From: Kieran Suckling
[ksuckling@biologicaldiversity.org]
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2000
6:06 PM
To: Recipient list suppressed
Subject: BIODIVERSITY
ACTIVIST
#260
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CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
<www.biologicaldiversity.org>
11-20-00
#260
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§
HAWAIIAN LOBSTER FISHERY CLOSED TO PROTECT MONK SEAL
§ PETITION FILED TO
PROTECT ALASKAN SEA OTTERS
§ SUIT CHALLENGES COUNTRY CLUB SPRAWL TO
SAVE
ENDANGERED FROG AND SNAKE
§ RELEASE OF GOSHAWK
INFORMATION ORDERED
§ SUIT TO BE FILED TO PROTECT NEW MEXICO
BUTTERFLY
§ MEDIA: HARDBALL TACTICS MAKE THE CENTER ONE OF
THE
MOST FORMIDABLE GROUPS IN THE NATION
HAWAIIAN
LOBSTER FISHERY CLOSED TO PROTECT MONK SEAL
A federal judge has ruled in
favor of a suit brought by the Greenpeace
Foundation, the Center for
Biological Diversity, and Sea Turtle
Restoration to protect Hawaiian monk
seals from competition with and
killing by commercial fisheries. The lobster
fishery will be closed until a
plan is approved to protect the seals. A
future order will determine if and
when the bottomfish fishery will be closed
or modified.
The Hawaiian monk seal is one of the world’s most
endangered marine
mammals. It has decline to about 1,3000 individuals,
primarily found in
the northwestern Hawaiian Islands where it must compete
for food with
an aggressive commercial lobster fishery. During the 1990's,
the largest
colony (French Frigate Shoals) suffered a 55% decline because
juvenile
seals are starving to death even as the lobster industry is
permitted to
capture hundreds of thousands of spiny and slipper lobsters from
the
monk seal’s formally designated “critical habitat” each
year.
Ironically, the fishing pressure is so intense that the industry is
putting
itself out of business. Several temporary closures of the fishery
have
failed to revive the lobster population. The bottomfish fishery kills
seals
by accidentally hooking them, and by feeding them unwanted
fish
containing ciguatera toxin. It operates without environmental
observers
despite evidence that monk seals have been bludgeoned by
bottomfish
fishermen.
The case was argued by Paul Achitoff of the
Earthjustice Legal Defense
Fund (Honolulu).
________________________
PETITION FILED TO PROTECT ALASKAN SEA
OTTERS
On 1-25-00, the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the U.S.
Fish &
Wildlife Service to list the Western Alaska/Aleutian Islands
population of
the sea otter as "Endangered" under the Endangered Species
Act. Once
widely abundant along the coast from Alaska to California,
the sea otter
was hunted to the brink of extinction by commercial hunters a
century
ago. After decades of protection, however, sea otter
populations
rebounded, and continued to climb through the 1980's.
Unfortunately,
this conservation success story has taken a turn for the
worse: sea otter
populations in Western Alaska have been declining rapidly
since the mid-80's.
Hardest hit has been the Aleutian population. Once the
largest in
the world, the population has declined by 95% over the past few
years,
with perhaps only 6,000 individuals remaining.
Rather than act
on our petition, the Fish & Wildlife Service designated the
Aleutian
Islands sea otter as a "Candidate" species for protection on 11-9-00,
a
designation without protective status. The agency says it does not
plan to
list the species as “endangered” until 2002—by which time the
otter
population may have suffered further critical decline. In response,
the
Center has filed a formal 60day notice of its intent to sue. Federal
policy
allows species to be designated as "candidates" when the agency
is too busy
with more imperiled species to take immediate action. In this
case, the
designation is clearly an unlawful dodge- no other species in
Alaska is
currently being processed by the Fish and Wildlife Service for
Endangered
Species Act listing.
Scientists believe that increased predation by orcas
may be causing the
precipitous decline in sea otters. Although orcas in the
region have
traditionally subsisted on larger marine mammals such as Steller
sea
lions and harbor seals, these species have declined precipitously
in
recent years, forcing the whales to hunt other prey such as otters.
The
Steller sea lion was emergency listed as an endangered species in
1990.
Increased predation by orcas is but a symptom of the wholesale
decline
of the North Pacific/Bering Sea ecosystem caused by overfishing
and
global warming.
