ESA and Cypress Tree Listing

The article from Greenwire, below, and this excerpt from the USFWS’s new proposed rule, beg the question: Couldn’t, shouldn’t the agency have obtained better data before listing the Santa Cruz cypress tree as endangered?

“After more accurate
mapping (McGraw 2007, entire), we
now estimate that areal extent totals
approximately 188 ac (76 ha) (Service
2013, p. 43). Additionally, estimated
abundance of individuals in all
populations has changed over time,
from approximately 2,300 individuals at
the time of listing in 1987, to a current
range of 33,000 to 44,000 individuals
(although the latter estimate is variable
due to mortality and regeneration
following the 2008 Martin Fire that
burned 520 ac (210 ha) of land and a
portion of the Bonny Doon population)”

And maybe the cypress stands need some thinning?

Steve

 

Agency proposes reducing protections for Calif. cypress tree

Laura Petersen, E&E reporter

Published: Tuesday, September 3, 2013

The Fish and Wildlife Service today proposed downlisting the status of the Santa Cruz cypress tree from endangered to threatened.

Found only in a small part of the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, the cypress is no longer at imminent risk of extinction from development, logging or agricultural conversion, the agency said in its proposed rule published today in the Federal Register.

The trees grow on lands managed for conservation by the state and by a private landowner. However, the species faces a number of other threats, so still requires the protection of the Endangered Species Act, the agency said.

“[T]hreats associated with alteration of fire regime and lack of habitat management continue to impede the species’ ability to recover,” the agency wrote in the proposed rule.

The Santa Cruz cypress tree was listed in 1987, when officials estimated 2,300 individuals remained. As information has improved, the agency said that was likely an underestimate. Between 33,000 and 44,000 cypress trees are now estimated to grow across about 188 acres.

The Pacific Legal Foundation petitioned in 2011 to downlist the tree, along with a handful of other species, and sued FWS in April for missing the deadline to issue a proposed rule. The group argues that endangered species listings affect property owners’ rights and can require landowners to undertake costly consultations to receive development permits.

However, the downlisting “does not significantly change the protections afforded this species under the Act,” according to the proposed rule. As before, all federally funded or permitted activities must not jeopardize the cypress’ long-term survival.

Conservationists applauded the proposal.

“The remarkable rebound of this precious little California evergreen is the latest proof that the Endangered Species Act puts species on the path to recovery,” said Angela Crane, endangered species organizer at the Center for Biological Diversity.

8 thoughts on “ESA and Cypress Tree Listing”

  1. Or maybe it does not “put the species on the path to recovery” so much as provides bucks to figure out how many there really are…in some cases..

    Reply
  2. The “endangered” Pleasant Valley Tulip was seen to be colonizing skid trails from the 1989-1992 salvage logging projects. Of course, that plant is one of those that thrives on disturbance but, only grows in a narrow geologic area of the upper Sierra Nevada foothills.

    Reply
  3. “The trees grow on lands managed for conservation by the state and by a private landowner. However, the species faces a number of other threats, so still requires the protection of the Endangered Species Act, the agency said.”

    “[T]hreats associated with alteration of fire regime and lack of habitat management continue to impede the species’ ability to recover,” the agency wrote in the proposed rule”

    Notwithstanding Steve’s leading question framing the discussion; Sharon’s cynical comment regarding ESA funding opportunitie$ for agency funding; and Larry’s confusion around comparing two profoundly different species, and how they propogate –(whew)
    erring on the side of caution seems prudent enough here.

    What gives with such open biases of such closed minds?

    Reply
    • I wasn’t being cynical, but that seems to be a logical inference from the data presented as well as other experiences I’ve had.. e.g. helping map sugar pine because someone thought it was endangered.

      Reply
      • Yes, there was a time when all sugar pines were “sacred trees”, protected from ANY harvesting. I’m glad that mindset didn’t last that long. I hated walking by old and suppressed sugar pines, preserving ladder fuels growing underneath better trees. I was told that one individual tree could possibly be the ultimate answer to white pine blister rust.

        Reply
        • Larry: While we may laugh at the idea of sugar pine as an endangered species, it is also true that many of the oldest and most magnificent of these trees continue to be threatened — and particularly in the last 100 years — by competition from younger, ladder-fuel conifers (often in excess of the 30″-diameter screen) and from crown fires made possible by the invasion of these competitors.

          Is anyone doing anything about addressing this problem?

          Reply
      • Hmm.
        That doesn’t translate (in the direction you perhaps intended) too well. Personally denying cynicism while personally translating cynicism through “logical inference” is not necessarily a shared inferred logic. There is much left to infer from your inferred logic, such as the inference of agency motives complicated by extremism (in your view?) or well-intentioned attempts to fulfill agency missions (in my view?) complicated by funding shortfalls?

        Perhaps now, the inherent limitations of agency funding in this neoliberal age of “sequestration” (such as the recent news of the USFS withdrawing funding of their much-touted agency transition to “restoration and stewardship” and demanding the return of timber receipts from struggling rural municipalities) might be finally acknowledged as a causative factor now?

        Again, a beleaguered endemic tree species at the mercy of state and private land managers with demonstrated intents to profit at all costs suggests an agency erring on the side of caution in order to fulfill its mission is warranted.

        I’m however, open to you sharing how the mapping of sugar pine is relevant here.

        Reply

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