Matthew Koehler

10-year anniversary of northern Rockies wolf delisting comes amid on-going slaughter

Undemocratic move decade ago opened floodgates for widespread wolf killing in Idaho and Montana, paving the way for even more barbaric wolf-killing schemes

MISSOULA, MONTANA—Ten years ago today, federal Endangered Species Act protections were stripped from gray wolves in Idaho, Montana, eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, and northern Utah because of a rider attached to a must-pass budget bill by U.S. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) and U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID).

This undemocratic move a decade ago—which blocked any judicial review of the rider—opened the floodgates for widespread wolf killing in the northern Rockies, including by hunters, trappers, and state and federal agencies. State “management” of wolves in the northern Rockies has included Idaho Fish and Game (IDFG) hiring a professional hunter-trapper to go into the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness to slaughter wolves and IDFG conducting aerial gunning operations to kill wolves in some of the most remote roadless federal wildlands remaining in the lower-48 states.

More recently–during a 12-month period from July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020–hunters, trappers, and state and federal agencies killed 570 wolves in Idaho, including at least 35 wolf pups. The state of Idaho also allows a $1,000 “bounty” paid to trappers per dead wolf, including wolves slaughtered on America’s federal public lands and deep within designated Wilderness areas. Right now, a bill currently sits on the desk of Idaho Governor Brad Little that would allow the state to kill 90% of the wolves in the state (up to 1,350 dead wolves in total) by hiring private contractors and allowing unlimited wolf killing by individual hunters and trappers.

The dire situation for wolves in Montana following the 2011 delisting rider is much the same. Fresh off revelations that Governor Greg Gianforte violated state hunting regulations in February when he trapped and shot a collared Yellowstone wolf, Gov Gianforte has since signed numerous draconian bills to slaughter more wolves.

New barbaric laws in Montana allow hunters and trappers to kill an unlimited number of wolves with a single license, allow a wolf “bounty,’ allows trappers to use cruel strangulation neck snares, extend the wolf-trapping season, and authorize night-time hunting of wolves on private lands and baiting of wolves.

“The barbaric situation facing wolves in Montana and Idaho prove that the gray wolf still needs federal Endangered Species Act protections. As we clearly warned ten years ago, the state ‘management’ of wolves essentially amounts to the brutal state-sanctioned eradication of this keystone native species,” said Sarah McMillian, the Montana-based conservation director for WildEarth Guardians.

“WildEarth Guardians and our allies filed a lawsuit ten years ago in an attempt and overturn this undemocratic, spiteful wolf rider because we believed the wolf delisting rider violated the U.S. Constitution. While our lawsuit wasn’t successful because Congress simply closed the courthouse doors, the hateful and on-going attempts to completely decimate wolf populations in Idaho and Montana warrants national outrage and action by Congress to restore wolf protections in the northern Rockies,” said John Horning, WildEarth Guardians’ executive director.

“State ‘management’ of wolves in Idaho and Montana harkens back to an era when people sought to exterminate wolves altogether, and nearly succeeded. These types of actions were not only deplorable in the early 1900s, but they have zero place in science-based management of a keystone species in 2021, especially in the midst of a biodiversity crisis and nature crisis,” said McMillian. “We must not abandon fragile wolf-recovery efforts and allow anti-wolf states, hunters, and trappers to push these iconic species back to the brink of extinction.”

Some of you may be interested in this press release from WildEarth Guardians.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Representatives Kim Schrier, M.D. (WA-08), Mike Simpson (ID-02), and Derek Kilmer (WA-06) introduced a bill to re-establish the Forest Service Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Program. Recognizing the need to improve national forest lands and waters to be more resilient to impacts from climate change, the legislation addresses the impacts from the Forest Service’s massive and deteriorating road and trail infrastructure. U.S. Representatives Joe Neguse (CO-02) and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) are original co-sponsors of the Act.

