WASHINGTON, DC, January 23, 2009 (ENS) – The Obama administration’s new Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, has promised that high ethical standards will be the norm at the department that has been plagued with scandals under the Bush administration.

In an address to thousands of Interior Department employees Thursday broadcast live by satellite to DOI offices across the country from the department’s main building in Washington, Salazar pledged to run the agency with honesty and respect for science.

“We and those who work with this department will make sure we follow the high ethical standards that President [Barack] Obama outlined in his first press conference yesterday at the White House,” said Salazar, who, before being elected to the U.S. Senate from Colorado, was that state’s attorney general, the top law enforcement officer.

He introduced his Chief of Staff Tom Strickland, who served during that same time period as United States Attorney for Colorado.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar addresses employees. January 22, 2009 (Photo courtesy DOI)

“We will follow the law, we will hold people accountable, and we will expect to be held accountable,” Salazar said. “We will not tolerate the types of lapses that detract and distract from good honest service to the American people that this department does every day.”

The Department of the Interior includes eight bureaus that manage millions of acres of public lands: The Bureau of Indian Affairs,The Bureau of Reclamation, the Minerals Management Service, the National Park Service, the Office of Surface Mining, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey.

During the Bush administration DOI officials were found to have violated ethics rules, undermining public confidence in the department.

In September 2008, Minerals Management Service employees were fired when the agency’s Inspector General found that they accepted gifts from oil and gas companies, participated in “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” and considered themselves exempt from federal ethics rules.

In May 2007, a deputy assistant secretary of fish, wildlife and parks, who controlled the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service endangered species program, resigned in disgrace after the Inspector General found that she violated federal ethics rules by sending “nonpublic information” to industry lobbyists. Many of her decisions hampered endangered species protections and some are still the subject of litigation.

Salazar Thursday told the packed auditorium of DOI employees that a new day has dawned for the agency.

“I pledge to you that we will ensure the Interior Department’s decisions are based on sound science and the public interest, and not on the special interests. I want the public to be proud of the department’s work,” he said. “Above all, I want you to know that your secretary is proud of you and respects the work you do to serve the American people.”

In response to questions from employees in the audience, Salazar promised to fill management positions in the agency that have been left vacant under the Bush administration.

He vowed to coordinate closely with the departments of energy and commerce on energy issues, which are many, including oil and gas leasing, offshore drilling, and development of renewable sources of energy.

Secretary Salazar said that the DOI will be an important contributor to the Obama administration’s “moonshot on energy” and in carrying out a “strong economic recovery plan that helps create jobs, build our clean energy economy and remake America.”

On the controversial DOI regulation passed late last year that allows members of the public to carry concealed and loaded firearms in national parks, Salazar told a National Park Service employee concerned about assaults on park rangers that he would “take a look at it.”

From the audience, Einar Olson from the National Park Service said the national parks get 275 million visitors a year and park rangers and officers are already the most assaulted of all law enforcement officers.

Salazar responded that he has used a gun since he was a child and feels a sense of comfort when he has a gun with him. “I’m a defender of the 2nd Amendment,” he said, noting that the regulation is a subject of litigation. “We’ll take a look at it. I don’t have an answer for you at this time,” he said.

That was the new secretary’s response to many questions from the audience, but he did express a positive leaning towards the Endangered Species Act, which has been criticized by Republican lawmakers during the past several sessions of Congress.

“The ESA has worked,” said Salazar, “we have many examples.”

“I want my children and grandchildren to be able to see whooping cranes,” said the new secretary. “In my view, it’s like other laws. There may be ways in which we can do it better to protect the habitat under the ESA to help the species thrive.”

The secretary reminded employees that the department has “a global footprint and indeed very much a footprint in each of our 50 states and each of our territories and insular possessions.”

“The department and its agencies touch all of the people of America,” he said. “So whether your job … involves protecting wildlife or issuing leases, preserving history or providing water, I urge you to think of your mission as part of a mission of a new Department of America, this Department of the Interior.”

