Diversity and species conservation

Note: the map above can be found in the final EA for the Angora project.

CA initiates state protection for rare woodpecker

By SCOTT SONNER, Associated Press

Monday, December 26, 2011

(12-26) 02:44 PST South Lake Tahoe, Calif. (AP) —

Over the objections of the U.S. Forest Service, wildlife officials in California are taking steps at the state level to protect a rare woodpecker partly because the federal agency won’t stop logging the bird’s ever-shrinking habitat in burned stands of national forests in the Sierra Nevada.

The California State Fish and Game Commission recently voted to add the black-backed woodpecker to the list of species that are candidates for protection under the California Endangered Species Act, launching a year-long status review of the bird that is at the center of an ongoing legal battle in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals over salvage logging in the area where 250 homes burned near Lake Tahoe in 2007.

Commissioner Michael Sutton said he’s satisfied there is a “substantial possibility” the woodpecker could end up being listed as threatened. He said his support for the move was based in part on correspondence from the Forest Service indicating the agency doesn’t believe the bird needs any protection and that even if it did, USFS wouldn’t be required to provide it.

The Forest Service had designated the black-backed as the indicator species for all fish and wildlife dependent on burned forests across the Sierra, from north of Tahoe to south of Yosemite. It’s the same kind of designation agency biologists gave the northern spotted owl in the 1980s to serve as a barometer of the overall health of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest.

But, said Sutton, it has become clear “their management policy has changed recently. They now permit, under relevant forest management plans, 100 percent salvage logging of burned areas, which is the preferred habitat of this species.

“That may be fine for the Forest Service,” said Sutton, after moving to add the woodpecker to the state’s list of candidate species on Dec. 15. “Their mandate is multiple-use, including timber harvest… Our mandate is stewardship of wildlife.”

Commissioner Daniel Richards was the lone dissenter in the 3-1 vote advancing the listing petition by the Phoenix-based Center for Biological Diversity and the Earth Island Institute’s John Muir Project in Cedar Ridge, Calif.

“I do believe it is a rare species, but that doesn’t make it is endangered. It has been rare forever,” Richards said. “We get these every month. Everybody would like for us to list everything as endangered … to burden our department with further analysis.”

Chad Hanson, executive director of the John Muir Project, said the action was significant because “they are acknowledging that not only is there a total lack of protection from clear cutting on private lands, they (the woodpeckers) also don’t have any protections on Forest Service land to fall back on.”

“It’s the first time anybody has acknowledged that a species is impacted by post-fire salvage logging,” added Justine Augustine, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity based in San Francisco. “They accepted the fact there is substantial evidence there is a problem here and we’re going to have to step in.”

Hanson, a wildlife ecologist at the University of California, Davis, helped persuade the Forest Service in recent years to designate the black-backed woodpecker the indicator species for all wildlife dependent on burned forests throughout the Sierra and has been citing the agency’s own research for years in his bid to show the bird may already be on its way to extinction.

“Even in burned forests, the black-backed is one of the rarest birds in California,” he said, adding there is “no dispute its habitat has declined dramatically since the 19th and early 20th century due to fire suppression.”

As a result, such post-fire habitat now comprises less than one-half of 1 percent of the Sierra forests the woodpecker once inhabited, he said.

But Forest Service officials say there is no evidence that the bird’s population itself is actually in a state of decline. While Hanson maintains there may be as few as 1,000 pairs of black-backs left in the Sierras, the agency believes there are many more.

Randall Moore, Pacific Southwest regional boss for the Forest Service based in Vallejo, presented the state commission earlier this year with a 16-page memo questioning the “degree and immediacy” of the threat to the black-backed from Forest Service practices. He said more information was needed, and that “management of National Forest System lands is inherently complex given the responsibility to manage public natural resources for a wide variety of often conflicting threats and opportunities.”

Halting or significantly restricting fire suppression activities — even away from homes — the memo noted, is “unlikely to be implementable due to social and political resistance.”

Augustine said it was “inappropriate, at best” for the Forest Service to imply the state should change its findings to accommodate the Forest Services'”complex” management. He said the wildlife commission’s decision will help put the spotlight on the service’s new legal stance that even if the bird did warrant added protection, the agency no longer is required to provide it.

