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CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
<www.biologicaldiversity.org>
9-7-01
#282
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§
NATIONAL AGREEMENT REACHED TO PROTECT 29 IMPERILED
SPECIES AND
MANY CRITICAL HABITAT AREAS
§ 6,000 ACRES PROTECTED FOR WASHINGTON
PLANT
§ ENDANGERED SPECIES LISTING AND 5,000 ACRES OF
CRITICAL
HABITAT PROPOSED FOR NEW MEXICO BUTTERFLY
§ 11.2
MILES OF KOOTENAI RIVER IN IDAHO PROTECTED FOR
WHITE
STURGEON
§ PETITION FILED TO PROTECT ALASKAN SEA OTTERS
§ LETTERS
NEEDED TO GET CATTLE OFF UTAH NATIONAL
MONUMENT
NATIONAL AGREEMENT REACHED TO PROTECT 29 IMPERILED
SPECIES
AND MANY CRITICAL HABITAT AREAS
On 8-28-01, the Center for
Biological Diversity, Southern Appalachian
Biodiversity Project, and the
California Native Plant Society reached an
agreement in principle with the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to help
expedite the protection of 29
species and numerous critical habitat areas
under the Endangered Species Act.
The species span much of the United
States from the Mariana Islands,
California and Washington State to
Missouri, North Carolina, and Florida.
Under the agreement, the Fish & Wildlife Service will be given extra
time
to complete eight court ordered critical habitat decisions. It will use
funds
temporarily freed up by the extension to issue a rapid series of
emergency,
final, proposed, and initial listing decisions for 29 species.
Many of the
decisions will include critical habitat
designations.
Among the species which will be protected are Washington’s
pygmy rabbit
which has been reduced to just 50 individuals, the Mississippi
gopher frog
with lives in a single pond threatened by development, the
coastal
cutthroat trout in southwest Washington and northern Oregon,
six
California species including the island fox, mountain yellow-legged
frog,
and Carson wandering skipper butterfly, six southwestern
species
including the Gila chub and Chiricahua leopard frog, three Utah
species
including the Bonneville cutthroat trout, Missouri’s Tumbling Creek
cave
snail, and the Miami blue butterfly.
For maps, species profiles
and other information on the agreement:
www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/activist/ESA/settlement.html
6,000 ACRES PROTECTED FOR WASHINGTON PLANT
On
9-6-01, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service designated 6,135 acres
of
critical habitat for the Wenatchee Mountains checker-mallow in central
Washington. The Center for Biological Diversity negotiated an
agreement
to protect the species and its habitat on 5-5-00. Like many
species, the
checker-mallow had been stuck in the listing process since 1975
when the
Smithsonian Institution petitioned the federal government to protect
it.
Less than 4,000 checker-mallows remain, most on 95 acres of
seasonal
wetlands on the state run Camas Meadows Natural Area Preserve
in
Chelan County. Smaller numbers occur on adjacent Forest Service
lands
and a private parcel in Pendleton Canyon.
The distinctive
checker-mallow can grow to five feet tall and has clusters
of pink flowers.
It is threatened by loss of wetlands and disruption of
wetland hydrology due
to logging, road building, and wetland draining for
agricultural or
residential development. Cattle grazing, exotic species and
fire suppression
have also contributed to its decline.
ENDANGERED SPECIES LISTING AND 5,000 ACRES OF
CRITICAL
HABITAT PROPOSED FOR NEW MEXICO BUTTERFLY
On 9-6-01,
the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service issued a proposal to list the
Sacramento
checkerspot butterfly as an endangered species and protect
5,128 acres of
critical habitat for it. The proposal came in response to a
1-28-99 petition
filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and a court order
issued on
7-31-01. The court order struck down the Department of
Interior’s illegal
national moratorium on the listing of new species under
the Endangered
Species Act. The judge also cut through agency claims of
poverty, noting that
a congressional budget committee found the
Department of Interior to be
causing its own budget crisis since “the listing
program is not proposed [by
the Department] at a level that would allow
the Service to meet all of the
Act's requirements and deadline."
The colorful Sacramento checkerspot
butterfly is endemic to montane
meadows in a 33 square mile area within the
Lincoln National Forest area
of southcentral New Mexico. As a larva and
caterpillar, it relies on three
native plant hosts, including the New Mexico
penstemon. It is threatened
by road construction, livestock grazing, invasive
plants, climate change,
fire suppression, urban expansion, pesticide
spraying, and transfer of
federal lands to spur development.
