Author Archives: MadelineBodin

Rare Birds: Dry or Oily?

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whooping cranes at Aransas NWR

Photo: Whooping cranes in Aransas NWR, by Steve Hillebrand, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

During Texas’s last drought, 23 whooping cranes died while wintering in the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, says an Associated Press story in the Tampa Bay Times. With another drought this year, wildlife managers can only watch and wait to see what happens.

The total population of wild whooping cranes is about 400. The only self-sustaining wild population is the one that migrates between Aransas in Texas and Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada.

Read the story in the Tampa Bay Times, here.

In Colorado, St. Vrain State Park sits in the middle of a productive oil field. The state is short on funds. Oil companies are eager to expand into the park, which is home to bald eagles, American white pelicans and the state’s largest blue heron rookery.

Read about the conundrum in the Denver Post: This news story lays out the facts. This columnist explains the dilemma.

What’s a state to do? In Colorado, they said yes to limited drilling on 1/12. Read about the decision in the Denver Business Journal.

Photo: Whooping cranes in Aransas NWR, by Steve Hillebrand, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Charity Permit Raffles

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Does setting aside big game permits for conservation organizations to raffle off:
(a) Give state wildlife agencies a way to support their conservation partners at no cost, or
(b) Give away an important public resource to favored groups, going against principles of fair government?

In Kansas, local nonprofit conservation organizations or Kansas chapters of national organizations based or operating in Kansas that actively promote wildlife conservation and the hunting and fishing heritage apply to receive one of seven big game permits to be raffled off. This year 98 organizations applied, according to a Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism press release.

The release says: “After a permit is sold by an organization, the amount of the permit is subtracted, and 85 percent of the proceeds are sent to KDWPT to be used on approved projects. After the projects are approved, the money is sent back to the organization for the project. The other 15 percent may be spent at the organization’s discretion.”

In Arizona, the Game and Fish Department opposes a house bill in the state legislature that would reserve a “large number” (50 antlerless elk permits are just one item on a long list of permits) of big game tags for qualified organizations to resell at auction. The legislature has put a hearing on the bill on hold.

Read the Arizona Game and Fish Department press release, here.

Read Arizona House Bill 2072, here. (PDF)

Rare Birds: Dry or Oily?

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During Texas’s last drought, 23 whooping cranes died while wintering in the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, says an Associated Press story in the Tampa Bay Times. With another drought this year, wildlife managers can only watch and wait to see what happens.

The total population of wild whooping cranes is about 400. The only self-sustaining wild population is the one that migrates between Aransas in Texas and Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada.

Read the story in the Tampa Bay Times, here.

In Colorado, St. Vrain State Park sits in the middle of a productive oil field. The state is short on funds. Oil companies are eager to expand into the park, which is home to bald eagles, American white pelicans and the state’s largest blue heron rookery.

Read about the conundrum in the Denver Post: This news story lays out the facts. This columnist explains the dilemma.

What’s a state to do? In Colorado, they said yes to limited drilling on 1/12. Read about the decision in the Denver Business Journal.

Photo: Whooping cranes in Aransas NWR, by Steve Hillebrand, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Alaska and RI Ban Felt Waders

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On January 1, 2012, Alaska and Rhode Island became the third and fourth states to ban the use of felt-soled waders in an effort to reduce the spread of the invasive algae, Didymo, and other invasive and noxious aquatic species. (The first two states are Maryland and and Vermont.)

A Missouri rule banning the waders in the state’s trout parks goes into effect March 1, 2012

Read about the Alaska ban in the Alaska Native News, here.
Read about the Rhode Island ban in the Rhode Island Striped Bass blog. (This regulation was passed so stealthily that I haven’t been able to find a brick-and-mortar news organization that covered it.)

Read an older round-up of felt-soled wader news in USA Today, here.

Keep track of the news on felt-soled wader bans on a state-by-state basis at the Center for Aquatic Nuisance Species website, here. (And bookmark the site for future felt-soled wader ban questions.) 

Our previous coverage on the subject is here.

Photo: What’s on your waders? A biologist conducts a fisheries survey in Wyoming. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Getting the Lead Out of Eagles

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Every year wildlife rehabilitors work with bald eagles suffering from lead poisoning, says an article in the Chronicle Herald of Canada. The article profiles one bald eagle rehabilitator in Nova Scotia who gives a vivid description of an eagle suffering from lead poisoning and pleads for the ban of lead ammunition.

Read the whole article here.

An interesting addition is a comment on the ProMed listserv yesterday, that says that in northern climes, there is a distict season for lead poisoning in bald eagles, from mid-November to March. It’s not the lead shot from waterfowl hunting that does these eagles in, the commenter says. The waterfowl have already migrated south. It’s the lead fragments found in gut piles and abandoned carcasses from deer hunting season.

Read the entire comment here.

These two eagle rehabilitators are hopeful, but the uphill battle on lead shot is illustrated by Iowa’s back-and-forth over the issue. Here’s a recent article from the DesMoines Register.

Photo: Karen Laubenstein, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

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

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