The agency was long bound by the National Forest Management Act, which President Reagan signed into law in 1982, which established the so-called “viability rule.” It stipulated that the Forest Service would attempt to maintain a viable population of all species found on individual forests. But the Forest Service says the rule is super-ceded by the 2007 forest plan amendment, which, still provides general guidelines for protection of fish and wildlife. But, according to the agency’s interpretation, it does not prohibit projects such as salvage logging just because the potential impact to a particular species’ habitat could threaten the sustainability of its population on that individual national forest.

Hanson said the change in position represents a “significant threat of extinction to a number of species in the coming decades. It is an outrageous and dangerous position for the agency to take, and I think it had an impact on the commission’s decision.”

The issue will be front and center in late January or February when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the same two environmental groups’ appeal challenging a federal court’s refusal to halt the logging at Lake Tahoe.

The Forest Service maintains it met all the law’s requirements for the Angora fire project, intended to speed restoration of the burned area as well reduce future fire threats over nearly 3,000 acres. The agency said it was made clear in the environmental assessment that its proposed action could reduce potential black-backed woodpecker territories, and that was its “only project-level analytical duty.'”

Given the federal agency’s position, Hanson said, state protection of the bird may be its only hope.

“Basically what the commission did is stand up for the science on this species,” he said. “I know it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are going to go through with a listing a year from now, but they did the right thing here.”

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/12/26/state/n024446S12.DTL

Note from Sharon: In the first sentence, the author characterizes the FS response as “won’t stop logging” “its ever shrinking habitat”. If the idea is that every snag everywhere should be left because the bird is so endangered, then that bodes problems when snags fall down. Also, if more fires are likely to result from climate change, then won’t there be more habitat?

Also “They now permit, under relevant forest management plans, 100 percent salvage logging of burned areas, which is the preferred habitat of this species.” But species don’t know what’s permitted; they only react to what’s accomplished and it seems unlikely that anywhere near 100 percent would be even attempted.

Here and here are links to previous discussions of the Angora project on this blog. It appears that 1398 acres of the 2700 FS acres would be treated under the preferred alternative. Based on fuel loading and proximity to houses.. given different fuels and no proximity to houses (the project is in the WUI defense zone), as in large parts of the Sierra Nevada, one might expect lower percentages of snag removal than that.

I ran across this and just thought it was interesting..from the Ashland Daily Tidings.

First wolf since 1946 enters southwest Oregon
2-year-old male is in Umpqua River drainage; transmitter locating collar shows his progress

By Mark Freeman
for the Tidings
Posted: 2:00 AM November 02, 2011

A young wolf migrating out of a northeast Oregon pack this fall has reached northeastern Douglas County, becoming the first confirmed wolf in Western Oregon in 65 years.

The 2-year-old male, labeled OR-7, has a transmitter collar on it that showed it crossed Highway 97 and moved across the Cascade crest and into the Umpqua River drainage, where he was last located late Thursday, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The animal set out from his original Imnaha Pack of Wallowa County on Sept. 10, wandering southwest as far as Lake County last week before turning due west and crossing the Cascades, said Russ Morgan, the ODFW’s wolf program coordinator.

“It’s the first one in modern times to go in that direction, and he’s really traveling,” Morgan said. “He could turn around and go back. He could go to California or Idaho. There’s no way to predict it.”

It is the first wolf known to be in Western Oregon since 1946, when a wolf killed in Douglas County was the last Oregon wolf turned in under a bounty program.

Morgan said this wolf — a male born in Oregon in 2009 and collared last February — has traveled more than 250 miles so far on its dispersal journey, and there was no way to guess when or where this wolf version of fleeing the nest will end.

“It’ll be interesting to see where he’s going,” Morgan said. “The best approach is you’ll have to wait and see.”

Most dispersing wolves travel alone, and there was no indication one way or another that OR-7 was joined by any other animals, but Morgan said there was a “high likelihood” other noncollared wolves have reached the Cascades.

