Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Responsible beach management will allow imperiled wildlife like the piping plover to continue down the path to recovery.

BREAKING: The National Park Service (NPS) today announced new rules to manage off-road vehicle traffic on beaches so nesting and baby sea turtles and birds as well as pedestrians are protected in Cape Hatteras National Seashore, according to conservation groups.

In 2007, the groups—Audubon North Carolina, Defenders of Wildlife and Southern Environmental Law Center— turned to the courts for help in getting the NPS to  implement long overdue safeguards for pedestrians and beach-nesting wildlife on park beaches overrun by off-road vehicles.

“The park service’s rules are a compromise that provides protections for both pedestrians and wildlife while still allowing responsible beach driving,” said Julie Youngman, senior attorney, Southern Environmental Law Center.

The long-awaited rules are the final step in a process agreed to by all parties concerned about beach driving in the national seashore. During an interim management period prior to today’s rulemaking, rare bird and sea turtle populations showed signs of recovery, park visitation held steady or increased annually, and tourism remained strong in Dare County, NC, where much of the seashore is located, despite a recession.

“With both the number of hatchlings and visitors to the beach climbing, the success of responsible beach management is clear,” said Jason Rylander, senior attorney for Defenders of Wildlife. “The new rules will ensure that Cape Hatteras continues to provide enjoyment to beach users while protecting the unique wildlife that call the seashore home.”

Tourism flourished in Dare County during the period when interim protections were in place.  Rental occupancy receipts in Dare County increased by millions over the previous decade as recorded by the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau. Park visitation and gross occupancy inDareCountyduring peak breeding and nesting season under interim management held steady or increased compared to the three preceding years. According to a state report on tourism for 2009-2010, Dare County experienced an 8.8 percent growth in tourism—making it among the top growth counties in the state during a recession.  The county’s strong tourism industry employed 11,260 people with $172 million in payroll and generated $44.55 million in tax receipts for the state and $39.78 million in local tax receipts.

After three years of temporary protections, a record-breaking 153 sea turtle nests were recorded at Cape Hatteras.

As a unit of the National Park System, Cape Hatteras National Seashore has been required under federal law since 1972 to establish guidelines that minimize harm from the use of off-road vehicles to the natural resources of the seashore in accordance with the best available science for present and future generations. The new rules bring the NPS into compliance with that requirement.

The park service’s rules allow ORV use on the majority of the seashore. Twenty-eight of the seashore’s 67 miles are set aside as year-round ORV routes, with only 26 miles designated as year-round vehicle-free areas for pedestrians, families, and wildlife. The remaining 13 miles of seashore are seasonally open to ORVs.  The plan also proposes new parking facilities, ORV ramps, and water shuttles to increase visitor access to beaches.

“Under the reasonable, science-based management of the past few years, beach-nesting birds and sea turtles are rebounding at Cape Hatteras National Seashore and visitors continue to flock to this national treasure,” said Heather Starck, executive director of Audubon North Carolina. “The new rules appear to give the National Park Service the guidance to protect and manage the natural resources while allowing for responsible ORV use.”

With temporary beach driving rules implemented in April 2008, beach-nesting birds and sea turtles within the national seashore showed signs of recovery after reaching alarming lows under unmanaged beach driving. Only 44 sea turtle nests were recorded in 2004, but a record-breaking 153 sea turtle nests were recorded in 2010 and 147 sea turtle nests were recorded in 2011. No piping plover chicks survived to fledge (learn to fly) in 2002 and 2004, but 15 chicks fledged in 2010 and ten fledged in 2011.

How coal is killing America’s freshwater mussels

Mussels act as a water filter, keeping our rivers clean and healthy. But species like the tan riffleshell can no longer keep up with coal pollution. More than a third of freshwater mussel species are critically imperiled or already extinct.

Who cares about some little mussel that inhabits a few rivers in eastern Tennessee and southwest Virginia? Well, if you happen to live in the area, news that the tan riffleshell is on the verge of extinction could mean that your water isn’t safe to drink. For the rest of us, it’s yet another sign that pollution is taking a very serious toll on the environment.

