in an attempt to reverse today’s decision by the federal government to remove gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains from the Endangered Species List.

“The gray wolf population in the Northern Rocky Mountains is thriving and no longer requires the protection of the Endangered Species Act,” Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett said today.

“The wolf population in the Northern Rockies has far exceeded its recovery goal and continues to expand its size and range. States, tribes, conservation groups, federal agencies and citizens of both regions can be proud of their roles in this remarkable conservation success story,” said Scarlett. She said that there are currently more than 1,500 wolves and at least 100 breeding pairs in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.

Gray wolf in the Northern Rocky
Mountains (Photo courtesy USFWS)

The federal government will hand wolf management duties over to the three states on March 27. The northern Rocky Mountain distinct population segment of the gray wolf includes all of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, as well as the eastern one-third of Washington and Oregon, and a small part of north-central Utah.

But conservationists say these wolves are not ready to survive without federal protection.

“Americans will howl with rage when they learn that their government is jeopardizing this iconic animal,” said Louisa Willcox of the Natural Resources Defense Council Montana office. “Why snatch defeat from the jaws of victory when we’ve made so much progress toward recovering wolves in the Greater Yellowstone region?”

Willcox said the NRDC will immediately notify the federal government of its intent to file a lawsuit challenging the delisting decision on the grounds that it is premature to revoke endangered species protections because the wolves have not fully recovered.

For years, all three states have been urging the federal government to take the wolves off the Endangered Species List and have all stated their intention to allow hunting, trapping and killing of wolves by other means such as poison.

The minimum recovery goal for wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains was set at a minimum of 30 breeding pairs and a minimum of 300 individual wolves for at least three consecutive years. This goal was achieved in 2002, and the wolf population has expanded in size and range every year since, federal wildlife officials say.

“Three hundred animals is not enough for the wolves to survive in the long run,” said Willcox. Far more wolves are needed before the species can be considered truly recovered.”

Earlier this week, NRDC and Defenders of Wildlife filed a petition requesting that the Fish and Wildlife Service establish legitimate targets for recovery of wolves throughout the lower 48 states. The groups want a national recovery plan with regional recovery goals aimed at supporting sustainable populations of wolves in the northern Rockies, the northeast and the southwest.

Defenders of Wildlife, based in the nation’s capital with field offices across the country, has as its executive vice president Jamie Rappaport Clark, a wildlife biologist who presided over wolf recovery as director of the Fish and Wildlife Service from 1997 to 2001.

Wolf in Yellowstone National Park
(Photo courtesy National Park Service)

For the Northern Rockies, independent scientists say the recovery goal should be at least 2,500 to 5,000 wolves in at least three interconnected populations in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. They say that viable populations should also be established in Colorado, Utah, Oregon and Washington.

Ed Bangs, the head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s wolf recovery project, admits he thinks that 300 wolves are not enough. In a “Science” magazine article on February 15 Bangs said, “I personally think it [the recovery goal] is too low.”

Others in the Department of the Interior do not agree. “With hundreds of trained professional managers, educators, wardens and biologists, state wildlife agencies have strong working relationships with local landowners and the ability to manage wolves for the long-term,” said Lyle Laverty, assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks.

“We’re confident the wolf has a secure future in the northern Rocky Mountains and look forward to continuing to work closely with the states as we monitor the wolf population for the next five years,” said Laverty.

“These wolves have shown an impressive ability to breed and expand – they just needed an opportunity to establish themselves in the Rockies,” said Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall. “The Service and its partners provided that opportunity, and now it’s time to integrate wolves into the states’ overall wildlife management efforts.”

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, decades before passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973, exterminated wolves from the West,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity based in Arizona. “The Bush administration, acting on behalf of the livestock industry, is attempting to thwart recovery and bring wolves back to the brink of extinction.”

The Center for Biological Diversity and allied conservation organizations sued the Fish and Wildlife Service over its April 1, 2003 rule downlisting wolves from endangered to threatened a prelude to removing them entirely from the list of protected species. A federal court reversed that downlisting on January 31, 2005.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service is making the same legal mistake now as it did in 2003, and imperiling wolves’ survival,” said Robinson. “This time, just like last time, this illegal action will not stand in court.”

More than 200,000 gray wolves once lived throughout the United States. Eradication campaigns killed most of America’s wolves by the mid-1930s. Gray wolves have been listed as endangered since 1974, and were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park and Central Idaho in 1995 and 1996.

Wolves are native to the northern Rockies and have begun once again to restore natural balance to the areas they are reoccupying, by culling weak and diseased elk, deer, and other prey, and dispersing elk more widely across their habitat and away from sensitive wetlands and meadows that suffer from overbrowsing, says Defenders of Wildlife.

