Water Users v. Cranes in Texas

Posted on March 13, 2013 by MadelineBodin

In 2009, 23 federally endangered whooping cranes died because of a drought. A recent court ruling says that this is an illegal take of a federally-endangered species, and that the federal law has precedence over Texas state law, which says that water is doled out on a first come, first served basis, says an article in Bloomberg.

The Texas state agencies will appeal the ruling, the article says.

The whooping crane flock in question is the world’s only self-sustaining wild flock, the article says, migrating from Canada to Texas. The article also implies that what was once “an isolated stretch of Texas coastal marsh,” where a tiny flock of whooping cranes survived unnoticed at a time when the species was thought to be extinct, is now home to the “world’s largest concentration of refineries and petrochemical plants.”

Read the Bloomberg article here.

Photo: Whooping cranes at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, by Steve Hillebrand, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Nevada Wildlife Director Gone — Again

Posted on February 5, 2013 by MadelineBodin

Ken Mayer, director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife, resigned “abruptly” last week, at the governor’s request. It was the second time he has left the position as the state’s wildlife director in the last three years. In 2010 he was dismissed by a departing governor, only to be reinstated by the incoming governor, Brian Sandoval, the same governor who asked for his resignation this time.

It’s clear that the true conflict is with the Nevada Wildlife Commission. An Associated Press article in the Reno Gazette-Journal suggests that the commission supports outdated wildlife management techniques, such as using predator control to boost game populations.

Is it a simple case of science versus politics, or are there other issues? Unless someone in the Nevada media chooses to dig in to the matter, it’s unlikely that we’ll know the full story.

Read the Reno Gazette-Journal article here.

There’s another article in the Reno Gazette-Journal that talks about the implications of Mayer’s departure for the conservation of sage grouse, but it is a little confusing because at first, it talks about listing the sage grouse as a federally endangered species as a goal harmed by Mayer’s departure, without mentioning — until the second page of the article — that the states have been working hard to enact conservation methods to keep sage grouse off the federal endangered species list. Whew. You can read that second Reno Gazette-Journal article here.

Photo: Ken Mayer, courtesy Nevada Dept. of Wildlife

Lynx Killed in Idaho

Posted on January 24, 2013 by MadelineBodin

A trapper killed a lynx in northern Idaho earlier this month, thinking it was a bobcat, the Coeur d’Alene Press reports. He immediately called state wildlife officials when he realized his mistake, the article says.

The animal was trapped just outside a region in northern Idaho that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had designated as critical habitat for the species listed as federally threatened. Even so, the CDA Press article says, lynx are rare in the region. The article says:

“Losing a lynx to trapping or any other cause is disheartening,” said Jim Hayden, Idaho Fish and Game regional wildlife manager for the Panhandle region. “Fortunately these are very rare events.”

Bobcats and lynx are similar looking, the article notes. Lynx have much larger feet and have fur between their foot pads.

Read the Coeur d’Alene Press article here.
This month’s Wildlife Express, a school newsletter from the Idaho Fish and Game Department focuses on lynx.

Photo: lynx in snow from USFWS

Good News from Pygmy Rabbit Relocation Project

Posted on January 17, 2013 by MadelineBodin

Penny Becker, a research scientist overseeing the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit recovery effort for the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife is pleased with the 40 percent survival rate of the rabbits released through a breeding program that brought in rabbits from surrounding states, according to an article in the Seattle Times.

That 40 percent survival rate compares to a survival rate of 10 percent for wildlife pygmy rabbits in Oregon, and 22 percent for wild pygmy rabbits in Idaho, the article says. The population was listed as federally endangered in 2003.

Read the entire story in the Seattle Times, here.

Photo: pygmy rabbit, perhaps in Idaho. Courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management.

ESA Truce Is Tested Already

Posted on May 16, 2012 by MadelineBodin

When two environmental groups reached an agreement with the US Fish and Wildlife Service last year, pending court cases on the endangered species status of hundreds of species were settled as well.

An article last week in the Washington Post says that the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s decisions on dozens of freshwater snails, and some other 500 species so far was the easy part.

Now a decision is needed on two species that could have significant impact on development in the West, the article says: the dunes sagebrush lizard and the lesser prairie chicken. With oil wells and wind turbines at stake, any decision is likely to mean some angst for the Obama administration, the article says, and may threaten the fragile legal settlement with the environmental groups.

Read the entire Washington Post article, here.

