There seem to be at least three different views of what should be done with endangered species. 1. Recover the species in a specific area; 2. Recover the species everywhere it ever was and 3. Manage for the species in areas where it currently isn’t, but might possibly go under climate change. It’s all a bit confusing to some of us as to what is legally required by ESA and what is just the druthers of some folks.
Oregon Wolves To Be Released in Colorado: Location Unknown
Yes, Colorado already had wolves who wandered down on their own from Wyoming. However a ballot initiative requires them to be reintroduced anyway (political reasons). Here’s a nice article in the Colorado Sun.
The wolves headed to Colorado currently live in Oregon. Once they’re captured, the volunteer flight service LightHawk, which assists conservation agencies with endangered species transportation, will bring them to Colorado.
Western Slope ranchers could start seeing wolves by mid-December. That troubles Lenny Klinglesmith, who runs between 600 and 1,000 head of cattle in Rio Blanco County, southwest of Meeker.
Klinglesmith said stress and anxiety are running high in him and his ranching neighbors, who’ve “been dreading it for quite awhile. Now, reintroduction is almost here but we don’t have a choice. It’s just the stress, not only for me but for our hunting community. They talk deterrents and conflict minimization like it’s easy, but wolves are there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And most [impacts] are going to happen in the middle of the night. It could be Christmas Eve. It’ll change lives forever.”
But Eric Odell, CPW’s species conservation manager, said CPW plans to help them with the transition by contracting a conflict minimization specialist with expertise in wolf reintroduction who has worked with several ranching communities in the past. The agency intends to hire more such specialists. And Odell said CPW has some of the materials needed for deterring wolves on hand, including “fladry” to string around livestock pastures or holding areas, and scare devices like sirens and strobe lights.
“We have some for loan and use, but not enough that will meet the demand,” he said. “And there will be lots and lots of demand.”
It seems to me like the wolves came in on their own, and people were adjusting. Then came the “reintroduction” effort-voted for by people who live elsewhere and only narrowly passed at all. I don’t think if a person’s goal was to help heal any urban rural divide, that this effort is helping. Just my two cents.
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Wolverines
This is from the Center for Western Priorities newsletter.
Human-driven climate change has led to the species’ decline, with the most recent estimates noting a population of around 300 in the Lower 48. Wolverines rely on deep snow through the late spring to build dens, but in recent decades, snowpack has been decreasing. The species used to roam from the northern United States to New Mexico, but now they exist only in small populations in the Rocky and Cascade mountains.
“The science is clear: snowpack-dependent species like the wolverine are facing an increasingly uncertain future under a warming climate,” Michael Saul, Defenders of Wildlife Rockies and plains program director, told National Parks Traveler. “Now it’s time to support the species’ future by bringing them back to the mountains of Colorado as well.”
I’m wondering why they would pick the most southern part of the range specifically to bring them back, the part conceivably least able to support them based on the warming climate.
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Grizzly Bears Translocation to Add Genetic Diversity
To me if the yellow lines were the target, it seems like the grizzlies are doing fairly well.
“We’re trying to demonstrate to everybody, the courts included, that connectivity isn’t an issue that should impede delisting,” said Ken McDonald, wildlife division chief for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “Until it’s happening regularly, naturally, we can cover this with human-assisted movements.”
The two grizzly bear populations aren’t far from each other — the leading edges are just 35 miles apart — but there’s never been a documented case of a Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem grizzly traveling to the Yellowstone Ecosystem and procreating. Grizzlies have gone the other direction, trekking north well into Montana, but that doesn’t accomplish the goal of creating gene flow into the isolated population.
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Although state wildlife managers have committed to translocating grizzlies into the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the current level of genetic diversity is not “in dire straits,” Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team Leader Frank van Manen said.
Frank van Manen, leader of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, at the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee’s Yellowstone Ecosystem Subcommittee meeting in Cody in May 2023. (Mike Koshmrl/WyoFile)
“We have a little bit lower genetic diversity than other populations, but it’s not declining further,” he said. “It’s moderate genetic diversity, is how I would classify it.”
The genetic augmentation appendix of Montana’s draft grizzly bear management plan calls the ecosystem’s genetic isolation a “long-term conservation concern.”
“The rate of inbreeding has been very low (0.2% over 25 years),” the document states, “and no inbreeding effects have been detected.”
As a geneticist, I would say “if it’s low and not decreasing, it’s not a problem.”
Nevertheless, U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen sided with environmental groups in 2018 on the question of genetic diversity, ending a short stint where the Northern Rockies states had jurisdiction over their Ursus arctos horribilis populations.
I went to the link above and this is what the Judge said:
In ordering the re-listing, the judge noted that delisting Yellowstone-area grizzlies might have an impact on other grizzly populations. But he also found threats to the Yellowstone-area bear itself. One worry is that the geographically isolated Yellowstone population may lack the genetic diversity necessary to persist.
The judge, over many pages in his order, mulled arguments about minimum populations, effective population sizes and other important factors, including federal law. He criticized federal scientists for “failing to recognize that all evidence suggests that the long-term viability of the Greater Yellowstone grizzly is far less certain absent new genetic material.
“Despite its recognition that continued isolation poses a threat to the Yellowstone grizzly, there is no regulatory mechanism in place to address the threat,” the judge wrote.
When the Fish and Wildlife Service decided in 2017 to delist the Yellowstone grizzly, the decision that prompted the successful lawsuit, it “misread the scientific studies it relied upon,” Christensen wrote.
“The Service failed to logically support its conclusion that the current Greater Yellowstone population is not threatened by its isolation.” The judge wrote. “The Service has failed to demonstrate that genetic diversity within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, long-recognized as a threat to the Greater Yellowstone grizzly’s continued survival, has become a non-issue.”
So it appears that the Judge is not talking about the actual science, but the FWS not “logically supporting its conclusion.”
Sommers recalls something that Chris Servheen, the former lead government grizzly scientist, once told him. “We also have to remember bears have been isolated on Kodiak Island for 10,000 years and they’re doing just fine, ” Sommers paraphrased.