Oregon has a minimum population of 23 confirmed wolves since the first wandered in from Idaho in 1999.

There was no state population estimate for the wolves, which are protected by state and federal laws here.

What reception this wolf gets in southwestern Oregon “depends on who you ask,” said Duane Dungannon, spokesman for the Medford-based Oregon Hunters Association.

The OHA has opposed allowing wolves to establish themselves naturally in Oregon, maintaining that their potential impacts on big-game herds and the ranching industry outweigh any benefits.

“Our deer and elk populations suffer enough from cougar predation,” Dungannon said. “It won’t do local game herds any good to deal with wolves.”

Spencer Lennard, project director of Big Wildlife, said the region should embrace this apex predator and let packs develop on public lands here.

Studies in some places show that wolves help keep animals such as deer and elk from grazing freely along creekside riparian areas and damaging fish habitat, Lennard said.

“I think they need to be supported,” Lennard said. “They are critical ecological components to this land.”

The collar on this particular wolf was designed to send a location message to a satellite every six hours, but the animal must be in an area with clear reception for that to occur, Morgan said. It is not uncommon to see days lapse between satellite connection with them, Morgan said.

Wolves have been documented to travel more than 1,000 miles during their dispersal, which is a natural event common to most wildlife, Morgan said.

The Umpqua Basin abuts the northeastern portions of the Rogue River Basin.

Interesting story from the Cody Enterprise..

By MARK HEINZ | Posted: Monday, October 17, 2011 3:57 pm

Grizzly numbers in the heart of the Yellowstone area habitat appeared to have dipped, but some experts’ opinions vary regarding how much, and why.

There are an estimated 593 grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, compared to 602 last year, according to a new study.

The number of bears killed, for various reasons, over the past few years “has taken a powerful bite out of the population,” said ecologist Chuck Neal of Cody, who is retired from decades of field work with the BLM, Forest Service, and contract work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“The take-home message is the population seems to have reached a plateau. We might be exceeding the female morality level,” said Mark Pearson, conservation program director with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition.

But Game and Fish bear expert Mark Bruscino said he thinks the population remains robust.

“The survey behind the study was only on the grizzly population in the core of the habitat, and only for one year,” he said.

“In areas where we haven’t done systematic sampling, the bear population continues to grow, both in terms of numbers and distribution. Overall, the grizzly population is doing quite well,” Bruscino said.

He was among experts and other interested parties who attended a recent meeting in Bozeman, Mont., of the Yellowstone Ecosystem subcommittee of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee. The IGBC includes representatives from G&F, Forest Service, Park Service, BLM, USFWS, the U.S. Geological Survey, wildlife agencies in Idaho, Montana and Washington, and Canadian Wildlife Service.

Much of the discussion centered around a population study, done mostly by USGS and USFWS researchers,

Even a slight dip in grizzly populations can be worrisome to bear experts and conservationists, because the bruins’ reproductive rates are much lower than other wildlife species.

There seems to be consensus over the idea that grizzlies are ranging farther and consequently getting into more scrapes with people. But there is some disagreement over why.

There is also differences of opinion over whether grizzlies should be delisted, and perhaps even hunted, in Wyoming.

Bruscino thinks that’s a good idea; Pearson and Neal said they want to bears retain federal endangered species protection.

A ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the matter is expected soon.

Looking for food?

Bears are losing some key ingredients of their diet because of the decline in white bark pine and cutthroat trout in the heart of grizzly country, Neal and Pearson said.

“Habitat quality has been in decline, primarily because of the loss of white bark pine to beetles,” Neal said.

Grizzlies like to feast on pine cone nuts, which are rich in fat and calories.

“It’s an important food source for them right now, as they fatten up for winter,” Neal said.

“We must take into consideration the effects of climate change on their food sources,” Pearson said. “With less food available in the interior habitat, bears are roaming into the fringe areas.”

Neal recalled the last time grizzlies began to disperse widely, get into trouble and, consequently, get killed in higher numbers.

That was back in the 1970s when the Park Service decided to shut down open landfills in Yellowstone, where bears had gotten accustomed to easy gorging.

