Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Jonathan Proctor, Northern Rockies Representative

I have some great news from Montana: All 14 bad bison bills in the Montana Legislature were defeated!

Legislators opposed to the recent progress on wild bison restoration in Montana (including the restoration of 61 wild Yellowstone bison to Fort Peck Reservation and the increase in tolerance for roaming bison around Yellowstone) made 14 separate attempts this year to legislate wild bison out of existence in the state. And 14 times they were defeated.

Some of the legislation never made it to committee. Some bills did, but then died in committee. Still others made it through committees and one or both chambers, but not through the appropriations process. Three, however, passed through both houses and were sent to Montana Gov. Steve Bullock. If even one had become law, it would have seriously harmed or even ended our bison restoration work.

But thanks to you and many others who contacted the Governor in support of wild bison, he vetoed all three bills that made it to his desk. He vetoed the first one on April 22, and the final two were vetoed just last week. Please take the time to thank him right now with a quick email, a tweet or a post on his Facebook page.

©Diana LeVasseur

You may recall these bills from my previous blogs. The bills varied in specifics but all were meant to stop wild bison restoration. One would have allowed county commissioners to veto bison restoration anywhere in their counties, even on federal land or tribal land. Another would have allowed landowners to shoot all bison that step on private property as they wander out of Yellowstone National Park. Another would have forced state officials to remove or kill all bison that cross the imaginary Yellowstone boundary. Yet another would have banned bison restoration altogether.

Now, all 14 bills are just bad memories.

Defenders worked tirelessly with our tribal and conservation allies – and with you, our members – to make this happen. My favorite part was working with several tribes to organize and attend a rally they held inside the capitol building rotunda. The event included a drumming circle that reverberated throughout the building and the capitol’s first-ever pipe ceremony. I also thought the full page ad that several tribes placed in many Montana newspapers was very effective. It generated a lot of calls, and a copy was placed on every legislator’s desk just as several of the most damaging bills were coming up for major committee votes.

Although having to spend time fighting bad bills seems like a waste of time and money, it may prove beneficial in the long run for wild bison restoration. Bison supporters – tribes, hunters and conservationists – are working together now on bison conservation more than ever, and many tribes seem more eager to restore wild bison. More Montanans have heard about this issue as a result and are overwhelmingly on the side of wild bison.

Thomas Christian, member of the Fork Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribal Council, emceed the rally in Helena.

Thank you to everyone who worked together to defeat these bills, especially representatives of the Assiniboine, Gros Ventre, Sioux, Salish, Kootenai, Nez Perce, Crow and Blackfeet Tribes; the Native American Caucus; tribal organizations like Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council and InterTribal Buffalo Council; hunting organizations like Gallatin Wildlife Association; lobbyists Ben Lamb and Jake Troyer; and conservation organizations including World Wildlife Fund, Buffalo Field Campaign, and National Wildlife Federation.

And thank you to our Montana members who contacted our state legislators, and all Defenders’ members for the support you’ve provided that makes outcomes like these possible. We can all breathe a sigh of relief (for now) and celebrate, knowing that bison still have a bright future in Montana. The legislature won’t meet again until 2015, and by then we hope even more Montanans will support the return of wild bison.

Suzanne Stone, Northern Rockies Representative 

Last weekend, Defenders helped cosponsor the 28th Annual Edmonds Community College PowWow, and I was fortunate to be able to attend. This year, the international tribal gathering honored the “Teachings of the Wolves,” which have renewed importance both for Native American communities and those of us working to restore a gray wolf population to the Pacific Northwest.

Children at the Quileute school especially enjoyed meeting the ambassador wolf (©Joe Whittle)

Defenders recognizes the deep historic cultural ties that many tribal communities have with wolves. Wolves have been demonized by politicians as being uncontrollable threats to livestock over the years and many ranchers have remained resistant to implementing readily available nonlethal tools that can dramatically reduce or prevent livestock losses. Some politicians have used these conflicts as platforms for promoting anti-wolf campaigns in the Pacific Northwest region. Thus, the recent PowWow was a welcome break from the heated rhetoric attacking wolves and provided a rare chance to learn from tribal leaders who have strong cultural ties to wolves.

We have met several times with leaders of the Quileute Tribe, whose reservation is located on the Olympic Peninsula, a key future recovery area for wolves. Just a few years ago, we helped organize a Mission:Wolf ambassador wolf program for the Quileute school and village dance center. Almost all tribal members participated in the event, from the elders to young children, and celebrated by presenting their sacred wolf dance.