Alaska’s Kodiak population differs from Yellowstone in that there are about 3,500 Kodiak brown bears. (Many refer to both species as grizzlies, though they are slightly different.)
“How good is the science on the genetics issue,” Sommers asked, saying conservationists call to preserve natural migration corridors between the grizzly recovery zones in the Lower 48 “are just attempts to tie up policy [regarding] land use.
“I think this genetic connectivity issue is a red herring that underlies some groups’ efforts to try to manage, manipulate this larger landscape with regard to how they want to see [land-use] decision on the ground,” he said.
Lanie White, and her brother, Harrison White, manage the ranch’s operations.
I’m always a fan of cool conservation technology.. from PERC
PERC is partnering with Montana’s McFarland White Ranch to help implement an innovative virtual fence project for cattle, a cutting-edge technology that could revolutionize both ranching and wildlife conservation.
The project will initially remove 16 of the ranch’s 75 miles of internal barbed-wire fencing and replace it with a virtual fence network that allows the rancher to remotely map and manage livestock through a series of signal towers and GPS collars worn by cows. Barbed wire fences are a key barrier to wildlife migration throughout the West. While other pilot projects and implementations are underway, this is the first to explicitly evaluate the technology for both migratory wildlife conservation and its effect on production agriculture—specifically, economic impact, range, and livestock benefits.
Under the agreement, PERC is funding key infrastructure to implement the virtual fence and clear a path for wildlife migration, including directly purchasing one of six signal towers needed to establish a signal across the virtual network.
Fences are trouble for wildlife and ranchers
Located at the doorstep of Montana’s Crazy Mountains, the McFarland White Ranch is home to 2,000 head of cattle, rough landscapes, and abundant wildlife. Thirty-two bird species of concern including Clark’s nutcracker, ferruginous hawk, thick-billed longspur, bobolink, sharp-tailed grouse, and sandhill cranes are found on the Audubon-certified ranch. Migratory wildlife including elk, deer, and pronghorn are also common, as well as predators such as wolves, mountain lions, and black bears.
Wildlife including elk and pronghorn can get caught in traditional fences, birds often fatally collide with wires, and ecologically sensitive areas are difficult to fence off with any degree of flexibility.
Repairing barbed-wire fencing is a constant worry for ranchers as well.
How virtual fencing works:
Cattle are equipped with a GPS collar that emits a sound when the livestock approaches a virtual boundary, then a light shock if the animal crosses the boundary, which continues for several yards, effectively deterring cattle from entering the areas that the rancher has fenced off. Cattle need only a few days to learn that the sound from the collars means it is time to turn around.
Solar-powered signal towers connect across the virtual network. Each solar-powered tower covers roughly 10,000 acres of range, depending on topography, and costs approximately $12,000.
An app tracks the cattle’s location and sends alerts if the cattle attempt to leave the virtual fence boundary. The rancher can also adjust the boundaries directly from the app.
External fencing will be maintained to prevent commingling with neighboring herds and comply with Montana law.
Benefits for ranchers:
Virtual fencing significantly reduces the need for traditional barbed-wire fences, bringing notable benefits:
The virtual system allows for easily customizable boundaries.
Ranchers can more easily track the location and status of their cattle, helping with predator control and herd management.
Removing bared-wire fences, which require costly and time-intensive repairs, can save ranchers considerable time and money.
And we can imagine tracking wolves at the same time, and maybe sending drones to scare them off..
A gray wolf is seen in the Sequoia National Forest. Michelle Harris, Samantha Winiecki-Love, Ryan Slezak and Colibri Ecological Consulting/via the California Department of Fiash and WIldlife
I thought we’d take a break from the generalized permitting reform discussion to a specific question. Thanks to Claudia Elliot, we have a roundup of the news on the Tulare Wolfpack. I posted on the media coverage of the new wolf discovery here. My legal question has to do with the discovery of new information on ongoing projects.
The Legal Question
Quoting from Claudia here:
The letter, dated Aug. 15, was on behalf of four organizations that have a long history of activism related to giant sequoia issues — the Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club, the Sequoia Taskforce of the Sierra Club, the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute and Sequoia ForestKeeper.
Sent just one day after the California Department of Fish and Wildlife released news of the wolf pack, the letter states that the new information “implicates ongoing actions the Forest Service is currently implementing, including the Region 5 Post-Disturbance Hazardous Tree Management Project and the Emergency Response, R5 Giant Sequoia Fuels Grove Reduction and Restoration Projects.
“The Forest Service should place a pause on those actions and, in consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, determine whether any activities associated with those projects and others could adversely affect the wolves.”
Immediately, this new information implicates ongoing actions the Forest Service is currently implementing, including the Region 5 Post-Disturbance Hazardous Tree Management Project and the Emergency Response, R5 Giant Sequoia Groves Fuels Reduction and Restoration Projects. The Forest Service should place a pause on those actions and, in consultation with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, determine whether any activities associated with those and other projects could adversely affect the wolves.
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The significant new information of the presence of wolves requires supplemental analyses. In doing so, NEPA requires the Forest Service to consider the potential direct, indirect, and
cumulative effects on wolves. Moreover, the ESA requires that the Forest Service find ways to mitigate project and other effects to avoid potential take, including harassment.
It sounds like existing projects need to be reviewed because the wolves moved in. Would this be equally true for, say, the new discovery or movement into the area of endangered species if the project was a wind farm or solar facility or a transmission line? Is the process different for ongoing projects vs. designing new ones?
Update from Claudia Elliott
I’ve paused my twice-weekly Giant Sequoia News until January to allow time to establish what I hope will be a network of journalists and others to better cover giant sequoias and related Sierra Nevada issues. I’m planning an update about the wolves for early January.
