Defenders of Wildlife Blog

The North End Trail near Raccoon Lagoon winds through Oak Woodlands.

California lawmakers introduced a bill this week that would designate the biologically rich Berryessa Snow Mountain region as a National Conservation Area, securing protections for its wildlife, lands, waters and abundant recreation opportunities.

U.S. Representatives Mike Thompson, John Garamendi and Lynn Woolsey introduced the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Conservation Area Act (H.R. 5545) on Tuesday.

“The Berryessa Snow Mountain Region is a unique national treasure and we have a responsibility to preserve it for our kids and grandkids,” said Rep. Thompson in a statement. “Designating the region as a National Conservation Area will preserve the land, help our local economies, and protect a wide variety of plants and animals. This is the right way forward for the region and our communities.”

Defenders’ California office has been campaigning for more than four years to help raise public awareness and support for Berryessa Snow Mountain, which is home to black bears, badgers, one of the Golden State’s largest wintering populations of bald eagles and more.

The bill’s introduction into the U.S. House of Representatives marks a major milestone on the journey to protect this special place. Stay tuned for more updates on how you can help pass this bill.

Related: Check out this awesome viewing guide to learn more about the region’s diverse plant and animal life.

Yesterday, wildlife opponents in the U.S. House of Representatives took two deadly swipes at some of America’s most important (and imperiled) animals.

In what has become a troubling tradition in recent years, several members offered amendments to an appropriations bill that undermine critical wildlife protections. This time, the insidious riders were added to the Commerce, Justice and Science funding bill for the next fiscal year.

The first provision, introduced by Rep. Jeff Landry (R-Louisiana.), would prevent the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) from moving forward with a proposal to expand protections for sea turtles. Each year, some 28,000 threatened and endangered sea turtles are caught in shrimp fishing nets that are currently exempted from requirements to use turtle excluder devices, or TEDs, which allow turtles escape from the nets.

Existing regulations have required most shrimp boats to use TEDs since the 1990s, but a loophole in current law exempts some types of trawl fishing from the requirement. In 2010 and 2011, unprecedented numbers of dead sea turtles washed ashore, prompting Defenders and other conservation groups to call for this loophole to be closed.  NMFS agreed and issued a proposed rule to do just that following settlement of litigation (see Defenders press release).  Now, Rep. Landry’s amendment could short-circuit the public’s ability to weigh in on expansion of these protections.

The other appropriations rider, introduced by Rep. Jeff Denham (R-California), would effectively block the recovery of salmon populations in California’s San Joaquin River. Friant Dam, completed in the 1940s, diverted nearly 95 percent of the San Joaquin’s water away from the river for agriculture, wreaking havoc on salmon and putting many commercial fisherman out of business. After years of litigation and negotiations, farmers and fisherman finally reached a settlement agreement to restore salmon to the San Joaquin. However, Denham’s amendment would scuttle restoration efforts by denying much-needed funding. Notably, all parties to the settlement agreement continue to support salmon restoration and oppose legislation that modifies its requirements. Clearly, Rep Denham is catering to outside parties and playing politics with our endangered species.

Defenders will be watching the appropriations process very closely over the coming weeks and months and doing everything we can to make sure these provisions are dropped from the final bill. We’ll need your help to hold members of Congress accountable for maintaining vital funding for protecting all our imperiled wildlife.

Stay tuned…

Damaged croplands could have a second life with solar farms.

BREAKING: The California State Legislature passed a highly controversial bill (AB 1073) today allowing a single massive solar-energy project to bypass mandatory environmental reviews by state and local regulatory agencies.

Despite concerns raised by local citizens, conservation groups and American Indian tribes, the California Energy Commission approved in 2011 an earlier iteration of the Calico solar project, but the project has since changed ownership from Tesserra to K-Road Power and change in content and scope.

Revamping the project would normally require additional local and state environmental studies to evaluate the impact of the new technology, but AB 1073 would send the project straight back to the California Energy Commission (CEC), who is expected to rubberstamp its permit.

Defenders’ California program director, Kim Delfino, criticized the legislature’s vote.

