Defenders of Wildlife Blog

A weekly homage to endangered species, large and small

Earlier this year, we saw an unprecedented level of attacks on individual species orchestrated by politicians trying to undermine the Endangered Species Act for the benefit of special interests (see Defenders’ comprehensive report, Assault on Wildlife). So this summer, we interviewed several wildlife experts from outside Defenders during their recent visit to Washington, D.C., to talk about current threats to imperiled wildlife and the importance of upholding the Endangered Species Act.

Saving Pacific Salmon

Zeke Grader knows a thing or two about the importance of salmon. He’s been in the fishing business his entire life. And for more than 25 years, he’s been executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA), an organization that represents some 25 different ports and commercial fishing groups up and down the West Coast.

As head of PCFFA, Zeke recognizes the direct connection between a healthy environment and the prosperity of independent fishermen and local businesses that rely on salmon and other fish for their livelihood. When the salmon start to disappear, so do the thousands of jobs that they support. That’s why the Endangered Species Act ends up protecting a whole lot more than just a few fish.

Salmon aren’t just the backbone of small-town fishing economies. They’re also an important cultural symbol for Native American tribes as well as thousands of Americans that grew up with the legendary Pacific salmon runs. Each year salmon return from the ocean to their historic spawning rivers and signal renewed abundance. Many communities still honor this tradition with annual salmon celebrations, like the Issaquah Salmon Days Festival near Seattle, which brings 200,000 people and $7.5 million to this small town each year. (Learn more about the economic benefits of salmon.)

But salmon are in real trouble because not everyone sees the direct benefit of preserving their habitat. Seventeen different runs of salmon, including four different subspecies, are currently protected under the Endangered Species Act. Many of those are at risk of being lost forever, and a few politicians are working to accelerate their demise.

At the behest of large agribusinesses and pesticide manufacturers, several members of Congress have proposed legislation to rollback protections for salmon and other imperiled species that are vital to the health of river systems from Seattle to San Francisco. Rather than protect wildlife and the streams they live in, these politicians want to allow corporations to profit from poisoning our waterways and running our streams dry.

With Zeke’s help, Defenders is fighting in the halls of Congress to make sure that doesn’t happen. We’re also fighting in the courts to uphold essential protections for imperiled species like salmon, steelhead and Delta smelt. (Read about two major victories for salmon and steelhead and Delta smelt). With your help, we will continue to stand up to powerful special interests in order to preserve our wildlife heritage for the benefit of all Americans.

Read Zeke’s latest commentary in the San Francisco Chronicle, defending protections for salmon and Delta smelt.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 31, 2011

A big win for fish and human health

(Seattle, Wash.) — Today, a federal judge upheld measures required to protect endangered salmon and steelhead from three highly toxic pesticides.  The protections were included in a biological opinion issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in 2008.  Pesticide manufacturers seeking to overturn those protections challenged NMFS’s findings, but the court squarely rejected their challenges.

Earthjustice, representing Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, and Defenders of Wildlife, intervened in the case to defend these important safeguards for west coast salmon and the fisheries jobs they support.

Summer Steelhead on the North Umpqua River.

“The best available science shows that these toxic pesticides pose a major threat to Pacific coast salmon,” said Steve Mashuda, an attorney with Earthjustice representing the groups. “Today’s ruling is yet another reason why the government must move quickly to ensure that pesticides are removed from Northwest salmon waters.”

The Court’s ruling turns back industry’s efforts to undermine no-spray buffer zones and other measures required  to protect imperiled salmon from exposure to the organophosphate pesticides chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and malathion.  These pesticides are known to contaminate waterways throughout California and the Pacific Northwest.

These pesticides harm salmon in a number of ways, including killing them directly, affecting their food supply and habitat, and interfering with their ability to navigate back to their home streams to spawn.  In addition to poisoning salmon, the class of organophosphate pesticides have been linked with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder  and  childhood developmental delays.

“The Court’s decision is a victory for everyone’s health,” said Aimee Code with the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides. “It foiled the pesticide industry’s attempt to evade the laws that protect both people and wildlife.”

“This case was ultimately just a diversion from the main issue.  The fact is, many pesticides are getting into the nation’s rivers and poisoning fish as well as destroying fisheries jobs,” said Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA).  “With this diversion behind us, the agencies can now turn to solving the real problem.”

The case stems from a lawsuit originally filed by conservation and fishing groups represented by Earthjustice in 2001.  In response to that litigation, the fishery experts at NMFS evaluated these pesticides and determined that no-spray buffer zones next to streams and vegetated strips to catch pesticide-laden runoff from fields are needed to protect salmon.

NMFS handed off implementation of the pesticide restrictions to EPA, the agency charged with regulating pesticides, almost three years ago.  Yet, EPA has still not taken any actions to implement any of these measures.

“EPA’s priority should be preventing the poisoning of America’s endangered wildlife, not boosting the profits of pesticide manufacturers,” said Jason Rylander, attorney for Defenders of Wildlife. “Now that the court has ruled, hopefully the agency will get back to saving imperiled salmon and steelhead without further delay.”