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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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SAN FRANCISCO, California, December 17, 2008 (ENS) – Regulations announced by Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne last week that would exempt many federal activities, including those that generate greenhouse gases, from review under the Endangered Species Act were published in the Federal Register Tuesday.

But the regulations are being challenged in court by three conservation groups – the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace and Defenders of Wildlife, who filed suit in federal court for the Northern District of California the day the regulations were announced, December 11.

Unless overturned in court, the regulations will take effect on January 11, nine days before President-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated and the presidency of George W. Bush comes to a close.

“These regulations undermine fundamental protections for the nation’s endangered species,” said Noah Greenwald with the Center for Biological Diversity. “We hope an Obama administration or Congress will act quickly to undo this 11th hour attempt to weaken our most important law for protecting wildlife.”

The lawsuit argues that the regulations violate the Endangered Species Act and did not go through the required public review process. The regulations, first proposed on August 11, were rushed by the Bush administration through an abbreviated process in which more than 300,000 comments from the public were reviewed in three weeks, and environmental impacts were analyzed in a brief environmental assessment, rather than a fuller environmental impact statement.

“This is a clear example of a lame duck administration ramming through weakened regulations that are opposed by Congress and the public,” Greenwald said. “When the survival of species hangs in the balance, public policy should not be rushed.”

Under current regulations, federal agencies must consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service if the agencies permit, fund, or otherwise carry out actions that “may affect” endangered species, or if the Service has already determined those actions adversely affect endangered species.

Under the new regulations, federal agencies will themselves determine whether their actions are likely to adversely affect endangered species. That finding would determine whether the agency must consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Announcing the final regulations, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said, “With the regulations finalized today, federal agencies must still follow all existing consultation procedures, except in specific and limited instances where an action is not anticipated to adversely impact any member of a listed species.”

Polar bear clings to a shrinking ice floe
in a warming world. (Photo credit unknown)

The policy would also prohibit any consideration of the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions from federal projects on endangered species such as the polar bear.

“When I announced the listing of the polar bear as threatened in May, I agreed with the President that the Endangered Species Act is not the right tool to set climate change policy,” Kempthorne said. “I also announced that day that we would propose common sense modifications to the existing regulations in order to provide greater certainty that the listing would not become a back door for setting climate change policy.”

Anticipating criticism of the regulations, Kempthorne said, “Importantly, the new regulations do not remove all consideration of the effects of climate change. Climate change should be considered when determining the environmental conditions under which actions are taking place.

He gave the example of a project that would pull water from a lake and it is predicted that, because of climate change, water levels in that lake will already be significantly reduced, then the expected lower lake levels should be taken into consideration, he said.

The U.S. Geological Survey has published a series of reports predicting that due to climate change loss of summer sea ice, crucial habitat for polar bears, could lead to the death of two-thirds of the world’s polar bears by mid-century, including all of Alaska’s polar bears.

The polar bear was listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act on May 14, 2008. The conservation groups’ lawsuit seeks to ensure that the polar bear receives the full protections that other species receive under the law.

The polar bear is the largest of the world’s bear species and is distributed among 19 Arctic subpopulations – two of which, the Chukchi and the Southern Beaufort Sea populations, are located within the United States.

Polar bears are threatened with extinction from global warming, which is melting the Arctic sea ice where polar bears hunt for ringed and bearded seals, their primary food source.

“This rule makes a mockery of the Endangered Species Act, our nation’s most important wildlife protection law,” said Defenders of Wildlife Executive Vice President Jamie Rappaport Clark, who headed the Fish and Wildlife Service under the Clinton administration.

“The polar bear doesn’t have time for political maneuvers. Its habitat is melting away, its food is becoming scarce and the science is clear that the cause is global warming – yet the rule this administration released today affirms that little will be done to save the species from sure extinction,” said Clark.

Listing polar bears as threatened should help protect polar bear habitat from threats such as oil and gas development, which the Bush administration is aggressively pursuing in the Chukchi Sea north of Alaska and has even proposed in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which provides the primary land denning habitat for the species, she said.

