Exposing the Big Game

Forget Hunters' Feeble Rationalizations and Trust Your Gut Feelings: Making Sport of Killing Is Not Healthy Human Behavior

Exposing the Big Game

Category Archives: Endangered Species

Take action to stop the War on Wolves Act

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From:
www.endangered.org

Congressional enemies of conservation have wasted no time in beginning the latest and most serious legislative assault on gray wolves. Just weeks into the new Congress, bills have been introduced in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to kick wolves in four states off of the endangered species list and turn their fates over to states inent on capitalizing off of their slaughter through sport hunting and trapping.

Email your representative and senators and demand that they reject the War on Wolves Act and its assault on science and the law.

The zeal to kick wolves off of the endangered species list has become an obsession to some in Congress. In the last legislative session alone, there were more than thirty bills or amendments with a primary goal of removing protections for wolves. Until now, Democrats in the Senate have acted as a check on these attacks. Unfortunately, Senators Klobuchar (D-MN) and Baldwin (D-WI) have aligned with their GOP counterparts and cosponsered the so-called War on Wolves Act.

The threat is abundantly clear. If the War on Wolves Act is passed into law, wolves will be killed in large numbers. In Wisconsin, leaked emails have shown a stated goal of killing up to 70 percent of the wolves in the state–in just the first year that they are allowed to set a hunting and trapping season. This unscientific, unsustainable, and unethical plan is explicitly endorsed by the senators and representatives that are pushing the War on Wolves Act.

Tell your senators and representative to oppose these dangerous bills!

The War on Wolves Act is nothing less than a payback to special interests that have lobbied for legislative tampering with Endangered Species Act protections. Incredibly, despite the persistent congressional efforts to delist wolves, one of the states that would be given management responsibilities–Wyoming–lacks any approved plan for what happens after protections are slashed. The still-recovering 382 wolves in that state would be left in limbo, and at risk of a repeat of Wyoming’s last plan that called for unregulated killing in 85 percent of the state.

Your senators and representative need to hear from you. Today, we are asking you to send an email asking that they oppose this bill. If the bill advances, we will be reaching out to you to ask for calls, social media posts, and visits to members’ in-district offices. Again, this is the most serious and likely-to-pass bill to date. Please take action today by emailing your senators and representative and urging they oppose these bills.

copyrighted wolf argument settled

Wisconsin Republicans Ask Congress To Remove Wolves From Endangered Species List– Lawmakers Are Hopeful President-Elect Donald Trump Will Help Effort

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http://www.wpr.org/wisconsin-republicans-ask-congress-remove-wolves-endangered-species-list 

Wisconsin Republicans Ask Congress To Remove Wolves From Endangered Species List

Lawmakers Are Hopeful President-Elect Donald Trump Will Help Effort
Thursday, November 17, 2016

Republican state legislators Tom Tiffany and Adam Jarchow are again asking Congress to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list and they’re hopeful President-elect Donald Trump will help make it happen.

A letter from the lawmakers calls on Congress to overturn a federal judge’s decision and remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan. That way the states can manage their population through hunting. Sen. Tiffany said the election of Republican Donald Trump could add momentum to their cause.

“I can’t speak for the Trump Administration, but I would think that they are more amenable to delisting. So, I think it moves the needle in the right direction,” Tiffany said.

Republican legislators enacted a state wolf hunt in 2012 but that was blocked in 2014 when a federal judge places the great lakes gray wolf back on the federal endangered species list.

Rep. Adam Jarchow said he’s hopeful federal lawmakers will listen to rural citizens and again let Wisconsin and others use hunting to control the wolf population.

“The people of rural Wisconsin and rural America in general are crying out for legislators in both Madison and Washington to pay attention, and a very important issue to people in rural Wisconsin is being able to have an opportunity to manage the wolf,” Jarchow said.

Jarchow and Tiffany have also called on U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin to support delisting gray wolves. In 2011, Baldwin said she supported removing the wolf from the endangered species list.

In Canada, mountain caribou recovery falters

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In Canada, mountain caribou recovery falters

A decade of conservation efforts has done little to stop the decline of the endangered ungulates or their rainforest home.

David Moskowitz PHOTOSOct. 31, 2016

The western hemlock towered nearly 200 feet into the cloudy British Columbia sky. The tree, about four feet in diameter and several centuries old, had sprouted in a forest that formed around 10,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age. It took David Walker, a nimble man with 30 years’ experience logging here in the Selkirk Mountains, about two minutes to drop the huge conifer. The ground shook.

After Walker turned off his saw, I asked what would become of the old giant. It’s going to a pulp mill, he said matter-of-factly.

This is one of the planet’s rarest forest ecosystems: interior temperate rainforest. The largest of its type left on earth, this rainforest stretches hundreds of miles from the Idaho Panhandle into central British Columbia, spanning multiple mountain ranges and the headwaters of two of the West Coast’s largest rivers, the Columbia and Fraser. It’s also home to endangered mountain caribou, which evolved to use these vast forests to evade predators. To survive here, mountain caribou adopted a diet of arboreal lichens that only grow in abundance in forests close to a century old or older.

