U.S. Senator Steve Daines Discusses Grizzly Bear Management. According to KULR-TV, “U.S. Senator Steve Daines met with U.S. Fish and Wildlife members and constituents Friday to discuss grizzly bear management across the state. Daines is fighting to delist, or remove, federal grizzly bear protections in the greater Yellowstone region. He argues the grizzly bear population has fully recovered and the conservation of the species should be returned to the state. ‘As we await final delisting, we must do all that we can to ensure public safety, to stop the risks to human life, and to prevent further livestock depravation that is devastating Montana agriculture,’ Daines said. Grizzly bears were put under the Federal Endangered Species Act in 1975.” [KULR-TV, 10/16/20 (=)]

 

How Protecting Endangered Species Protects Our Water Source. According to St. George Spectrum & Daily News, “Steve Meismer has an 800-pound gorilla on his back. But he hefts it for the benefit of the people of Washington County. ‘The Endangered Species Act can be the 800-pound gorilla,’ the Local Coordinator of the Virgin River Program explained. ‘If the Wildlife Service says to a developer, ‘Hey, you’re taking too much water and the fish are dying,’ guess what? The fish are going to get the water, it’s going to be a long legal battle and nobody’s gonna be happy. But if we work together to protect the environment and protect the species, that allows us to keep developing, keep using the water.’ Meismer has a Master’s degree in fisheries biology and has spent the last 20 years in Washington County working to help manage the Virgin River ecosystem. Sometimes this includes diverting water from our reservoir system because low flow or high temperatures indicate that the fish need it more. But his efforts to help developers find solutions that meet federal requirements protecting sensitive species are not only on behalf of the six native fish species in the Virgin River, two of which are listed as endangered. He also works to protect fish for the sake of protecting our drinking water.” [St. George Spectrum & Daily News, 10/15/20 (=)]

 

These Endangered Woodpecker Families Were Recovering. Then Hurricane Laura Flattened Their Homes . According to The Advocate, “When Hurricane Laura’s wind and storm surge displaced thousands of people from their homes two months ago, the Category 4 storm also devastated the habitat of the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker -- and the full impact may not be known until spring, wildlife biologists say. A family-oriented homebody of a bird, the species was on a gradual, but fragile recovery in some parts of Louisiana. But Laura’s march across the state on Aug. 27 destroyed some 17,000 acres of longleaf pine forests where the woodpecker lives, according to industry estimates. High winds knocked down or otherwise destroyed at least 915 ‘cavity’ trees across a swath of mostly public forests stretching from southern Vernon Parish to the outskirts of Alexandria, early state and federal estimates say. In hollowed out burrows in those trees, 20 to 30 feet up, the mother and father birds live with their offspring in close-knit family units. A far smaller and more isolated population in Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge in Lacombe wasn’t harmed by Laura or other recent storms and remains near its maximum capacity, said Barret Fortier, a senior wildlife biologist for Fish and Wildlife refuges in southeast Louisiana.” [The Advocate, 10/18/20 (+)]

 

Editorial: Black Rail Decision A Win For Conservation, But There’s More Work To Do. According to The Post and Courier, “It’s increasingly important to protect wildlife and the environment as growth and development relentlessly march across Charleston and much of the East Coast. And with several key environmental regulations weakened over the past few years, and citizens often distracted by a daily geyser of news, the need for vigilance on wildlife issues is crucial. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took a step in the right direction with its recent announcement that it will list the eastern black rail as a ‘threatened’ species under the Endangered Species Act. The designation will provide more protections for the little birds, which have declined by 75% in the past decade or two under pressure from development encroaching into wetlands and rising seas. With its habitat and numbers shrinking, South Carolina has become an important outpost for the bird, especially around the ACE Basin and the Santee Delta, The Post and Courier’s Tony Bartelme reported. He detailed the black rail’s plight in his recent project, ‘Ghost Bird.’” [The Post and Courier, 10/16/20 (+)]

 

Op-Ed: Landowners, Local Governments To Benefit From Proposed Regulations Stopping Costly ESA Land Grabs. According to The Fence Post, “In what stands to be a major victory for landowners and local governments, the Trump Administration has proposed regulatory changes that would correct and prevent the costly, unjust land grabs of the previous administration. These regulations have broad implications for how land is managed under the Endangered Species Act and how far the federal government can go in controlling private lands. For several years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have used critical habitat designations as a tool of coercion to essentially instigate land grabs of private property. Regardless as to whether land is private or public, whenever it is included as critical habitat, it is regulated to the point of being nearly unusable by the landowner.” [The Fence Post, 10/16/20 (-)]

 

 

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