For more information about Alaskan and California
sea otters and the
Center’s efforts to save them, check out:
<www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/species/otter/otter.html>
________________________
SUIT CHALLENGES COUNTRY CLUB SPRAWL TO
SAVE
ENDANGERED FROG AND SNAKE
On 10-14-00, the Center for Biological
Diversity and the Hayward Area
Planning Association filed suit to stop
construction of the Blue Rock
Country Club Project in San Francisco’s East
Bay. The suit challenges
the United States Fish & Wildlife Service's
failure to protect the Alameda
whipsnake and California red-legged frog from
the effects of urban
sprawl.
The proposed Blue Rock Country Club
Project would be a 1,642-acre
luxury home and golf course development that
would destroy and
fragment the existing oak woodland, grassland, and coastal
scrub
ecosystem on Walpert Ridge in the city of Hayward. California is
losing
thousands of acres of habitat and open space each year to
low-density
development. Alameda and Contra Costa counties are among the
fastest-
growing areas in the state. Surrounded on all sides by growing
cities and
busy interstate highways, the Walpert-Sunol Ridge system is quite
literally one of the few remaining islands of habitat for many
species.
The Center is represented by Becca Bernard and Deborah Reames
of
Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund and Brendan Cummings
(Berkeley).
_________________
JUDGE ORDERS
RELEASE OF GOSHAWK INFORMATION
A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Forest
Service can not withhold
information from the public concerning the status of
goshawks on the
Kaibab National Forest and the Grand Canyon National Park.
The Forest
Service has continually relied on unpublished research to assert
that
goshawk populations are stable and more impacted by prey
population
cycles than logging. But it has refused to provide any of this
information
to the public, claiming the research is exempt from the U.S.
Freedom of
Information Act. A federal judge has upheld the strict requirement
of the
Act, however, and ordered the agency to provide all but the
most
biologically sensitive information to the Center.
______________________
SUIT TO BE FILED TO
PROTECT NEW MEXICO BUTTERFLY
On 10-5-00, the Center for Biological Diversity
filed a 60-day notice of
intent to sue the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
for failing to protect the
Sacramento Mountains checkerspot butterfly under
the Endangered
Species Act. The Center filed a petition to list the
checkerspot as
endangered on 1/28/99 because of threats to the butterfly's
habitat from
road construction, livestock grazing, invasive plants, climate
change,
construction of new houses, and pesticide spraying. The Fish &
Wildlife
Service issued an initial finding that endangered status may
be
warranted, but has taken no further action protect the
butterfly.
The white and deep orange checkered butterfly is found only in
alpine
meadows in a small area, surrounding the Village of Cloudcroft,
New
Mexico within the Lincoln National Forest. A major threat to
the
butterfly's habitat were plans by the Forest Service to give the Village
of
Cloudcroft eight parcels of land with essential butterfly habitat.
The
parcels would have been developed for a maintenance yard, ball
fields
and other uses. In response to the petition, the Village of
Cloudcroft and
the Forest Service agreed to preserve three parcels with the
most
butterfly habitat. Many threats to the butterfly's habitat remain,
however,
including the recent loss of important habitat to State Highway
130.
________________
MEDIA: HARDBALL TACTICS
MAKE THE CENTER ONE OF THE
MOST FORMIDABLE GROUPS IN THE NATION
Responding
to the Center’s aggressive campaign to control unplanned
sprawl in southern
and central California, the Orange County Register
printed a story about the
Center on 10-12-00 entitled “A Rep for Playing
Hardball.” The pro-development
paper is less than happy about the
Center’s spate of recent successes, but
admitted that our “tough tactics”
are working and have made the center “one
of the most formidable
activist groups in the nation.” See the full
story:
<http://www.ocregister.com/community/gnat0s1012cci.shtml>
_____________________________________________________________
ENDANGERED
TOTEMS. Eleven of the twelve western states have adopted imperiled species as
their state fish: New Mexico (Rio Grande cutthroat trout), Arizona (Apache
trout), Colorado (Greenback cutthroat trout), Utah (Bonneville cutthroat trout),
Nevada (Lahontan cutthroat trout), California (Golden trout), Oregon (Chinook
salmon), Washington (Steelhead trout), Idaho, Montana and Wyoming (Cutthroat
trout).
Kierán
Suckling
ksuckling@biologicaldiversity.org
Science and Policy
Director 520.623.5252
phone
Center for Biological
Diversity 520.623.9797 fax
<www.biologicaldiversity.org>
POB 710, Tucson, AZ 85702-0710