In the meantime, here’s a recap of what’s been reported since news of wolves on Sequoia National Forest in August:
There was a flurry of reporting in August and September after the California Department of Fish and Wildlife made the first report about the wolves. More recently, The Guardian published a piece HERE that included news that the wolves were believed responsible for killing cattle on the Tule River Reservation. The reservation is surrounded on three sides by Sequoia National Forest/Giant Sequoia National Monument.
Since The Guardian report, Scientific American HERE, Newsweek HERE, and Wildfire Today HERE have published pretty much the same story.
As I reported on Sept. 11, four organizations that have a long history of activism related to giant sequoia issues — the Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club, the Sequoia Taskforce of the Sierra Club, the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute and Sequoia ForestKeeper — called upon Sequoia National Forest to “pause” certain activities (specifically some of the giant sequoia emergency response work and Region 5 Post-Disturbance Hazardous Tree Management Project) to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ti determine whether any activities associated with those projects and others could adversely affect the wolves.
Regional Forester Jennifer Eberlien’s response to the letter was short and included this: “We, too, are thrilled to learn about the wolves. We appreciate your perspective on the potential effects to the wolves from current and future projects and your suggested design features. We acknowledge that we have obligations under the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act to review new information.”
In mid-September, Jordan Traverso, a spokesperson for the CDFW, responded to my request for information about what concerns the state agency may have about forest management activities in the area of SQF where the wolves were found during the summer. He said: “We have not offered a recommendation about fuel reduction in the Sequoia National Forest, though we are familiar with controlled burns as an important method of fuels management. We are tracking the discussion and will continue to work with partners, including the Tule River Tribe of California and U.S. Forest Service, to protect the wolves and their habitat regardless of whether prescribed burns proceed in the area or not.”
A gray wolf is seen in the Sequoia National Forest. Michelle Harris, Samantha Winiecki-Love, Ryan Slezak and Colibri Ecological Consulting/via the California Department of Fiash and WIldlife
The journey started on Wildfire Today.. this headline intrigued me..
A keystone species — an organism that helps define an entire ecosystem — is calling the fire area home again, 150 years after being hunted and driven out.
I became curious about what the current definition for a keystone species is. When I was with the FS I had to attend numerous presentations by wildlife researchers who all had rationales for why their species was a keystone species. It was kind of an interior joke to me .. how far would they go in rationalizing their “keystone-ness?”
It was interesting to see how folks like WEF and NRDC defined keystone species..according to WEF (the World Economic Forum, who knew that they were interested?) the gray wolf is a keystone species.
In short, keystone species enable other species to survive, occupying a key role in the ecosystem they are part of. Without them, their ecosystems would be dramatically different or even cease to exist.
I’ve been many places around the west before reintroduction and expansion of wolf populations, and thereafter. They don’t seem dramatically different to me. Maybe because “dramatically” has no scientific definition. Or because our state wildlife folks manage deer and elk populations such that they don’t need extra carnivores to keep the populations down (and some populations of deer and elk are apparently having trouble with numbers even without wolves). If you’re going to argue “it’s better with wolves”, I need more than “that’s the way it used to be.” Because nothing else in our environment is exactly the way it used to be.
As a native Californian, I never thought of the Porterville area as “southern California.” I’d go for Central Calif, or the southern Sierra. And I’m not so sure the wildfires themselves drew them to that area. There are plenty of wildfire acres north of the Windy Fire.
“If you walk through a burned landscape with lots of dead trees, you’ll be surprised by the vibrant life which springs from the ashes,” says Andrew Stillman, an ecologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
The female traveled about 200 miles from the nearest known wolf pack, scaling the mighty Sierra Nevada mountains.
Why did the wolves move so quickly into a burned landscape? When fires kill trees, more sunlight is able to reach the blackened soils; this stimulates dormant plants such as grasses to sprout. The nutritious grasses attract deer and other species, offering wolves a buffet.
I think the question is rather “why did the wolves go through so many other burned landscapes and settle on this one?”
The return of the predators has also led to some conflict with humans: McDarment and other reservation residents say wolves have killed their livestock.
But that link goes to a generic Sci Am article on wolves and livestock predation studies.
It looks like the California wolves were just news of the day bait for more generic statements by UBC ecologist, a senior scientist at Los Alamos, a UCLA ecologist, a Cornell bird ecologist, and a fire researcher at Natural Resources Canada. So what’s up with that?
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I then went looking for “livestock killed on the Tule Reservation” and ran across an article in the Guardian.
The Guardian, like many news organisations around the world, is working to find new ways to fund our journalism to ensure we can continue to produce quality, independent journalism in the public interest.
Increasing philanthropic support for our independent journalism helps fund impactful Guardian reporting on important topics such as modern-day slavery, women’s rights, climate change, migration and inequality.
But can they call themselves completely “independent” if they take others’ funds, when those others have definitive worldviews? Check out this link to “philanthropic partnerships”
The Guardian is different. We have no billionaire owner or shareholders to consider. Our journalism is produced to serve the public interest – not profit motives. And we avoid the trap that befalls much US media – the tendency, born of a desire to please all sides, to engage in false equivalence in the name of neutrality
They seem very certain of what they think is correct.. personally I’d prefer some humility. Anyway, back to the wolves.
The land on the reservation is high desert meets alpine, 55,000 acres of scrub and redwoods bordering Sequoia national forest.
Many of us live or have lived in the Sierra foothills.. we wouldn’t call it “high desert”; nor is the Sequoia National Forest “alpine” at that point. And it’s Giant Sequoia, not “redwoods.” A reporter could have easily found this excellent website on the reservation vegetation by the Tule River Tribe, which has all the details a person might want.
The fires brought another change: wolves.
After the blaze, the reservation became a perfect place for den sites and hunting. Wolves love open forests, too, and the reservation had plenty – plus beefy cows. In July, a gray wolf pack was spotted in nearby Sequoia national forest after a nearly 150-year absence in southern California.
If the fires brought the wolves, why did it take them two years to get there?