“Instead, the administration has made it clear with its 4(d) rule that the ESA will not provide any additional protections from these and other harmful activities than those that already exist under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and will provide no protection against emissions of greenhouse gases that are causing the rise in global temperatures that directly threaten the polar bear,” said Clark.

Greenwald said, “The polar bear and numerous other species threatened by climate change need the protections of the Endangered Species Act to survive.”

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WASHINGTON, DC, October 29, 2008 (ENS) – In the waning days of the Bush administration, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne Tuesday announced a plan to conserve bison, also called buffalo, with a second interagency group.

He said the department will work with state, tribal and agricultural interests to promote cooperative conservation in bison management.

One federal-state interagency group already implements the Interagency Bison Management Plan that keeps the Yellowstone herd within the park and within a pre-set population number through hazing and culling.

Once American bison were the most numerous single species of large wild mammal on Earth. But they were hunted almost to extinction for their skins and were reduced to a few hundred by the mid-1880s.

There are now more than 500,000 plains bison in North America, most privately owned, in herds of less than 1,000 that are fenced within relatively small areas.

“While the days of millions of free-roaming bison are gone,” Kempthorne said, “our initiative acknowledges the important role of bison on the landscape, in tribal culture and in our national heritage. We willl work in partnerships to sustain a strong and well-coordinated conservation effort throughout this country, throughout this century.”

The Department of the Interior now manages almost 7,000 bison in seven national wildlife refuges and five national parks.

Kempthorne says he will establish a federal-state interagency working group to coordinate management and science activities related to Interior’s bison herds and to carry out cooperative efforts with other parties. The group will include the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of Defense, the secretary said.

The working group is expected to retain and maximize the genetic integrity of Interior’s bison herds. The group will convene a bison disease workshop in fiscal year 2009 to develop guidelines and protocols for addressing diseases affecting bison and bison conservation efforts.

National Park Service employees march Yellowstone
bison to their deaths in the Stephens Creek
Capture Facility. (Photo courtesy National
Park Service)

Kempthorne says the working group will be “involving tribal bison experts in the department’s activities, and assisting with tribal bison initiatives.”

The group is expected to increase environmental education efforts on bison by seeking partners to showcase Interior lands with small bison herds, and seek to work with zoos to accomplish these objectives in areas where there are no Interior bison herds.

“One of the classic symbols of the American frontier is the image of vast herds of bison grazing on the western plains,” Kempthorne said. “Americans today still find inspiration in bison ranging freely on the landscape, as Yellowstone National Park demonstrates.”

Bison conservationists who have fought a long-standing battle with state and federal agencies to protect Yellowstone’s herd are not impressed with Kempthorne’s new plan.

Darrell Geist, habitat coordinator with the advocacy group Buffalo Field Campaign told ENS, “While Secretary Kempthorne’s announcement recognizing conservation threats to America’s wild bison is welcome news, it glosses over Department of Interior’s role in threatening the last wild herd of bison in America.”

“Last winter Yellowstone National Park participated in a record removal of over 1,700 wild bison to slaughter or quarantine,” he said.

Geist said Yellowstone National Park operates a trap inside the park interior to capture wild bison as they migrate to winter range on Gallatin National Forest lands and private lands adjacent to the park’s boundaries. Wild bison are forcibly rounded up for capture, slaughter and quarantine, or tested for antibodies to the abortive disease brucellosis, tagged and released back into the park, as over 300 bison were last winter.

The bison slaughter is conducted under the Interagency Bison Management Plan initiated in 2000. It is funded at over $3 million dollars annually by the U.S. Congress to prevent bison migration beyond Yellowstone National Park boundaries where some domestic cattle graze on private and public lands adjacent to the park.

Fear that brucellosis might spread from bison to domestic cattle and threaten the Montana cattle industry’s brucellosis-free status has been the driving factor behind the Interagency Bison Management Plan, although no such spread has ever been documented.

In the past two decades, about 3,700 wild Yellowstone buffalo have been killed by state and federal agencies to keep them from accessing public land in Montana adjacent to Yellowstone National Park.

