Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Brilliant, Blue, and Bouncing Back!

Defenders of Wildlife has set itself the goal of moving more than 100 endangered species up the federal recovery ladder over the next decade. Our “Road to Recovery” series will highlight several of these plants and animals and outline the challenges that lay ahead for improving their status.

Photo courtesy of John & Karen Hollingsworth / USFWS

The Karner blue butterfly was first identified in 1944 by the novelist Vladimir Nabokov. Though better known for his controversial book Lolita published 11 years later, Nabokov was also a dedicated lepidopterist who spent time as a zoology researcher at a Harvard museum. He described the Karner blue butterfly during a trip along the New York Central Railroad in Karner, New York (now part of Albany). Now, all that remains of the town is Old Karner Street, and the blue butterfly that shares its name has been considered endangered since 1992.

The Karner blue (Lycaeides melissa samuelis) was abundant in the 1900′s and once ranged from New Hampshire to Iowa and north into Canada. Today populations only persist in Wisconsin,  Minnesota, Ohio and Indiana, along with very small populations in New York and New Hampshire, having endured an astounding 99% reduction in population in the past century.

The Karner blue has an inch-long wingspan with light silver and brown hues on the underside of their wings and deep blue pigments on top. Adults drink nectar from an array of plant species, including rock cress, butterfly weed and goldenrod, and live anywhere from four to 21 days during which they mate and lay eggs. The Karner blue is bivoltine, meaning it produces two broods each year — one in spring and one in summer. The larvae have a symbiotic relationship with several species of ant that defend against predators and increase survival rates, though larva survival is ultimately dependent on the availability of just one plant.

Photo courtesy of Joel Trickwild / USFWS

The Karner blue butterfly’s annual life cycle is inextricably tied to wild blue
lupine since the larva eat its leaves exclusively. The majority of the remaining Karner populations are small, and several are at risk of extinction from habitat degradation.

Wisconsin currently supports the majority of the Karner population and is the only state so far to develop a comprehensive statewide Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP). As of 2006 the HCP includes 40 partners consisting of major forestry stakeholders, conservation organizations, county forest departments, utility companies, private landowners, The Nature Conservancy, and the Wisconsin Departments of Agriculture and Transportation. These groups are working together to make sure that open areas are maintained as butterfly habitat, while ensuring that potentially destructive activities like timber harvest, prescribed burns and mowing are compatible with long-term Karner conservation.

In New York, the Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission in New York is clearing away non-native plants and re-growing lupine to guarantee the butterflies have enough lupine. Since 1991 the Commission has been administering controlled brush fires to maintain the unique ecosystem for both plants and animals. In addition the preserve has been protecting precious habitat for the Karner as well as other native species.

For the last decade, captive-bred butterfly populations have been reintroduced to New Hampshire and Ohio by local conservation groups and are successfully breeding in the wild. The Federal Karner Blue Butterfly Recovery Plan proposed in 2003 outlines a plan to restore the species over a 20-year period. But many communities are taking the initiative to start butterfly restorations programs of their own. For example, students at Farnsworth Middle School in Guilderland, New York, began a project as part of their ecology curriculum about the Pine Bush ecosystem. Farnsworth’s seventh graders raise and study butterflies, including the Karner blue, which are then released in the summer. The students are active in scientific research with the Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission and are the only school in the nation where the students are allowed to handle the Karner blue.

With collaborative efforts like these, the future of these brilliant butterflies is looking much brighter. And because they have a such a short lifecycle, populations can bounce back quickly, which means it shouldn’t take much to move these blue beauties farther down the road to recovery.

Sierra Nevada habitat (©Pam Flick/Defenders of Wildlife)

Pamela Flick, California Representative

Good news! Three rare amphibians in the Sierra Nevada are set to hop onto the list of endangered species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in late April that the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog (Rana sierrae) and northern distinct population segment of mountain yellow-legged frog (Rana muscosa) have been proposed for endangered species status, while the Yosemite toad (Anaxyrus canorus) may receive threatened species classification. More than two million acres of critical habitat may also be designated to help protect these species in their high elevation territory.

Mountain yellow-legged frog (©Jason King/USFS)

Until recently, the yellow-legged frogs in the Sierra Nevada were believed to be the same species, but they actually took different genetic roads around 2.2 million years ago. These species were historically described as extremely abundant, but today are absent from more than 92 percent of their historic range. The Yosemite toad is currently found in less than half of its former territory.