Elk populations remain high, more than 400,000 elk are present today in the Northern Rockies. Hunter harvest success remains as high as it was before the return of wolves, the group maintains.

Ranchers are learning to reduce the limited wolf predation on livestock to manageable levels and are compensated for most known losses that do occur by Defenders of Wildlife or by state compensation programs.

In 2007, Defenders of Wildlife wrote wolf compensation checks to ranchers across the country for a total of $154,000, the highest amount the group has paid yet.

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WASHINGTON, DC, January 17, 2008 (ENS) – Key polar bear habitat should be held off limits to oil and gas drilling until federal wildlife officials have determined whether the species should be listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act, the chair of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming said today.

“Order matters,” said committee chair Ed Markey a Massachusetts Democrat. “You don’t put on your shoes before your socks … and we shouldn’t be selling the drilling rights in this important polar bear habitat before deciding how we are going to protect them.”

Markey convened the hearing in the wake of an announcement on January 7 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that it will delay a decision on whether the polar bear should be listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

The delay makes it likely the decision on listing will come after the U.S. Minerals Management Service sells oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea, inhabited by some 2,000 polar bears.

Polar bears are increasingly
threatened by shrinking sea ice.
(Photo courtesy USGS)

That is controversial because the plan to open the area to drilling would face greater environmental scrutiny if the polar bear was on the endangered species list.

“The timing of these two decisions leaves the door open for the administration to give Big Oil the rights to this polar bear habitat the moment before the protections for the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act go into effect,” Markey said.

Looming over the controversy is the larger issue of climate change, which scientists predict could have devastating consequences for the polar bear.

A study issued last fall by the U.S. Geological Survey found that two-thirds of the world’s polar bears could disappear by 2050 due to increased sea ice melt caused by rising temperatures. The Chukchi Sea population, which makes up about half the U.S. polar bear population, is included in that estimate.

Concern about the impact of global warming on polar bears prompted the Fish and Wildlife Service last year to consider listing the species. The agency was scheduled to announce its decision on January 9 but instead said it needed a few more weeks to review information on the species.

“In taking this extra time I wanted to make sure that our staff and I had enough time to clearly understand … the reasons why we accepted information we relied upon and why we didn’t,” Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall told the committee. “It’s not just making the decision, it’s making it clear and why.”

Democrats on the panel honed in on the reluctance of the Bush administration to delay the Chukchi Sea lease sale, set for February 6, until after the listing decision has been made.

“There is no excuse for not taking a few more weeks,” said Representative Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat.

Congressman Ed
Markey chairs the
House Select
Committee on Global
Warming. (Photo
courtesy the Select
Committee)

The threat posed to the species by global warming merits strong action to ensure other threats are limited, Markey added.

“In the end man can adapt, but the bear cannot,” he said.

Markey urged Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who oversees both agencies, to delay the lease sale until the listing decision has been made.

“In the end, if this is not fixed, it is Mr. Kempthorne who is to blame,” Markey said. “I hope he understands the importance of his decision. I fear he does not.”

Markey has introduced legislation to block lease sales in the Chukchi Sea until the Fish and Wildlife Service issues its decision on listing.

Eleven U.S. senators – 10 Democrats and one Independent – sent Kempthorne a letter today requesting a delay in the lease sale.

“The polar bear has become a tragic mascot of the impacts of climate change, but the U.S. government continues to leave it as vulnerable as ever,” said Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and lead author of the letter. “We should be protecting these animals, rather than auctioning off their habitat to the highest bidder.”

There was no word today from Kempthorne on the issue.

At the hearing, the head of the minerals agency sought to assure lawmakers that a framework is in place to protect the polar bear, regardless of whether or not it is afforded the protection of the Endangered Species Act.

“We believe adequate protections exist,” said Randall Luthi, director of the Minerals Management Service, MMS.

At today’s hearing, second from
left: Randall Luthi, director of
the Minerals Management
Service; third from left Dale
Hall, head of the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service (Photo courtesy
Select Committee)

The bear is already protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Luthi told the panel, and MMS has worked closely with wildlife officials to ensure potential harm to the species is mitigated.

He added that there are no plans to delay the lease sale, which covers some 29.7 million acres of waters off northwestern Alaska. MMS estimates the area holds some 15 billion barrels of oil and 76 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Although Luthi acknowledged that his agency estimates a 33 to 50 percent chance of a major oil spill in the region, he downplayed the concern.

“We wouldn’t be proceeding with this sale if we weren’t comfortable that we had enough knowledge, enough data to say that we can adequately see that the polar bear is protected,” he added. “I’m confident we have done all we needed to do.”

The ranking Republican on the committee said he was convinced by Luthi’s assurances.

The scientific evidence indicates “going ahead with the lease will not have a major impact on the habitat of polar bears in this part of the sea across Alaska,” said Representative F. James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican.

