Endangered Species

 

AP | Oregon Counties Win $1.4 Billion Timber Case Against The State. According to Seaside Signal, “Jurors in Oregon on Wednesday found in favor of 14 counties in their $1.4 billion lawsuit against the state over revenue from logging on state lands. The counties had claimed breach of contract, saying the state did not harvest enough timber over two decades, depriving the counties of revenue. There was no immediate reaction from the state, whose attorneys had said the counties wanted to allow clear-cutting of forests and don’t care about endangered species. … Attorneys for the state countered that the counties wanted to allow clear-cutting of forests and don’t care about endangered species. The case focused on three words — ‘greatest permanent value’ — and what they meant when they were written into law 80 years ago.” [Seaside Signal, 11/21/19 (=)]

 

Group Sues EPA Over Calif. Wastewater Injection. According to E&E News, “A conservation group yesterday sued EPA over its decision to exempt part of the aquifers in California’s Arroyo Grande oil field from Safe Drinking Water Act protections. The Center for Biological Diversity is challenging the agency in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California for allowing oil field operators to inject wastewater and other fluids into the aquifers. EPA’s exemption allowed Sentinel Peak Resources LLC to advance its proposal to drill 450 new wells in the field, leading to a tenfold increase in production. The oil field operator did not respond to a request for comment. While EPA did not state explicitly in its exemption earlier this year that the action would allow for the creation of more wells, Sentinel Peaks Resources had suspended its application to expand the number of wells until it received the aquifer exemption, said Lauren Packard, a staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. Packard said the agency failed to first evaluate and disclose the environmental effects of the decision, which the center says violated both the National Environmental Policy Act and NEPA implementing regulations from the Council on Environmental Quality. The center contends that EPA also flouted the Endangered Species Act by failing to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service about whether the exemption would harm an endangered native herb, the Pismo clarkia, along with other species.” [E&E News, 11/22/19 (=)]

 

It’s Time For Feds To Let Michigan Manage Its Own Wolf Population. According to The Iron Mountain Daily News, “The evidence is clear — the gray wolf no longer meets the definition of a threatened or endangered species in Michigan. When wolves were first placed on the federal endangered species list in the 1970s, the recovery plan put in place by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said delisting should not occur in Michigan until the combined population of wolves in Michigan and Wisconsin reached 100 for five consecutive years. The wolf population in Michigan and Wisconsin has far exceeded 100 for more than a decade now. In fact, the two-state population is now estimated to top 1,000. People in the Upper Peninsula know all too well what it’s like to live with a thriving wolf population in our backyards. Pet owners and livestock farmers from nearly every U.P. county have horror stories of dogs and cattle falling prey to wolves. As of Monday, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has recorded 17 livestock animals and eight dogs killed or injured by wolves in 2019.” [The Iron Mountain Daily News, 11/21/19 (=)]

 

California Rejects Federal Water Proposal, Lays Out Its Vision For Protecting Endangered Species And Meeting State Water Needs. According to CALmatters, “Our agencies and the California Department of Food and Agriculture will take a big step in this direction in December when we release a draft Water Resilience Portfolio for public feedback. It will serve as a roadmap for the Newsom administration with a broad set of recommendations to improve water systems across our diverse state. Much of what we are attempting has never been tried. Difficult trade-offs have to be made unless we can find creative solutions that balance all water needs. And even then, sometimes tough decisions will have to be made. The protection of endangered fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta requires our immediate attention. We have crucial pumping infrastructure that delivers water to two-thirds of our state’s population, but also impacts imperiled fish in the Delta. In 2018, federal authorities embarked on an accelerated process to update the federal biological opinions, which set rules to operate the Delta pumps to protect endangered fish. To ensure appropriate protection surrounding that process, those of us who are responsible for water management decided we could no longer rely on the federal process. Instead we are taking a careful, science-based approach to operating the State Water Project. We are drawing on a decade of science to strengthen safeguards for fish and improve real-time management of the project that delivers water to 27 million Californians in the Bay Area, Central California and Southern California. It was a departure from past practice, but a necessary one.” [CALmatters, 11/21/19 (+)]

 

Endangered Species Under Assault. According to The Sun, “San Diego Zoo’s two resident giant pandas Bai Yun and Xiao Liwu were returned to China, leaving the zoo panda-less for the first time in 20 years as a result of President Donald Trump’s trade war. Giant pandas have become a symbol of endangered species, but through conservation efforts their population has increased to 1,800. It is possible to bring back endangered species from the brink, it just requires people to care enough to try. In the San Diego region there are plenty of endangered species that do not get enough love as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) mascot, but protecting them is of great ecological importance. Many of the endangered or threatened species found locally were put in that position by Americans encroaching on their natural environment, like Chinese did to the giant panda.” [The Sun, 11/21/19 (=)]

 

Wildlife

 

Study: Park's Bison Mow, Fertilize Their Own Grass. According to E&E News, “A study of grazing in Yellowstone National Park found that bison essentially mow and fertilize their own food, allowing them to graze in one area for two to three months during the spring and summer while other ungulates have to keep migrating to higher elevations to follow new plant growth. Hundreds of bison grazing in an area stimulate the growth of nutritious grasses, in part because their waste acts as a fertilizer, according to research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ‘They add fertilizer through urinating and defecating; they drop nutrients back on the landscape, which are then available to plants,’ Yellowstone scientist Chris Geremia said yesterday. ‘It’s almost like the bison become this giant fleet of lawn mowers moving back and forth across the landscape,’ he said. When more bison grazed an area more intensely, the area greened up earlier and faster and the grass stayed greener and had a higher nutritional quality for a much longer time, Geremia said. Many other migratory animals in Yellowstone — pronghorn, bighorn sheep, mule deer and elk — do not form these large groups while they migrate and graze, Geremia said. ‘Bison don’t just move to find food, kind of the classic way that we think of animal migration,’ Geremia said, ‘but they create good food by how they move and how they graze.’” [E&E News, 11/21/19 (=)]

 

 

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