The U.S. Forest Service manages twice as many road miles as the national highway system with only a small fraction of the budget. More than 370,000 miles of roads, built half a century ago, require over $3.2 billion in unfulfilled maintenance needs. Hundreds of thousands of culverts, more than 13,000 bridges and 159,000 miles of trails are all components of the agency’s dilapidated infrastructure that keep road engineers awake at night with worry.

The implications of decaying and abandoned infrastructure are severe. Crumbling roads bleed sediment into rivers, creeks, and wetlands, endangering fish and other aquatic wildlife. Failing and undersized culverts block fish like salmon and trout from migrating to spawning grounds or reaching cold water refugia. Habitat sliced into small pieces by roads harms wildlife like grizzly bear and elk. And as more and more of the American public seek outdoor retreats, they often find roads are closed due to storm damage and safety concerns.

“The Representatives’ Legacy Roads and Trails bill addresses the past by healing the harm from so many miles and miles of worsening roads,” said Marlies Wierenga, Pacific Northwest Conservation Manager for WildEarth Guardians. “But the bill also looks to the future by strategically reconnecting habitat for migrating wildlife and fish, protecting clean water for communities, and ensuring access in a changing climate.”

The Legacy Roads and Trails program (established in 2008 and subsequently defunded in 2018) proved to be an effective, no-waste program with demonstrated results. For a decade, the program supported projects such as fixing roads and trails to withstand more intense storms, and decommissioning obsolete roads. It also funded projects to remove or expand culverts under roads to allow fish passage. The program has a proven track record of saving taxpayer money, improving habitat, creating jobs, and guaranteeing safer access for all.

“Legacy Roads and Trails works. The Forest Service found that sediment entering streams decreased by 60-80% after its roads were storm-proofed or decommissioned,” said Chris Krupp, Public Lands Guardian for WildEarth Guardians. “This is a huge benefit to downstream drinking water providers and the 66 million Americans who rely on our National Forests for clean drinking water.”

Increased funding to address severely damaged fish and wildlife habitat in national forests and grasslands will provide jobs to rural communities. Most of the funding in the program goes directly to on-the-ground work for local contractors and specialists. Heavy-equipment operators are particularly well-poised to benefit from the program.

“We are grateful and excited for Representative Schrier’s leadership with this important legislation,” said Marla Fox, Interim Wild Places Program Director for WildEarth Guardians. “Legacy Roads and Trails is uniquely positioned to shape a more resilient and adaptive landscape for wildlife, fish and waterways across the nation in the face of the current climate and biodiversity crises.”

Additional Resources

A 10-year accomplishments report on the Legacy Roads and Trails Program can be found here.

A Forest Service story map on Legacy Roads and Trails-funded work to replace 1000 culverts to reconnect fish migration corridors can be found here. Embedded are several informative videos including a 4-minute video available here and a 16-minute video available here.

Here’s the WildEarth Guardians press release regarding today’s big news out of the U.S. Department of the Interior. – mk

CONTACT: Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians, (303) 437-7663, jnichols@wildearthguardians.org

Denver, CO—WildEarth Guardians today cheered Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s latest actions to protect the climate and public lands, and to restore transparency, public accountability, environmental scrutiny, and justice in the U.S. Department of the Interior.

“Today is a watershed moment in the history of the U.S. Department of the Interior,” said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians. “With Secretary Haaland’s actions today, it’s clear the Interior Department is now working for communities, science, and justice. We are grateful for her leadership and bold action to put people over polluters.”

Secretary Deb Haaland issued two Secretarial Orders today, both of which take aim at the Interior Department’s sordid track record of prioritizing fossil fuel interests, supporting climate denial, and perpetuating environmental injustice.

Secretarial Order 3398 rescinds a dozen Secretarial Orders issued under the Trump administration that effectively mandated climate and science denial, and put fossil fuel interests first under the banner of “energy dominance.” These orders opened up more lands for fracking and mining, streamlined environmental reviews, cut the public out of the management of public lands and resources, and mandated ignorance of climate science.

