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\ SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#161
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\
11-21-98
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\ SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR
BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
/
\ http://www.sw-center.org
/
\________________________________________/
1. ANOTHER WOLF
KILLED??
2. ARKANSAS RIVER SHINER PROTECTED UNDER THE
E.S.A.-
SUIT FORCED AGENCY TO GIVE UP DELAY TACTICS
3.
PROPOSED OIL LEASES THREATEN ALASKAN WILDLIFE-
SUIT WOULD
DESIGNATE WATERFOWL PROTECTION AREA
4. STATES REFUSE TO SUPPLY WATER TO
COLORADO DELTA-
ENVIROS RESIGN FROM RIVER "PLANNING"
EFFORT
5. EDITORIAL: HUNT DOWN WOLF
KILLERS
*****
***** *****
ANOTHER WOLF KILLED??
Unconfirmed
rumors have it that another endangered Mexican
gray wolf has been shot,
possibly in the White Mountains on
the Apache reservation.
Four of
eleven original release wolves were shot. Four were
brought back in after
leaving the recovery area. Prior to the
release of two females last week,
only three wolves (all male)
remained in the wild. The U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service, the
Southwest Center, Defenders of Wildlife, author Michael
Blake,
and a coalition of New Mexico environmental groups have
offered
$35,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction
of
the wolf killers.
______________
ARKANSAS RIVER SHINER PROTECTED UNDER THE E.S.A.-
SUIT
FORCED AGENCY TO GIVE UP DELAY TACTICS
On 11-23-98, the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service listed the
Arkansas River shiner as a threatened species in
New Mexico,
Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Formerly common along 3,000
miles
of the Arkansas River Basin, the shiner has declined
precipitously due to
water pumping and degradation. The
shiner has been driven from 80% of its
historic range.
Populations remain only in portions of the Canadian
and
Cimarron Rivers. An introduced population in the Pecos
River, outside
the shiner's historic range, was not listed
under the ESA.
On 3-17-98,
the Southwest Center and the Lone Star Chapter
of the Sierra Club filed suit
against the Fish & Wildlife
Service to list the shiner. Hoping to avoid
listing and the
major reforms in water policy that would follow, the
agency
concocted a "conservation agreement" with the states of
Texas and
Oklahoma. The agreement proved too weak, however,
to justify not listing the
imperiled fish.
The Center and the Sierra Club were represented by Matt
Kenna
of Kenna & Hickcox (Durango).
_____________________________
PROPOSED OIL LEASES THREATEN ALASKAN
WILDLIFE-
SUIT SEEKS TO DESIGNATE WATERFOWL PROTECTION AREA
The Southwest
Center, the Alaska Action Center, Common Roots,
and the Sitka Conservation
Society notified the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service on 11-19-98, that we will
legally challenge
the agency's refusal to designate critical habitat for
the
Steller's and Spectacled eiders. Spectacled eiders declined
by 98% in
the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta since the 1970s and by
80% in Prudhoe Bay during
the 1980s. Steller's eider has
completely disappear from western Alaska
(including Yukon-
Kuskokwim Delta) and the eastern portion of the North
Slope.
Though it listed both eiders as threatened species under
the
ESA, the Fish and Wildlife Service refused to designated
critical
habitat for either, claiming that little oil development
is
expected within Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve, a key
refuge for
both birds. The Fish & Wildlife Service's own
overseer, however, the U.S.
Department of Interior, recently
proposed to allow oil leasing in 87% of the
Reserve. This
level of development could destroy hundreds of thousands
of
acres of habitat for the two imperiled ducks.
_______________________________
STATES REFUSE TO SUPPLY WATER TO DELTA,
GULF OF CALIFORNIA-
ENVIROS RESIGN FROM COLORADO RIVER "PLANNING"
EFFORT
The Southwest Center and Defenders of Wildlife have resigned
from
the steering committee of the Lower Colorado River Multi-
Species
Conservation Plan. Claiming to provide habitat for
endangered wildlife, the
plan is actually an end run around the
Endangered Species Act. It seeks to
preserve existing water
pumping levels, maximize future withdrawals, and
minimize
federal involvement on the Colorado River from Hoover Dam to
the
Colorado River Delta.
The Southwest Center and Defenders quit when the
steering
committee refused to endorse a study of the water and
flooding
requirements of the Colorado River Delta marshes and forests,
and
the fisheries of the northern Gulf of California. This would
require
increased water flows to Mexico, and management of dams
to ensure seasonal
flooding.
The following editorial in the Arizona Daily Star on
11-12-98
blasting the states for refusing to consider the ecological
and
cultural impacts of U.S. water use on the people and wildlife of
the
delta and the northern Gulf:
Myopia on the
Colorado
A river is a single living thing - to heal its flow you must
heal its delta.
Environmentalists are right therefore to be incensed that
the steering
committee for an important effort to repair the much-abused
Colorado River
has scuttled a plan to consider the needs of the river's
dried-out Mexican
delta.