11.2 MILES OF KOOTENAI RIVER IN IDAHO PROTECTED FOR
WHITE
STURGEON
In keeping with an agreement reached with the
Center for Biological
Diversity, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
designated 11.2 miles of the
Kootenai River in Idaho as critical habitat for
the Kootenai River white
sturgeon on 9-6-01.
The white sturgeon is a
very large, long lived fish which has thrived in the
Kootenai River for tens
of thousands of years. It stopped reproducing
when Libby Dam altered the
flooding pattern, streambed conditions, and
water temperatures necessary for
the sturgeon to reproduce. If Libby Dam
is not removed or modified, the
sturgeon will eventually go extinct due to
old age. Virtually all remaining
fish are at least 26 years old- exactly
correlated with the construction of
the dam in 1975.
The Army Corps of Engineers manages the dam, but
routinely flouts
required sturgeon conservation measures and is thus headed
for a legal
showdown with the Center later this year. In 1995, the U.S. Fish
& Wildlife
Service concluded that Libby Dam was driving the sturgeon
extinct and
demanded that the Corps release greater amounts of water during
the
spring spawning season. The Corps ignored the requirement. In
December
of 2000, the Service again concluded that the dam was
jeopardizing the fish
and again required that higher spring flood levels be
maintained. Yet the
Corps refused to implement the mandatory
conservation measures again this
year.
The Kootenai River white sturgeon was listed as an endangered
species
in 1994. A recovery plan was created for it in 1999. It will be
extinct in your
lifetime if the Army Corps of Engineers continues to ignore
its legal and
ethical responsibilities to restore natural flooding patterns
to the Kootenai
River.
Also threatened by Libby Dam is the Kootenai
River burbot, westslope
cutthroat trout, bull trout, and kokanee salmon.
American Wildlands
petitioned to list the burbot as endangered in 2000. As
part of a nationwide
agreement with the Center to issue 29 listing decisions
(see above), the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service will soon issue an initial
decision on federal
protection for the burbot.
Visit our Kootenai
River white sturgeon web page:
www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/species/sturgeon/index.html
PETITION FILED TO PROTECT ALASKAN SEA OTTERS
On
8-14-01, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a petition with the
U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Alaskan stock of sea otters
as
"depleted" under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The petition was
filed
because the largest population of sea otters in Alaska declined by
over
70% between 1992 and 2000. It also requests that an
updated
conservation plan for the otter be developed.
A depleted
designation requires the federal government to take actions to
reduce
human-caused mortality such as fisheries bycatch.
Formerly widespread and
abundant throughout Alaska, the sea otter was
hunted to the brink of
extinction by commercial hunters. Due to decades of
protection, its numbers
rebounded, and continued to climb through the
1980's. Since the mid 1980's,
however, the populations has declined
rapidly. The pre-exploitation
population of sea otters in Alaska is believed
to have been between 100,000
and 150,000 individuals. Today fewer than
40,000 remain.
No sea otter
population has had as dramatic a decline as the Aleutian
Islands population.
Once the largest otter population in the world, it has
declined by 95% over
the past few years, with perhaps only 6,000
individuals remaining. The
decline of the sea otter in Alaska is tied to the
overall decline of the
Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska ecosystems caused
by overfishing and climate
change.
For more information, check out our sea otter page at:
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/species/otter/otter.html
LETTERS NEEDED TO GET CATTLE OFF GRAND STAIRCASE-
ESCALANTE
NATIONAL MONUMENT
The BLM closed several large grazing allotments
on Fifty-Mile Mountain in
the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
last year because of
drought, then was forced to impound the cattle when the
permittees
refused to remove them. The permittees have since stolen the
cattle back
and now the BLM has documented at least fifty trespass cattle on
the
mountain as well as trashed springs and severe overgrazing.
Please
write to the State Director of the BLM, asking her to impound all
illegal
cattle and to permanently close all grazing allotments on
Fifty-Mile
Mountain:
Sally Wisely, Utah State Director
Bureau of Land Management
P.O. Box 45155
Salt
Lake City UT 84145
email: Sally_Wisely@ut.blm.gov
fax:
801-539-4013