Lynx could be impacted by undoing oil and gas reforms.
Public lands throughout the country, including more than 245 million acres overseen by the Bureau of Land Management, are some of the last best habitats for wildlife like sage grouse, lynx and more. But some of these special places could soon be the target of a renewed push for oil and gas drilling.
Although wildlife must compete with the habitat degrading activities that traditionally occur on these lands — like mining, grazing and wildfire suppression — we have been very successful at making sure that healthy, intact forests and grasslands on public lands still offer wildlife a safe place to live.
Throughout the West, however, oil and gas drilling stands out as one of the biggest threats to wildlife and wild places. Drilling operations can consume thousands of acres of healthy habitat. Fortunately, the Obama administration has put in place leasing reforms that take into account just how important these lands are for thousands of species. The improved oil and gas leasing process now ensures the conservation of key wildlife and habitat, encourages public input and participation, and reduces conflict among stakeholders.
And while current onshore drilling levels have reached a 20-year high, Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming has introduced a bill that would reinstate the previous “Wild West” system of oil and gas leasing, which mostly ignored impacts on wildlife.
However, Congress is trying to turn back the clock and undo these commonsense reforms despite the risks and dire impacts of drilling in sensitive places. And while current onshore drilling levels have reached a 20-year high, Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming has introduced a bill that would reinstate the previous “Wild West” system of oil and gas leasing, which mostly ignored impacts on wildlife.
The sage grouse is another species that could be put at risk.
What’s worse is that Big Oil is pushing for this bad bill to be tacked onto legislation aimed at improving drilling safety in the wake of BP’s devastating Gulf oil geyser last year.
Don’t let this rollback sneak past, contact your senators today and ask them to vote NO on S. 1027 and vote NO on any amendment to S. 917 (the “spill bill”) that reverses the great progress made by Obama’s oil and gas leasing reforms.
It’s music to our ears. A team of documentary filmmakers–on behalf of the acoustic guitar industry–is advocating for stronger protections of ancient, or old-growth, trees in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.
Nearly every acoustic guitar, the filmmakers said, started as a seedling in this coastal temperate rainforest–the largest of its kind in the world. Luthiers fashion guitars out of old Sitka spruce trees. But logging of the species–mainly to meet construction demand overseas–has reached a fever pitch and threatens to wipe out guitar-quality Sitka spruce in less than a decade, they said.
“Trees that can reach up to 1,000 years old and twice the height of the Statue of Liberty should be protected and not made into door frames,” they said in an email statement. “The process of making acoustic guitars has remained unchanged for hundreds of years, but a critical shortage of ‘musicwood’ from over-logged forests threatens to silence the industry.”
We’re big music fans here at Defenders, but it’s wildlife and wild places that we care most about. Imperiled wildlife, like the lynx, depend on old-growth forests for survival.
These ancient forests and habitats need our help. And we are encouraged to see folks from the acoustic guitar industry join the chorus of voices calling for stronger protections for old-growth forest.
Buried in my email Inbox was a message from one of our citizen volunteers with the unassuming subject line, “South_4_Transect_Variation.” This subject actually meant something to me — it was a report from a route that this person had recently snow-shoed or skied near Lincoln, Montana, looking for signs of rare carnivores. It was sent by one of dozens of citizen volunteers that we helped train to identify and record tracks in the snow and other wildlife observations in an area where the Threatened Canada lynx and other rare carnivores were recently documented by the non-profit wildlife research group we partnered with for the trainings, Wild Things Unlimited. Yet I was busy with reports and phone calls and merely flagged the email to open and read later, so there it sat for several days.
Imagine my surprise when cleaning out my Inbox that Friday afternoon, I open the message to learn not only did this volunteer find and document tracks in the snow from the Threatened lynx, he also captured four full-frame photos of one visiting an elk carcass!
Citizen scientist Kalon Baughan measures lynx tracks in the snow.
Lynx print
Citizen scientist Kalon Baughan measures a single paw print in the snow.
The volunteer behind this remarkable report Kalon Baughan had already won our 2011 citizen scientist MVP award (informal designation), for identifying and documenting not just lynx tracks but also tracks from the equally imperiled and elusive wolverine. Yet with these photos his title has now been upgraded to citizen scientist “Rock Star” (equally informal designation, but quite justified).
Check out Kalon’s field notes (Citizen Scientist Trip Report 04 15 11 public) and see his lynx photos taken with the use of an infra-red remote triggering device. The beauty of this methodology is that it is considered to be “non-invasive,” meaning no animals were harmed or even affected by the observer, since Kalon simply used an attractant that was already present in the forest to capture this lynx on film.