Critically, with Secretarial Order 3398, Secretary Haaland rescinded a previous Order that lifted a moratorium on federal coal leasing. As a result, the moratorium on coal leasing adopted under the Obama administration is back in effect.

“Today’s Orders makes certain that the Interior Department is no longer going to serve as a rubberstamp for the coal and oil and gas industries,” said Nichols. “Secretary Haaland’s actions set the stage for deep reforms within the Interior Department to ensure the federal government gets out of the business of fossil fuels and into the business of confronting the climate crisis.”

Secretarial Order 3399 directs the Interior Department to undertake a series of actions to align its agencies with climate science and climate action. Among other things, the Order establishes a climate task force, mandates early consultation with Tribes and attention to environmental justice, and directs agencies to account for the costs of greenhouse gas pollution in their actions.

The Order comes as studies show fossil fuel production managed by the Department of the Interior is responsible for nearly 25% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

“The Interior Department is in a powerful position to drive bold action for the climate in the United States,” said Nichols. “Secretary Haaland’s actions today confirm that President Biden and his administration are seizing the opportunity to rein in fossil fuels and make climate action and climate justice a reality.”

Secretary Haaland’s Orders come as this week, hundreds of Tribal, justice, community, and climate organizations called on the Interior Department to end fossil fuel leasing on public lands and phase out federal oil, gas, and coal production.

“We can’t have fossil fuels and a safe climate and today’s Orders take a major step forward in acknowledging and acting upon this reality,” said Nichols. “If we truly have any chance of protecting peoples’ health, advancing economic prosperity, and achieving environmental justice, we have to start keeping our fossil fuels in the ground.”

We issued this press release today.

WildEarth Guardians scores big protections for wildlife in New Mexico

Agreement with USDA’s Wildlife Services curbs killing of cougars, bears, and other native species

SANTA FE, NM—In a major win for New Mexico’s wildlife, WildEarth Guardians settled its lawsuit against USDA’s Wildlife Services after the federal program agreed to stop its reckless slaughter of native carnivores such as black bears, cougars, and foxes on all federal public lands; cease killing all carnivores on specific protected federal lands; and end the use of cruel traps, snares, and poisons on public lands.

The settlement additionally requires public reporting of Wildlife Services’ activities in the state, including documenting non-lethal preventative measures employed by the program. These protections will remain in place pending the program’s completion of a detailed and public environmental review of its work.

The settlement agreement comes after WildEarth Guardians sued Wildlife Services in October 2020 over the program’s reliance on severely outdated environmental reviews of its work. The agreement, filed with the federal district court of New Mexico, ensures that Wildlife Services will no longer conduct any wildlife killing in New Mexico’s specially protected areas such as designated Wilderness, Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, and Wild & Scenic River corridors. The program will cease using sodium cyanide bombs (M44s) and other poisons on all public lands within the state. Additionally, the program will no longer kill beavers, which are increasingly seen as critical to mitigating the effects of widespread drought.

Notably, the agreement also mandates that a program district supervisor reviews all wolf depredation investigation reports before a livestock depredation determination is made in an effort to ensure appropriate safeguards for the endangered Mexican gray wolves that inhabit southwestern New Mexico.

“It’s past time for Wildlife Services to start grappling with 21st century science showing killing wildlife in hopes of preventing livestock losses doesn’t work, is often counterproductive, horribly inhumane, and robs native ecosystems of critically important apex carnivores,” said Jennifer Schwartz, staff attorney at WildEarth Guardians. “We’re glad our settlement kickstarts this process, while affording New Mexico’s wildlife some reprieve from the government’s archaic and cruel killing practices.”

The settlement agreement, finalized on March 11, 2021, includes multiple temporary provisions that will soon become permanent parts of New Mexico law as the result of the enactment of the Wildlife Conservation and Public Safety Act (“Roxy’s Law”) earlier this month. Roxy’s Law—championed by WildEarth Guardians and its allies in the TrapFree New Mexico coalition—bans the use of traps, snares, and poisons, on all public lands in the state of New Mexico. While Roxy’s Law is set to go into effect on April 1, 2022, the settlement agreement ensures that Wildlife Services refrains from using these devices on public lands immediately.