When we heard about the Edmonds PowWow event honoring wolves, it was obviously essential to have the Quileute there to share their stories, dance and drumming. The organizers of this event agreed, and our support enabled the Quileute representatives to attend the event.

Participants at the PowWow were especially honored that tribal elder Roger Jackson was able to attend the event and even danced their sacred wolf dance. He told stories about the Quileute wolf society and the ceremonies that have been handed down from generation to generation. PowWow participants from several tribes danced while drummers performed a traditional song – listen here:

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Tribal member Marco Black (©Suzanne Stone/Defenders)

Tribal member Marco “Jacob” Black, who was the inspiration for the Jacob Black character in the popular Twilight series, spoke about the tribe’s respect for wolves and told their origin story in which the orca transforms into the wolf on land. He spoke of the importance of honoring the elders and encouraged all the young people to speak in the manner of their grandmothers and grandfathers – with respect. Like wolves, their voices are the voices of their ancestors.

As wolves struggle to disperse and return once more to key parts of their historic range in the west, there is an urgent need for a strong community of support and understanding for this much maligned and often persecuted species. Many Tribal members relate to the plight of the wolf in very personal ways. They want to honor their cultural heritage by sharing their spiritual deep respect for wolves and other native wildlife. As in the teachings of native leaders, their wisdom in regard to our natural world is needed now more than ever.

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”
- Chief Seattle, Duwamish (1780-1866)

Two great friends of wolves: Quileute tribal elder Roger Jackson and Defenders’ Representative Suzanne Asha Stone

Letts Lake, Mendocino National Forest (©Pamela Flick/Defenders)

Pamela Flick, California Representative

From the thundering rapids of Cache Creek to the snow-capped peak of Snow Mountain, northern California’s somewhat undiscovered Berryessa Snow Mountain region is home to iconic wildlife, including the rare and elusive Pacific fisher, thriving elk herds and one of our state’s largest wintering populations of bald eagles. Visitors from nearby Sacramento and San Francisco Bay Area encounter scenic vistas and a wide variety of rare species found nowhere else on Earth, thanks to the region’s distinctive geology.

Indeed, this rich landscape provides habitat for so many plants and animals – among them some of the most unique butterflies and dragonflies in the state – that it has been identified as a “biodiversity hotspot.” The lands between Lake Berryessa and Snow Mountain make up one of the largest tracts of relatively undisturbed public lands in the state, providing invaluable space for wildlife to roam. Spanning nearly 100 miles in length from north to south, and ranging from near sea level to over 7,000 feet in elevation, this landscape includes habitats at such a wide variety of altitudes and latitudes that it also presents an important opportunity for species to adapt as the climate continues to change.

Building on overwhelming support from a wide array of stakeholders – from business owners to local elected officials, wildlife enthusiasts to mountain bikers – Representatives Mike Thompson, John Garamendi, Jared Huffman, Anna Eshoo and Ami Bera, along with Senator Barbara Boxer, recently introduced the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Conservation Act (H.R. 1025/S. 483) “to conserve, protect and enhance for the benefit of present and future generations the ecological, scenic, wildlife, recreational, cultural, historical, natural, educational, and scientific resources of the lands.” These bills would designate nearly 350,000 acres of federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation as a National Conservation Area.

Fishers, an elusive and imperiled species, make their home in the Berryessa Snow Mountain region.

With nearby metropolitan areas expected to gain millions of new residents within the next decade, roads and development threaten to fragment this largely unbroken expanse and limit wildlife movement. The impacts of poorly managed recreation can also threaten important habitat. Protecting the Berryessa Snow Mountain region will safeguard the natural beauty, sensitive areas and the plants and animals that make their homes in this unique landscape. Protection will also secure existing recreation opportunities like hiking, boating, camping and horseback riding, while providing well-managed recreation experiences for residents and visitors alike.

Permanent protection for the Berryessa Snow Mountain region isn’t just good for the environment and wildlife, it’s also good for the economy. The outdoor recreation industry supports more than 400,000 California jobs and generates $46 billion (yes, that’s billion with a b!) of economic activity in the Golden State every year. Protecting our special places encourages tourism, supports local businesses and creates desirable places to live and work. Riffing on the old adage, protect it and they will come!

