http://www.huffingtonpost.com/noah-greenwald/with-friends-like-the-oba_b_7339268.html
Endangered species program director, Center for Biological Diversity
From gray wolves to Cheat Mountain salamanders, the more than 1,500 endangered species in the U.S. face threats like never before. In addition to the ever-present threat of habitat loss caused by our growing footprint on the planet, species now face growing threats from climate change, invasive species, over-exploitation and pollution.
Given the growing magnitude of threat to endangered species, one would think the Obama administration would pull out all the stops to save our precious wildlife heritage. Instead, the administration and its U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have quietly been rolling out a series of regulatory changes that threaten to cripple the Endangered Species Act, dramatic changes that would never have flown under the Bush administration.
Here’s a breakdown of those policies and why they matter:
In July 2014, the administration finalized a policy first conceived under the Bush administration that severely limits when species qualify for endangered species protection. Under the Act, a species qualifies as endangered if it is “in danger of extinction in all or a significant of portion of its range,” meaning that a species need not be at risk everywhere it occurs to receive protection.
The new policy, however, sets a much higher bar by requiring not only that a species be endangered in a portion of its range, but also that the loss of that one portion threatens the survival of the species as a whole. The policy also specifies that historic portions of a species’ range can never be considered significant.
If this policy had been in place when the Act was first passed, the bald eagle would never have been protected because although it had been wiped out across much of the lower 48 states, the Pacific Northwest and Alaska had strong populations that were not at risk of extinction.
Many other species that have similarly been wiped out or are at risk across large parts of the U.S. are sure to be denied protection because of this disastrous policy. Indeed, several already have, including the cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl and American wolverine.
The second regulatory change forwarded by the administration severely undermines protections for endangered species’ critical habitat. The Endangered Species Act requires protection of critical habitat for all endangered species. The designation of “critical habitat” has proven to be an essential tool with species that have designated habitat being twice as likely to be recovering as those without it.
Critical habitat protects species by prohibiting federal agencies from “adversely modifying” — that is, hurting — critical habitat for endangered species in actions they fund, permit or carry out. The Obama administration’s policy could enable more habitat destruction by redefining “adverse modification” as only those actions considered to potentially harm the entirety of a species’ designated critical habitat, a change that will give a green light to the many federal actions that destroy small portions of critical habitat. If enacted, the new proposal could allow the proliferation of projects that harm a species’ habitat without assurance that the cumulative effects will be taken into account — a particularly problematic development because the Fish and Wildlife Service already has a dismal record of tracking and limiting cumulative impacts on wildlife.
The third regulatory change proposed by the administration earlier this month lets federal agencies, such as the U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management, off the hook from quantifying or limiting the amount of harm to endangered species allowed under overarching management plans, including regional forest plans, plans for individual national forests, plans for BLM resource areas and many others.
This will all but ensure that cumulative impacts from individual timber sales, development projects, oil and gas drilling operations or other projects will never be considered or curbed, increasing the risk that species will be driven to extinction from a death by a thousand cuts.
The most recent proposal by the Obama administration limiting the scope of the Endangered Species Act was issued just this week. It would place crippling burdens on citizens filing petitions to protect species as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act, ultimately making it more difficult for imperiled species to get lifesaving protections.
The proposed regulations bar petitions seeking protection for more than one species and require petitioners to provide advance notice of the petition to all states in the range of the species; to append any information from states to the petition itself; and to certify that all relevant information has been provided in the petition.
This disastrous proposal will not only make it less likely species will get the life-saving protections they need, but it’s fundamentally undemocratic, cutting the public out of endangered species management. Many environmental and other statutes allow citizens to petition the federal government for action. This proposal marks the first time that an administration has placed obstacles to citizens filing petitions for federal intervention and thus has the potential to set a very concerning precedent.
The Endangered Species Act was passed precisely because states were not doing enough to protect wildlife. In many cases, states remain opposed to protection of species. Forcing citizens to go through these very same states in seeking protection of species runs directly counter to the purpose of the Act.
In combination, these policies represent a rollback of endangered species protections that Tea Party Republicans in Congress couldn’t hope for in their wildest dreams, yet they’re being forwarded by the Obama administration perhaps as an attempt to appease critics of the Act.
If this is indeed the intent, it will fail because criticisms from states, industry and others do not come from a desire to see the Act work better but rather from a desire to see protections for endangered species watered down.
And if these changes are implemented, they’ll get their wish, effectively undermining the conservation law that has saved not only bald eagles and brown pelicans, but gray wolves, grizzly bears, humpback whales and many more.
Exposing the Big Game 
The situation is probably worse with the Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, but the Obama administration has not been a friend to animals. His Secretary of the Interior was Ken Salazar, who couldn’t give enough away to the ranchers (the Salazars have a family ranch themselves), and the wild horses and burros paid the price by losing their lands. I don’t see much more hope from Sally Jewell, the new Secretary. So when the big-moneyed interests want land, development, logging, hunting, then the animals lose out. They don’t have the big bank accounts or connections to save themselves. As for the public, we don’t seem to count for much. Most of us don’t have the bank accounts or connections to matter either. So much for voting.