“The past several weeks have seen incredible wins for New Mexico’s native wildlife,” said Chris Smith, southern Rockies wildlife advocate for WildEarth Guardians. “With the climate crisis, drought, and human expansion all taking a toll on our state’s biodiversity, it’s time we stop seeing wildlife as something that needs to be killed and culled and instead see it as something that deserves protection and respect.”

Wildlife Services is culpable of killing thousands of animals in New Mexico each year including coyotes, cougars, prairie dogs, several varieties of fox, and even endangered Mexican gray wolves. Per federal law, Wildlife Services must use up-to-date studies and the best available science to analyze the environmental impact of their animal damage control program on New Mexico’s wildlife and native ecosystems. Under the agreement, Wildlife Services must provide an environmental analysis of the effects and risks of its wildlife-killing program in New Mexico by December 31, 2021.

The settlement agreement also requires Wildlife Services to significantly increase its overall transparency with the public by documenting and releasing—via its state website—detailed yearly reports of its wildlife “damage control” practices. This includes the number and type of animals captured and by which method, the number of requests for assistance and the reason given (livestock protection, health and safety, nuisance, etc.), and types of non-lethal preventative measures employed by Wildlife Services or the party requesting lethal control. This type of detailed information has previously only been available through formal Freedom of Information Act requests, which typically take many months, if not years, for USDA to fulfill.

“A public reporting requirement will compel Wildlife Services to be held accountable to the general public for its actions,” said Schwartz. “We hope that this motivates Wildlife Services to employ practices in line with the values of the public and embrace the use of scientifically verified non-lethal conflict prevention.”

Background
Wildlife Services is a multimillion-dollar federal program that uses painful leghold traps, strangulation snares, poisons and aerial gunning to kill wolves, coyotes, cougars, birds, and other wild animals. Most of the killing responds to requests from the agriculture industry.

The program reported killing more than 433,000 native animals nationwide in 2020. Nontarget animals, including pets and protected wildlife like wolves, grizzlies and eagles, are also at risk from the program’s indiscriminate methods.

Over the last five years, litigation by WildEarth Guardians and partners against Wildlife Services has resulted in settlement agreements and legal victories in Idaho, Montana, California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and New Mexico, all curbing the program’s slaughter of native wildlife and making the program accountable for its activities.

The following guest column was written by Leia Barnett, Greater Gila Campaigner for WildEarth Guardians. – mk

The Greater Gila region is an exceptional landscape. It is exceptional for its biodiversity, which is greater than that of Yellowstone. It is exceptional for its cultural significance, as it is the traditional homelands for 18 different federally recognized tribes. It is exceptional for its cultural history, which dates back to over 10,000 years ago. It is exceptional for its size and scale, at over 10 million acres, five different ecoregions, four different designated wilderness areas, and three separate mountain ranges. And it is exceptional for the place that it holds in the hearts and minds of many New Mexicans, as a place to backpack deep into the Black Range Mountains, a place to fish in our state’s last free flowing river, to star gaze under unparalleled dark skies, to experience the elk hunt of a lifetime. There is no other landscape in the West that is both an ecological and cultural nexus cherished by so many.

And the Greater Gila is under threat. The megadrought that continues to bear down upon the Southwest threatens the health of the rivers and the vulnerable plant, animal, and human communities that rely upon them. The continued livestock grazing of these distressed ecosystems perpetuates their increasing fragility. A Tucson-based company just proposed a new copper and gold mining operation in the Burro Mountains.The Holloman Air Force Base recently proposed expanding jet training over the Greater Gila, although this has stalled. For now. A private entity just received their preliminary approval for a water storage pump facility on the lower San Francisco River. And the persecuted population of Mexican Gray wolves continues to aspire to recover, but instead teeter on the brink due to agency mismanagement and a lack of meaningful carnivore coexistence legislation.

