Monthly Archives: January 2012

EHD Impacts Deer Population in Northern Plains

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According to the Associated Press, epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD) has killed 90 percent of the white-tail deer along a 100 miles stretch in northeastern Montana. Other outbreaks were recorded in the Northern Plains states of North Dakota, Wyoming, South Dakota and Kansas.

The outbreak lead to a reduction in the number of white-tail hunting tags available in Montana, and a refund for tags already sold in North Dakota.

A wet spring and summer, plus a warm autumn meant that the biting midges that spread the disease were particularly numerous in the region this year.

Read the entire Associated Press story via the Yahoo! news site, here.

The silver lining, the article says, is that streamside cottonwood groves may be able to rebound while the white-tail deer population is in decline.

Photo: A biting midge, courtesy of USDA

Ducks vs. Ethanol

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The price of corn has hit $6 per bushel, and the rate for the Conservation Reserve Program has not kept up, says an article in the Minneapolis StarTribune. That means more farmers are converting the prairie and pothole acres that had been preserved on the Conservation Reserve Program to corn production.

That’s bad news for ducks. (It’s also bad news for pheasant, but that is more of an economic issue than an ecological one.)

Read all the details in the Minneapolis StarTribune, here.

What this excellent article doesn’t mention is that Congress failed to renew the ethanol tax credit, which expired on the last day of 2011. The New York Times says the expiration of the tax credit won’t impact the price of corn or the demand for ethanol.

Photo: Mallard drake by Erwin and Peggy Bauer, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

ESA Listings are Bigger in Texas

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Have a little patience with this New York Times article on how the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s settlements with WildEarth Guardians and the Center for BioDiversity mean “an unprecedented flurry” of Endangered Species Act listings in Texas. (There are 96 species under consideration in the state under the settlement.)

The top of the story tells you what you should already know. (Settlement. 250 species under consideration, total. Six years.) The middle tells you something that should come as no big surprise. (Oil companies sincerely oppose the listing of a couple of lizard species that will really cramp their drilling style.)

But the end, ah, the end, raises some important questions. Just how does a state manage such a flurry of listings? Who is paying the academic researchers whose work is so crucial to the listing discussion? Where will the feds find researchers? Where will the researchers find the time? All food for thought.

Read the New York Times article here.

Read our previous postings on:
the Houston toad and
the WildEarth Guardians/Center for Biodiversity settlement.

 Photo: Houston frog; courtesy of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Feds Tinker with ESA

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If the US Fish and Wildlife Service issues a press release, but no news outlet covers it (other than reprinting the release) is it news? The Endangered Species Act (ESA) guidance published in the Federal Register on Dec. 9 is news worth knowing for most state wildlife agencies.

(And likely, it’s not getting coverage because its being billed as a “policy draft.” But drafts quickly become policies, if no one is paying attention.)

The guidance aims to clarify the “significant portion of its range” phrase in the ESA. However, the language of the guidance seems to muddied the phrase’s meaning further.You’ve got to wonder when both the US Sportsmen’s Alliance (“continuing federal power grab”) and the Center for BioDiversity (“recipe for extinction”) are POed.

Thanks to the interpretation of the guidance by the Endangered Species Law and Policy blog of Nossaman LLP (yes, these are the lawyers who are suing your agency over wildlife and environmental issues, particularly if you are the State of California or the USFWS), it appears that:

-A species will now be protected throughout its range, even it is only at risk in one (“significant”) portion of its range. (This is what has the Sportsmen’s Alliance up in arms. Consider the impact on the Gunnison sage grouse, for example.)

-A species range will be considered only in its range now. Its historical range will be taken under consideration, but that’s all. (This is what has CBD up in arms. If a species is thriving in even a tiny portion of its vast former range, and wiped out in the rest, it won’t be considered at risk. Consider the impact on the gray wolf, for example.)

If you can’t get enough of this legal stuff, here’s a three-page interpretation of the guidance from Perkins Coie LLP, another law firm with an endangered species practice.

Read the USFWS press release here.
Read the guidance in the Federal Register here. (Be forewarned: It’s a 20 page PDF)

The US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are accepting public comment until February 7, 2012.

Photo: Gunnison sage grouse. Photo courtesy Bureau of Land Management

Feds Tinker with ESA

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If the US Fish and Wildlife Service issues a press release, but no news outlet covers it (other than reprinting the release) is it news? The Endangered Species Act (ESA) guidance published in the Federal Register on Dec. 9 is news worth knowing for most state wildlife agencies.

(And likely, it’s not getting coverage because its being billed as a “policy draft.” But drafts quickly become policies, if no one is paying attention.)

The guidance aims to clarify the “significant portion of its range” phrase in the ESA. However, the language of the guidance seems to muddied the phrase’s meaning further.You’ve got to wonder when both the US Sportsmen’s Alliance (“continuing federal power grab”) and the Center for BioDiversity (“recipe for extinction”) are POed.

Thanks to the interpretation of the guidance by the Endangered Species Law and Policy blog of Nossaman LLP (yes, these are the lawyers who are suing your agency over wildlife and environmental issues, particularly if you are the State of California or the USFWS), it appears that:

-A species will now be protected throughout its range, even it is only at risk in one (“significant”) portion of its range. (This is what has the Sportsmen’s Alliance up in arms. Consider the impact on the Gunnison sage grouse, for example.)

-A species range will be considered only in its range now. Its historical range will be taken under consideration, but that’s all. (This is what has CBD up in arms. If a species is thriving in even a tiny portion of its vast former range, and wiped out in the rest, it won’t be considered at risk. Consider the impact on the gray wolf, for example.)

If you can’t get enough of this legal stuff, here’s a three-page interpretation of the guidance from Perkins Coie LLP, another law firm with an endangered species practice.

Read the USFWS press release here.
Read the guidance in the Federal Register here. (Be forewarned: It’s a 20 page PDF)

The US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are accepting public comment until February 7, 2012.

Photo: Gunnison sage grouse. Photo courtesy Bureau of Land Management

Migrations At Risk

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The spectacular migrations of North America’s western half are under threat, says a new report from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS; the people who bring you the Bronx Zoo). These migrations include elk, caribou and calliope hummingbirds. The report doesn’t focus on specific threats to these long-distance migration as much as it points out which have the most potential to be saved by appealing to public interest.

The survey polled fish and wildlife biologists from 11 western states including Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico as well as drawing on the expertise of WCS’ own experts.

Read the report (a 45-page PDF here.)
Read a New York Times article on the report, here.

Photo: Caribou in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Wildlife Hotline to the Rescue

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The Bi-State Wildlife Hotline is a non-profit organization in St. Louis, Missouri that answers questions about troubled or troubling wildlife for area residents, an article in the St. Louis Beacon reports. The hotline, answered by trained wildlife rehabilitators, aims to cut admissions to wildlife rehab centers in half by being available to quickly answer questions about what to do about squirrels in the attic, baby birds that have fallen out of the nest or a coyote chasing the family cat, the article says.

State wildlife agencies often lack the funding to answer these types of questions, the article notes.

Similar hotlines exist elsewhere, all operated by groups of wildlife rehabilitators, notably in Marin County (a suburb of San Francisco), Rhode Island, northern Virginia, and Westchester County (a suburb of New York City).

The Bi-State Wildlife Hotline serves Missouri and Illinois.

It’s amazing how information can prevent small problems from turning into bigger ones. Can a wildlife hotline solve any of your state’s problems?