Until recently, the so-called Lower Colorado
River Multi-Species
Conservation Program has been a promising bid by the
federal government,
utilities and the states of Arizona, California and
Nevada to revive river
ecosystems while still providing for the continued
operation of necessary
dams and diversions.
The program began last
year with the realization that the once-wild Colorado
has been turned by dams
into a string of biologically impoverished
reservoirs since 1909. Through
subsequent meetings, a sizable array of
stakeholders initiated the work of
trying to craft a holistic, 50-year
scheme for protecting the species and
resources of the Southwest's great
river.
In keeping with that, it
made perfect sense when environmentalists pushed
this summer for the project
to address one of the most deplorable aspects of
the river's decline: the
reduction by U.S. water withdrawals of the delta's
once-vast complex of
marshes and bird-filled lagoons to a wasteland of salt
flats.
However,
the program's steering committee has now rejected such inclusive
thinking and
in the process thrown the entire river planning push into flux.
This the
governing panel has done by nixing a sound approach worked out by
state water
and power agencies and the conservationists in September.
Previously
Tucson's Southwest Center for Biological Diversity and the
national Defenders
of Wildlife had pressed to expand the formal scope of the
species program to
include the delta, and to give Mexican parties
representation on the steering
committee. Ultimately the environmentalists
compromised by settling with
other parties for a simple study to identify
conservation ``needs and
opportunities'' in the delta. But now the program's
steering committee has
rejected even this tame initiative.
Such myopia makes no sense - and
cries out for reconsideration.
Fairness by itself dictates concern for
the Mexican reaches of the Colorado,
after 90 years of American heedlessness.
So, too, does that principle that
demands land managers look to the good of
whole ecosystems, not just local
fragments. In view of that, the species
program's American leaders
absolutely must revisit a decision that calls into
question the credibility
of their entire venture.
Without water and
respect south of the border, the river cannot be a real
river. And without
thought about that truth, the lower Colorado process
cannot itself be real.
The steering committee should do the Mexico
conservation
study.
__________________________
EDITORIAL:
HUNT DOWN WOLF KILLERS
The following editorial appeared in the Arizona Daily
Star on
11-12-98:
Hunt the Wolf Killers
No amount
of public scorn can sufficiently shun the despicable behavior of
Arizona's
nature-hating, gun-wielding fringe when it comes to the region's
beleaguered
reintroduction of Mexican gray wolves.
Two more of the endangered lobos,
released this year into Arizona forests,
have been shot to death, federal
wildlife officials announced Tuesday.
Together, those shootings bring to
a sickening four the number of wolves
killed unnecessarily by humans since 11
were released into the wilds
northeast of here in January.
Together,
those shootings bring to a sickening four or maybe five the number
of wolves
killed unnecessarily by humans since 11 were released into the
wilds
northeast of here in January.
No doubt about it, the region's
disgruntled, lawless primitives have a lot
to answer for in this embarrassing
chapter. Absolutely illegal, their
cowardly shootings amount to acts of
sabotage extraordinary in the history
of federal species reintroduction. The
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is
absolutely right to vow an urgent
investigation to catch the killers, who
are saboteurs now liable to up to a
year in jail and a $100,000 fine.
And yet, if the government is
appropriately talking tough about senseless
law-breaking this week, the fact
remains that its past bumbling and timidity
helped bring about this
catastrophe - and now must be improved upon.
>From the beginning the
Fish and Wildlife Service soft-pedaled this
controversial reintroduction:
downplaying its difficulties, proceeding under
an ``experimental''
designation that allowed limited killing in defense of
livestock, muting talk
about the legal consequences of sabotage.
Then, disastrously, the
government ran away from prosecuting a Tucson mail
carrier who shot a wolf in
April, pleading defense of his family when the
government's own investigation
showed that the wolf had been shot broadside,
standing still.
This
decision, along with an absence of strong government warnings
that
interference would be punished, may well have sent a tacit message
of
leniency. That in turn may have emboldened creeps with guns to
shoot
endangered species without fearing consequences.
And so all
Arizonans should hope that the wildlife service's new tone of
resolve this
week extends to its actions and into the future of this
valuable
project.
It is good and overdue that regional director Nancy Kaufman is
talking about
``hitting this investigation hard.'' So, too, is it proper that
the service
has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to any
wolf-killer's
conviction - a reward that is being supplemented by as much as
$20,000 in
additional reward money from the Defenders of Wildlife, Tucson's
Southwest
Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental
groups.
But besides that, the agency needs to redouble its efforts and
harden its
line in every respect as it presses forward the popular, ennobling
and
overdue adventure of letting the wolves run free. The soft line has
proven
too good for the worst of us. Now the times call for sharper eyes
and
harsher stances as Arizonans struggle to make room for
wolves.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Kierán
Suckling
ksuckling@sw-center.org
Executive
Director
520.623.5252 phone
Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity 520.623.9797 fax
http://www.sw-center.org
pob 710, tucson, az 85702-710