“The legislature’s action is a serious setback in the effort to plan for the best renewable energy future for our nation and California,” Delfino said. “The Calico solar project poses such a significant threat to the sensitive Pisgah Valley that it comes as no surprise that K-Road Power would push for legislation that short circuits any environmental review that would bring to light the project’s true impacts.”

DESERT TORTOISE, (C) Jeff Aardahl/Defenders of Wildlife

The Calico solar project is slated to be built on some 4,000 acres of environmentally sensitive public lands in Pisgah Valley, which provides vital habitat for threatened desert tortoise, golden eagles, desert big horn sheep and other imperiled wildlife.

A number of the nation’s leading conservation groups, including Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club, recently filed federal lawsuits against the project due to incomplete, insufficient environmental review of the project’s potential to harm imperiled wildlife and protected species..

“Unfortunately, California’s lawmakers allowed a single developer to bypass environmental laws designed to protect the public’s interest,” Delfino added. “This move is purely for the benefit of one company, does nothing to speed up our transition to clean energy, and will only lead to more controversy, costly delays and destruction of environmentally sensitive lands.”

Home to wolves, bears, and caribou, Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula was once known for its large moose population. But a lack of natural wildfires has changed conditions on much of the Kenai, and the once-abundant willow favored by moose have been succeeded by black spruce. This loss of food and habitat, compounded by factors such as excessive road mortality and overharvest of males, caused the peninsula’s moose populations to decline. And so last spring, the Alaska Board of Game decided that something drastic must be done to prevent the further loss of moose—aerial wolf control.

The plan was riddled with problems from the beginning. Regional biologists argued that predation was not the primary factor limiting moose and that necessary baseline data needed to make an informed decision was absent. Additionally, such a program would be difficult to monitor for success. Defenders echoed this message. We have long advocated that ADF&G use the best available science to justify their controversial predator control programs in order to ensure that wolves are not killed unnecessarily. We worked with others to demonstrate the biological shortcomings of the plans as well as highlight the controversial nature of wolf control on the Kenai.

And yet despite its obvious flaws, the Alaska Board of Game not only unanimously passed the plans for wolf control during their January 2012 meeting, it asked that the finalization of the plans be expedited. It seemed the aerial gunning plan was a go. Until last week.

In a welcome turn of events, ADF&G decided that rather than rush blindly to act on the Board’s ill-conceived plans it will instead collect the information necessary to make a well-informed management decision. Our message had been heard! This is a win not only for wolves, but the thousands of visitors flock to Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula annually to hike, ski, boat, hunt, fish and view wildlife each year as well.

For now, it appears Kenai wildlife programs are on the right track. In the meantime, Defenders will continue to be a voice for science and as always, our country’s wolves.

Learn more:

Read more about how our Alaska office is helping to shape responsible policies on predator control throughout the state.

Between 2000 and 2010, Wildlife Services killed more than one million coyotes.

Last week, a three-part series by Sacramento Bee Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Tom Knudson shed light on the federal agency responsible for killing so-called problem wildlife, an agency that many feel has lurked in the shadows for far too long.

Each year, more than 100,000 animals are killed by Wildlife Services, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in the name of livestock protection. More recently, the agency has also been called in to kill wolves and other animals in order to artificially boost game populations for hunters.

But as environmental groups have argued for decades, Wildlife Services’ approach is not only very costly but also often ineffective. Further, their shoot-first mentality perpetuates antiquated ideas about predator control instead of encouraging innovative nonlethal practices that allow people, livestock and wildlife to coexist.

In part one (“The killing agency: Wildlife Services’ brutal methods leave a trail of animal death,” Apr. 29), Knudson describes many of the lethal tools used by Wildlife Services to eliminate unwanted wildlife. Some of the more indiscriminate tools include head snares, leg hold traps, body grip traps and small poison capsules (see infographic), all of which are deadly to numerous species. Unfortunately, they do not always get their intended target. As a result, thousands of animals are “accidentally” killed each year, including some imperiled species as well as beloved pets. One former Wildlife Services trapper-turned-whistleblower reveals that he buried endangered golden eagles that got caught in snares he set for coyotes. Another Oregon family lost their dog to a Wildlife Services trap that was set to catch nutria in a suburban housing development.

Only in rare instances has Wildlife Services helped deploy nonlethal tools. Here, a federal agent demonstrates how to set up fladry to protect sheep from wolves.