Photo: Lesser prairie chicken, courtesy of the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the Department of Agriculture

New England Bunny Hop

Posted on April 6, 2012 by MadelineBodin

New England cottontail in Maine Last autumn, nine New England cottontails bred in captivity at the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Rhode Island were released inside a predator-proof fence enclosing one acre of the Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge, also in Rhode Island.

You can read all about the New England cottontail captive breeding program in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums blog wildexplorer.org. Find the article here.

In Massachusetts, MassWildlife has been collecting roadkilled cottontails and cottontail skulls since 2010 to figure out how many and where the two species of cottontails are in the state. Out of the 500 specimens received, about 10 percent have been New England cottontails and several new populations have been uncovered.

MassWildlife would like to have more samples from the western part of the state, and hopes to reach sportsmen, highway department workers, animal control officers, and other interested citizens with their plea.

More info about the program is available in the April 2012 edition of MassWildlife News, which was not on line at press time. But do check for it here.(Info from the program from last year is available here.)

New England cottontails look an awful lot like Eastern cottontails. Sometimes even the experts need a DNA test to tell them apart for sure. But New England cottontails are the only one of the pair native to New England, although the Eastern cottontail is taking over its territory.

New England cottontail numbers have plummeted, earning the species an Endangered Species Act listing as “warranted but precluded.”

New State (And National) Listings of Endangered Species

Posted on February 29, 2012 by MadelineBodin

Six species of dragonfly are among the newly listed threatened and endangered species in New Jersey, according to a press release from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. The changes to the list focused on flying species. Most of the animals were birds, and in addition to the dragonflies, the Indiana bat was added to the state endangered species list. (It was already on the federal endangered species list.)

Non-breeding bald eagles were moved from endangered to threatened, reflecting their continued recovery in the state. Other bird species whose status was changed to reflect improved numbers are the non-breeding bird populations of osprey, peregrine falcon, red-shouldered hawk, northern goshawk, short-eared owl, and vesper sparrow, and the breeding population of Cooper’s hawk.

The black rail, golden-winged warbler and red knot were listed as endangered and American kestrel, cattle egret and horned lark were listed as threatened.

The ruling, which took effect Tuesday, also created a new category: “species of special concern.”

Read the press release here.
Read an article in the Asbury Park Press or
the Atlantic Highlands Herald.

The press release did not include the name of the dragonfly species listed, so here they are:

Endangered
Petaltail, gray (dragonfly) Tachopteryx thoreyi

Threatened
Baskettail, robust(dragonfly) Epitheca spinosa
Clubtail, banner (dragonfly) Gomphus apomyius
Clubtail, harpoon (dragonfly) Gomphus descriptus
Jewelwing, superb (dragonfly) Calopteryx amata
Snaketail, brook, (dragonfly) Ophiogomphus asperses

Earlier this month the state of California provided coverage to two species of yellow legged frogs under the California Endangered Species Act, according to a press release from the California Department of Fish and Game.

Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog (Rana sierrae) was listed as a threatened species and the southern mountain yellow-legged frog (R. muscosa) as an endangered species, the press release reports.The frogs have disappeared from 75 percent of their historical habitats because of chytrid fungus and because they are being eaten by non-native trout.

Read a brief article on the listings in the San Jose Mercury News, here.
Read the state’s Notice of Findings here. (Very brief.)

Finally, Canada has moved to list three bat species, the tri-colored bat (AKA eastern pipistrelle), the little brown myotis (AKA little brown bat), and northern myotis (AKA northern long-eared bat) as endangered species because of white nose syndrome. Read an article in the Edmunton Journal here.

Photo: Gray petaltail by Eric Haley

Endangered Species Act Findings Roundup

Posted on October 13, 2011 by MadelineBodin

Spurred by a legal settlement with two environmental groups, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has been cranking out the 90-day and 12-month findings. We had been bypassing the individual announcements as being of interest only to small groups of people, but as a whole, they do warrant your attention.

Click on the action to go to the USFWS press release for more information.

Sept. 26. Maybe to 374 aquatic species

Oct. 3. No to kokanee salmon in Lake Sammamish

News story.

Oct. 3. Yes to eight freshwater mussels in south Alabama and northwest Florida (endangered and threatened)

Oct. 4. No to Oklahoma grass pink.

Oct. 5. No to northern leopard frog

News story.

Oct. 5. No to cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl

Oct. 5. “Sort of” to five central Texas freshwater mussels, including the Texas fatmucket

Oct. 5. Yes to Ozark hellbender.

Previous coverage.