What’s next? Photos of a wolverine perhaps? Wish our volunteer Rock Star good luck for the remainder of his extraordinary field season!
Defenders Talks Meso-carnivores on LA Talk Radio
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While we await Kalon’s next report, you can learn more about lynx, wolverines and fishers by listening to the radio clip above. I was invited on to the Hill & Dale show yesterday on LA Talk Radio to discuss efforts to conserve these meso-carnivores. The segment starts with a wolverine snarl (at the 12-minute mark) and covers the basic biology of the three species as well as threats to their survival in the wild. Don’t miss my radio debut!
Watch Feeling the Heat with Jeff Corwin to learn how climate change is affecting this cool cat.
A glimpse of its stubby tail or tufted ears and you may mistake a Canada lynx for its bobcat cousin, but this big cat is more adept at navigating the deep, snow-packed forests of Canada and a handful of northern states, including Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Montana,Washington and Wyoming. These finicky felines can’t live just anywhere. They have very specific habitat needs: older forest with good cover for building dens and younger forest with thick vegetation for hunting prey such as snowshoe hare.
National forests provide habitat for Canada lynx.
A snowshoe hare’s fluffy white camouflage is no match for the lynx’s expert eyes and long, tufted ears. Unless the bunny makes a dash for it, that is, since lynx aren’t designed for endurance chases. You would think that those long legs would offer some benefit to make up for its strikingly odd proportions (smallish cat body with oversize limbs and massive feet). But they do come in handy in deep, fluffy snow, which offers an excellent advantage over competing predators such as coyote and bobcat. Combined with those big snowshoe-like paws, the lynx is like a four-wheel-drive vehicle — able to go where others dare not.
The Canada lynx remains a threatened species in the lower-48 states, with only around 1,000 cats calling U.S. forests home. Unfortunately, climate change is making it tougher for them to survive. Loss of snow or changes in its density due to warming temperatures affects the lynx’s hunting abilities — as well as the number of snowshoe hares.
A proposal to allow oil and gas drilling on 300 acres of wilderness in Bridger-Teton National Forest outside Yellowstone National Park has Wyoming residents and our lynx expert Dave Gaillard on high alert.
As first reported by federal lands specialist Addie Haughey on Defenders’ dotWild blog, the drilling project would cut right through the Hoback basin–a critical corridor for lynx migration between parts of Wyoming and the rest of the Northern Rockies. Gaillard says, “We are aware of no better documented travel corridor for lynx in the contiguous U.S. than the Hoback Rim, or ‘Bondurant Corridor’ that passes directly through the project area.”
But it’s not just lynx that are in trouble. Local residents are concerned that drilling in the Hoback basin will cause extensive environmental damage, harm other wildlife, destroy the natural beauty of the area and disturb their way of life. The Citizens for the Wyoming Range put together the video below to share the concerns of these residents and explain why protecting the Hoback basin is so important.
Our national forests can provide vital habitat for endangered animals like lynx. Unfortunately, a new decision by the Obama administration would roll back forest protections that have been in place since the 1980s.
For lynx and other wildlife, it could be a forest foreclosure—one that denies these mysterious forest creatures and other wildlife the habitat protections they need to survive.
In an outrageous move, the Obama administration has proposed a new plan for our national forests, setting aside vital measures that have protected the homes of lynx and other imperiled wildlife since the days when Ronald Reagan was president.
Plenty is at stake. The U.S. Forest Service manages 175 national forests and grasslands spread across 190 million acres in 42 states and Puerto Rico.
These magnificent landscapes support diverse ecosystems and an incredible array of fish, wildlife and plants including iconic animals such as lynx, antelope, bison, bighorn sheep, elk and cutthroat trout. In all, our national forests provide habitat for more than 5,000 species of fish and wildlife and more than 10,000 plant species.
Our national forests are worth protecting. The deadline for submitting public comments on the Obama forest plan is May 16th.
Roll back existing safeguards for wildlife conservation and no longer require the Forest Service to maintain healthy and sustainable fish and wildlife populations for every species in our national forests;
Leave the decision of whether or not to maintain healthy, viable populations of many imperiled wildlife species at the discretion of individual forest managers, leaving the fate of hundreds of species uncertain; and
Allow individual forest managers the discretion to “give up” on protecting many needy species without facing accountability to the public.
Defenders of Wildlife leads the pack when it comes to protecting wild animals and plants in their natural communities.