They need to hide, says Jordan Traverso, the communications lead for California’s department of fish and wildlife, because while many in California’s left-leaning cities cheered the wolves’ return, those living in and around them, like cattle ranchers, have little recourse if a wolf kills their livestock, which is why wolves are “so controversial”.
Just in case we didn’t know how the reporter feels about California (he is a Californian, if you go to his webpage you find that he writes on all kinds of topics):
That also explains why California is actually a progressive paradox: it is both an environmental bellwether that influences everything from emissions to endangered species policy, which boosts conservation, but it’s also filled with large-scale agriculture and industrial farming which can often pollute and destroy the land.
Actually I don’t think California has much of a say in endangered species policy, which I think the feds have pretty well sewn up.
Then there are several generic quotes from a Montanan on wolves.
Wolves are neither monster nor romantic symbol – and they rarely attack humans or livestock. When the government reintroduced 41 wolves to Yellowstone national park in 1995, ranchers in Montana and Wyoming were up in arms. Over the next eight years, wolves killed just 256 sheep and 41 cattle in those states (states with millions of livestock).
“Instead of decimating cows,” Wolke says, “wolves reduced elk numbers, so willow and aspen trees came back. So did birds and beavers, which improved wetlands.”
While no one knows how many cows have been killed here, wolves cause less than 4% of US cattle deaths.
I tried to look up sheep and cattle deaths and found that.. people disagree. I did find the USFWS says that there were 154 cattle deaths in 2016 in Wyoming alone. Of course, if you use the 8 years after reintroduction, there were probably fewer wolves on the landscape than the 377 they counted in Wyoming alone in 2016.
Impacts to livestock from wolves creates costs borne by livestock producers, including mortality from wolf predation and other indirect impacts. These costs are unevenly distributed and localized, with some producers suffering greater losses than others. Although wolf depredation is a small economic cost to the livestock industry as a whole, the impacts to individual producers can be substantial.
.7,12 For those impacted by wolf predation, the economic and emotional impacts can be substantial. Both direct and indirect losses could significantly affect the livelihood of individual ranchers operating on thin profit margins in volatile market
Anyway, back to the Guardian piece:
It seems wolves are all locals want to talk about. Fear is the central theme, says Greg King, the author of The Ghost Forest: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods. “Ranchers fear for their livestock and humans fear for themselves. Fear is destructive. Maybe we can’t have it all.”
King is from Humboldt County.
And when locals get spooked, wolves often pay the price. Case in point – December 2018, when a northern California rancher saw a wolf feeding on a calf. Investigators determined the calf probably died of pneumonia, but that wolf was found dead on the side of a road, riddled with .22 caliber rounds. A rancher was arrested, but officers couldn’t prove that he pulled the trigger, so they let him go. That could happen here.
I’m not sure that once counts as “often.”
The LA Times says that the wolves reappeared in Giant Sequoia National Monument.
“Wolves rewild the landscape and that’s good not just for the wolves but for entire ecosystems,” said Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity.
“California years ago laid out a welcome mat for wolves, and we can keep it there if we don’t get led astray by old fears and misconceptions,” she said.
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It’s interesting that Ms. Weiss’s background is in law and advocacy, and not ecology nor wildife.
In any case, gray wolves occupy a small part of their historic range. Scientists say a comprehensive recovery plan encouraging their return is crucial to returning ecological stability across thousands of square miles of still-wild habitat.
Among them was ecologist Chad Hanson, who, in an interview, said the wolf pack has become, of all things, the beneficiary of wildfires that jump-started new generations of nutritious grass and shrubs that attract deer they prey on.
“Higher ungulate abundance provides prey for wolves,” he said. “Logging reduces habitat for deer, adversely impacting endangered wolves.”
That kind of talk leaves some federal forest managers and timber industry advocates quietly seething.
But I thought scientists had given up on “ecological stability” as a concept? Maybe that was only ecologists or only some ecologists? Thousands of square miles of “still wild” habitat? Is the southern Sierra “still wild”? And Hansoniana also leaves many scientists “quietly seething.”
Could Hanson be the source of the strain in all this reporting of “fires attract wolves”?
So let’s look at the journalists involved Louis Sahagún of the LA Times; Adam Popescu an independent journalist (who wrote the Guardian and the Scientific American versions); and Hunter Bassler is a reporter in Saint Louis who writes for Wildfire Today. Which is not to criticize them, certainly most of us couldn’t cover the range of stories that they do in any meaningful way. As we said about climate science, they have to work with the systems they have. And currently, apparently outlets can’t afford to pay people to keep this kind of expertise in their newsrooms. The outlets that can afford it like E&E news, are not accessible to the average citizen nor many not-for-profits. And the folks who fund journalism have definite worldviews that they promote. It’s not a pretyy picture.
Western bumblebee (Xerces Society / Rich Hatfield)
The rusty-patched bumblebee and Franklin’s bumblebee have been listed under ESA and other species are being considered. The Xerces Society considers 11 species of bumblebee to be at-risk. The Forest Service and BLM allow special use permits for non-native honeybee apiaries on their lands based on categorical exclusions. Here is the one applicable to the Forest Service (36 CFR 220.6(d)(8)):
(8) Approval, modification, or continuation of minor, short-term (1 year or less) special uses of National Forest System lands. Examples include but are not limited to: (i) Approving, on an annual basis, the intermittent use and occupancy by a State licensed outfitter or guide; (ii) Approving the use of National Forest System land for apiaries; and (iii) Approving the gathering of forest products for personal use.
Most scientists agree that honeybees are not native to the Americas. They were imported to the continent in the 1600s on cargo ships from Europe and arrived in Utah in the mid-1800s.
Honeybees tend to outcompete native bees for pollen. Tepedino said, “if you put enormous numbers of honeybees on public lands … the native bee population must, by necessity, be deprived.”
A study by Tepedino concludes that the honeybees in a single apiary can, in just four months, remove enough pollen to raise five to 13 million native bees.
O’Brien said that competition is also worsened by climate change. Because climate change leads to more drought and as a result fewer flowers, it is becoming more difficult for native bees to compete with honeybees, she said.