Now, essentially the same thing is happening. But instead of the loss of a bad, artificial food source, grizzlies are losing natural sources, Neal said.

But Bruscino is dubious about the idea that bears are wandering to find food.

Rather, more bears are showing up in more places because they’re being pushed out by grizzlies that have laid claim to the interior habitat, he said.

Bruscino said according to what he knows, grizzlies are far more likely to adapt to new food sources in their territory, rather than wander somewhere else.

“Bears are the quintessential omnivores,” he said.

“The core habitat is saturated We just don’t see bears leaving their home ranges, he said. “Fat levels on bears in the core of the Yellowstone habitat indicate those bears are doing very well nutritionally.”

Neal said he doesn’t agree with the idea that habitat saturation is behind conflicts with people.

“They are getting into areas where people themselves are expanding their presence,” Neal said. “It’s not so much ‘saturated’ habitat,’ as it things like trying to raise chickens and sheep on the edge of occupied grizzly habitat.”

A question of tolerance

Bruscino said the GYE grizzly population has met or exceeded all the biological goals set when the recovery program started.

“We need to do more on the fringes to reduce conflicts,” he said. “In my opinion we could be hunting grizzlies, today, and it would not be detrimental to the population.”

Neal and Pearson said the answer isn’t to delist bears now, but rather to allow them to expand their habitat.

“The key has never been numbers. It’s always been enough occupied, contiguous habitat,” Neal said.

Opinions might hinge on whether people see the GYC as essentially a “island” of wild habitat, with nowhere else for grizzlies to go, or as part of a larger network of places where the bears feasibly could roam, Pearson said.

For example, GYC favors enough interconnected habitat to allow for genetic exchange between the Yellowstone and Glacier Park grizzly populations.

But he noted that conflicts with people could ultimately drive policy.

“Human tolerance is absolutely going to be the deciding factor regarding where grizzlies can thrive,” Pearson said.

California resident Dave Smith, who worked for years in Yellowstone, and still frequently visits, agreed.

“Grizzlies have been on the Endangered Species List for 30 years now, and I think people are getting worn out,” said Smith, who has written two books about staying safe around grizzlies and other large animals.

“The Game and Fish in Wyoming is having to play ‘musical bears,'” by constantly trapping and relocating troublesome grizzlies, Smith said.

This raises some questions for those that know this part of the country… given our economic situation, are folks still building houses into or next to grizzly habitat? Is critical habitat designated for private land?

I was also interested in these quotes:

Bruscino said the GYE grizzly population has met or exceeded all the biological goals set when the recovery program started.

“The key has never been numbers. It’s always been enough occupied, contiguous habitat,” Neal said.

I am not very expert on ESA, but if there are population goals, can they shift through time? That could get discouraging to people trying to implement policy
if folks are moving the goalposts.

And if the problem with endangered species is not numbers, how do we decide what is “enough occupied continguous habitat”?

Bob Zybach sent this contribution for posting:

From: Center for Biological Diversity
Published August 2, 2011 03:41 AM

23 Oahu Species Proposed for Endangered Species Act Protection
HONOLULU— The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to protect 23 species on the Hawaiian island of Oahu as endangered under the Endangered Species Act on Monday. The proposal also includes protection of 43,491 acres of critical habitat essential for the conservation of the species, which include 20 plants (including some with fewer than 50 left in the wild) and three damselflies — the crimson Hawaiian damselfly, blackline Hawaiian damselfly and oceanic Hawaiian damselfly.

“These unique Hawaiian species are a national treasure, and we’re thrilled they’ll be getting the Endangered Species Act protection they need to survive,” said Tierra Curry, a conservation biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.

In early July, the Center reached a legal settlement with the Service to expedite protection for 757 imperiled species, including 19 of the 23 proposed on Oahu.

The Center petitioned in 2004 to protect 19 of the species proposed Monday. The 19 species — 16 plants and the three damselflies — have been waiting on the federal “candidate” list for protection for years. Candidates are species known to qualify for Endangered Species Act protection that are placed on a waiting list instead of receiving that protection.