Each of these threats is representative of larger national issues that continue to jeopardize the health of our communities, the robustness of the ecosystems we rely upon, and the resilience of our planet. The F-16s that buzz the tops of the ponderosa pines and shake the hatchling chickadees from their nests high atop Hillsboro Peak are an expression of the increased militarization of the borderlands, a tradition that has shaped our national narrative since Woodrow Wilson first signed into law sweeping constraints on immigration. The United States Government’s often xenophobic border wall agenda has for too long come at the expense of human health and safety, ecosystem resilience, and equitable and just policies for all affected communities.

The General Mining Act of 1872 continues to expose our public lands to the rapacious agendas  of extractive industry. The laws established in this act remained mostly untouched and heavily in favor of mining companies until former Senator Udall and current Representative Grijalva made some modifications to them in 2019. But multinational mining companies still literally get away with murder. Anyone who’s seen the scar of the Chino Mine outside Silver City knows there is nothing eco-friendly about an open pit mine. The barren red and yellow canyon of that cavernous scar has become a lifeless landscape all to itself. Not to mention the environmental effects that will be felt in those surrounding communities for centuries to come.

Additionally, we know that Indigenous communities are fighting hard to protect their sacred lands from this misguided, monomaniacal enterprise. The San Carlos Apache and their representative non-profit Apache Stronghold have been fiercely fighting to save their sacred lands of Chi’chil Bildagoteel, also known as Oak Flat, from the profit-mongering objectives of the multinational mining corporation Resolution Copper. The Apache were forcibly and violently removed from the Greater Gila landscape as recently as the end of the 19th century. The displacing effects of these unfettered, unregulated industries reverberate across the landscape of the American southwest.

And if we’re on the topic of resource exploitation, water should most certainly be included in the conversation. The Greater Gila houses the watersheds of several important rivers, including the San Francisco, the Gila, and the Mimbres. All three make up a portion of the Colorado River Basin, an already imperiled, over-used, and mismanaged hydrological system. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) recently issued a preliminary permit for a pump storage facility for a site near Lake Powell, similar to the one proposed for the San Francisco River. The ill-conceived nature of this project cannot be overstated. “Unsustainable use of the Colorado River has already taken this life source to its knees,” said Jen Pelz, the Wild Rivers Program Director at WildEarth Guardians. “If we intend to sustain this living river for future generations, we cannot ask the river to bear this heavy burden any longer. It is time to look elsewhere to wind, solar and other forms of power storage.”

The threats to the Greater Gila include threats to the rivers and threats to the wildlife that rely upon them. For over two decades, the critically imperiled Mexican gray wolf, or lobo, has fought its way back from extinction and the current wild population hovers just over 180. Ongoing acute conflict with livestock grazing on public lands continues to jeopardize the future of the species. The prioritization of beef production over biodiversity protection is part of an old west mandate that still permeates the culture of the agencies and leaves them hamstrung when bold, meaningful action is needed.

All of the things that make the Greater Gila special: the wildlife, the water, the quiet, the dark skies, the long running human relationships to the land, they’re all under threat. The Greater Gila is underprotected and the federal agencies entrusted with the management of these revered lands continue to prioritize profit over people, extractive industry over biological integrity, and rapacious corporate agendas over ecological resilience. We must change the mandate of administrative bodies like the forest service from “multiple use” to “sustaining for all”. It’s long overdue that our national forests be managed under the Department of the Interior rather than the Department of Agriculture.

There must be systemic land-management reformation if we are to save wild landscapes like the Greater Gila. We must start thinking at a scope and scale that appropriately reflect the gravity of the threats that continue to menace and endanger life as we know it. We need big, protected landscapes that revitalize and invigorate communities, that allow for a thriving, rather than a barely surviving. The time is now. Let’s protect the Greater Gila.