Mary O’Brien (a botanist) also said the CE was instituted in the 1980s, before scientists knew very much about native bees. She points to the western bumblebee, a species she said is “critically imperiled” in Utah. It is particularly threatened by diseases, including ones that are transmitted by honeybees.
Project Eleven Hundred was born about five years ago in response to a request for a permit to place 100 hives each at 49 sites in the Manti-La Sal National Forest. That permit was denied, but there is currently a permit on the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest that is up for renewal at the end of this year, which is being contested and may be litigated. Project 1100 has also petitioned to remove the CE.
In forest planning under the 2012 Planning Rule, species of conservation concern are to be designated SCC if there is a risk to their persistence in the plan area. Both listed species and SCC must be addressed in forest planning to ensure that the plan decisions (components) adequately protect these species from threats. Since commercial non-native apiaries are a threat to these species, a forest plan should consider, and probably adopt standards that regulate or prohibit issuance of permits for honeybees. (I’m guessing wild honeybees are found on most national forests.)
The proposed revision of the Manti-La Sal National Forest Management Plan allows apiaries, subject to a standard stating that permits “shall not be issued for placement of hives within 5 miles of known insect-pollinated, at-risk plant species locations or at-risk insect populations.” It also states that a maximum of 20 hives can be issued for each apiary special use permit (which is arguably “not commercially viable”). O’Brien said this is an impossible precaution to enforce. “As if they know where [native bees] are,” she said. “…The western bumblebee would be considered at risk, and they don’t know where it flies.”
The western bumblebee was NOT designated as an SCC in the Manti-La Sal’s draft of its revised forest plan.
a) It turns out the percentage of the globe that burns each year has been declining since 2001.
b) For more than two decades, satellites have recorded fires across the planet’s surface. The data are unequivocal: Since the early 2000s, when 3% of the world’s land caught fire, the area burned annually has trended downward.
c) In 2022, the last year for which there are complete data, the world hit a new record-low of 2.2% burned area. Yet you’ll struggle to find that reported anywhere.
d) Yet the latest report by the United Nations’ climate panel doesn’t attribute the area burned globally by wildfires to climate change. Instead, it vaguely suggests the weather conditions that promote wildfires are becoming more common in some places. Still, the report finds that the change in these weather conditions won’t be detectable above the natural noise even by the end of the century.
e)Take the Canadian wildfires this summer. While the complete data aren’t in for 2023, global tracking up to July 29 by the Global Wildfire Information System shows that more land has burned in the Americas than usual. But much of the rest of the world has seen lower burning—Africa and especially Europe. Globally, the GWIS shows that burned area is slightly below the average between 2012 and 2022, a period that already saw some of the lowest rates of burned area.
f) The thick smoke from the Canadian fires that blanketed New York City and elsewhere was serious but only part of the story. Across the world, fewer acres burning each year has led to overall lower levels of smoke, which today likely prevents almost 100,000 infant deaths annually, according to a recent study by researchers at Stanford and Stockholm University.
g) Likewise, while Australia’s wildfires in 2019-20 earned media headlines such as “Apocalypse Now” and “Australia Burns,” the satellite data shows this was a selective narrative. The burning was extraordinary in two states but extraordinarily small in the rest of the country. Since the early 2000s, when 8% of Australia caught fire, the area of the country torched each year has declined. The 2019-20 fires scorched 4% of Australian land, and this year the burned area will likely be even less.
h) In the case of American fires, most of the problem is bad land management. A century of fire suppression has left more fuel for stronger fires. Even so, last year U.S. fires burned less than one-fifth of the average burn in the 1930s and likely only one-tenth of what caught fire in the early 20th century.
#2) The Canadian Take by LIFESITE News,Thu Aug 31, 2023
(Photo: Ashley Harrell/SFGATE)More Wolves Return to California Story in the San Fran Chron. I excerpted quite a bit because I thought the DNA tracing and migration patterns were interesting.
Four new packs of wolves have established themselves in California in the past five months, bringing the grand total to eight new wolf packs since 2015 — and counting.
The four packs, announced Wednesday by state wildlife officials, were documented in Tehama County in central Northern California, Lassen and Plumas counties in the northeastern part of the state, and Tulare County in the Central Valley southeast of Fresno.
The Tulare County sighting of an adult female and four offspring was the southernmost report of any wolf pack in California’s modern history, hundreds of miles from the usual spots wolves have settled.
The sightings, and especially the presence in Tulare County, suggest that California is becoming a more habitable environment for its endangered species of gray wolves, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
“Holy smokes, what fantastic progress we’re witnessing in wolf recovery in California,” Amaroq Weiss, a senior wolf advocate at the center, said in a news release. “The homecoming of wolves to California is an epic story of a resilient species we once tried to wipe from the face of the Earth.”
Though the gray wolf is native to California, the animal was hunted to extinction in the 1920s, the Chronicle reported. It is now illegal to intentionally kill any wolves in the state.
Some ranchers and rural residents, however, remain uneasy over the wolves’ expanded range.
In May, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife announced it had expanded its Wolf-Livestock Compensation Pilot Program, through which ranchers can apply for compensation due to wolf attacks, or seek money for deploying nonlethal deterrents to keep wolves away from livestock.
In March, wildlife officials captured photographs of three wolves in Tehama County from a trail camera on private land. Little is known about the wolves’ origin or full number, according to the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The Plumas County pack includes at least two adults and two pups. The breeding adults for that pair have been identified through DNA testing as partial siblings from a double litter in 2020.
The Lassen County pack has a minimum of two adults and an unknown number of pups. According to genetic analysis, the male is not from a known California or Oregon pack, but the female is an offspring from the Whaleback Pack’s 2021 litter. The Whaleback Pack is a group of wolves that has been seen in Siskiyou County.
DNA testing from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife suggested the Tulare County pack had contained at least five individuals not previously known to live in California, baffling wildlife experts who wondered how the wolves had managed to travel so far down the state.
