From: owner-swcbdmembers@envirolink.org on behalf of Kieran Suckling [ksuckling@biologicaldiversity.org]
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 12:22 AM
To: Recipient list suppressed
Subject: BIODIVERSITY ALERT #276 (corrected)
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             CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

           <www.biologicaldiversity.org>      6-6-01      #276
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§ ENDANGERED SPECIES: CLINTON 41, BUSH 2

§ WHITE ABALONE LISTED AS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES

§ OVER 70,000 SQUARE MILES OF BERING SEA MAY BE
   PROTECTED FOR ENDANGERED NORTHERN RIGHT WHALE

§ SUIT TO PROTECT AZ’S VERDE RIVER FROM OVERPUMPING

§ HUGE NEW MEXICO “SALVAGE” TIMBER SALE APPEALED

§ LETTERS NEEDED TO FIGHT OFF POLITICAL ATTACK ON
   MEXICAN WOLF RECOVERY PROGRAM

ENDANGERED SPECIES: CLINTON 41, BUSH 2
At this point in his first term in office Bill Clinton had listed 41 species
under the Endangered Species Act. George W. Bush has listed just
two. The Ventura Marsh milk-vetch and the white abalone both occur in
southern California and were listed in May. The milk-vetch was listed in
response to a Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit and the abalone
due to a Center petition.

Bush has proposed suspending Endangered Species Act listing deadlines,
preventing citizens from being able to effectively petition or sue to protect
imperiled species, and turning over all endangered species listing
decisions to the sole “discretion” of Gale Norton, his anti-environmental
Secretary of Interior. Norton has argued that the Endangered Species Act
is unconstitutional, should not apply on private lands, and should not apply
to species which do not cross state lines. If her ideas were implemented
as law, 75% of all currently listed endangered species would be taken off
the endangered species list.
     __________________

WHITE ABALONE LISTED AS ENDANGERED SPECIES
In response to a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity, the federal
government listed the white abalone as an endangered species on 5-29-01.
The abalone is the first, but unfortunately won’t be the last, marine
invertebrate listed as an endangered species.

The white abalone is a marine snail which occurs from Point Conception,
CA, to Punta Abreojos, Baja California, Mexico. The Channel Islands off
the coast of southern California support some of the last remaining
populations. The species once numbered between 2 and 4 million animals
but has been severely depleted by commercial fishing.  The most recent
surveys estimate that fewer than 2,500 remain, a decline of over 99%. 

White abalone are broadcast spawners, requiring males and females to
be within a few meters of each other for successful fertilization and
reproduction to occur. The few abalone that escaped commercial harvest
are now too few and far between to successfully reproduce.

The life span of an individual white abalone is estimated to be between
35 and 40 years. Thirty-four years have passed since the last known
successful recruitment of the species in 1966. Scientists predict
that the species will be extinct in less than a decade unless immediate
action is taken.
     _________________

OVER 70,000 SQUARE MILES OF BERING SEA MAY BE
PROTECTED FOR ENDANGERED NORTHERN RIGHT WHALE
One 6-1-01, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a preliminary
positive finding on a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity, to
designate over 70,000 square miles (45 million acres) of the Bering Sea
as critical habitat for the northern right whale.

Once abundant in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the northern right
whale is now the most endangered whale in the world. Prized for its oil and
baleen plates— and preferred for its slow speed and floating-carcass
characteristic— commercial whalers deemed right whales the “right whale”
to hunt, and nearly extirpated it from both oceans. Today there may be
only 300 right whales left in the Atlantic Ocean, and perhaps only 100 left
in the Pacific.

To see maps and learn more about the northern right whale:
<www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/species/right/nprw1.html>

The Center also recently won an initial positive finding on its petition to
designate over 41,000 square miles of Alaska’s Beaufort Sea for the
endangered bowhead whale:
<www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/species/bowhead/index.html>
     ___________________

SUIT TO PROTECT ARIZONA’S VERDE RIVER FROM OVERPUMPING
On 5-25-01, the Center served notice against the City of Prescott and
others of its resolve to file suit if necessary to prevent the city from sinking
massive wells in Chino Valley. Prescott, Prescott Valley, and Chino Valley
intend to pump between 8,700 and 14,000 acre-feet per year of
groundwater from the aquifer in order to keep feeding destructive,
unsustainable growth.

The Chino Valley aquifer supplies 80% of the remaining summer flows of
the Verde River- one of the Southwest’s premier wildlife areas. It is home
to bald eagles, razorback suckers, loach minnows and spikedace, and
human population which values the open space, flowing waters, and
riparian forests which will disappear when the aquifer is drawn down.
     ________________

HUGE NEW MEXICO “SALVAGE” TIMBER SALE APPEALED
On 5-30-01 the Center for Biological Diversity appealed the Scott Able
timber sale on the Lincoln National Forest.  The sale would log 10 million
board feet of ponderosa pine and mixed conifer on 2,000 acres in the
Sacramento Mountains.  Only five trees per acre will remain after the
logging, making the area a virtual clearcut.  The sale would also log within
five Mexican spotted owl territories in violation of both the Mexican spotted
owl recovery plan and the Lincoln National Forest Plan, and would
negatively impact one of three known populations of the endemic
Sacramento Mountain Salamander.  The salamander, closely associated
with mixed-conifer forests, relies on large downed logs and subterranean
dwellings which would be crushed and compacted by the proposed
logging operations.
     __________________

LETTERS NEEDED TO FIGHT OFF POLITICAL ATTACK ON MEXICAN
WOLF RECOVERY PROGRAM
Representative Joe Skeen (R-NM) has asked Interior Secretary Gale
Norton to help him undermine an independent scientific review of the
Mexican gray wolf recovery program. Skeen, a public lands rancher, has
asked Norton to establish a new review of the program by an upper level
Interior Department management team that "would include non-biologists."

The scientific review currently under way includes three independent,
non-governmental wildlife biologists. In a draft report, these scientists
warned of "a significant risk of failed recovery" and recommended several
reforms the Center has long urged. The reforms would lessen manipulation
of wolves, allow direct wolf introduction to New Mexico, and place the
welfare of the wolves above livestock interests.

If Skeen and Norton squash the role of independent scientists, the
Mexican wolf, at best, will continue to limp toward recovery. At worst, it
will be canceled due to political pressure by the livestock industry.

Please write Gale Norton and ask her to reject Skeen’s proposal and to
ensure that the independent scientific review not be compromised by a
higher level political review.

  Gale Norton, Secretary of Interior
  1849 C St., Washington, D.C. 20240

Please send a copy to your two senators and your representative, at
respectively U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510 and House of
Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515.