Born and raised in the foothills and arroyos of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, Leia Barnett is thrilled to bring her love and deep reverence for the high desert country of the Southwest to the Greater Gila campaign. Leia graduated summa cum laude from the University of New Mexico’s cultural anthropology program, where she focused on the ways the more-than-human world can be reimagined through anthropological theory and practice. When she’s not endeavoring to understand the complexities of a successful conservation campaign, Leia can be found mountain-side or river-side, praising the feathered and four-legged ones, and planning her next epic snack.

Last August we discussed and debated this piece of investigative journalism from Oregon Public Broadcasting titled “What Happened When a Public Institute Became a De Facto Lobbying Arm of the Timber Industry.”

Today, Oregon Public Broadcasting published another piece of investigative journalism titled “A timber lobbyist called our investigation ‘completely bogus.’ We have the receipts to show it’s not.”

Extraction, Extremism, Insurrection: The ties that bind.

Let’s Examine the Ties Between the Timber Industry and Extremists

Executive action halts new oil and gas leasing on public lands and offshore waters

More work lies ahead, but today’s climate orders mark big steps toward a just transition, protecting public lands, and keeping dirty fossil fuels in the ground

Denver—WildEarth Guardians today celebrated President Biden’s bold actions to confront the climate crisis, safeguard public lands, and ensure the United States justly transitions away from fossil fuels.

“Today’s actions by President Biden are historic and absolutely what’s needed to restore and bolster the United States’ momentum in confronting the climate crisis and achieving a just economic transition,” said Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program Director for WildEarth Guardians. “We still have our work cut out for us, but no U.S. president has done more to energize climate action and make environmental justice a priority.”

In a series of Executive Orders, President Biden issued sweeping direction to align the United States’ federal government with scientifically-based greenhouse gas reduction targets and clean energy goals.

The Orders set bold conservation objectives, including conserving 30% of U.S. lands and oceans by 2030, establish audacious economic revitalization initiatives, and create new, high level agencies and working groups to direct and lead climate action in America.

Notably, President Biden ordered a ban on the sale of public lands and waters for fracking and directed a review of federal fossil fuel management programs. The action represents a monumental step toward winding down and ultimately phasing out coal and oil and gas production on public lands in the American West.

“President Biden’s actions today are a refreshing and long-overdue acknowledgment of the reality that we can’t frack our way to a safe climate,” said Nichols. “It’s time to get the federal government out of the fossil fuel business and into the business of helping communities transition to become cleaner, healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous than ever.”

Added Nichols, “Most importantly, today’s actions ensure public lands will not continue to be sacrificed to oil and gas companies at the expense of our clean air and water, fish and wildlife, and the health and sustainability of the landscape of the American West.”

Five years ago, WildEarth Guardians helped launch a campaign to halt federal coal and oil and gas leasing on public lands.  While coal leasing has ground to a virtual halt due to plummeting market demand, oil and gas leasing surged under both President Obama and Trump.

Today’s actions by President Biden are the culmination of intense and persistent grassroots organizing, coalition building, and legal pressure brought by WildEarth Guardians and other groups committed to keeping fossil fuels in the ground.

“’Keep it in the Ground’ has been our rallying cry from day one and today, that commonsense approach to climate action is finally being put into action by our federal government,” said Nichols. “With today’s orders, public lands are thankfully being put to work for the climate, not for fossil fuels.”

“We still have our work cut out for us, the fossil fuel industry will certainly fight back under the flags of climate denial and greed,” added Nichols. “But today, President Biden has set the stage for bold reforms that cut through the oil, gas, and coal industry’s denial and deception and make justice a reality.”

For an additional fact sheet provided by the Biden administration, click here.

Below is the press release. Should rare and recovering native wildlife be given priority on federal public lands? Or should the demands of those who pay $1.35/month per 5 sheep to grazing their non-native domestic sheep destined for slaughter be given priority on public lands?

