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.