Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Wetlands in Izembek National Wildlife Refuge (©USFWS)

Isabel Ricker, Landscape Conservation Coordinator

A few months ago we told you about an important milestone being reached in the battle to preserve the wilderness and wetland integrity of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. This occurred when the Fish and Wildlife Service released its final environmental impact statement (EIS) recommending against building a $30 million road through the refuge. When a federal agency issues a final EIS, it has to wait at least 30 days before it can finalize its recommendation and begin its implementation. When the Service issued the Izembek EIS, the final decision rested in the hands of then-Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, but he subsequently retired from office without resolving the dispute over the proposed Izembek road.

So where do things stand at this point with regards to that road? Despite having fallen off the political radar screen in recent weeks, the future of this incredible wildlife refuge remains as uncertain as ever. And for that we can thank Congressional politics playing out as usual.

The problem stemmed from Salazar’s retirement and the need for the Senate to confirm his proposed successor, Sally Jewell. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska threatened to block Jewell’s nomination unless the Department reversed the Service’s recommendation against the Izembek road. So at the last moment before a vote on her nomination, an unfortunate deal was struck by the Department which agreed to seek further public comment from the supporters of the road. The deal between Senator Murkowski and Interior will likely delay a final decision on Izembek for many months, but it does not bind or force the Department to ultimately approve the road. So the fate of Izembek now rests in Sally Jewell’s hands.

Many species of birds, especially the Pacific black brant, rely on Izembek’s protected habitat (©Ryan Hagerty/USFWS)

Izembek was established in 1960 to protect some of the most distinctive and important wetlands in the world, and is home to an abundance of wildlife, including 98% of the world’s population of Pacific black brant (a sea bird), as well as grizzly bear, caribou, and salmon. The proposed road would bisect refuge and designated wilderness lands in order to connect the communities of King Cove and Cold Bay, crossing sensitive wetlands as well as steep slopes prone to avalanches. Numerous studies – by the federal government, the state of Alaska and wildlife experts – have concluded since the 1980s that a road through Izembek would permanently and significantly damage the wilderness and wildlife habitat value of the refuge. Furthermore, the road would set a dangerous precedent of sacrificing our nation’s protected wilderness national wildlife refuges for indefensible development projects.

The damage from the road is not being exaggerated. In the final EIS for the project, which was released earlier this year, the Service determined that the road would require the construction of eight bridges, 19 culverts and 254 stream crossings. Despite this unambiguous assessment by the Service, proponents of the road continued to push for its approval, saying that the road is a public health necessity for King Cove. Ironically, the village of King Cove had previously been provided with a $9 million all-weather hovercraft to cross the bay in medical emergencies to the air strip at Cold Bay, but the community ultimately gave the hovercraft away.

The hovercraft that they no longer wanted was able to reach Cold Bay in 20 minutes in a medical emergency. By contrast, the proposed road would take more than two hours to travel, even in the best of weather conditions. The hovercraft had a 100% success rate with 30 medical evacuations, while the road would be impassable for much of the year due to frequent icing, high winds, blizzards and other inclement weather. Pete Mjos, the region’s former U.S. Public Health Service director, has said that attempting to travel on the proposed road during the region’s extreme winter storms would be “foolish beyond reason” and “would clearly jeopardize life.”

The Aighleen Pinnacles in Izembek NWR (©John Sarvis/USFWS)

The best estimates suggest that between past efforts to enhance medical services to King Cove and the construction of the proposed road, the final bill to the American taxpayer would be close to $75 million, an extraordinary expense in a time of federal budget austerity. Two weeks ago, Defenders of Wildlife CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark and former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt co-authored an op-ed in the Washington Post that details the decades-long history of King Cove’s pork-barrel projects and the environmental consequences of this road.

Secretary of the Interior Jewell will face many tough decisions in her new position, but the Izembek road should not be one of them. While Izembek may be politically challenging to decide, from an economic and environmental perspective, it is easy and self-evident – the road must be rejected. We urge the new secretary to make the right decision – the honest and responsible decision – and preserve this iconic wilderness wildlife refuge. Both American taxpayers and the Izembek wildlife will thank her.