Knudson moves on in part two (“Wildlife Services’ deadly force opens Pandora’s box of environmental problems,” Apr. 30) to present a wealth of evidence that suggests simply killing predators isn’t a viable solution. Coyote populations, for example, continue to rebound despite intensive lethal control by Wildlife Services. And in places where coyote populations have declined significantly, rodents, rabbits and feral cats tend to thrive, bringing their own set of problems. As scientists better understand the relationship between species, it has become increasingly clear that trying to wipe out an important native species can put the entire system out of whack.

Defenders wolf expert Suzanne Stone says the agency has completely failed to live up to its mission by relying solely on lethal control.

“If you look at their mandate, we could not have written it better for them,” said Suzanne Stone, Northern Rockies representative for Defenders of Wildlife, who has worked with Wildlife Services employees to promote nonlethal control. “It’s all about supporting wildlife conservation and promoting humane tools.

“That’s not what is happening on the ground,” Stone said. “Unfortunately, in parts of the western United States it just seems like they are still in the Dark Ages. They go at this as a kill mission. They are at war with wildlife.”

Defenders and several of our colleagues are also mentioned in part three (“Suggestions in changing Wildlife Services range from new practices to outright bans,” May 6), which highlights many of the nonlethal alternatives we have been working hard to promote. Wildlife Services has actually helped develop some of these tools and could play a critical role in educating ranchers about how to use them. But so far, they’re field agents have been unwilling to do so, Suzanne told the Bee.

“Their researchers are some of the top nonlethal specialists in the world,” Stone said. “They are developing and testing a lot of tools. But those tools are more often than not ridiculed by their field agents. They promote using lethal control almost always.”

The Wildlife Services agent who helped out at Lava Lake “was ridiculed, undermined and shunned by his own agency,” she added. “Not only are they undermining the use of this stuff in the field, they are actually undermining states that are trying to use these things.”

Thanks to Tom Knudson and the Sacramento Bee for exposing some of Wildlife Services more insidious practices and offering suggestions for reform. (Click here to read the Bee’s full editorial) We hope that additional scrutiny will inspire change in an agency that could be a helpful partner in promoting coexistence instead of needlessly killing our native wildlife.

Make way for manatees! That was the message coming from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) yesterday, with the establishment of new manatee protection zones in the state’s Flagler County. The move is an effort to protect the marine mammals in the summer months, when they are most likely to be found in the Intracoastal Waterway in Flagler County, and when increased boat traffic presents a greater risk of injury. And so from May 1 through Sept 7 (once the signs are posted), 2.7 miles of the 18.6 miles of Intracoastal Waterway channel will become slow zones.

The conservation measure aims to improve manatee protection while limiting the impact on local businesses and boaters. Kipp Frohlich, leader of the FWC’s Imperiled Species section, said of the new measure, “In summer, when the new manatee protection zones are in effect, the time needed for a boater to travel the entire length of the Intracoastal Waterway in Flagler County will increase by about 15 minutes.”

Collisions with watercraft continues to be the leading human-caused threat to Florida manatees, as the slow-moving manatees often cannot avoid the speed boats and other watercraft that frequent the waterways they call home. As a result, propellers and boat hulls inflict serious or mortal wounds, and most manatees have a pattern of scars on their backs or tails after surviving collisions with boats.

Defenders works to protect manatees from fast-moving boats, and has been advocating additional slow speed zones in dangerous areas such as Flagler County since 1997. Florida representative Elizabeth Fleming testified in support of establishing the zones, reminding commissioners yesterday that the state manatee management plan they adopted in 2007 identified addressing manatee-boat strikes in Flagler County as a priority action.

“With more and more boaters using the Intracoastal Waterway in Flagler County, these areas have become increasingly dangerous for manatees,” she said. “We’re pleased that FWC Commissioners voted to establish the protection zones and make these critical areas safer for the marine mammals.”

That wasn’t the only good news for sea cows this month: on April 26, the FWC denied a petition to undo protections for manatees that went into effect just this year, upholding the establishment of a manatee refuge in the waters of Florida’s Kings Bay that will expand protections for the animals at Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge.

Learn more:

Read more about Florida manatees and what Defenders is doing to protect these unique animals.