From: Kieran Suckling [ksuckling@biologicaldiversity.org]
Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2001 3:46 PM
To: Recipient list suppressed
Subject: BIODIVERSITY ACTIVIST #262

Importance: High
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             CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

           <www.biologicaldiversity.org>      1-07-00      #262
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§ ARACHNID XMAS: NINE TEXAS INVERTEBRATES PROTECTED

§ CRITICAL HABITAT PROPOSED FOR KOOTENAI RIVER WHITE
   STURGEON- BUT NOT ENOUGH TO WARD OFF EXTINCTION

§ FEDS AGREE TO EXTEND PROTECTED RANGE FOR SOUTHERN
   CALIFORNIA STEELHEAD TROUT- BUT NOT NEARLY ENOUGH

§ NEW MEXICO OLD GROWTH TIMBER SALE APPEALED

§ ARIZONA “RESTORATION” TIMBER PROJECT APPEALED

ARACHNID XMAS: NINE TEXAS INVERTEBRATES PROTECTED
UNDER E.S.A.
Eight years and one lawsuit after receiving a petition to list nine Texas
spiders, beetles, and harvestmen as endangered species, the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service placed them on the endangered species list on 12-21-00.
The nine Bexar County species include:

   Rhadine exilis (no common name)
   Rhadine infernalis (no common name),
   Batrisodes venyivi (Helotes mold beetle),
   Texella cokendolpheri (Robber Baron Cave harvestman)
   Cicurina baronia (Robber Baron cave spider),
   Cicurina madla (Madla's cave spider),
   Cicurina venii (no common name),
   Cicurina vespera (vesper cave spider),
   Neoleptoneta microps (Government Canyon cave spider)

All nine inhabit karst features (limestone formations containing caves,
sinks, and fissures) near San Antonio, Texas. Threats to the species
include destruction and/or deterioration of habitat by construction, filling of
caves, loss of permeable cover, and contamination from septic effluent,
sewer leaks, runoff, and pesticides.

The Center is represented in the suit by Geoff Hickcox of Kenna &
Hickcox (Durango).
     __________________

CRITICAL HABITAT PROPOSED FOR KOOTENAI RIVER WHITE
STURGEON- BUT NOT ENOUGH TO WARD OFF EXTINCTION
When the Libby Dam was built on the Kootenai River in Montana in 1974,
the Kootenai River White Sturgeon began to plummet. Living in close
connection with the environment it evolved in, the sturgeon only spawns
when cued by seasonal flooding. In a classic story of hubris, the dam was
built to eradicate natural flooding patterns so that federally subsidized
farmers and ranchers can produce excess crops. While the river no longer
rises each spring, the farm subsidies flood Montana and Idaho each year
in greater and greater levels.
The sturgeon stopped spawning in 1974. Virtually all remaining fish are at
least 25 years old. If the ecosystem is not restored, the sturgeon will go
extinct due to old age in about 2025. In 1995, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service declared that the dam would drive the sturgeon extinct. Yet
nothing was done. In December, 2000 the Fish & Wildlife Service again
concluded that the dam will drive the sturgeon extinct. This time it has
proposed tinkering with the system to, at best, keep the sturgeon in a
perpetual emergency room state. Its primary concern is politics, not saving
the sturgeon.

The Center won a court order in 2000 requiring the Fish & Wildlife Service
to map out and protect specific “critical habitat” areas for the Kootenai
White River Sturgeon. On 12-27-00, the agency published a proposal to
designate 11 miles of the river near Bonner’s Ferry as critical habitat. The
area is owned by the state, and was chosen not because of its ecological
importance, but in order to avoid political controversy. There is simply no
way the sturgeon can survive if it is to be limited to 11 miles of river. The
Center will pursue a much expanded critical habitat zone.
  
Map of habitat area: <http://pacific.fws.gov/kws/map.gif>
Sturgeon summary: <http://pacific.fws.gov/kws/Q&A.PDF>
Jeopardy decision: <http://pacific.fws.gov/finalbiop/Summary.PDF>
     __________________

FEDS AGREE TO EXTEND PROTECTED RANGE FOR SOUTHERN
CALIFORNIA STEELHEAD TROUT- BUT NOT NEARLY ENOUGH
In response to a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity and other
groups, the National Marine Fisheries Service on 12/19/00 proposed to
expand Endangered Species Act protections for Southern Steelhead Trout
to include rivers south of Malibu Creek (L.A. County) to San Mateo Creek
in northern San Diego County. Previously, Endangered Species Act
protection stopped at Malibu Creek.

