Sides square off on reform of Endangered Species Act

A flurry of activity has surrounded the issue of endangered species in the past month, from the field to Congress.

Several Western governors recently called for a reform of the federal Endangered Species Act that would promote conservation while giving states a greater say in how their lands are managed.

The 18 states that make up the Western Governors Association say they are uniquely affected by the 30-year-old law. Nearly 70 percent of the nation’s endangered species are located in the West, according to the association, which held its winter meeting Dec. 2-5 in San Diego.

Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican and the association’s chairman, supported efforts by House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., to change the law.

Pombo, the California rancher and congressman whose committee oversees environmental policy, spoke at the conference and said that reforming the act remains at the top of his agenda again when Congress reconvenes next month.

Pombo wants to require scientific peer review for any major decision under the act, including listing species. The congressman also wants critical habitat to be designated for species to be done more efficiently and with better scientific data.

Republican Govs. Linda Lingle of Hawaii, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, Kenny Guinn of Nevada and Judy Martz of Montana also joined the call for reform of the act at a news conference at the opening of the two-day session in San Diego. Gov. Bill Richardson, D-New Mexico, however, said a major overhaul of the Endangered Species Act wasn’t needed. He said Pombo was setting the bar too high by calling for “stronger science” instead of “sound science.”

“I think you need sound science,” Richardson said. “I don’t think what we want to do is create a scientific definition that increases the possibility of extinction.”

David Hogan, of the Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity, an endangered species and habitat protection advocacy group, said most of the Western governors, with a few exceptions, want to gut the act.

“What’s clear from this meeting and other legislative proposals is that many lawmakers are mounting a campaign to really eviscerate our nation’s strongest wildlife protection law solely to benefit their cronies in the timber industry, mining industry and others,” he said.

The governors’ association also praised a recent recommendation by Interior Department biologists against adding the sage grouse to the endangered species list, a determination that could wind up benefiting natural gas and oil producers but add to environmentalists’ concerns.

If Fish and Wildlife Director Steve Williams follows the scientific panel’s recommendation — as he has in his three years leading the agency — then environmental groups may sue. Williams has until Dec. 29 to decide.

Listing sage grouse as threatened or endangered would place restrictions on grazing, oil and gas leasing, hunting and other activities across 150 million acres of sagebrush habitat in 11 Western states, including Idaho.

The BLM owns nearly half of U.S. sagebrush habitat, about 57 million acres.

Some lawmakers were pleased by the recommendation.

“This recommendation is a victory for common sense, limited government and continuing local efforts that already are proving to be effective,” said U.S. Rep. C.L. “Butch” Otter, R-Idaho.

But environmental groups have already threatened to sue if sage grouse are not given federal protection.

“Our attorneys will be reviewing the final decision when issued and advising us on our legal options,” said Mark Salvo, Director of the Sagebrush Sea Campaign, a coalition of the groups that support listing the bird.

U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said conservation measures in Idaho can ensure the species’ success.

“Ranchers, conservationists, landowners and others have been trying to increase the number of sage grouse for almost 10 years,” Crapo said. “That teamwork, commitment, and on-the-ground action is the fastest way to restore species and it is working here.”

Sage grouse numbers have sharply declined since the early 1900s. Today federal scientists estimate that anywhere between 140,000 to 500,000 of the birds still survive.

The grouse depend on sagebrush, but in the past century as much as 50 percent of the plant has been replaced by farms and urban sprawl, intentionally removed on federal lands or replaced by alien cheat grass because of frequent fires. Much of the remaining sagebrush habitat is patchy, making it difficult for sage grouse to migrate from summer to winter habitat.

Despite the decline, the Fish and Wildlife panel said the threat of extinction is low. Sage grouse populations declined an average of 3.5 percent per year from 1965 to 1985. But since 1986, populations in several states, including Idaho, have increased or generally stabilized.

The rate of decline from 1986 to 2003 slowed to 0.37 percent annually for the species across its entire range, the panel said.

BLM officials say they hope to avoid endangered species listing with a plan that helps define methods for assessing risks to sage grouse. The strategy identifies things its managers can do that have proven successful in some areas of the West.

For instance, managers might consider practices such as “green-stripping,” or removing old vegetation and replanting native vegetation, along roads leading to oil and gas developments. This has been done in northeastern Utah.

The BLM also encourages efforts such as the work of a group in Idaho’s Shoshone Basin to manage BLM grazing allotments for both livestock forage and sage grouse habitat. The percentage of grouse habitat there rated as “excellent” rose to 24 percent of the allotment, up from 2 percent.

Following are recent endangered species field reports:

Grizzlies vs. roads: Environmental groups filed a federal suit in Missoula last week over the government’s decisions allowing maintenance of roads in grizzly bear habitat in northwestern Montana and portions of Idaho and Washington.

The groups contend the grizzly bears in the Selkirk and Cabinet-Yaak mountain ranges, about 80 bears total, already are struggling to survive and that the existing road network contributes to poaching and the mistaken killing of grizzlies. The bears have been under federal protection since 1975.

The lawsuit challenges decisions by the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2001 and 2004. It says those decisions would allow more than 20,000 miles of roads to be maintained in the Kootenai, Lolo, Idaho Panhandle and Colville national forests.

Forest Service officials say the access management plans, which were approved as forest plan amendments, will make significant improvements in grizzly bear habitat security.

Lamprey reviewed: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to review whether four species of lamprey found on the West Coast should be protected by the Endangered Species Act.

Under the settlement of a lawsuit filed earlier this year in Portland, the agency agreed to make an initial decision by Dec. 20 on whether a yearlong review should be done on lamprey status.

Lamprey are jawless fish that resemble eels. Pacific lamprey, the most widespread of the four species, grow to 30 inches and were once an important source of food for American Indians, as well as seals and sea lions. Young salmon feed on young lamprey in fresh water.

The name comes from the Latin for rock-sucking, which refers to the lamprey’s habitat of attaching to rocks with its mouth while swimming upstream.

A coalition of 11 conservation groups has petitioned for their protection by improving fisheries habitat and the ecological health of watersheds harmed by dams, logging, agriculture and development.

Condors fly: Two California condor chicks that were hatched in the wild have successfully taken their inaugural flights.

A chick hatched in May at the Grand Canyon took wing for the first time on Thanksgiving. A week later, the other chick, this one hatched in May at Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, took its first flight.

This is the second straight year that wild California condors have hatched and flown in Arizona since the birds were reintroduced into the wild in the state.

Condors, the largest birds in North America with a wingspan of about 9 feet, were driven to near extinction in the 1980s.

A captive breeding program boosted the population to the point where they were reintroduced in California and Arizona during the 1990s. Arizona now has about 49 condors.

Hawaii species fades: One of the rarest birds on Earth came closer to being wiped out — if not already extinct — with the death of one of the last three believed to exist, officials said.

The male po’ouli bird died in captivity last two weeks ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. The remaining two po’ouli, believed to be a male and a female, haven’t been seen for nearly a year. They might have died or moved to another area.

The rare Hawaiian honeycreeper had been kept at the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda since it was captured for breeding on Sept. 9. Biologists failed to capture a mate for the aging bird.

It is the only Hawaiian forest bird to rely heavily on native tree snails as its food. The small, stocky, brown bird has a partial black face described as a bandit’s mask.