Author Archives: MadelineBodin

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?

Skunk Witness Relocation Program Raises a Stink

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This fall the town of Avalon, NJ moved some 80 problem skunks, but they are not telling where, reports the Press of Atlantic City. The Press quotes the town’s mayor as saying: “We’re trapping them and putting them in the witness protection program.”

While that’s a sound bite worthy of both Jersey Shore and Boardwalk Empire, neither local communities nor the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife are happy. They don’t want Avalon dumping its skunks elsewhere.

Read the full article in the Press of Atlantic City here.

No mention in the article of the federally endangered piping plover, which nests on area beaches and is threatened by (among other things) predation by skunks, raccoons, gulls and other creatures that have adjusted a little too well to development on the New Jersey shoreline.

To answer one of the commenters on the Press of Atlantic City article: Aren’t there more serious things to talk about? Absolutely. But the quote is funny and how serious can you be on the last working day of the year? Best wishes for 2012.

Disease May Be Behind Low Virginia Hunt Numbers

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Virginia is reporting a 10 percent to 15 percent decrease in harvests statewide this year, reports the Tidewater News. In addition to warmer weather and full moons, the article quotes a district wildlife biologist as saying that disease may have also played a role. About three percent of the deer in the Tidewater, Va. have been afflicted with disease, the article quotes the biologist as saying.
However, the biologist says the disease is bluetongue. That’s common in cattle, but fairly rare in cervids such as deer, notes a ProMed commentator. Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD) displays similar symptoms and is common in deer. A laboratory test can tell the two viruses apart, the comment says.

Midwest Wolf Delisting Expected to Stick This Time

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The final rule to remove the western Great Lakes population of the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act is expected to be published in the Federal Register today (Dec. 28, 2011).
The rule will take effect 30 days after publication, so if all goes as planned, that will be Jan. 27, 2012.

The rule applies to gray wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin and “portions of adjoining states,” according to the US Fish and Wildlife press release announcing the final rule.

A map from the US Fish and Wildlife Service of the “Western Great Lakes Distinct Population Segment” of gray wolves suggests that the adjoining states are North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, and the tiniest slivers of Indiana and Ohio.

More information about this population segment, including lots of links, is available from the Midwest region of the USFWS, here.

The USFWS species profile of the gray wolf is here.

Here’s a draft of the Federal Register rule.

Read the USFWS press release for details such as the total population in the area (4,000, with more than half in Minnesota).

This is the third time in the past five years that Minnesota’s wolf population has been delisted, notes the Saint Cloud Times. This time, the ruling is expected to stand, the article says. Read the rest here.

Read more in:
USA Today
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 

Map: courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service

“A ray of hope” on WNS in bats

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Scott Darling

In Vermont, residents have reported seeing colonies of little brown bats. Over the last five years most of the state’s little brown bats had been wiped out by white nose syndrome (WNS). In Pennsylvania, an abandoned mine appears to have 2,000 healthy bats.

Read the Associated Press article here. (It’s the better story.)
Read the Washington Post article here.

More good news: The Center for Biodiversity reports that Congress has directed that $4 million from the endangered species recovery fund go towards white nose syndrome research. But Congress has allocated for WNS before, and then reneged. It will be truly good news when research actually gets funded.
The Center for Biodiversity press release.

Photo: Scott Darling, Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, in the early days of the WNS crisis. Photo property of State Wildlife Research News. (Permission required for reuse.)

Paper Says US 531 Short on ESA Listings

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The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of imperiled species is merely informational. The United States’ Endangered Species Act (ESA) is regulatory; it can compel (or forbid) action to save species from extinction.

A recent paper in the journal Conservation Letters says that there are a lot more US species listed on the Red List as the equivalent of endangered or threatened than actually appear on the US’s ESA list. In fact, there are 531 more species on the Red List than listed under the ESA, the paper says.

The paper cites an inadequate budget US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) budget and the existance of a “warranted but precluded” catagory as the major road blocks to a complete listing.

What about politics? That’s where USFWS places the blame, says Scientific American’s on-line news site.

Read an international perspective from Asian Scientist, here.

Read the abstract in Conservation Letters, here. (The full article requires a fee or subscription.) See the whole article on the Center for Biodiversity website, here.

Photo: The New England cottontail is on the IUCN Red List, but not listed under the US Endangered Species Act. Photo by David Tibbetts, courtesy USFWS

Big Nosed Deer Deer in Mich. Is One of Several

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A deer with a weirdly swollen nose was found in Michigan this season. It was the fourth deer ever found in Michigan with a similar swelling, according to a wildlife biologist and pathologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Disease Lab quoted in an article in the Kalamazoo Gazette. The pathologist also says in the article that the only thing the deer have in common is an infection with the mites that cause mange.

State wildlife officials originally had no interest in this particular deer, according to an Associated Press report, but Kevin Keel, a wildlife pathologist at the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study in Athens, Georgia saw the odd deer’s photo on a deer hunting blog, and got involved.

Keel said in his blog post that in the last seven years he’s seen about 10 of these deer from states ranging from Georgia to Idaho. What causes the nasal swelling is still a mystery. The Kalamazoo Gazette article says that a bacterial infection seems likely, but the Athens lab hasn’t been able to isolate it yet.

It may turn out that there may be more of these deer out there than anyone thought. Just a week after the first posting, someone else sent a photo of a swollen-nosed deer to the same hunting blog.

Here’s the Kalamazoo Gazette article that first discussed the deer.

Bobwhite Report

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Last fall, the National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative, self-admittedly “a late entry in the long-running national drama” of bobwhite quail conservation,” published a 46-page report on the State of the Bobwhite. The report provides a valuable summary of population data, research and contacts for the 25 states participating in the initiative.

The report concludes that despite conservation efforts, bobwhite populations are still declining, all though they are not declining as steeply as they have in the past. A blog post on the report in the Charlotte Observer notes that all species dependent on the same grassland habitat are in decline.

What are other states doing that your state isn’t? Which states have notable bobwhite programs?

Read the Charlotte Observer’s blog post on the report, here.

Read the report itself, here.