These endangered mussels are the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” for Appalachian rivers, and they’re just one of 10 species identified in a new report released today called Fueling Extinction: How Dirty Energy Drives Wildlife to the Brink.

Like all freshwater mussels, the tan riffleshell makes its living by eating small particles in the water. These so-called “filter feeders” remove sediment and other pollutants, thereby keeping our streams healthy enough to support other plants and animals, including ourselves. So when these little shellfish start disappearing, that means one of nature’s vital water filters is broken and can longer keep up with all the pollution being dumped into the river.

North America once boasted some 300 species of freshwater mussels, according to the Freshwater Mollusk Conservation Society. But as a result of land development, over-harvesting and chronic pollution over the last 200 years, 38 mussel species are already thought to be extinct and another 77 are considered imperiled.

Today, the greatest threat to mussels comes from various by-products of coal mining and coal-burning power plants. These pollutants contaminate our waterways with heavy metals and other environmental toxins that can kill mussels as well as countless other plants and animals.

Mussels aren’t the only ones threatened by fossil fuel development, however. More familiar imperiled species include:

• Bowhead Whale: The remainder of the endangered bowhead whale population is at risk from contaminants and noise from off shore oil drilling and deadly collisions with ships. An oil spill could easily wipe out the small population of whales, which exists only in Arctic waters.
  

  This Kemp's ridley sea turtle was rescued from the Gulf oil spill.

• Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle: According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Kemp’s ridley is the most seriously endangered of all sea turtles, and they only breed in Gulf waters. In the immediate aftermath of the Gulf oil disaster, 156 sea turtle deaths were recorded – most of them Kemp’s ridleys.
• Whooping Crane: There are just 437 whooping cranes in the wild today, after overcoming near extinction in the 1940s. But the proposed Keystone Pipeline would run along the crane’s entire migratory path from Canada to Texas, and could destroy the flock with toxic waste , collisions and electrocutions from power lines, and the risk of oil spills.

Drilling in the Arctic. Spilling oil in the Gulf. Building a pipeline across the country. Removing mountaintops to get at more coal. All of these actions have dire consequences for our land and wildlife. Fossil fuels are dirty and dangerous, and they’re pushing many at-risk plant and animal species toward extinction. Oil company executives take home millions of dollars every year while the rest of us have to clean up the mess. It’s time to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and rescue these species from the brink.

To learn more about the top 10 U.S. species threatened by fossil fuels, visit http://fuelingextinction.org.

Read more about the importance of freshwater mussels on Defenders blog and in our magazine.

Watch the interview below with “mussel man” Monte McGregor, a malacologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources:

The Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area was created today.

BREAKING: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the creation of the Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area in Florida today.

The refuge aims to conserve the Everglades’ headwaters and fish and wildlife and to preserve the community’s ranching heritage.

“The creation of the Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area is not only critical for restoring imperiled wildlife, like Florida panthers and whooping cranes that depend on the region, but also for preserving a way of life for the ranchers who have made their living off the land for decades,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife.

The agency envisions expanding the small refuge to one day span some 150,000 acres north of Lake Okeechobee in south Florida, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s website.

Florida panther, courtesy George Gentry, USFWS

The majority of it will be protected through conservation easements purchased from private landowners, who would retain ownership of the land, as well as the right to raise cattle or crops, according to the Interior Department’s news release.

But the easements would protect the land from development, officials said.

“This endeavor is the perfect example of the payoff when diverse shareholders come together with a common conservation goal, and sets the stage for future collaboration to preserve Florida’s natural assets,” Clark said.

It’s been a chilly new year for Florida manatees, bad news for the temperature-sensitive marine mammals. Fortunately, Florida Power & Light officials came to the rescue during last week’s temperature lows, turning on the heater at the site of their former power plant in Riviera Beach, near the Palm Beach inlet.