“If Kempthorne is serious about conserving America’s legacy of wild bison on the landscape, the Department of the Interior needs to first take care of wild bison in Yellowstone,” said Geist. “Protecting migration corridors to bison winter range and spring calving grounds on public and private lands would be a good first step in protecting the integrity of America’s last wild bison herd.”

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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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PORTLAND, Oregon, October 2, 2008 (ENS) – The nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity today filed five separate lawsuits in federal court all charging the Bush administration with political interference in designation of critical habitat for six western species that are listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The species include two birds, the western snowy plover and the southwestern willow flycatcher; a mammal, the Buena Vista Lake shrew; an amphibian, the California tiger salamander; and two California plants, the Munz’s onion and the San Jacinto Valley crownscale.

The lawsuits are the latest action taken by the organization in its campaign to undo politically tainted decisions concerning dozens of endangered species.

The campaign began August 28, 2007 when the group filed a notice of intent to sue over decisions involving 55 endangered species in 28 states, covering 8.7 million acres of critical habitat.

“The Bush administration has the worst record protecting endangered species of any administration since passage of the landmark law,” said Noah Greenwald, science director for the Center for Biological Diversity.

“In the case of these six species, the administration’s malfeasance resulted in the removal of protection for over 300,000 acres of habitat in seven western states,” Greenwald said.

California tiger salamander (Photo by
C. Johnson courtesy USFWS)

Greenwald gives as an example the California tiger salamander, saying that the administration excluded all of the 74,223 acres of critical habitat in Sonoma County that was identified by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists as “essential” to the survival or recovery the species.

Critical habitat exclusions for the other species ranged from 23 to 100 percent of the acres identified as essential by scientists.

“The Bush administration has demonstrated a total disregard for the scientific conclusions of the government’s own scientists,” said Greenwald. “This disregard places these six species and numerous others at risk of extinction.”

Typical of today’s lawsuits is the one filed over habitat protection for the Buena Vista Lake shrew.

The shrew’s historic range, the Tulare Basin in the southern San Joaquin Valley, once supported three large lakes interconnected by hundreds of square miles of tule marshes and other permanent and seasonal lakes, wetlands and sloughs. Now most of the lakes and marshes have been drained and cultivated, endangering the small mammal. Yet, the Bush administration reduced critical habitat for the shrew by 98 percent, from 4,565 to 84 acres.

In 2004, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed five areas, totaling 4,649 acres, as critical habitat for the shrew.

Buena Vista Lake shrew (Photo by B.
Moose Peterson courtesy USFWS)

But four of the proposed units were excluded in the final rule in favor of “voluntary” commitments made by landowners to provide protections for the shrew.

“In each case, landowners have developed robust and reliable strategies to enhance the Buena Vista Lake shrew,” said Steve Thompson, manager of California-Nevada Operations for the Service. “These agreements provide strong commitments for actions that will help the species recover.”

“Cooperative actions, such as the City of Bakersfield’s revised Management Plan, do more to help the species than a simple critical habitat designation,” Thompson said. “The Service believes this type of cooperative activity is more effective in restoring threatened and endangered species.”

Implementation of the Endangered Species Act by the Bush administration has been investigated by the Government Accountability Office, which is the investigative branch of Congress; by the House Natural Resources Committee; and by the Department of Interior’s own Inspector General.

The Inspector General’s 2007 report resulted in the resignation of Julie MacDonald, a former deputy assistant secretary in the Department of the Interior who left her post last year under a cloud of scandal. It was her decisions that led to some of the allegations of political interference that have triggered these lawsuits filed today.

The Center’s previous efforts to reverse politically tainted decisions have met with some success.

In response to lawsuits filed by the organization, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to redo critical habitat designations for 15 species, including the California red-legged frog, arroyo toad, vermillion darter, Mississippi gopher frog, four New Mexico invertebrates, and seven plants from California, Oregon, and North Carolina.

The newly proposed critical habitat designation for the California red-legged frog alone totals approximately 1.8 million acres, four times the area previously protected.

In addition, the Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to reconsider listing the rare, highly imperiled Mexican garter snake as an endangered species.