That drew the ire of Representative Jay Inslee, a Washington Democrat, who argued that such a view ignores the growing evidence that global warming is well underway and already harming the polar bear.

“This is the last chance for the polar bear,” he said. “It is unbelievable to me that people are still adopting the attitude of the ostrich. One million square miles of the Arctic disappeared this summer … stunning the scientific community. This is visual evidence. It is not theoretical, it is not hypothetical. It is gone.”

Inslee pressed Luthi with questions about the leasing plan, noting that the agency would not be able to force compliance with Endangered Species Act requirements for the polar bear if listing is finalized after the lease sales.

“You will have lost the ability to prevent drilling in certain areas,” he said. “Once you issue the leases it is too late to go back and terminate them.”

Luthi agreed that MMS would not have the ability to terminate leases, but said the sale of the leases is “just the first phase.”

Lease holders have to submit a plan for exploration, he said, that must be approved by the Minerals Management Service and reviewed by the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Inslee remained unconvinced, saying, “It negligent in the extreme to make this decision without having the declaration made by the other agency.”

“Robert Frost wrote about two roads diverging in the wood, and here we have the Bush administration looking down two roads with regard to the polar bear,” said Chairman Markey.

“Down one road lies the survival of the polar bear and the orderly consideration of oil drilling and global warming and common sense,” he said. “Down the other road, too often traveled by this administration, lies regulatory lunacy and a blatant disregard for moral responsibility.”

Markey urged Secretary Kempthorne and his agency “to choose the Bush administration’s road less traveled and protect the polar bear, and the rest of us, from global warming.”

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WASHINGTON, DC, January 7, 2008 (ENS) – Three environmental groups today said they will sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to make a decision about whether or not to place the polar bear on the federal Endangered Species List by this coming Wednesday. To survive, polar bears must contend with shrinking sea ice, toxic contamination and petroleum development.

Today the Service said it is “working diligently to reach a final decision” about listing the bear as threatened but will not have made the determination by Wednesday. “We expect to provide a final recommendation to the Secretary of the Interior and finalize the decision within the next month,” the Service said.

The Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC, and Greenpeace say they will begin legal action Wednesday

“We certainly hope that the polar bear will be listed within the next month. But this is an administration of broken promises, from Bush’s campaign pledge to regulate greenhouse gases to Secretary Kempthorne’s failure to list a single species under the Endangered Species Act in the last 607 days,” said Kassie Siegel, climate program director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Polar bear on Arctic sea
ice (Photo courtesy MMS)

The Endangered Species Act requires a listing process of no longer than two years, but in this case almost three years have passed since the scientific petition was submitted in February 2005, calling on the government to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.

The groups sued the Bush administration in December 2005, when it missed its first deadline.

Responding to the suit in February, 2006, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that protection of polar bears “may be warranted,” and began a full status review of the species.

On December 27, 2006, the Service announced its proposal to list the species as “threatened” and had one year to make a final listing decision. The legal deadline for doing so is January 9, 2008.

“The polar bear needs a lifeline,” said Andrew Wetzler, director of the Endangered Species Project at NRDC. “Urgent action is required by our government. Polar bears’ very existence is already threatened by environmental disaster, and they also face toxic contamination and habitat destruction from oil and gas development. The administration’s endless delay is outrageous and unwarranted.”

The Service says it is working as fast as it can in light of new information received in September 2007 and public comments on that information.

“When the polar bear was proposed for listing in January 2007, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne directed the Service to work with the U.S. Geological Survey, USGS, the public and the scientific community to broaden our understanding of what is happening with the polar bear and to gather additional information to inform the final decision on whether the species warrants federal protection under the ESA [Endangered Species Act], the Service said today.

“In September 2007, USGS scientists supplied new research findings to the Service updating population information on the Southern Bering Sea polar bear and providing additional data on sea ice trends and effects on polar bear populations throughout the species’ range.

As a result of the new USGS research findings, the Service reopened and later extended a second comment period to allow the public time to review the information and respond. “We received numerous comments on the USGS reports and have been working to analyze and respond to the information provided during the comment period,” the Service said.

To date, the government has received more than 500,000 comments in support of protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act, including letters from eminent polar bear experts, climate scientists, and more than 60 members of Congress, a record number of public comments in support of an Endangered Species Act listing, the environmental groups say.

But the groups do not view the number of comments as justification for further delay in issuing a determination.

“The Bush administration has squandered seven years denying the devastating scientific evidence of global warming,” said Kert Davies, research director for Greenpeace USA. “Stalling has cost us dearly, putting the polar bear at risk of extinction and jeopardizing the future welfare of billions of people around the world. This further unjustified delay is emblematic of the administration’s approach.”

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