A majority of the high elevation habitat for these frogs and toads – from 4,500 to 12,000 feet above sea level – is found on public land managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service. While these are both federal agencies, their management regimes are quite different. The National Park Service has a robust conservation mission and as such, national park lands have much stronger protections than national forests, where under their multiple use mandate, activities such as timber harvesting, livestock grazing and off-road vehicle use can destroy important habitat. Not surprisingly, populations of these Sierran amphibians have persisted in greater numbers and distribution in the more protected national parks compared to the surrounding lands managed by the Forest Service.

So why are these once common and widespread frogs and toads now dangling so precariously on the edge of extinction? A wide variety of factors have contributed to their decline. As with so many species disappearing around the world, habitat loss and fragmentation are key threats to wildlife. Dams and water diversions, road building, timber harvest and recreational use all lead to loss of habitat as well. Climate change and long-term drought also threaten these highly water-dependent species.

Grazing livestock damage these amphibians’ vital habitat. (©Pam Flick/Defenders of Wildlife)

We also lose individual frogs and toads due to predation; non-native bullfrogs eat them, as do fish. This can become a bigger problem when trout are intentionally stocked in historically fishless high elevation lakes and streams, introducing more predators to an area where frogs and toads have had few in the past. Another key threat is disease, including the chytrid fungus, Batrachochuytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), which has been strongly associated with dramatic amphibian declines worldwide.

The Yosemite toad has been hit especially hard by more than a century of unsustainable livestock grazing practices. The high elevation meadows and streamside systems that these toads prefer are extremely sensitive to disturbance. Livestock often congregate in and near sensitive water sources, trampling stream banks and causing wet meadows to lose water critical to the toad’s survival. Approximately one-third of all known Yosemite toad habitat is within active Forest Service grazing areas. Despite the fact that there has been a reduction of livestock allowed in these areas, the damage has been done, and the meadows continue to suffer from eroded channels, bare patches from heavy trampling and grazing, altered plant composition and reduced plant production.

Yosemite toad (©Pam Flick/Defenders of Wildlife)

Designation of more than two million acres of critical habitat for these frogs and toads will go a long way toward protecting them. This designation will include lands and waters essential to the conservation of the species and may require special management considerations or protection. But it’s important to note that critical habitat only means that we have to ensure actions taken by federal agencies will not destroy key habitat needed by these species. The designation does not affect land ownership, and continued grazing and habitat development could continue to be an obstacle to these species’ recovery.

Defenders strongly supports the proposed protections for these rapidly declining amphibian species to pull them back from the brink of extinction. We have been leaders in helping to revise national forest plans in the Sierra Nevada to better account for the role of wildlife, and our collaborative work on the Dinkey Landscape Restoration Project on the Sierra National Forest includes some of the lands proposed as critical habitat. We hope that by making their native range a safer place to live, we’ll be helping the Yosemite toad and yellow-legged frogs edge closer to recovery.

©James Ownby

Mark Salvo, Federal Lands Policy Analyst

There are few birds in the American West that know how to party like sage-grouse. Oh sure, you’ve got your hummingbirds with their swooping and diving and your huge, gawky sandhill cranes with their flamboyant, noisy mating rituals. But for sheer spectacle, nothing beats the sage-grouse and now is the perfect time to see them strut their stuff because it’s mating season out West.

Sage-grouse dancing occurs from March to May. In early spring at dawn, and often at dusk, sage-grouse congregate on “leks”— ancestral strutting grounds to which the birds return year after year. To attract a hen, males jockey for position, fan their tail feathers and swell their breasts to reveal yellow air sacs, and then, just as quickly, deflate them to make an utterly unique “swish-swish-coooopoink!” sound that can be heard from over a mile away. Scientists aren’t certain what about this flamboyant display is attractive to females, but it works. Take a look:

Sage-grouse are the charismatic ambassador of the “Sagebrush Sea,” a term given to the vast sagebrush prairie that once sprawled across thirteen western states and three Canadian provinces. Lewis and Clark described the grouse in their journal as the “cock of the plains”, and nineteenth century travelers reported seeing huge flocks of sage-grouse that darkened the sky as they lifted from valley floors. Native Americans emulated sage-grouse in ceremonial dress and dance. Settlers hunted the bird for food, and even collected sage-grouse eggs in spring for table use. Centuries of westerners have admired sage-grouse as fellow dwellers of the high desert, and birders travel from around the world to see sage-grouse in the wild.