Claire Colegrove, Alaska Representative

©Flickr/Tdawg

When picturing our national forests, it is most common to think of endless expanses of trees and other vegetation dotted by lakes, rivers and staggering mountain peaks. We picture iconic North American wildlife like bears and deer inhabiting these expanses. The Chugach National Forest is a stark contrast to this more familiar image. The Chugach is the northernmost coastal forest – over a third of its nearly 7 million acres is made up of rock and ice. Visitors coming to this area expect to see salmon, orca and a wide variety of sea and shorebirds. A majority of the Chugach’s 500,000 annual visitors are heading to the Kenai Peninsula, the Copper River Delta or Prince William Sound, all places known for their coastal and marine recreation opportunities. This is a forest with strong ties to ice and the ocean, both for its dominant ecosystems and for human use.

In the spring of 2012, the United States Forest Service released their new planning regulations in accordance with the National Forest Management Act. This new planning rule represented a significant shift in federal forest policy. Most important to Defenders is the Service’s new approach to managing for biodiversity: they plan to look at the entire ecosystem as a whole. The Service’s new planning rule uses what is called a “coarse filter” method, which examines the overall ecosystem integrity. Ecosystem integrity is essential if you want to maintain a healthy and diverse population of plants and animals in a forest like the Chugach, especially in light of the continuing impacts of a changing climate.

Sea lions in Prince William Sound, © Flickr/J. Stephen Conn

The Forest Service selected eight “early adopter” forests throughout the country to lead the way, and the Chugach National Forest is one of them. Though the Chugach is equal in size to the state of New Hampshire, it has only 90 miles of Forest Service roads. The Chugach National Forest is commonly referred to as a “custodial forest” meaning the Forest Service’s management of it is largely for recreation and conservation purposes rather than timber harvest.

The management plan is executed in three phases: assessment, revision and monitoring. The Chugach Forest Service staff is currently in their assessment phase, collecting and examining the best available information on the current forest condition and how the forest is used. Next, they will revise their management plan over the next two years, and then set up a monitoring process to study how effective the new management practices are.

In the first phase, Defenders is working with the Service to determine how vulnerable the forest is to climate change, which will help determine the Service’s long-term plans for addressing it. We are trying to identify what areas of the forest will be most impacted by climate change, and what those impacts will look like both for the forest’s plant and animals species, and for the people who rely on them. This is called a climate vulnerability assessment. I will be leading the climate vulnerability assessment chapter examining the effects of climate change on the coasts and seascapes.

Short-billed dowhitcher, one of many species that rely on the tidal flats in Chugach NF © Flickr/Melissa Gabrielson, USFWS

In a coastal forest like the Chugach, there are a lot of ways climate change can affect the ecosystem, including sea level rise, glaciers and snow and ice melt, habitat composition changes and ocean acidification. All these factors have the potential to greatly impact habitat and wildlife survival, as well as human use of the forest. Sea level rise can increase habitat for some species and diminish it for others. Low-lying tidal flats along the Chugach comprise important nesting habitat for a large number of shore and seabirds, which means that even slight sea level shifts could have vast impacts on these species. As glaciers melt, they alter the composition of and access to the land. For example when a glacier melts, it not only exposes habitat previously covered by snow and ice, but it also causes the terrain that was compressed to rebound or rise up, which diminishes the effects of subsequent sea level rise. Ocean acidification can inhibit the ability of creatures like mollusks to form shells, which diminishes food for larger species (click here for more on this climate change impact). These are just a few examples of the many changes occurring in the Chugach that require us to put in place the best possible forward-thinking management practices and monitoring procedures so that we can know how wildlife in the Chugach is being affected, and what might be done to help them adapt.

The Forest Service is slated to complete their assessment phase late this summer. Once that is complete, they will begin a two-year plan revision process to update their 2002 management plan. We are looking forward to working with the Forest Service throughout this process to ensure the Chugach remains a thriving habitat for wildlife.