Under the Bush administration, the Service has repeatedly said that “the designation of critical habitat provides little additional protection to most listed species, while preventing the Service from using scarce conservation resources for activities with greater conservation benefits.”

“In almost all cases,” the Service says, “recovery of listed species will come through voluntary cooperative partnerships, not regulatory measures such as critical habitat.”

But there are currently 281 candidate species that are recognized as warranting protection but have yet to be listed, and a host of critical habitat designations that the courts have found to be illegal because they were not based on science.

“The next administration is going to have their work cut out for them to correct the problems with endangered species management created by this administration,” said Greenwald. “The endangered species program needs a complete overhaul.”

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NEW YORK, New York, September 5, 2008 (ENS) – With just 300 individuals left in the wild, Cross River gorillas have found new conservation support from the governments of Cameroon and Nigeria, the only two countries where these great apes live.

Representatives from the two nations agreed last week to improve trans-boundary cooperation to protect the critically endangered species, as well as other endangered wildlife.

The agreement was reached at an international meeting in Akamkpa, Nigeria at the head office of Cross River National Park.

Cross River gorilla in Cameroon’s Limbe
Wildlife Centre (Photo by Arend de Haas
courtesy African Conservation Foundation)

From the Nigerian side of the border, participants included Cross River park representatives and Cross River State government officials.

From the Cameroon side, representatives of Korup National Park and the proposed Takamanda National Park participated in the meeting.

Financial and organizational support from the New York based Wildlife Conservation Society, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the global conservation group WWF made the meeting possible.

“The protected areas involved in this meeting share a number of trans-boundary challenges, which must be addressed if a future is to be secured for Cross River gorillas as well as other threatened and endangered species,” said Dr. James Deutsch, director of WCS’s Africa Programs.

The participants agreed to reduce the bushmeat trade and illegal logging, strengthen field monitoring, increase community involvement and conservation education, and improve law enforcement within the parks.

“It is hoped that this renewed commitment will further encourage increased support for the continued protection of these trans-boundary protected areas,” said Deutsch.

The meeting was held soon after the first joint survey of the trans-boundary area, involving park rangers from the Okwangwo Division of Cross River National Park and their colleagues from the proposed Takamanda National Park in Cameroon.

The survey revealed that a number of large mammal species range between these two protected areas, including a previously little-known group of Cross River gorillas.

Other threatened and endangered species found in the two parks include Preuss’s monkeys, chimpanzees, elephants, and drills. These large, short-tailed forest baboons are one of the most endangered of all African primates.

The Cross River gorilla is one of four gorilla subspecies, the others being the western lowland gorilla, eastern lowland gorilla, and mountain gorilla.

Classified as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the Cross River gorilla is the rarest of the four subspecies. The population numbers fewer than 300 individuals across its entire range, which consists of 11 scattered sites in the moist broadleaf forests of Cameroon and Nigeria.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Great Apes Conservation Fund supports the conservation and protection of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and gibbons which are being hunted for food and are facing rapid loss of habitat in west and central Africa as well as southeast Asia.

The Great Apes Conservation Program is funded annually at $4.5 million, $2.5 million of which is directed from the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Congo Basin Forest Partnership for targeted conservation work on great apes in Central Africa.

Launched in 2002, the Congo Basin Forest Partnership includes 30 government and nongovernmental partners, including the U.S. government and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Researchers measure the size of a
Cross River gorilla nest site in
Cameroon’s Kagwene Gorilla
Sanctuary. (Photo by Marion
Rawson)

The Congo Basin forest is the world’s second largest tropical forest, covering 700,000 square miles in six countries, and containing a quarter of the world’s remaining tropical forest. This vast area hosts over 10,000 species of plants, 1,000 species of birds, and 400 species of mammals.

It is also home to more than 24 million people, most of whom depend on the forest for their livelihoods, which are under threat by the continued loss of the forest.

Logging, often illegal or unregulated, and clearing of land for agriculture are shrinking the intact ecosystems, which are being degraded at the rate of two million acres a year. The hunting of wildlife to supply bushmeat to urban and commercial forestry settlement markets is a primary threat to the animals’ survival.