Manatees are known to aggregate in warm-water outfalls at power plants on cold winter days, and those in the area didn’t waste any time in flocking to this site—check out some amazing footage below of the gathering. (Hint: watch until 0:47 to see some synchronized sea cow swimming!)

Loss of warm-water habitat now poses the greatest long-term threat to manatee survival. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) reported last week that a cold-related die-off of manatees in early 2011 contributed to the high numbers of deaths for the species for the year. Scientists predict cold weather will continue to be a problem for the manatee population over the next few decades when aging electric power plants will be shutting down. The FPL plant itself was demolished last year, but the power company is required to warm the water when it falls below 65 degrees until it completes construction of its new natural gas facility in 2014.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working on an emergency rule to expand protected areas for Florida manatees, creating a refuge that includes all of Kings Bay in Crystal River. The rules will ensure the sea cows will have greater access to critical warm water areas during the winter months and address public concerns associated with local, wintertime manatee viewing activities. Learn more about the Kings Bay proposed rule.

New technology was unveiled yesterday with hopes of decreasing the number of Florida panthers killed while crossing the state’s fast-moving highways. The Florida Department of Transportation announced the completed installation of a Remote Animal Detection System (RADS) along a deadly stretch of US-41 in the state’s Big Cypress National Preserve near Turner River.

Big Cypress National Preserve is a stronghold for the Florida panther. But the roads that cross the preserve also make it a very dangerous place for the endangered cats, and the Turner River area is especially deadly for breeding females and their kittens. The RADS system uses solar powered sensors to detect when large animals, like panthers, are close to the road. The system then advises drivers to slow down with bright, flashing LED lights on six warning signs placed along the road.

Although the RADS system has been used in western states, primarily for larger mammals such as elk, this is the first time the tool is being used as a way to save panthers. The system will be monitored to determine whether it is effective in detecting big cats and can be used in other parts of the state.

Defenders of Wildlife partnered with the US Fish & Wildlife Service to obtain grant funding for this job. We will continue to work for long-term solutions,  such as increased awareness and law enforcement in the panther zones, to make this deadly stretch of road safer for wildlife and people.

Learn more:

See other ways we’re working to help the panther population rebound in the Sunshine State.

By Glen Gardner, Public News Service

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A new study in Florida is aimed at helping determine the best ways for cattle and panthers to coexist.

The endangered Florida panther has made an amazing comeback. Once only 20 remained, but now the population is estimated at 100 to 160. However, finding a place for all those panthers to live without conflict is getting more difficult.

Last year, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission began receiving reports of the cats preying on calves, beyond their natural prey of deer, wild hogs and other native game. The University of Florida, with support from Defenders of Wildlife, is studying the situation in an effort to find solutions.

Caitlin Jacobs, a graduate student and researcher at the university, says radio tags on calves and motion-detecting cameras are being employed to help get answers.

“We have them placed around the study areas to try and capture pictures of panthers – for one, to show how much panther activity there is on these ranches.”

The two-year study is focusing on two ranches in southwest Florida where the goal is to determine the extent to which predators, in particular the Florida panther, are responsible for calf mortality.

The research, Jacobs says, should answer a number of questions about how the calves are dying and about how many panthers may have developed a taste for calves.

“Is there one cat that has learned that calves are easy prey?”

A Florida panther caught on one of the 15 trail cameras donated by Defenders to assist with the research on two ranches. Paw prints were found at the site the next day.

Liesa Priddy, owner of J-B Ranch in Immokalee and one of the ranchers participating in the study, says having good information is key to coming up with a plan to balance the panthers’ habitat needs with ranchers’ concerns.

“Only with that solid information, having everybody on board in agreement with what the problem is, are you going to be able to address it and come up with a solution.”

Twenty-four panthers died in 2011, which is tied as the most deadly year with 2003 and 2009.

Learn more:

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Already, 2012 has seen the death of one male panther, who was killed by a vehicle while crossing the road. Read about Defenders’ work to make roads safer for Florida panthers.