Izembek National Wildlife Refuge (c)USFWS

Alex Slippen, Communications Associate

This week, the Department of the Interior denied a request to build a road through remote wilderness areas of Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. The nearby city of King Cove, Alaska (pop. 938) had been advocating building a road that would connect King Cove to Cold Bay, Alaska, a move conservation organizations feared would severely damage the refuge and set a horrible precedent for future wilderness refuge management decisions.

Our president, Jamie Rappaport Clark, had this to say about the decision:

“The Department of the Interior was faced with a very difficult decision to make on the proposed Izembek road, but ultimately it has made the correct one given the wildlife and wilderness resources at stake.

The proposed road would have significantly damaged an ecologically sensitive and critical part of the refuge that migratory species like the Pacific Black Brant depend upon. It also would have set a dangerous precedent for the future of wildlife refuge and wilderness area management across the country.

Secretary Salazar takes his responsibilities for the Alaskan Native community very seriously, but in this case he was not persuaded that building a road through a wilderness refuge was the best solution to a difficult problem. National wildlife refuges are special places we as a nation have set aside as safe havens for wildlife. The Interior department has made a responsible choice to protect the integrity of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge and the wildlife refuge system as a whole.”

Want to learn more about how Defenders works to protect national wildlife refuges? Click here.

From Bill Eubanks and Defenders’ Board Member Eric Glitzenstein

An egret stalks through a cypress swamp (Credit: Farrell Grehan, National Geographic Stock)

Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve encompasses one of the nation’s most unique ecosystems, containing majestic strands of cypress domes, dozens of federally protected species, including the highly endangered Florida panther, and a critical hydrological pattern that serves as a filter for water that ends up in the Everglades and as the drinking water for South Florida’s residents. Due to climate change and rapid commercial and residential development in South Florida, the Preserve and its vulnerable resources are subject to increasing pressures, and it is critical that we create safeguards to protect these resources.

The most avoidable threat to panthers, vegetation and hydrology in the Preserve are the adverse impacts of off-road vehicles (ORVs). Prior to 1995, the National Park Service (NPS) did not regulate ORV use in the Preserve, which led to the creation of approximately 23,000 miles of ORV trail where use of these vehicles routinely disturbed soil and plants, flushed panthers and other wildlife from the Preserve, and disrupted water flows that are essential to maintaining an ecological balance in the Preserve and the Everglades.

In 1995, several conservation groups brought a lawsuit challenging that NPS’s failure to regulate ORV use in the Preserve resulted in numerous violations of federal environmental laws. NPS agreed to settle that case and to create an ORV management plan to significantly reduce the extent of ORV use in the Preserve to sustainable levels. In 2000, NPS issued its final ORV plan, which reduced the mileage of ORV trails in the Preserve from 23,000 to only 400 miles. When ORV users sued, claiming it was unlawful to curtail some ORV use, Defenders and other conservation organizations argued that the plan actually helped NPS better comply with federal laws. The court ruled in our favor and upheld the new plan with no more than 400 miles of ORV trails throughtout the Preserve — a sign that the Preserve’s resources could finally return to a more natural state.

In 2007, however, NPS reopened approximately 23 miles of trails in the Bear Island Unit — the most sensitive ecological area in the Preserve, and the area where panthers are most likely to be found. Those trails had been expressly closed by the 2000 ORV management plan, but NPS reopened them in 2007 with no explanation as to why the agency was reversing course. Defenders and other conservation groups brought a new lawsuit challenging the reopening of the trails. During the course of the lawsuit, it became clear that NPS reopened those trails simply because ORV users were urging that they be opened, and regardless of the on-the-ground environmental impacts of that decision.

Off-road vehicle (Credit: Ben Hallert)

Earlier this year, a federal court once again ruled in  Defenders’ favor. It determined that NPS’s trail reopening violated several environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. In particular, the court found that NPS is bound by its ORV management plan, and it cannot change its management direction mid-stream without going through all the necessary environmental reviews to make sure the new course of action will not damage the Preserve’s natural resources.

This outcome is a huge victory for the Preserve and its wildlife because it means that NPS cannot abandon the resource-protective 2000 ORV management plan that Defenders fought for and won in an earlier lawsuit. The 23 miles of illegally-opened ORV trails in a critical area have now been indefinitely closed to ORV use, and the agency will finally have  to grapple with some related questions about how it manages ORV use in ecologically sensitive areas.