The “Obama Administration” is bad for wilderness and wildlife in major ways but it is mainly because authority is relegated to USFWS and Dept. of Interior and these matters are not on Obamas’s radar, it is delegated. It is naive to assume that things would be better under Bush, or McCain-Palin, or Romney, for things, with the predominantly republican anti EPA, anti ESA, states rights minded minds, matters would be much much worse.
It would be much worse with the Rethuglicans (bye-bye, ESA! for example) for sure, but the Obama administration has been a HUGE disappointment as far as environmental and wildlife concerns, unless they relate to the people’s use of them! I’m really disappointed in Sally Jewell – I actually think she may be worse, in her way, than Ken Salazar as she is a Big Oil supporter, and has assured us that we’ve become safer since the BP spill, and makes decisions in keeping with being all about people’s needs as far as protected areas and monuments, and not valuing these places on their own merit. They also keep trying to negotiate with anti-environment terrorists, wolf haters, and Big Energy (exempting Big Wind from bird protections for three decades(!) was a shocker – birds could become extinct by then, and where they are allowed to self-monitor and self-report, we’ll have no idea what these companies are actually doing. Oh for the two-term days of Bruce Babbitt protection and continuity.
Fire the Wildlife Agencies: (USFWS, Interior, state agencies, USDA Wildlife Services, BLM), and Canada which has killed thousands of wolves in name of ungulate farming:
The US government, Canada and other nations (The march of civilization and rancher-hunter war on wildlife) have long been in the wildlife killing business. They have offered bounties on predators, poisoned and gassed prairie dogs, allowed the near extinction of bison, prairie dogs, black footed ferret, the wolf (wolf bounties), wolverine, and marginalized the grizzly, lion, and many others. The war on coyotes has been unrelenting. Wildlife services kill wildlife by the millions to appease the fishermen, hunters, ranchers and farmers and others. Hunters and ranchers, fishermen and hunters, bedfellows of the wildlife agencies nearly wiped out most wildlife. With the advent of wildlife agency hunting regulations, the hunter has been somewhat contained; and now even count themselves as “conservationists” because they have essentially farmed game sport (recreational killing opportunities) animals and marginalized predators on the erroneous rationale of less predators to share game with the more game (recreational killing opportunities). Instead of an emphasis on wilderness and wildlife ecology, USDA Wildlife Services kills nearly over 3 million animals a year and state agencies millions more in recreational killing opportunities and “management”. State wildlife agencies use hunters to “manage” (“sportsmen”) game and predators. It is very doubtful that state or federal wildlife agencies or their biologists know enough about wildlife ecology to “manage” wildlife balances. Ranchers may tolerate big bird and other sport game birds, elk, and deer and antelope; but are very hostile to predators. Wildlife agencies, state and federal, are not friendly to predators and defer to hunters, ranchers, conservative state legislatures, and their ilk and their interests in development and extraction and leases. Ranchers and farmers destroy wildlife habitat with the plow and grazing not only on private land but ever more and more on public land facilitated by the US government in leased grazing, leased farming, and leases to extraction industries avenues. Encroachers on public land often, in turn, adding insult added to injury, asks the federal government, such as Wildlife Services, to kill animals that are “encroaching” on their leased public land. Conservation efforts and new agencies such as ESA and EPA and private conservation agencies have and are battling for balanced ecologies, the predators, and many animals of no concern to sportsmen, ranchers and farmers, and extraction industries and development interests. Agencies, like the USFWS often cave into ranchers hunters, state wildlife agencies, conservative state legislatures, a government tradition of really prioritizing those interests. The arguments that threatens remaining wilderness and wildlife is as old as civilization, making a buck by the traditional enemies of wildlife. What is not appreciated enough is what little is left: In the US roughly 2.6 % in the lower 48 and another 2.5 % in Alaska; and this is under continuing and unremitting pressure from, guess where, the traditional enemies of wilderness and wildlife, still too often facilitated by the wildlife agencies. Private conservation agencies often find themselves in conflict with wildlife agencies who should be on their side and the side of preserving wilderness, balanced wildlife ecology, and the predators who are essential to the balanced wildlife ecology. The wildlife agencies, state and federal, need firing and revamping to emphasize wildlife preservation, wildlife viewing, and a heritage of wilderness and wildlife in what is left of the available habitat. There is something terribly wrong when we see wildlife agencies aligning with ranchers, farmers, “sportsmen”, conservative state legislatures. It is time for major upheavals of them, their agendas, their protocols, their heads and replacing them with priorities on preserving, recovering, protecting what is left of wilderness and wildlife, not siding with the traditional enemies of wildlife and wilderness (ranching, hunters, conservative state legislatures and predator hating and fearing parochials, extraction industries, and development and such parochial ilk that echoes their sentiments).