The adult female is believed to have come from California from southwest Oregon’s Rogue Pack, while her male breeding pair originated from the Lassen Pack’s 2020 double litter.
Genetic testing also suggested that the female of the pair is a descendant of the first documented wolf to enter the state since the animals were hunted off in the 1920s.
That wolf, known to wildlife officials as OR7, migrated to the state from Oregon in 2011 and later returned, but is presumed dead, the Chronicle reported. OR7 traveled through seven northeastern counties in California before returning to his home state of Oregon, finding a mate, and building his Rogue Pack, according to officials from the Center for Biological Diversity.
Since then, several of his offspring have come to California and established new packs, including the breeding female of the new Tulare County pack and the original breeding male of the Lassen Pack, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
In any case, gray wolves occupy a small part of their historic range. Scientists say a comprehensive recovery plan encouraging their return is crucial to returning ecological stability across thousands of square miles of still-wild habitat.
Among them was ecologist Chad Hanson, who, in an interview, said the wolf pack has become, of all things, the beneficiary of wildfires that jump-started new generations of nutritious grass and shrubs that attract deer they prey on.
“Higher ungulate abundance provides prey for wolves,” he said. “Logging reduces habitat for deer, adversely impacting endangered wolves.”
That kind of talk leaves some federal forest managers and timber industry advocates quietly seething.
One wonders whether the reporter might have asked federal forest managers and timber industry advocates.. if the reporter spoke with them I’d be curious as to what they had to say. “Hey, I’m seething” doesn’t sound much like any Forest Service public affairs response..
Another obvious question is openings created by logging reduce habitat, but openings created by fire increase habitat. I’d be interested in how that works.
In a recent letter, a group of environmentalists urged the U.S. Forest Service to suspend post-fire logging operations in the region until it can “determine whether any activities associated with those and other projects could adversely affect the wolves.”
That’s because the environmental reviews for the projects have not considered the impacts of hand crews with chainsaws, bulldozers and trucks on endangered gray wolves and wolf habitat.
Environmentalists say their presence is vital to restoring the rhythms of life among countless other animal and plant species that evolved with them.
The story didn’t mention exactly what groups, so I couldn’t find the letter. Perhaps someone from California has it?
“Restoring the rhythm of life?””countless plant and animal species that evolved with them.” I’m not so sure about plants evolving with wolves. Holism sounds great.. but as usual mention of Indigenous folks.. who’ve been around also adapting to the glaciers retreating with organisms presumably co-evolving with them, doesn’t show up in this formulation. Wikipedia had this as part of its entry on “balance of nature.”
Despite being discredited among ecologists, the theory is widely held to be true by the general public, conservationists and environmentalists,[5] with one author calling it an “enduring myth”.[8] Environmental and conservation organizations such as the WWF, Sierra Club and Canadian Wildlife Federation continue to promote the theory,[17][18][19] as do animal rights organizations such as PETA.[20
I like that the reporter characterized this as being a view of environmentalists, not scientists.
Ranchers and Wolves in Northern Cal Getting Along With the Aid of Technology
And here’s a great story about ranchers and wildlife folks working together that I found in the Red Bluff Daily News but was written by a reporter for SFGATE.
Since September, wolves in the Whaleback Pack have killed more than 20 cows and injured another half-dozen across Siskiyou County. It’s the highest concentration of attacks on livestock since wolves first returned to California in 2011. In fact, after 23 years of working with wolves across the United States, this is the first time Laudon can recall a single pack being linked to so many attacks.
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Most of the calves targeted by the Whaleback Pack have been residents of Table Rock Ranch, a large cattle operation set squarely within wolf country. The ranch has been using many kinds of deterrents, including a watchman hired to drive around the range at night. But without knowing when wolves were nearby, it was a little like shooting in the dark.
Now, most mornings local ranchers get a text message letting them know the general locations of the two collared wolves. “I was optimistic that it would be helpful, as far as making our deterrents more effective, and being at the right place at the right time,” Table Rock Ranch manager Janna Gliatto told SFGATE.
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But in Siskiyou County, “ranchers have been a model of patience,” Laudon said. California’s compensation program will soon begin compensating ranchers who implement deterrents. But that money has been a long time coming; Gliatto says she was promised reimbursement for the range rider months ago, but has yet to see a dime. Still, she’s hopeful that the new data from the collared wolves will help with another aspect of the program called “pay for presence,” where ranchers are reimbursed for the impacts of wolves simply being around, such as stress on the animals.
Fire Retardant FOIA Frolics Update: FOIA Review at White House White House
Remember that I was curious about how the decision was made for the USG to not support a fire retardant bill that aimed to exempt fire retardant from CWA permitting. I had heard through a few grapevines that this was not the USDA position and they had been overruled. I was wondering how these disagreements are hashed out in the Biden Admin, and so I FOIAd CEQ and USDA Office of the Secretary.
I’m still waiting on a part of the FOIA from CEQ; their FOIA folks are incredibly helpful, so a big shout-out to them, as well as USDA FOIA folks! Unfortunately, there’s apparently a relatively new White House review process that requires all FOIAs with messages with emails “who.eop.gov” to be reviewed by the White House.. I guess this is the White House White House, not just CEQ, OSTP, USTR ,NSC, OMB nor any of those other White House “Executive Office of the President” agencies. You can find all the EOP agencies listed here. From now on, I’ll just call the White House White House as in “who.eop.gov” WH2.
It’s probably easier than calling them “Who”; could be confusing. As in “who’s on first” and so on. The good news is that one of our forest issues attracted the attention of someone in the WH2. Who? Why? What did they have to say? Time will tell, hopefully, when the review gets finished. Stay tuned. This review process seems to hold up transparency, which I think is a value of the Admin, so there’s that, or at least it was.
Biden plans to “bring transparency and truth back to the government to share the truth, even when it’s hard to hear,” she said.