As the Big Cypress National Preserve Off-Road Vehicle Advisory Committee (of which  Laurie MacDonald, Director of Florida Programs, is a committee member) continues to meet to make trail recommendations to NPS, these issues are sure to be front and center. In any event, while this case brings another chapter in the Big Cypress saga to a close by granting the Preserve’s resources much-needed protection, there is still much work to do in South Florida as climate change, development and motorized recreation continue to strain the unique resources of this diverse ecosystem.

Bill Eubanks and Eric Glitzenstein are attorneys with Meyer, Glitzenstein & Crystal, a public interest law firm in Washington, DC that has represented Defenders of Wildlife and other environmental groups in litigation over ORV use in the Big Cypress National Preserve for nearly 20 years.

Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada (Credit: Jerry Pierce)

Mary Beth Beetham, Director of Legislative Affairs

Cabeza Prieta. Laguna Atacosa. Kenai. Montezuma. Pelican Island. What do these names have in common? Each is a national wildlife refuge — special places where wildlife comes first, strung like a lattice of fine jewels across America, places as beautiful as the names that describe them. If important conservation programs go off the fiscal cliff or are subject to further budget cuts, they could be downsized or eliminated completely, to the detriment of hundreds of species of wildlife. Last week, we talked about one of these: the Endangered Species Program. This week, we’re taking a look at the National Wildlife Refuge System, part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).

Birdwatchers at Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge

With 560 refuges on approximately 150 million acres, the National Wildlife Refuge System is the largest network of lands and waters in the world dedicated to wildlife conservation. Refuges are home to more than 700 bird species, 220 kinds of mammals, 250 reptiles and amphibians, 1,000 species of fish and nearly 300 threatened or endangered species. The Refuge System forms the backbone of our nation’s efforts to protect our unique and irreplaceable wildlife heritage. And while wildlife comes first on refuges, they are for people, too. There is a refuge in every state and territory, and within an hour’s drive of most major American cities, and the millions of Americans who visit them each year not only enjoy their experiences at the refuge, but also contribute to the local economies of nearby communities.

How does the FWS manage this valuable national asset? The Refuge System’s work is divided into five areas: Wildlife and Habitat Management; Refuge Visitor Services; Refuge Law Enforcement; Conservation Planning and Refuge Maintenance.

Putting Wildlife First
The Wildlife and Habitat Management program is where the actual hands-on work to protect wildlife and habitats gets done. This work includes inventorying and monitoring animal populations and habitat quality; restoring wetlands, forests, grasslands and ocean areas; controlling invasive species; conducting prescribed burns and addressing wildlife disease outbreaks. For instance, this program restored wetlands and streams in a mine-damaged part of Nevada’s Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge and reintroduced the speckled dace, a tiny fish that had been extinct there since the 1950s.

Including People Too
Our wildlife heritage belongs to all present and future generations of Americans, and the Visitor Services program works to provide magnificent recreational and educational experiences to about 45 million wildlife enthusiasts each year, whose spending generates more than $4.2 billion and nearly 35,000 private sector jobs in local economies. People visit refuges to hunt, fish, photograph nature, observe wildlife and learn about the environment. The Visitor Services program staffs visitor centers and other facilities, and provides interpretive signs and brochures, tours and structured classroom or outdoor activities. They also manage the network of 40,000 volunteers that do 20 percent of the work across the Refuge System.

National Wildlife Refuge Law Enforcement Officers (Credit: Stefania Moehring)

Protecting ‘Em All
The Refuge Law Enforcement program is staffed with professional law enforcement officers who work to protect not only wildlife and habitats, but also Refuge System facilities and the people who come to enjoy them. Funding goes to emergency managers, field officers, regional law enforcement chiefs, training, equipment and supplies, all of which go to prevent damage or destruction of habitats and facilities, drug trafficking, burglary and other crimes. These workers play an important role in places like Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, located along Arizona’s border with Mexico, which has been heavily impacted by smugglers of both people and drugs. The current law enforcement force for the entire refuge system is just 287, but an analysis by the International Association of Chiefs of Police recommended a total of 845 full-time law enforcement officers.