Unfortunately, like too many other iconic western wildlife species, sage-grouse are in trouble. Sagebrush grasslands are a heavily used landscape. Humans have plowed, sprayed, burned, drilled, developed, mined and grazed millions of acres of sagebrush habitat. The remaining habitat is fragmented and degraded by weeds, wildfire, juniper encroachment, utility corridors, roads and fences. Sage-grouse range has been reduced by almost half with the loss of sagebrush steppe and grouse populations have declined to just ten percent of their historic numbers.

Sage-grouse in the snow (© Alan St. John)

William Hornaday of the New York Zoological Society was among the first to express concern for sage-grouse in 1916, publishing a pamphlet titled “Save the Sage Grouse from Extinction: A Demand from Civilization to the Western States.” Conservationists have heeded his call and launched a west-wide campaign to protect the grouse and the Sagebrush Sea. After struggling for more than a decade, we finally got a break in 2011 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service committed to review sage-grouse for listing under the Endangered Species Act by 2015. The date certain for a range-wide sage-grouse listing decision has compelled a multitude of federal and state agencies and local entities to finally develop conservation strategies to protect and recover sage-grouse and their habitat.

Defenders of Wildlife is heavily engaged in these planning processes. We are analyzing thousands of pages of documents and working to improve federal and state conservation strategies. In Washington, DC, we are urging the Obama administration and Congressional representatives to strengthen conservation initiatives for sage-grouse, and out West we are diligently working to ensure that new development won’t harm the species.

But sometimes you’ve just got to make time to enjoy these spectacular birds. We invite you attend a show at a sage-grouse lek this spring. Dress warmly, bring binoculars and coffee, and be ready for fun. And then join Defenders to conserve sage-grouse so that they may continue to impress for generations to come.

© William R. Curtsinger / National Geographic Stock

Juan Carlos Cantu, Mexico Program Manager

Humans can regularly be seen on Mexico’s beaches, umbrella drink in hand. But we’re not the only ones who regularly hit the country’s beautiful sandy coastline. Literally, every sea turtle species on earth nests on Mexico’s beaches, save one that is only found in Australia. That’s why we’re known as the sea turtle capital of the world, and that’s why the way Mexico protects its sea turtles matters on a global scale.

Current Mexican law classifies all sea turtle species as endangered. But unfortunately this really only means turtles are protected from direct harvest—meaning they can’t be killed for their meat, skin, shell or eggs. Yet other factors pose serious dangers, including damage to and destruction of sea turtle habitat. Even nesting habitat, which is particularly important to the survival of these species, was not legally protected.

An endangered Olive Ridley sea turtle comes ashore to lay her eggs. (© Steven Price)

But not anymore, because in February, a new Mexican law (known as Official Norm-162) took effect, and it offers a whole slate of new protections for sea turtle nesting grounds in Mexico.

Previously, only the most important sea turtle nesting sites have been designated as sanctuaries and natural reserves, which allowed them some level of protection but left the majority of nesting habitat vulnerable.  But now, the new regulation extends habitat protections to all turtle nesting sites. Here are just some of the things that this new and unprecedented regulation has accomplished for sea turtle nesting habitat:

Protecting Native Habitat
The new regulation forbids the removal of native vegetation in the nesting habitat. When coastal vegetation is removed, especially from sand dunes, it allows increased erosion that could eventually destroy nesting beaches. In addition, some turtles like the critically endangered hawksbill sea turtle even prefer to crawl up the beach all the way up to the vegetation to nest.

Loggerhead Sea Turtle Hatchling (NPS)

Putting Out Artificial Lights
The regulation also addresses one of the main factors that disrupt nesting turtles: artificial lights from houses, hotels and roads. These light sources can not only disorient nesting females, but they can be lethal to emerging hatchlings. As they climb their way up from their sandy nest, newly-hatched turtles look for the subtle light reflecting off the surf and waves to orient themselves towards the sea. Artificial lighting can point them in the wrong direction and when you are that young, one wrong turn can force you to use up your limited energy stores, leading to an almost certain death. Even those that eventually make their way to the surf can be too exhausted to swim away, becoming easy pickings for fish and marine birds. For the first time in Mexico, this new regulation calls for moving, changing or eliminating any light sources that illuminates a nesting beach or creates a glow that could disorient the females or hatchlings. These changes won’t happen overnight, but authorities are already informing beachside homeowners and hotels of the new rules.