I’m sympathetic, as saying you’re going to do things is easier than actually doing them. I have the same problem.
Why NSC Was on Email Chain
According to sources, NSC is usually involved in Wildland Fire issues. According to these sources, USDA tried to involve NSC to get the debate at the CEQ.EOP vs. NSC.EOP level (more level footing), as opposed to CEQ.EOP vs. Department level. Seems like a good strategy for USDA, even if it didn’t work this time. Perhaps the question was resolved at WH2. Thanks to FOIA, we should find out. And we should all thank TSW Contributor Andy Stahl for this opportunity to gain insight into the Department and EOP conflict resolution processes and the role of WH2.
Who Knew? Seed Orchards are Cool Again…
Just when you think everyone who knew about something is retired.. it becomes cool again.. reforestation, nurseries, and now at least one seed orchard! Since we are using them for good purposes now -as in climate adapation and carbon sequestration- reforestation is back to being white hat-ish at least.
Check out this video with Jad Daley of American Forests on a refurbished Gifford Pinchot NF seed orchard! As Jad says “let’s get to work on reforestation.” We finally have the bucks.
“Hey #Forests4Climate, coming live from this rehabilitated seed orchard on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Give a listen to hear the story, and how we can use REPLANT & other BIL/IRA funds to rebuild the #reforestation supply chain. ”
The Deep Fire in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest has been using pack mules to shuttle supplies to firefighters punching in handline “deep” in the forest. Crews have made tremendous progress. Other incidents in California in remote areas are still chunking away. The Smith River Complex in the Six Rivers National Forest is now 57,200+ acres and the Happy Camp Complex is pushing 16,000 acres on the Klamath National Forest.
The mules seem surprising unconcerned about the fire; but then I’m more familiar with horses. Let’s lift our Friday beverage glasses to the brave and helpful pack mule!
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Reintroducing Wolverines to Colorado
This Denver Post article is interesting on the “letting them come back on their own” vs. “reintroducing them” debate..
M56 was the first wolverine seen in the state since 1919, but it didn’t stay put. It eventually wandered out of the state and was shot and killed on a ranch in North Dakota.
Data collected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows that wolverines are moving back into some of their previous territories all on their own.
That’s why Colorado officials should wait for wolverines to reintroduce themselves instead of forcibly moving wolverines into the state, said Jeff Copeland, executive director of the Wolverine Foundation and a wildlife biologist who studied the species for more than 30 years.
Wolverines have moved back into all of the lower 48 states they previously occupied except Nevada, California and Colorado, Copeland said.
“Reintroduction is kind of happening on its own,” Copeland said. “The fact that we can see that and watch it is very exciting to me.”
Wolverines have been spotted recently in places where they hadn’t been for a century. In June, a young male was spotted three times in and near Yosemite National Park in California. Utah wildlife officials have confirmed several sightings.
The species’ rambling nature is what gives Copeland hope that a human-initiated reintroduction won’t be necessary in Colorado.
“It’s a very messy process,” he said. “It’s a last resort. It’s not the first choice because you’re going through a capture process, trying to capture these animals, transport them thousands of miles and then drop them off in completely new habitats and expecting them to live.”
Because wolverines do not live near each other, taking one or two will impact the ecosystem of that area, Copeland said.
But other advocates for the species said there is risk in waiting and hoping that wolverines reestablish themselves here. Even if a breeding pair make its way down south, more will have to follow to make sure there is enough genetic diversity, said Michael Robinson, senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity.
“Colorado should do it on the principle that wolverines belong in Colorado,” Robinson said. “They’re part of the natural ecosystem and Colorado’s ecosystem can make a big difference.”
I also think it’s interesting how ideas about ecosystems and climate change are blended in this article.
“The governor continues to join so many Coloradans who share his enthusiasm for reintroducing the native wolverine, last spotted in 2009 in our state, to better restore ecological balance in wild Colorado areas,” Gov. Jared Polis’ spokesman, Conor Cahill,
So we need them to “restore ecological balance.”
Colorado’s high snowy mountains are the species’ largest unoccupied territory and will only become more important as a warming climate shrink the snowpack the wolverines need for dens.
“There is a real role for Colorado to play in conservation here,” Odell said. “Wolverines really need Colorado.”
So Colorado will be balanced (unless climate change gets worse) with wolverines, but Montana will be unbalanced if the wolverine habitat declines or goes away. Does that mean once Montana enters the state of unbalance, it can or can’t get more unbalanced if other species exit or enter? Maybe balance is not a useful or meaningful concept in this context.
The most significant stressor on wolverines in the coming years will be climate change, according to an analysis by the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Wolverines create high-altitude dens in the snowy mountains in the winter and raise their kits there to keep them warm and protect them from predators. Wolverine mothers need deep snow that lasts long into the spring months.
That type of snow will become rare in the American West as the climate warms. Wolverines will lose an estimated 30% of their habitat in the lower 48 states in the next 30 years and 60% of their habitat here in the next 70, according to the National Wildlife Federation.
But will Colorado really be “balanced” just by getting wolverines back? Because that’s also said about wolves.. and grizzlies. I think “wanting all species back everywhere they used to be” is a human idea but unlikely to happen due to climate change and a variety of other factors. But ecosystems are not somehow “unbalanced” without them.. they are just.. different.
It seems like the Biden Admin is doubling down on efforts by their conservation friends (e-bikes, Monumentizing, conservation leasing), and possibly throwing their renewable friends under the bus.
People didn’t want Lava Ridge, but then local people seldom want big wind projects. So I wonder what the political calculus was about this one? If someone knows the inside scoop, please share at my email on the donate widget to the right. Privacy provided.
Still No Wolves For You, And Some Wolf History
Colorado Sun article. There was an initiative put on the state ballot to reintroduce wolves, even though they were moving down on their own from Wyoming. Colorado Parks and Wildlife seems to have done an excellent job of listening to people about this and coming up with a plan.
Well worth a read.