SPOKANE, WA—Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday claiming the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest is placing bighorn sheep at high risk of disease outbreaks by authorizing domestic sheep grazing in the vicinity of bighorn herds. The suit, brought by WildEarth Guardians and Western Watersheds Project, asserts that the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest has known of the high risk that domestic sheep grazing poses to bighorn sheep for at least a decade, yet has authorized grazing anyway.

“The Forest Service has known about the high risk to bighorns in this area for over a decade and has refused to take action. We have pleaded with them for years to do something, yet they have just sat by as bighorns died. If the agency tasked with protecting this iconic species won’t do so, we’re here to make sure they do,” said Greg Dyson of WildEarth Guardians.

Domestic sheep carry a pathogen that, when transmitted to bighorn sheep, causes deadly pneumonia in bighorns and reduces lamb survival rates for years. The pathogen—known as Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae—is especially deadly because bighorns and domestic sheep are mutually attracted to each other. Once disease is in a bighorn herd, it can cause low lamb survival for a decade, and members of that herd can easily transmit the disease to nearby bighorn herds. There is no cure or vaccine.

“The science is overwhelmingly clear that the biggest risk to bighorn health is the diseases spread by domestic sheep grazing in and near bighorn habitat,” said Melissa Cain of Western Watersheds Project. “There have been two disease-related incidents in these bighorn herds in recent months. In October, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) killed 12 bighorns from the Quilomene herd due to a domestic ewe commingling with the herd. Less than 2 weeks later, WDFW reported Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae within the Cleman Mountain herd. It is not acceptable for the Forest Service to knowingly allow the high risk to continue.

See the WDFW website for details on the two recent incidents (here, here and here).

Today’s suit centers on seven domestic sheep allotments near the eastern boundary of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. The Forest Service conducted a risk analysis in 2016 determining that these allotments place four bighorn herds at high risk: the Umtanum, Swakane, Cleman Mountain, and Chelan Butte herds.

The lawsuit alleges that the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest continued to authorize domestic sheep grazing despite knowing about the high risk to bighorns as far back as 2010. In addition, the four bighorn herds placed at high risk by the Forest Service’s actions are within 15 miles of each other and two other bighorn herds—the Quilomene and Manson herds—meaning that individual bighorns could easily foray between herds, further spreading disease picked up from the domestic sheep. Together, these bighorn herds make up over half of Washington’s total bighorn sheep population. Another bighorn herd, the Tieton herd, had occupied habitat that was adjacent to these domestic sheep allotments until it suffered a severe outbreak of pneumonia in 2013, which WDFW determined was caused by domestic sheep and led to all 200 of the bighorns in this herd being eradicated.

“The Forest Service is well aware of its legal duties—under the National Forest Management Act and the Wenatchee National Forest Plan—to prevent domestic sheep grazing on public lands from transmitting disease to bighorn sheep. For years, as problems mounted for bighorns, the agency has disregarded these legal duties by authorizing thousands of domestic sheep to graze on high-risk allotments each summer,” stated Lizzy Potter, lead attorney on the case. “We filed suit to hold the Forest Service accountable for these egregious legal violations and to protect half of the bighorn sheep in Washington state.”

Bighorn sheep were wiped out during the era of Western settlement, as Old World pathogens carried by domestic sheep were transmitted to native bighorn sheep. By the early 1900s, bighorns had vanished from several states, with only a few thousand remaining from an estimated historic population of 1.5 to 2 million. Following more than six decades of extensive and costly restoration efforts, bighorn sheep have now been recovered to approximately 5% of their historic population levels and roughly 10% of their historic range.

The groups are represented in the litigation by Lizzy Potter and Laurie Rule of Advocates for the West.

This issue has been discussed on this blog numerous times…and will certainly continued to be discussed.

SANTE FE, NEW MEXICO—WildEarth Guardians, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reached an agreement (here and here) to resolve a major legal dispute over threatened Mexican spotted owls and national forest protection in New Mexico and Arizona. A federal court issued an injunction on tree cutting on national forests in the Southwest that has been in place since September 2019. The injunction came in response to a lawsuit, originally filed in 2013 by WildEarth Guardians.