In April, another milestone in the conservation of the Cross River gorilla was achieved with the formal announcement that the Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary is recognized as part of Cameroon’s protected area network.

Despite its relatively small size, only 19.8 square kilometers, the montane forests of Kagwene are “crucially important for the conservation of Africa’s rarest ape,” said Aaron Nicholas of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which is involved in developing and managing the Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary.

Kagwene has been supported with initial funding from WWF, the US Fish & Wildlife Service and the Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation and further funding from Great Apes Trust of Iowa and Berggorilla.

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AKRON, Ohio, August 11, 2008 (ENS) – An art dealer who operated import and export businesses in Canada and Cameroon that were fronts for smuggling raw elephant ivory has been sentenced to five years in prison and a $100,000 fine for smuggling ivory from Cameroon into the United States.

Canadian citizen and former Montreal resident Tania Julie Siyam, 32, was sentenced in Akron, Ohio Thursday after pleading guilty in March to four felonies.

The sentence, handed down by U.S. District Court Judge John Adams, is the result of a multi-year, international investigation by special agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, wildlife officials from Environment Canada and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Cleveland, Ohio.

“When it comes to environmental protection, Canada is taking the lead through a $22 million investment to increase enforcement efforts to stop illegal activities like these,” said Environment Minister John Baird. “I am pleased to see the cooperative success of both Canadian and U.S. officials which has resulted in one of the most significant sentences ever for ivory smuggling in North America.”

Young elephant in Cameroon (Photo by
Theodore Etonde courtesy Field
Trip Earth)

The $100,000 fine will be given to the African Elephant Conservation Fund which supports projects that enhance sustainable conservation programs for African elephants.

On February 2, 2004, Siyam was arrested by Toronto Police under a provisional extradition warrant.

Siyam was indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury, in Cleveland on March 3, 2004, on two felony Lacey Act violations and two felony smuggling counts for activities relating to the illegal commercial trafficking of raw African elephant ivory from Cameroon to the United States.

Following numerous Canadian hearings over nearly four years, Siyam was extradited to the United States to face criminal charges on December 21, 2007. On March 21, 2008, Siyam pled guilty in U.S. District Court in Akron to the four federal felony charges.

In summer 2002, Siyam moved her base of operation from Canada to Cameroon, where her family originated.

In Cameroon, Siyam devised a plan to smuggle illegal wildlife products by soliciting local artists and craftsmen, operatives within international commercial shipping companies, contacts in the illegal ivory trade, a partner in Canada, and a partner in the United States.

She operated with the assistance of her father, Alphonse Siyam Siwe, the general manager of ports in Cameroon from 1998-2005.

As part of her scheme, Siyam operated numerous Internet art businesses out of Canada, and Cameroon and used other telecommunications to advertise and sell regulated and protected wildlife products to customers throughout the world

In fall 2002, special agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Environment Canada wildlife officials were alerted by concerned citizens that parts of endangered species, including raw elephant ivory, were being advertised for sale on the Internet. An investigation identified Siyam as the central person involved in the scheme.

During November 2002, with the assistance of a local Ohio business owner, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agents were able to purchase a shipment of illegal raw elephant ivory from Siyam. The ivory tusks were concealed inside pottery, labeled as art, and sent by international courier from Cameroon to Montreal. Once in Canada, the goods were repackaged and shipped by Siyam’s Canadian partner, via the Canadian and U.S. Postal Service, to the Ohio business address.

During December 2003, the cooperating Ohio business owner, working with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agents, made a second purchase of 125 pounds of illegal raw elephant ivory.

Siyam, again operating from Cameroon, shipped the raw elephant ivory by international courier directly to the cooperating Ohio business owner’s address. The shipment consisted of three wooden crates, with the raw ivory concealed inside terra cotta flower pots packaged within each crate.

Also in 2003, additional shipments of ivory were sent to other customers, including U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agents in New York. Raw elephant tusks, and elephant ivory carvings, were again concealed inside pottery and declared as art.