Off-Road Vehicles
The new regulation also helps address the use of heavy vehicles on the beach. Heavy vehicles may compact sand, destroy nests and eggs, create deep ruts that can become traps for nestlings and basically tear up nesting beaches. No more. From now on, vehicles on nesting beaches have to be less than 300 kg in weight and can only be used for patrolling and management of the nesting site.

In the U.S., sea turtle nesting grounds are often carefully protected. (© Robert S. Donovan)

Spectators
A less obviously threatening activity also outlawed by the new regulation is the release of newly hatched sea turtles. Many hotels near nesting beaches offer guests the opportunity to be part of the release of hatchlings into the sea. The problem is that they keep the hatchlings in confinement for many days until enough people sign up for the activity. So when they are released after being held in captivity, they are too weak to handle the surf or avoid predators. Hatchlings need to get into the water as soon as possible after hatching so they can use their limited energy to swim away. This tourism practice is now forbidden, and hatchlings have to be released immediately. Also for the first time, those who want to watch sea turtles laying their eggs during nesting season will have to follow strict rules.

All of these and many more regulations will help protect beaches, nests, female sea turtles, their eggs and hatchlings from now on. I am proud to say that Defenders of Wildlife played a key role in making this happen. We worked on this regulation for many years; in fact we were the ones who proposed its creation back in 2002. It took a decade of lobbying before we got the Environment Ministry to develop it, and Defenders is one of only four non-governmental organizations credited with helping to make these new protections a reality. It took a long time to get these regulations adopted but now when sea turtles hit Mexico’s beaches to nest, they will find it a safer place than ever.

An oiled pelican on the Gulf Coast (©Krista Schyler/Defenders of Wildlife)

Laurie Macdonald, Florida Program Director

This Saturday, April 20th, will mark the third anniversary of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. By Earth Day 2010, we had learned the terrible news that 11 men had died in an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig and we hoped an environmental crisis was not going to follow.

But follow it did. Over 200 million gallons of oil spewed from a failed drilling operation nearly a mile below the ocean surface: hot, highly pressurized petroleum hydrocarbons that had been stewing for millions of years. In the days that turned into months of frantic work to seal the well, the oil and attempts to contain it caused direct and long term damage to wildlife and their habitat, including an unknown number of deaths.

How can there be restitution for such an assault on the precious and extensive resources of the Gulf? How can the environmental losses be restored and the related economic losses be compensated? Sea turtles, whales and dolphins surfacing to breathe and sea birds resting or diving into the ocean were covered with oil. Seahorses and juvenile sea turtles living in the floating sargassum seaweed mats were killed when the mats were showered with dispersants and burned. Below the surface, deep sea coral colonies and shallow seagrass beds died due to the toxic combination of dispersants and oil. And on the beach, shorebird nests and chicks were trampled and scraped away by uninformed workers during cleanup operations, while heavy equipment and lights disturbed and harmed wildlife. Every part of the Gulf was affected by the spill, from its shores to the sea floor. People dependent upon marine resources, from shrimpers to hotel and restaurant owners, lost significant livelihood, and some of those living along the affected areas suffer ongoing illnesses.

Oil floats in the water off the coast of Louisiana. (©Krista Schyler/Defenders of Wildlife)

A complex combination of legislation and lawsuits is causing the responsible parties, British Petroleum (BP) and others, to pay significant costs and fines. Penalties under the RESTORE Act passed by Congress on June 29, 2012 will make $4 billion available for restoration and improvement of the Gulf and for the people that suffered losses due to the spill. The RESTORE Act ensures that 80 percent of Deepwater Horizon civil and administrative penalties under the Clean Water Act will go to Gulf Coast restoration, and sets up a framework that can ensure coordination between the Gulf States and the Federal government.

Defenders’ Florida Representative Elizabeth Fleming and I recently attended a public meeting of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, which is evaluating which projects are most important to fund. The meeting was held to listen to information from the public about what actions we believed would be of the greatest benefit to the Gulf.