The agreement requires the U.S. Forest Service to comply with the Endangered Species Act by conducting annual Mexican spotted owl population trend monitoring through 2025, the key legal dispute at issue and the legal basis for the federal judge’s order that the agency had violated the Act.

“This agreement provides a framework for the Forest Service to better protect national forests and Mexican spotted owls,” said John Horning, Executive Director of WildEarth Guardians. “By agreeing to rigorously monitor species and track habitats, this management framework could be a national model for the Forest Service to protect and recover threatened and endangered species.”

The agreement also contemplates that the Forest Service will comply with the requirements of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s spotted owl recovery plan by identifying and protecting owls by surveying for owls prior to ground-disturbing activities and protecting those areas where owls are found and tracking long-term trends in the owl’s habitat. The agreement also establishes a Mexican spotted owl leadership forum, something the agency recently created. The agreement applies to all 11 national forests in Arizona and New Mexico, which cover over 20 million acres.

“WildEarth Guardians has tenaciously fought to protect the Mexican spotted owl and its ancient forest habitat since the mid-1990s, when the species was first recognized as threatened,” said Steve Sugarman, a Guardians founder and the attorney who litigated the case on behalf of WildEarth Guardians. “Hopefully, the comprehensive management framework contemplated by the agreement reached by Guardians and the Forest Service in this case will end the cycle of forest mismanagement and ensuing litigation.”

The agreement to end this litigation on the basis of a mutually agreed to management framework concludes the latest chapter in a 25-year saga over the management of Mexican spotted owls on national forests in the Southwest. During that period, beginning in 1996, the courts have sided with Guardians multiple times in its legal advocacy to assure that the Forest Service accounts for old-growth dependent species in its approach to national forest management in Arizona and New Mexico.

The agreement further requires the Forest Service to assess the effects of timber management activities such as logging, thinning, and prescribed burning on the owls and their habitat. The Forest Service will then use its monitoring data and assessments of effects, along with up-to-date scientific studies, to inform, constrain, and modify ongoing and future timber management in owl habitat.

“We have long contended that the Forest Service’s claims that logging is good for owls is not based on sound science,” stated Judi Brawer, WildEarth Guardians’ Wild Places Program Director. “This agreement requires the agency to finally assess the impacts of its timber management actions and adjust those actions accordingly to ensure that they do not harm the owls or their habitat.”

The parties negotiated the agreement over a six-month period and the ultimate product reflects the efforts of all of the parties to create a new paradigm for forest protection that will ensure that the agency funds, creates, and abides by the latest and best available science.

“The agreement’s greatest significance is that it brings citizens, science, and the law together in the way that the framers of environmental laws intended,” stated Horning “The foundational principle of environmental laws is that citizens uphold the laws. This is the core principle of healthy, functioning, and effective democracy, and one that is currently under direct threat.”

Background: WildEarth Guardians filed the case in March 12, 2013 over the agencies’ failure to ensure the recovery of the owl by collecting basic information, for more than 20 years, about the status of owl populations across the Southwest. In September 2019, a federal district court judge in Arizona ruled that the agencies have shirked their responsibilities to ensure that Forest Service management activities are making progress towards recovery of the Mexican spotted owl. The ruling halted all “timber management actions” on six national forests in New Mexico and Arizona, including all the national forests in New Mexico and the Tonto National Forest in Arizona.

As the September 2019 decision explains, the Forest Service was required to implement a population monitoring protocol for Mexican spotted owl since at least 1996. It was expected that, within 10-15 years, management activities such as logging and prescribed burning that the agencies claimed would improve owl habitat, supported by monitoring that would show the species recovery, would enable its de-listing from the Endangered Species Act. Yet, as the decision stated, “Over twenty years later, delisting has not occurred, and information about the current [Mexican spotted owl] population is still minimal.”