One thing that caught my eye was this:
Lambert credits the negative perception of wolves to a much older source: the colonization of North America.
“When white, colonizing Europeans hit North America, they were kind of shocked to encounter animals that they had completely extirpated in Western Europe,” she said.
One thing I have found is that not many people are familiar with European history at the points when people left for what is now the US. If we took the timing of Spanish colonists in Santa Fe (since the British weren’t here in the west at that time) as 1610, well.. here’s what Wikipedia has to say about wolves in Western Europe (check out the decline).
If we take Spain specifically, here is a journal article that says:
Wolf records were widely distributed in mid-19th century Spain, being present in all its mainland provinces. The probability of occurrence was positively associated with landscape roughness and negatively with human population density and the landscape suitability for agriculture.
Perhaps the story is simpler. Wolves ate livestock there and were killed. People moved to North America, where wolves ate livestock and people killed them. Also there’s the issue of wolves killing people, which Wikipedia also has an entry on. My point is not that wolves are currently killing people here in the US; my point is that it was not unreasonable for people from countries where wolves-killing-people happened at times that wolves-killing-people was going on, to be afraid of wolves-killing-people. For example, if you migrated to the US from India in the 1800’s, at least from the provinces mentioned below, it would seem fairly reasonable.
Records of wolf attacks in India began to be kept during the British colonial administration in the 19th century.[33] In 1875, more people were killed by wolves than tigers, with the worst affected areas being the North West Provinces and Bihar. In the former area, 721 people were killed by wolves in 1876, while in Bihar, the majority of the 185 recorded deaths at the time occurred mostly in the Patna and Bghalpur Divisions.[34
There’s a Denver Post story with more interesting details about the other States’ willingness or not to give up their wolves. For example,
Montana officials, too, are still considering Colorado’s request, said Brian Wakeling, game management bureau chief at Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The state’s Fish and Wildlife Commission would make the final decision on whether to send wolves to Colorado.
Under state law, Montana wildlife officials would have to complete an environmental assessment before the commission could make a decision, he said. They may also want to complete a more rigorous environmental impact statement because of the controversy surrounding wolves, which could slow down decision-making, Wakeling said.
“It’s hard to sit here today and tell you whether that would take six months or a year,” Wakeling said.
Then there’s getting a 10j rule from the feds. The deadline, based on the initiative is Dec. 31.
***************************** Wind and Solar Resistance: Not Just Here
Robert Bryce wrote a lengthy piece on his Substack, summarizing local resistance around the world as well as links to his Renewable Rejection Database. Here’s one example from Israel. I wonder how many other rural people feel “an almost sacred bond” for land “passed down by generation.” The concept of “you need to lose so that other people can win” is an uphill push politically. Much depends on “what are the alternatives?” and our sympathies for the people feeling the pain.
On June 24, The Times of Israel reported that “The head of the Druze community in Israel, Sheikh Muafak Tarif, has warned the government to stop the work to construct wind turbines in the Golan Heights, or face ‘a reaction the country has hitherto not seen.’” The article continued, saying the wind project has:
Angered Druze villagers who see the project as a threat to their agrarian way of life, an encroachment on ancestral lands and a solidification of what they view as Israel’s occupation of the territory. They contend that the giant, soaring poles and the infrastructure needed to construct them will impede their ability to work their plots. They also say the turbines will disturb the almost sacred bond they feel to their land, which is passed down by generation and where families go for fresh air and green space.
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Native Alaskans Flout or Flaunt: King Cove Version
I’ve been trying to reverse engineer who really has the ear of the Biden Admin by noting when they flout the wishes of Indigenous people and when they flaunt them. Certainly the recent Monumentizing in Arizona was a flaunt. King Cove, however, remains a flout. From June of this year, on Alaska Public Media.
The Trump administration agreed to a land swap in 2019 that would allow construction of the road. But President Biden’s Interior secretary, Deb Haaland, said the department wouldn’t go through with it and moved to pull out of the agreement this March.
On June 15, the court of appeals sided with the Department of the Interior, and granted Interior’s motion to dismiss the case.
“We’re glad to see the Izembek court case wrap up after the Interior Department’s withdrawal of the challenged land exchange,” said Bridget Psarianos, an attorney with Trustees for Alaska, a non-profit environmental law firm.
But lawyers for King Cove argue that the land exchange is still valid. They say the land exchange agreement can only change if a future court rules favorably on the decision to withdraw, and that they couldn’t just dismiss the motion in court.
“We believe the land exchange is still legal and valid,” said Della Trumble, the chief executive of King Cove Corp. in a statement. “As Native people, we will continue to fight for our rights and demand tribal consultation, which the Department of Interior failed to honor before executing its March 14, 2023 decision to terminate the land exchange.”
Although the Department of the Interior pulled out of this particular land swap, it said it’s looking into alternatives.
Who were the plaintiffs?
National Audubon, The Wilderness Society, Defenders of Wildlife, National Wildlife Refuge Association, Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges, Wilderness Watch, Alaska Wilderness League, Center for Biological Diversity, and Sierra Club.
The effect of recreation on wildlife is a topic that has come up a few times here. It has apparently reached the visibility of a “conference theme,” at least in Canada: “Responsible Recreation: Pathways, Practices and Possibilities.” This conference in May focused on the Columbia Mountains in southern B. C., but may be of broader interest. You can still sign up to see the recorded conference until the 16th, but the written proceedings are available from this website.
From the conference description:
Recreation and adventure tourism opportunities and activities are expanding globally, with the Columbia Mountains region being no exception. From hiking, mountain biking, snowmobiling, dirt biking, cross-country skiing, to motorized and non-motorized watercraft use, all activities can have an impact on wildlife and ecosystems. However, empirical measures of impacts are often difficult to obtain, with unknown thresholds that ultimately affect the viability of wildlife populations and ecosystems. This limits policy development and impact management. Furthermore, the cumulative effect of multiple overlapping recreational and industrial activities on the landscape are seldom considered or addressed.
This one from Wyofile.