Already numerous alternatives to these pesticides exist. Many farmers avoid the use of these heavy-handed broad-spectrum chemicals because they kill beneficial insects and can lead to greater pest problems over time. In addition, many growers already set back crops from streams – land enrolled in the USDA Conservation Reserve Program utilizes setbacks from waterbodies.

Today’s ruling was issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

Read more about salmon and pesticides on the West Coast.

Supreme Court denies yet another attempt to roll back endangered species protections

Some anti-wildlife groups just won’t take no for answer. In five previous cases, the 4th, 5th, 11th and D.C. (twice) Circuit courts have firmly upheld the nation’s interest in protecting endangered species. All five decisions were appealed to the Supreme Court, and each one has been denied.  Now the Supreme Court has rebuffed a sixth such challenge, this one from the 9th Circuit, involving a constitutional challenge to federal protection of the threatened Delta smelt.

Chinook salmon are one of the many species that benefit from protections for the threatened Delta smelt in California's central valley.

In each of these cases, wildlife opponents have claimed that protecting endangered species is a violation of the “commerce clause” of the Constitution. The Commerce Clause allows Congress to regulate three broad categories of activity: (1) channels of interstate commerce, (2) instrumentalities of interstate commerce, and (3) activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. The clause gives Congress the power to regulate a wide range of issues affecting interstate commerce, including issues that affect the environment and public health.

In the latest case, agricultural groups argued that Delta smelt in California’s Central Valley could not be protected because they didn’t constitute “interstate commerce.” Defenders filed an “amicus brief” with the court supporting protections for the species, arguing that Delta smelt do affect interstate commerce. And we won. Again.

Though the imperiled fish aren’t necessarily bought and sold across state lines, its long-term survival is vital to the health of the entire ecosystem and clearly has impacts beyond the state’s borders. Protections for Delta smelt ensure there is enough water in rivers and streams, which keeps salmon populations healthy as well as myriad other aquatic and riparian species. The San Francisco Bay-Delta supports not only a robust commercial fishing industry but also countless local farmers, many of whom sell their goods outside of California.

The Endangered Species Act was signed into law by President Nixon in 1973 with strong bipartisan support. Its purpose was to prevent extinction and preserve our nation’s wildlife heritage for future generations of Americans, no matter what state they live in. Even if a species does not have immediate commercial value and does not itself cross state lines, every plant and animal is an integral part of a much larger web of life that sustains us all.

Read more on Defenders’ website and Greenwire (subscription only).

A weekly homage to endangered species, large and small

You’ve probably heard of the proverbial “canary in the coal mine,” but have you heard of the “trout in the cold stream”? Neither have I, which is why I just made it up to highlight the fact that the threatened bull trout is an equally vital indicator of the health of mountain streams.

The presence of bull trout populations are an excellent indicator of stream health in the northwestern United States.

Bull trout are a member of the salmon family and depend on pristine waters, more so than almost any other fish. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, bull trout habitat must meet strict requirements known as “the four C’s”: cold, clean, complex and connected.

Bull trout thrive in water that is below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. That explains why they’re only found in rivers, lakes and streams in parts of the northwestern United States and Canada where the water stays cold year-round. Bull trout embryos are even more finicky. Studies have shown that the survival rates of offspring are much higher when they’re born in water that tops out around 46 degrees Fahrenheit.

In addition, bull trout eggs are buried several inches beneath the stream bed, usually in gravel bottom streams that provide sufficient cover for the newborn fish once they hatch. Waters must be clear and relatively free of sediment, otherwise the embryos get trapped beneath sediment and fail to hatch. Juveniles do best in streams where there are logs, pools and shade beneath river banks that offer plenty of places to find food and shelter. And adults often travel more than 100 miles from lakes and large rivers to find smaller spawning streams that meet all these requirements.

For all these reasons, bull trout are extremely susceptible to disruptions to their natural environment, whether that’s extra sediment and runoff from nearby development, changes in stream temperature that result from global warming, or competition from non-native species. So when populations of bull trout start to disappear, as they have in recent decades, you know that something is wrong.

Bull trout once filled nearly 60 percent of the Columbia River basin and could be found in large numbers across much of Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, northern California and even into Nevada. Now only small populations exist in those states, they have been completely wiped out in California, and only a tiny remnant survives on the border of northern Nevada. Today, they occupy only half of their historic range in the Columbia River basin and less than a quarter of their historic range along the Klamath River.

Conservation Pays

A massive bull trout is rescued from a net.

The species was listed as threatened in 1998 and has since started to recover, especially in parts of Oregon and Montana. Where select populations are sufficiently abundant and stable, some regulated fishing is even allowed, providing a boon for local economies. Migratory bull trout can grow to sizes larger than 20 pounds, making them a favorite for recreational fishermen like at Montana’s Hungry Horse Reservoir, Lake Koocanusa and the South Fork Flathead River (see Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks bull trout fishing regulations). A recent economic study found that bull trout fishing in Montana alone results in additional income of $10 to 12 million, and double that once the money filters through the local economy.