From meeting with key decision-makers to hosting town hall meetings with our conservation partners to engage local community stakeholders, Defenders is committed to continuing our work to support permanent protection of the Berryessa Snow Mountain region to ensure that wildlife as well as future generations benefit from this unique and diverse landscape just as we do today.

CEOs urge Sally Jewell to maintain wolf protections – Top environmental leaders sent a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell yesterday, asking her NOT to strip Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves nationwide. The pending national delisting proposal is expected to be released any day now and would remove federal  protections for gray wolves everywhere except for in the Southwest. The letter, signed by the chief executives of Defenders and five other prominent conservation groups, says the premature delisting would be disastrous for gray wolf recovery in America.

“Maintaining federal protections for wolves is essential for continued species recovery, and the unwarranted assault on wolves that commenced in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho after wolves in those states lost federal protections highlights the increasingly hostile anti-wolf policies of states now charged with ensuring the survival of gray wolf populations.”

The fate of America’s wolves is now in the hands of Secretary Jewell. Please contact her today and urge her to cancel plans to delist gray wolves across much of the lower 48 states. Help us reach our goal of sending 250,000 messages in support of continued wolf recovery!

Sheep rancher kills Yellowstone wolf – Hunting season is over in Wyoming, Montana and nearly all of Idaho, but that doesn’t mean wolves are no longer in danger. On Monday a rancher just near Gardiner, Montana killed a collared female wolf that he suspected of attacking his flock of sheep. The wolf, known as 831F, came from the Canyon Pack that spends much of its time in the Hayden Valley of Yellowstone National Park.

Federal investigators had determined that two wolves were responsible for killing 18 sheep, and the rancher was given two kill-on-sight permits as a result. However, lead Yellowstone wolf biologist Doug Smith told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that 831F was not the wolf responsible for the livestock losses. Instead, she was likely drawn into the area after the rancher left the carcasses on a bone pile on his property.

While some environmental groups suspect foul play, we see this as yet another important reminder of the importance of finding ways for people and wildlife to coexist on the landscape.

See the full news report from KPAX below:

Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Jamie Rappaport Clark, President & CEO
Bruce Babbit, former Secretary of the Interior 

The true price of Sally Jewell’s confirmation as the new interior secretary is about to be revealed. Before agreeing not to fight Jewell’s nomination last month, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) extracted a commitment from the Interior Department to delay a decision on whether a road can be built to the southwest Alaska village of King Cove, population 950.

A few weeks ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that the road would severely damage the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, a national treasure that is home to a vast array of creatures, including seals, salmon, caribou, bears and waterfowl. The senator was buying time in an effort to persuade the new secretary to go against the service’s findings and approve the road anyway. Now the final decision is pending — and more than wildlife is at stake. It is really the U.S. taxpayer who stands to lose if the road goes through.

The additional cost to federal taxpayers for building the road would be more than $33 million — a lot of money for one tiny village. And if it seems like you have heard this story before, that’s because you have.

In 1998, we were the interior secretary and director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, respectively, when the Izembek road proposal was earmarked in an appropriations bill headed for passage in Congress. But a lengthy scientific review determined that the road would devastate the Izembek refuge, so President Bill Clinton threatened a veto unless the earmark was removed.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), then chairman of the Appropriations Committee, rolled out his main argument: The residents of King Cove needed better access to an air strip in the event of medical emergencies requiring evacuation. In response, we suggested upgrading the existing ferry service from King Cove across Cold Bay to the air strip, which would avoid the need for a road through a wildlife refuge.

Stevens responded that an upgraded ferry would work, if we were prepared to also fund an upgrade of the existing marine terminals on the bay. We agreed. The senator then demanded an upgraded video teleconference link to a trauma facility in Anchorage. We agreed. Then he asked for a new ocean-worthy hovercraft capable of crossing the bay in any weather. We agreed to that as well. The final bill to the U.S. taxpayer? Over $50 million; more than $52,000 per resident of King Cove.

It was a huge price to pay to accommodate the rare medical emergencies of one small Alaska village, but accommodate them we did. Alaska got its taxpayer-funded medical emergency solution, and we helped ensure the survival of the Izembek Refuge. End of story.

Or so we thought.

Now the Alaska delegation is back, once again demanding a road through the refuge, as if the 1998 deal had never happened. That hovercraft purchased with taxpayer dollars? Despite a 100 percent success rate in carrying out more than 30 medical evacuations, local officials suspended service in 2010, saying the hovercraft was unreliable and too expensive to operate. But that hasn’t stopped them from using it to transport seasonal seafood workers from a nearby cannery.