Although the ivory was not visible to the naked eye within the clay sculptures, it was clearly visible during an X-ray examination by enforcement officers.

By the end of 2003, enough evidence had been obtained to charge Siyam with multiple felony Lacey Act and smuggling violations. The two elephant ivory shipments to Ohio were valued together at more than $158,000 and included parts from at least 21 African elephants, including juvenile animals.

Forensic testing has confirmed that the total amount of ivory intercepted during the investigation came from at least 24 elephants and had a resale value of about $178,000.

The Lacey Act is a U.S. wildlife protection law, with each violation carrying a maximum fine of $250,000 and/or five years in prison. Felony smuggling counts similarly carry, with each violation, a maximum fine of $250,000 and/or five years in prison.

Wild populations of African elephants in the African countries of Cameroon, Gabon and the Congo, the main sources of elephant ivory, have dropped by about 75 percent in the last 40 years, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The main cause for this decline in elephant populations is believed to be the illegal hunting of elephants for the international ivory trade, and for bush meat, which is a lucrative by-product of the illegal ivory trade.

The unauthorized importation and commercialization of African and Asian elephant products including elephant tusks are violations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, CITES.

Both the United States and Canada are members of CITES, which regulates worldwide trade in endangered and threatened species, and prohibits the illegal trade in parts of protected wildlife species.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other law enforcement agencies in the 172 CITES member countries work together to stop the illegal trade of endangered and protected plants and animals.

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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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SACRAMENTO, California, July 11, 2008 (ENS) – The delta smelt, a small silvery fish that has come to represent the condition of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Estuary, may be declared an endangered species under U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service action announced Wednesday.

The federal agency made a positive preliminary finding on a petition by three environmental groups to reclassify the smelt from “threatened” to “endangered.” The agency said the petition “contains substantial information that current threats to the delta smelt may be greater than in 1993,” when the fish was classified as threatened.

The Center for Biological Diversity, which, along with The Bay Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council, petitioned for the reclassification in 2006, noted that the finding by the service was more than two years late.

“We are seeing a cascading series of crashing Delta fish populations – delta smelt, longfin smelt, chinook salmon, steelhead trout, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail, striped bass – the warning bells are ringing loud and clear,” Jeff Miller of the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement.

“The ecological collapse of the Delta threatens more than just our native fish since millions of people depend on the Delta for drinking water, agriculture, and fishing,” he said.

Delta smelt (Photo courtesy Assn.
of Fish and Wildlife Agencies)

Delta smelt used to be common in the Northern California estuary that forms a nexus between freshwater mountain runoff and saltwater from San Francisco Bay. The smelt population declined sharply in 1982 and stayed low for the rest of the decade, leading to the species’ listing as threatened in 1993.

From 1992 to 2001, the numbers rebounded somewhat, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but dropped to record lows from 2002 through 2007.

The service cited a 2005 study that found a 55 percent chance that smelt would reach a “point of no return” – or virtual extinction – within 20 years.

A small fish the length of a finger, smelt are found only in the Delta. They are considered environmentally sensitive because they live mainly in the intersection between salt and freshwater, live only one year and have a limited diet, according to the California Department of Fish and Game.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is collecting comments on the prospective reclassification through September 8.

The agency noted that reclassification would have no practical effect: “An uplisting from threatened to endangered would result in virtually no change in our approach or actions we could take to assist the species because under the ESA [Endangered Species Act], there are few differences in treatment of species between the two categories.”

In a separate action, the Fish and Wildlife Service is under federal court order to revise a “biological opinion” it issued in 2005 that in effect allows delta smelt to be killed at two major water export pumping stations at the southern end of the Delta.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the federally owned Central Valley Project, and the California Department of Water Resources, which runs the State Water Project, used the wildlife’s agency’s opinion as justification to increase delta water exports and to renew 25 and 40 year contracts to irrigation districts and urban water agencies.

The new biological opinion is due by September 15.

Delta smelt are particularly vulnerable during winter and spring, when pre-spawning and spawning adults move into the delta for reproduction, and larvae and juveniles move downstream to rearing habitat.