Because of their threatened status, bull trout fishing comprises only a small portion of the regional fishing economy. But it could provide a much bigger boost if the fishery fully recovered.

Read more in Defenders’ report, Conservation Pays: How protecting endangered and threatened species makes good business sense.

Restoring vital salmon habitat on the Elwha River in Olympic National Park, Washington.

On September 17, I had the privilege of celebrating what will be the largest dam removal and ecosystem restoration project in North America.  After 100 years, the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams will be removed, the Elwha River will be set free and salmon will once again begin their instinctual journey to spawn up the river and its tributaries.

The Elwha dam about to be dismantled, setting loose the Elwha River and reconnecting salmon habitat.

I first worked on this issue in the late 1980s when I worked for the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Though it seemed like a longshot at the time, back then we dreamed about dam removal as an option to restore salmon runs. The Field Office Supervisor Dave Frederick and his passionate, dedicated staff pushed the issue. Then in 1992, the unthinkable happened. As a result of the persistence and political savvy of so many–federal and state government agencies, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and the environmental community–as well as the championing by Congressional leaders such as Congressman Norm Dicks and then Senator Bill Bradley, the Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Bill was passed. This set in motion the long process of dam removal that finally began on September 17, 2011.

As I arrived at the Elwha Dam site, I was welcomed by a series of works of art adorning the arches of the walkway.  The art expressed the importance and different values of the river to many different people, and there were several scientists and park employees there to explain the restoration project and the history behind the effort.

As I made my way across the walkway, I stopped and looked down at the foot of the dam where 73 salmon (someone counted) were swimming, headed upstream as they had done for ages—blocked for 100 years by this tall concrete dam and another further upstream, waiting…..waiting… waiting patiently for the dam to come down.

The work of local artists on display across the top of the dam celebrate the areas rich culture and history.

The ceremony was inspiring and, at a time when it seems that no one cares about protecting wildlife and that conservation is a fight and an uphill climb, I realized that this was the right thing to do for future generations. It was also a good reminder that persistence pays off.

The ceremony began with the approach of the Tribe singing and drumming and paying tribute to the river.  The actor Tom Skerritt (perhaps best known as “Viper” from Top Gun) was the master of ceremonies and introduced a host of dignitaries, including Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Park Service Director Jon Jarvis, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Mike Connor, Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk, Representative Norm Dicks,  Senator Patty Murray, Senator Maria Cantwell, Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles and Governor Chris Gregoire, who all gave their personal testimony to the importance of the event.  Even former Senator Bill Bradley was there.  Throughout the day, everyone from scientists to lawyers to activists had their own story to tell about their role, how hard a fight it had been and how energized and inspired they felt on this important day.

A view of the river, soon to return to its natural state.

The ceremony ended when Secretary Salazar gave the cue to fire up a bulldozer with a gold-plated bucket, which began breaking up the old cofferdam holding back the water.  The crowd cheered and the elders of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe stood to watch the beginning of what is not only an ecological restoration but a cultural one for them.

The restoration will begin in stages and will be completed in 2013.  Spawning habitat for five salmon species will be restored to 70 miles of river and tributaries, three quarters of which is pristine watershed within Olympic National Park.  Truly an ecosystem restoration, the project will also benefit bears, eagles, elk, river otters and a myriad of other species.

I plan to return every year with my former colleagues to watch the progress of this ambitious project and marvel at the salmon making their journey up an unimpeded watershed.

By Lori Abbot, Public News Service – CA

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Listen to this Public News Service story, featuring Defenders’ California representative Kelly Catlett.

The Army Corps of Engineers is requiring all levees like the one above to be cleared of vegetation.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Please, leave the trees: that’s what conservation groups who’ve filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are saying about a policy that requires all trees and shrubs be removed from California levees. The federal policy aims to improve flood safety by removing vegetation that the Corps maintains weakens the levees.

However, Kelly Catlett, California representative for Defenders of Wildlife, says there’s clear evidence that the levee trees, which represent the last 5 percent of riparian habitat in California, are vital to endangered wildlife.

“It provides habitat for species; it stops erosion, so it actually strengthens the levees with the roots of the vegetation; and the overhang provides shade, which cools the water, which is good for aquatic species.”

The policy was put in place after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf of Mexico coast.

Catlett says California’s needs are different, and contends a “one-size-fits-all” policy doesn’t work.

“It’s clear that this is a very ill-thought-out policy change. And when they did it, it seemed to be a knee-jerk reaction to what occurred in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina.”

There are other critics of the federal policy. The California Department of Water Resources has said removing the levee trees will cost billions of dollars that would be better spent on projects to make levees stronger. Catlett agrees.

“In order to comply with the policy, levee owners are going to have to divert limited funds that they have already allocated to do things like strengthen their levees and prevent under-seepage.”

The Corps maintains that trees can blow down during storms and take parts of the levee with them, and that the roots may provide a path for water to seep through the levees.

The lawsuit filed on Monday alleges the federal policy is illegal because the Corps hasn’t prepared an environmental impact study or consulted with federal wildlife agencies.

Click here to view this story on the Public News Service RSS site and access an audio version of this and other stories: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/20787-1

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