Getting Conservation Right
Conservation Planning may sound boring, but this program is where the FWS develops Comprehensive Conservation Plans that ensure refuges are managed in a balanced, efficient and coordinated way. Refuge managers and planners work closely with the public, states, tribes, private landowners and other stakeholders to develop the plans for each refuge, which must be revised and updated every 15 years.

A walkway at Oregon’s Tualatin National Wildlife Refuge

Keeping it Running
The Maintenance program takes care of the Refuge System’s physical infrastructure — assets that are valued at $26.5 billion. These facilities include a fleet of vehicles and heavy equipment, visitor centers, storage buildings, observation platforms, walkways, roads, bridges, trails, fencing and water management structures, and maintaining such a varied array of assets is an important part of conservation work. For instance, this program maintains and repairs heavy equipment needed to remove thick swaths of invasive plants at Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge in California.

If funding for the National Wildlife Refuge System is cut further, it will have disastrous consequences for all these essential programs. The Refuge System already operates on a shoestring budget of only $3.24 per acre — just about half of what is needed!

Defenders is a member of a coalition of groups called the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement (CARE), which released a report this week called Fiscal Cliff Dwellers: America’s Wildlife Refuges on the Edge. This report describes the top 10 impacts that the fiscal cliff or additional funding cuts will have on the Refuge System:

• Visitor centers and even entire refuges will be forced to close.
• Opportunities for hunting and fishing will be lost.
• Without staff to coordinate them or resources to do the work, volunteers will be turned away.
• Local economies that rely on income from refuge visitors will lose revenue.
• Without enough people to enforce laws protecting refuges, their wildlife and their visitors, we will see an increase of poaching, vandalism and drug smuggling on refuges.
• People who enjoy birding and watching wildlife will lose the opportunity to do so.
• Without the staff or equipment needed to remove them, invasive species will spread.
• Habitat restoration and fire management will be halted.
• Responses to devastation caused by natural disasters will be delayed.
• The newly-initiated inventory and monitoring program, which tracks the size and health of wildlife populations and habitat, and can help alert refuge managers to potential problems, could be terminated.

The report calls on Congress to abandon these draconian funding cuts and instead, fully fund the Refuge System. Remember, the many species of wildlife that rely on these refuges for survival cannot speak for themselves — we need to be their voice. Please contact your members of Congress and ask them not to cut funding for national wildlife refuge and other programs that wildlife need.

The Upper Hoback of the Wyoming Range is part of a vital wildlife corridor for many species, including the imperiled Canada lynx.

It’s been almost a year since we heard about the U.S. Forest Service’s plan to allow oil and gas drilling in the Upper Hobackregion of the Wyoming Range, but the wait was well worth it. We learned on Friday that PXP, the oil company proposing to drill 136 new wells in a critical wildlife corridor, agreed to sell their leases and forego the project entirely!

This is a major victory for the broad coalition known as The Citizens for the Wyoming Range, which has been battling the environmentally damaging proposal for more than a year and a half. With the help of the Trust for Public Land, the coalition negotiated a buyout of all of PXP’s existing drilling leases throughout the entire Bridger-Teton National Forest, and the leases will be retired forever. That means the myriad species that use the forest–deer, elk, moose, bears, bobcats, pronghorn antelope, lynx and more–can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Defenders played an important role in raising awareness of the disastrous drilling proposal. By sending out alerts to our members, we were able to help generate more than 60,000 comments in opposition to the proposal. Further, Defenders expert David Gaillard led an independent effort to document wildlife that travel through the Upper Hoback region. He set up remote cameras to photograph all the species that would be at risk of losing vital habitat if drilling was allowed to occur. See a photo slideshow of his trip to setup the cameras, as well as the video below summarizing what he found:

Tragically, Dave died at the end of last year in a ski accident, so it only feels right to dedicate this incredible win for wildlife to all his hard work. And thanks to all Defenders supporters for helping to make this a lasting part of Dave’s legacy!

Read more about Defenders efforts to protect wildlife in our national forests.