Moreover, as Pete Mjos, the former medical director for the area, recently said, the proposed road would be impassable and even life-threatening during the region’s typical winter storms. Even in the best weather conditions, it would still be a two-hour trip. The hovercraft? Thirty minutes each way across the bay. And all without slicing through a pristine wilderness area with 21 miles of road, eight bridges, 19 culverts and 254 stream crossings.

Congress is on record calling for an end to earmarks for pork-barrel projects. And every day we hear more calls for spending cuts and belt-tightening. U.S. taxpayers have already chipped in more than enough for this project. Asking them to pay tens of millions on top of the more than $50 million they have already spent is asking too much. It’s time the Izembek road project was killed for good.

This letter was originally published in the Washington Post.

©Pauline I. Stacey

Laurie Macdonald, Florida Program Director

Last month, we celebrated the First Annual Everglades Day, designated by the Florida legislature in recognition of America’s unique and intriguingly diverse Everglades ecoregion. The date, April 7th, was also the birthday of the late Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, an iconic heroine and newspaper reporter who spent many years writing about and advocating for Everglades protection.

The Everglades region is recognized as an International Biosphere Reserve, a World Heritage Site and a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance. The area encompasses three national parks, and a dozen national wildlife refuges and marine preserves, as well as a host of state, regional and local parks, forests and wildlife management areas. Extensive private land holdings in the region are also an integral component of valuable wildlife habitat ranging from 100,000-acre ranches to thousands of one-acre lots.

Biodiversity here is among the highest in the nation, with many species found nowhere else in the U.S. Many of Defenders’ key species are in the region, including Florida panthers, manatees, sea turtles, gopher tortoises and other listed species such as the Everglade kite, wood stork, Big Cypress fox squirrel, American crocodile and Key deer.

The Everglades are truly a national treasure and deserve the utmost protection and management. Without adequate funding, we’d be unable to acquire the habitat and linkages that species like panthers and bears need, protect water quality or work to protect natural systems from degradation and invasive species.

Throughout the month of April, we took action to protect south Florida’s Greater Everglades region. Defenders’ Florida Representative Elizabeth Fleming, our lobbyist Travis Moore and I, as well as other Everglades Coalition members, met with volunteers from around the state in Tallahassee to speak with our state senators and representatives who were in the midst of the Florida legislative session. Our message: The state budget needs to provide adequate funding for Everglades protection and restoration projects that protect our water and wildlife. One third of all Floridians rely on clean water from the Greater Everglades Ecosystem, and more than 120 federal and state endangered and threatened species depend on the region’s varied wetland, upland and marine habitats. The health of the Everglades brings economic health to the region. Quite simply, what’s good for the Everglades is good for southern Florida and beyond, because its visitors and migratory wildlife come from around the globe.

Staff and volunteers on the steps of the Florida Capitol.(©Pauline I. Stacey)

This was the first trip to the state capital for Will Johnson, a Defenders volunteer who made the nearly 7-hour drive to Tallahassee from Naples, who said, “Everglades Action Day is a great opportunity to engage with legislators and a wonderful group of activists to help preserve and protect the beauty and wildlife of Florida.”

Another volunteer, Magdalena Braker, took the long ride by joining others on a chartered bus that the Everglades Coalition reserved for the event, starting in Miami and picking up activists along way. Magdalena urged legislators to provide funding and support for the Everglades with this message: “La riqueza natural y servicios ambientales de los Everglades se están marchitando debajo presiones urbanas y venimos para emfátizar la importancia de los Everglades tanto para las especies silvestre como para los ciudadanos del sur de la Florida.” Which means:

“The natural resources and ecosystem services of the Everglades are withering under the pressures of urbanization, and we come here to emphasize the importance of the Everglades, not only for the native wildlife, but for South Floridians.”

The nearly 60 volunteers who made the trip from around the state to Tallahassee attended more than 30 meetings with their elected officials, asking them to make funding for the Everglades a priority. And it made an important contribution to Everglades protection! Just last week, as the 2013 legislative session concluded, the Florida Legislature designated $70M for Everglades restoration projects. Thanks for all who participated in our action day! If you’re in Florida, join us next year for lobby days at the state capital! And no matter where you live, get to know your state representative and senator back in your district. It always makes a big difference when elected officials hear directly from their constituents.

Fl. Representative Powell meets with volunteers and activists (©Pauline I. Stacey)