In December 2007, Judge Oliver Wanger of the U.S. District Court in Fresno wrote, “The Delta smelt is undisputedly in jeopardy as to its survival and recovery. He ordered that enough water to ensure smelt survival must be held in the Delta and not pumped to downstream cities, towns and farms.

Water from the Delta supports about $400 billion dollars of the state’s $1.5 trillion dollar economy. The watershed of the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary provides a portion of the drinking water to 25 million people in the Bay Area, Central Valley, and Southern California and water to over 3.7 million acres of irrigated farmland.

For years, lawmakers and California governors have sought a permanent solution that could protect the Delta ecosystem and also provide reliable water transfers to downstream water users.

Governor Arnold Swarzenegger has established a Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, which has until the end of the year to develop a strategic plan.

In addition, in February, the governor directed the California Department of Water Resources to begin environmental reviews on at least four alternatives for a canal that would allow water to be sent to downstream users by circumventing the Delta. Those include a two-part system with a canal and pumps, a stand-alone canal, and improvements to the existing pumps, or no new Delta transfer system.

The studies could take two years and cost more than $100 million that would be paid for by water users under existing contracts.

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AUSTIN, Texas, June 11, 2008 (ENS) – To comply with federal air quality requirements for national parks, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is revising the State Implementation Plan, SIP, to address visibility at both Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains parks and at protected areas in neighboring states.

The federal rule calls for visibility improvements at national parks on the haziest days and no additional visibility impairment on the clearest days. It also requires states to take into account their impact on such areas in other states when determining their own reductions.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, has set a long-term goal to eliminate the effects of human activity on visibility by 2064, but for now states are concentrating on improvements for the next 10 years.

The TCEQ aims to adopt its new State Implementation Plan on July 9, 2008.

The EPA Regional Haze Rule strongly encourages states to work together in regional partnerships to reduce haze. There are five regional planning organizations in the United States.

Texas is a member of the Central Regional Air Planning Association, which includes nine states – Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota.

States are required to show that they are making reasonable progress toward meeting “natural visibility conditions,” the natural levels of particle concentrations that would exist without the influence of human activities.

Rather than using EPA’s target for natural conditions at Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains, the Texas agency has opted to develop refined estimates that take into account the recurrence of natural dust storms in the region.

To prepare for this summer’s SIP submission to the federal environment agency, the TCEQ has held consultations with other states and with federal land managers from the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Last November the TCEQ held a public meeting to accept public input.

Early morning haze over the Sierra Del
Carmen, Big Bend National Park
(Photo by Allison Wanderland)

The TCEQ says Texas cannot clear away the haze on its own. “Pollution transport from Mexico and Central America is a major factor in visibility impairment at Texas’ Class I areas. The goal of natural visibility will not be met unless international transport is addressed by the federal government,” the state agency said.

Class I areas are national parks over 6,000 acres and wilderness areas over 5,000 acres that Congress has recognized at significant sites.

National parks in surrounding states of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and New Mexico may want more input on potentially permitted new sources of emissions such as factories or power plants in proximity to their Class I areas, the TCEQ explains.

Presently, the rules allow these states and federal land managers to review new sources within 100 kilometers (60 miles). Oklahoma has requested the opportunity to examine and comment on some new source applications within 300 kilometers of Oklahoma’s Wichita Mountains Class I area.

Federal land managers for the Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service have also requested a change in federal new source review procedures implemented in Texas so that more permit applications undergo a visibility impact review.

The agency plans to work directly with the federal land managers to try to resolve their concerns. The TCEQ committed to keep Oklahoma informed of those discussions and to give them an opportunity to comment on proposed sources that could have a significant impact on the Wichita Mountains Class I area.

The state must reduce its visibility impairment impact at all Class I areas it impacts by “as much as is reasonable,” but the TCEQ anticipates some public pressure to make more progress toward natural visibility than it plans to accomplish with this State Implementation Plan.

The national goal is to reach natural visibility by 2064. At the rate of improvement proposed in this plan, natural visibility levels would not be reached until 2081 at the Guadalupe Mountains and 2155 at Big Bend.

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