USFWS, the very agency that should be out front protecting wolves is not. USFWS turned wolves over to state management (2012) in the midwest (recently re-listed by courts in WY and midwest), but still politically delisted in ID and MT. Since state management, hundreds have been killed by state agencies’ management by hunting and trapping. Federal judges have returned wolves in WY and the midwest (MI, MN, WI) to the protected list where they belong indefinitely. Wolves do not need to be “managed” by general hunting and trapping seasons; that is a anti-wolf myth and a state wildlife agency myth that goes along with a state level management of wildlife by hunting and trapping. State management means turning wolves over to about 6 percent of the population that hunts and and and traps and their buddies in the state wildlife agencies that sell them licenses, an unholy alliance of hunters, trappers and agencies. Wolves do not need to be managed in the way state wildlife agencies do; they will manage their own populations. Maybe particular wolves or wolf packs need to be “managed” but managing them by general hunting and trapping seasons is likely counter productive. Ranchers would be better off with nonlethal management and managing their livestock better vis a vis predators.
Wolves do not purchase hunting licenses, and most state wildlife managers draw their pay from revenue derived from sale of hunting, fishing, and trapping licenses. That, in brief, is what is wrong with wildlife management in America….Ted Williams, 1986
“To look into the eyes of a wolf is to see your own soul.” Aldo Leopold
“Whenever and wherever men have engaged in the mindless slaughter of animals (including other men), they have often attempted to justify their acts by attributing the most vicious or revolting qualities to those they would destroy; and the less reason there is for the slaughter, the greater the campaign for vilification.”
― Farley Mowat, naturalist, conservationist and author
r of Never Cry Wolf
I wish other people would have the kind of epiphany that Aldo Leopold had. He hunted wolves himself and thought it necessary. Then after shooting one, he got to her just in time to see “a fierce green fire dying in her eyes.” It transformed Leopold’s thinking about wolves and there place on this earth. I wonder if any of the current hunters will see that same message in the eyes of their victims.
“their” place not “there.”
And now that at least some people are paying attention to the corruption and greed that drives special interest groups, the policies by the FWS and the state agencies are being shaped and implemented in secret. More citizens would be outraged by the killing if they only knew.
It’s really no wonder that the Endangered Species Act is itself endangered. Saving threatened animals requires some sacrifice from human beings, a requirement that doesn’t fit well with human greed and sense of entitlement.
NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS (NCPA) in Report No. 303 reports that the Endangered Species Act does not always help species as intended because it causes people real or perceived hardship in the process of trying to save the animals, and those people, feeling aggrieved, may then retaliate. Some steps taken for an endangered species include regulating land use for logging, farming, and developing and fining or jailing landowners for harming/killing endangered species on their property. Regulations can also be extended to land not currently occupied by an endangered species but that would be the kind of habitat required by a species for breeding/nesting/resting/feeding. Some of these issues were found in the case of the spotted owl. Naming the owl an endangered species reduced property values for some people where the owls were located and prompted several landowners to strip their property of trees just to keep spotted owls away and thus avoid legal problems. Limiting forest use and logging to save the owls also enraged loggers who feared job cutbacks.
When it comes to wolves, they don’t interfere with logging, they keep to themselves as much as possible, do not settle close to human beings, and have not caused considerable losses to domestic animals. But it is mostly wolf hatred and the desire to hunt and kill them by powerful interest groups that could be responsible for their loss of protected status.
So, it seems, not surprisingly, that regulating land use, causing loss of property values, limiting hunting/poisoning/trapping, and creating just plain inconveniences make the Endangered Species Act a target for people who believe their needs must always come first.
I think that people retaliating against the ESA is overstated. The ESA became law somehow, and it was because the majority of people wanted it! Some politicians then had vision and strength. If we catered to everyone who didn’t like a certain law, there would be none. The wolf haters, for example, are going to poach and harm them anyway – it doesn’t matter if we weaken the ESA on their behalf or not. They’ve done it for centuries. You will never please them because they have an ingrained hatred and fear. There is no negotiating with them. We just have to accept that that is the way they are and deal with it. But never lower our standards for them.
The biggest threat to wildlife is the redneck in one manifestation or another: Our redneck ancestors killed off most wildlife as they “settled” the country. The rednecks view animals competing for their “entitled” commercial enterprise as vermin (ranchers, farmers, fishermen, extraction industries, developers) though they are usually wrong about the wildlife ecology. Hunters and fishermen view the predators as competition for their recreational killing. The wildlife agencies are in bed with the recreational killers (hunters and fishermen), and ranchers and farmers. Politicians demagogue, if they are not rednecks themselves, the rednecks. Throw in the developers and there you have it: There is a never ending war on wildlife, with the conservationists (relatively new phenomenon) trying to hold back the tide of long standing killing traditions. The USA government, and all government, has long been a partner in these killing traditions with bounties, active campaigns to wipe out one form of wildlife or another directly, or by backing the interests of the aforementioned in one way or another,