In addition to the 19 candidates, Monday’s proposal includes four plants identified as the “rarest of the rare” by the Plant Extinction Prevention Program. Each of the four plant species has fewer than 50 individuals remaining in the wild and is in need of immediate conservation.

The plant species occur in a variety of habitats and are threatened by habitat loss and foraging and trampling by invasive goats, pigs and rodents. They are also threatened by invasive insects that outcompete native pollinators.

The damselflies are threatened by agricultural and urban development, stream alteration and predation by nonnative insects. The damselflies hatch and develop in streams, small cascades of waterfalls and wet, mossy areas. They then undergo metamorphosis and become shiny-winged adults that move into the forest.

Monday’s proposed critical habitat designation for the 23 species also includes a revision of critical habitat that has already been designated for 99 endangered Oahu plant species. In 2003, more than 55,000 acres of habitat was designated to protect the 99 plant species. The proposal includes only 43,491 acres of habitat for the 99 already-listed plants and the 23 new proposed species.
“We are concerned that this proposal appears to be reducing habitat that has already been designated to protect Oahu’s species, so we’ll work to make sure these rare plants and animals get the full habitat protection they need to survive,” said Curry.

From NPR, here.

Here’s my question: if we can’t afford/ don’t necessarily think it’s a good idea to kill them all, why are we killing any? Intellectual curiosity? Is that a good enough reason?

Killing One Owl Species To Save Another

by Lauren Sommer

A female northern spotted owl in California. Spotted owls are losing habitat to invasive barred owls, a species originally from the eastern U.S.
Enlarge National Park Service

A female northern spotted owl in California. Spotted owls are losing habitat to invasive barred owls, a species originally from the eastern U.S.
text size A A A
June 12, 2011 from KQED

Spotted owls are on the decline despite two decades of work to bring them back. So, later this month, wildlife officials are releasing a new plan to protect the owls, and it includes a controversial new approach: eliminating their cousins.

In a dense forest near Muir Woods, just north of San Francisco, National Park Service ecologist Bill Merkle plays a recording of a spotted owl in hopes of hearing from a real one.

“I think they’re just probably 50 or 60 feet up there,” he says.

Northern spotted owls became famous in the 1990s, when the federal government set aside millions of acres of forest to protect them. That stoked an epic battle between loggers and wildlife groups over their habitat. Since then, spotted owls haven’t come back. Biologists believe that’s due to an invasion of barred owls.

Barred owls take over spotted owl territory and in some cases even attack them. They have an advantage because they eat a wider variety of prey. In places like western Washington, the spotted owl population has been cut in half since the barred owl showed up.

“It’s a troubling picture for the spotted owls,” Merkle says.

Originally from the eastern U.S., barred owls invaded spotted owl territory in Washington state decades ago and, Merkle says, they’ve moved down the coast ever since.

“The barred owl is a little larger,” he says. “It’s a little more aggressive.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service hopes to deal with this by “permanent removal,” says Robin Bown, a biologist with the agency. “We’re going to look at all potential opportunities, but the most humane way to do it is to shoot them.”

Bown says the agency plans to eliminate barred owls from a few study areas to see if the spotted owls there do better. And yes, she says, shooting the barred owls will raise a few eyebrows.

“It’s a difficult concept, to say I’m going to kill one species to try to save another species,” she says. “But it’s also something that, in some cases, we need to do.”

Eric Forsman, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Forest Service, says shooting owls isn’t a long-term solution.

“To try to control barred owls across a large region would be incredibly expensive, and you’d have to keep doing it forever because if you ever stopped, they would begin to come back into those areas,” he says.

That’s why, Forsman says, it’s looking pretty dismal for the spotted owl.

“I think all we can really do is try our best to provide [a] habitat for spotted owls and in the long run, we’re just going to have to let the two species work it out,” he says.

This also reminds me of a piece in New Scientist last September about BFFs (that is, Black-Footed Ferrets) that also mentions wolves Conservation and compassion by Marc Bekoff. Check it out.

Here’s a quote:

The guiding principles of compassionate conservation are: do no intentional harm; respect all life; treat all individuals with respect and dignity; and tread lightly when stepping into the lives of animals.