On behalf of Defenders, I presented a report that we produced with the National Wildlife Refuge Association that describes tracts of conservation land along the Gulf Coast and connections inland that should be acquired and added to the refuge system. This will protect wildlife habitat and help wildlife adapt to the impacts we are experiencing as a result of climate change and sea level rise. Examples include expanding the Gulf Islands National Seashore to protect sea turtle nesting beaches as well as people’s access to the coastline, and adding to the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge to complete the ocean-to-inland connection that wildlife will need to rely on as they adapt to climate change.

Shorebirds like this rely on the beaches affected by the Deepwater Horizon spill (©Krista Schyler/Defenders of Wildlife)

I pointed out three principles that I think should guide the decisions on how to spend the restoration funds. First, all projects, including those not focused on the environment (boat ramps and the like) must result in ecosystem benefits. Second, all projects should also take climate change and sea level rise into consideration. And lastly, the most important action we can take is to acquire valuable conservation areas that add to our system of natural resource lands and wildlife habitat.

Author Carl Safina in his book “A Sea in Flames,” closes with an observation on northern gannets — large, shining white seabirds that migrate from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico for the winter. Gannets dive for their prey and so they are directly affected by oil adhering to their bodies and by eating contaminated fish. Safina remarks that the first oiled bird whose image was in the news during the Gulf oil disaster was a gannet, and that seabird biologists speculated that up to a third of the population would be affected. The gannet already faces a host of threats near its breeding grounds, and is now suffering the impacts of the oil spill even 2,000 miles away, where it spends the off-season.

It is clear that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill will continue to affect wildlife and habitat for years to come. Our job now is to help our damaged Gulf regain its health with carefully planned, enduring restoration work.

Originally published at TalkingFish.org

A pending decision on fishing for cod and other groundfish in New England has big implications for marine mammals including some of the most endangered animals in our waters, the North Atlantic right whale.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is weighing a proposal that would expand commercial fishing into some 5,000 sq. miles of protected waters inside what are known as “groundfish closed areas” along the New England coast. More than 100 scientists sent a letter warning NOAA that this is a bad move for fish. But that’s not all. Scientists and conservationists also raised red flags about the potential harm to right whales, humpback whales, and harbor porpoises if NOAA ends protection for the closed areas.

Right whale sightings are concentrated within many of the current closed areas. Opening them to commercial fishing could put whales at risk. (©TalkingFish.org)

Right whale sightings are concentrated within many of the current closed areas. Opening them to commercial fishing could put whales at risk. As this map shows, hundreds of right whale sightings have been documented in the closed areas.

“Opening these currently closed areas to fishing only increases the overall risk of entanglement for whales,” said Sierra Weaver, an attorney formerly with the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife.

Defenders joined the New England Aquarium, the Humane Society of the U.S. and other groups in a letter to NOAA. The letter explains that fishing vessels are already accidentally killing too many of the area’s two most endangered species of large whale, the right and humpback whales. And allowing commercial fishing in areas that have been safe harbor for these animals will only make matters worse.

“With only about 400 North Atlantic right whales left, every loss is a blow to this critically endangered population,” Weaver added.

The groundfish closed areas have been an important part of plans required by the federal arine Mammal Protection Act to minimize whale deaths due to fishing. The groups make clear in their letter that allowing commercial fishing in an area the size of Connecticut would change all the underlying assumptions in the plan regarding risk and rates of whale mortality. There is little indication that NOAA or the New England Fishery Management Council has sufficiently considered this.

A right whale calf swims under the chin of its mother. Researchers sighted the pair 13 miles off Amelia Island, FL on December 28, 2012.

Others wrote to remind officials about how important whales are to the coastal economy. Maine naturalist Zack Klyver said the company he works for, Bar Harbor Whale Watch Co., takes 50-60,000 passengers to see whales each year.

“These visitors have an exponential effect on the New England economy as they stay in our hotels, eat at our restaurants, and pay for gas,” Klyver wrote in his letter. Maine’s tourism industry generated nearly $10 billion last year—more than the state’s fisheries, forestry and agriculture combined, Klyver wrote. And he included this tidbit: the Maine office of Tourism found that “whales” is among the top words people use to search the office’s website.

Many of the letters and comments to NOAA noted how little thought seems to have been given to the broad ranging effects of the decision on the closed areas, and how rushed the decision process seemed. One letter cited the old adage “haste makes waste.” In this case, a hasty decision could end up wasting the lives of animals we cannot afford to lose.