The proposed expansion, will not resolve the lawsuit, however, because it
still leaves the southernmost portion of the steelhead’s historic range
unprotected. This includes all of coastal southern California and northern
Baja Norte, Mexico. It also arbitrarily stops upstream protection at the first
dam in each river, even though the species used to range far beyond the
dams. The ESA does not allow arbitrary protection boundaries to be
drawn, or the sacrificing of huge portions of a species’s historic range.
Without removal of unnecessary and antiquated dams, southern
steelhead cannot be recovered. Without recovery south of San Mateo
Creek, they will remain forever absent from a large portion of their historic
range.

Steelhead are a unique form of rainbow trout. Like salmon, they spent
most of their adult life in the ocean, but spawn in freshwater streams and
rivers. Tens of thousands of the prized sport fish used to return to
southern California streams every year. Dams, urban development, and
livestock grazing have decimated steelhead runs and today only a few
hundred fish make the yearly pilgrimage.
     __________________

NEW MEXICO OLD GROWTH TIMBER SALE APPEALED
The Center for Biological Diversity on 12-19-00 filed its second appeal
against the Corner Mountain fire salvage sale on the Gila National Forest.
The sale would clearcut 2 million board feet of ponderosa pine and
Douglas-fir on 340 acres, including 7,000 trees over 16 inches and 2,500
trees over 24 inches.  

Corner Mountain needlessly threatens the Gila’s celebrated prescribed
burn program—the most aggressive in the country—by logging an area
which burned two years ago when the Forest Service lost control of a
prescribed natural fire.  Prescribed burns are designed to restore natural
forest processes by slowly reintroducing fire into forested areas.  Salvage
logging in prescribed burn areas undermines these restoration goals by
impeding forest recovery, damaging fragile soils, harming wildlife, and
promoting arson. 

The Center has actively fought Corner Mountain since its inception two
years ago.  Aggressive Center opposition in 1999 caused the Forest
Service to greatly scale back its original plan to salvage log nearly 5 million
board feet on 1,000 acres.  In June 2000, the Center successfully
appealed the sale due to the Forest Service’s failure to analyze logging’s
effects on wildlife, including elk, deer, Mexican vole, and hairy
woodpecker. The Center will litigate against the Corner Mountain salvage
sale if this second appeal is denied. 
     _______________

ARIZONA “RESTORATION” TIMBER PROJECT APPEALED
On 11-3-00, the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, and the
Southwest Forest Alliance appealed the Fort Valley “ecosystem restoration
project” on the Coconino National Forest. Using the “pre-settlement”
model developed by Northern Arizona University professor Wallace
Covington, the Fort Valley project would thin approximately 4,700 acres of
ponderosa pine forest outside the city of Flagstaff in an attempt to re-create
mid-19th century forest structure and to reduce fire danger. While
the Center supports forest restoration efforts, including the thinning of
small trees where necessary, we believe the Fort Valley project is much
too heavy a cut, disturbs wildlife habitat too much, and fails to adequately
account for the fact that forests change over time. The strict adherence to
recreating conditions that occurred in one moment in time, 140 years ago,
is a scientifically controversial approach to restoration. The Center
believes restoration should be based on existing forest structure and
current ecological needs (such as those of declining species), with the
past condition used as touchstone rather than an anchor.

Previous logging conducted under the pre-settlement model has removed
up to 90% of existing trees, including many large trees, compacted soil,
and may have caused one of two known northern goshawks on Mt.
Trumbull within the newly designated Grand Canyon-Parashant National
Monument to abandon its territory.

Over 100 years of logging, fire suppression, and domestic livestock
grazing have transformed much of the Southwest’s majestic ponderosa
pine forests into overly dense thickets prone to unnaturally intense and
damaging crown fires.  The Center, Sierra Club and the Forest Alliance
are developing and testing restoration strategies designed to improve forest
health and reduce crown fire danger through prescribed burning and
conservative thinning which retains all large trees, emphasizes the
protection of wildlife and biodiversity, and focuses on forest processes
such as restoration of natural fire regimes as well as forest structure.