Decades of industrial logging operations have destroyed and fragmented mountain caribou habitat, and their numbers have dwindled to perilous levels, with about 1,000 remaining. In some ways, the mountain caribou is like a Canadian version of the spotted owl. Much as the owl’s threatened status was exploited to help save swaths of old-growth forest in the Northwestern United States, over the logging industry’s strong objections, attempts have been made to use mountain caribou to help preserve the inland rainforest in British Columbia.

Despite a decade of protective measures, however, mountain caribou numbers keep declining as logging continues across their range.

More: http://www.hcn.org/issues/48.18/in-canada-mountain-caribou-recovery-falters?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email

A Recipe for Killing: The “Trust Us” Argument of State Grizzly Bear Managers

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http://www.grizzlytimes.org/single-post/2016/10/19/A-Recipe-for-Killing-The-Trust-Us-Argument-of-State-Grizzly-Bear-Managers

 

October 19, 2016

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David Mattson

There is a peculiar argument favored by politicians, bank managers, airline representatives, and sales-people of various stripes that goes something like this: “Your interests are important. The customer/voter is my top priority. Trust me.” Such claims will sometimes be accompanied by presumably substantiating evidence as part of glossy promotional material. It helps, of course, if the person making the claim is either ruggedly handsome or a gaunt beauty, and groomed to a pitch of stereotypic trustworthiness.

Right. I would hope that the visceral impulse of half-way rational people is to run as fast as possible in the opposite direction. Even minimal scrutiny of the behaviors of those fielding the “trust me” argument often reveals the obvious: self-interest is a top priority along with serving the narrow special interests of those holding the reins of power and finances, typically the maximization of profits, prestige, and influence for these select few. Think shareholders, corporate bosses, political donors, and ideological allies. Certainly not the gullible client, customer, voter or larger abstract “public” so devotedly cultivated. The obvious.

“Trust us” with Grizzly Bears?

So when I hear wildlife managers in the states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho saying “trust us” to manage Yellowstone’s grizzly bear population, my initial response is skepticism and suspicion. And it doesn’t fill me with warm fuzzy feelings when I further hear and read that these state managers are categorically refusing to be held accountable in any authoritative way to the federal government or the national public if and when the reins of grizzly bear management are handed over by the US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS). The letter submitted by the States as part of their comments on the FWS’s proposal to remove Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for Yellowstone’s grizzlies makes interesting reading. The States are clearly in it for power gains and ideological gratifications.

Moreover, there is little ambiguity about the fact that, in practice, state wildlife managers see predators such as grizzly bears primarily as competitors, nuisances or even varmints—and this despite the palliatives and platitudes you can find in State plans. The reasons are pretty obvious. State management more closely resembles a for-profit venture organized around huntable surpluses of big game than it does an exercise in fulfillment of the public trust. Wildlife managers are slaved to the narrow special interests of hunters, fishers, and livestock producers by shared culture and political vulnerabilities, but more fundamentally by dependence on the marketing and sales of arms, ammunition, and licenses to kill elk and deer (for more on all of this read the first and second blogs in my series on state wildlife management). Unless you are a hunter, none of this is a prima facie basis for “trust.”

Based on What Plans?

And then read the details of State plans for managing Yellowstone’s grizzly bears; plans that the States have offered as evidence of trustworthiness; plans that the States insist are, at the same time, entirely discretionary. Which may actually be a good thing given how unconscionably and appallingly inadequate they are.

The centerpiece of State plans consists of a tristate Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that details methods for managing grizzly bear mortality. These methods specify aspirational mortality rates linked to different estimated grizzly bear population sizes as well as the means by which permitted deaths are to be allotted to the three involved States. The MOA goes on to describe benchmarks that, if “violated,” would putatively trigger discretionary reviews of management. All fine and good.

But read further. The MOA assumes that male grizzlies can be killed at twice the rate as female grizzlies without jeopardizing population stability, and that bears living inside protected areas (i.e., National Parks) will be counted towards estimates of total population size, which will then be used as the basis for calculating total numbers of bears able to be killed during a given year. The MOA considers a certain percentage of this total to be “discretionary,” all of which is allotted to States (i.e., none to the National Park Service [NPS] or involved Tribes), and from which comes the bears available for state-administered trophy hunting. The States pointedly excluded the NPS and Tribes from development of the MOA and make no provision for either to be authoritatively involved in its implementation—this for two jurisdictions that collectively support over a third of Yellowstone’s grizzly bear population. Your eyebrows should be elevated at this point.

A Recipe for Killing

Without being exhaustive, even this minimal description of the MOA highlights some aspects that are a recipe for trouble. First, you can’t kill males at twice the rate you kill females and have a stable population. Males and females are replenished at an equal rate (i.e., the sex ratio of cubs is roughly 1:1), which means you can’t sustainably kill more males. Second, bears on NPS and Tribal jurisdictions are being used by the States to subsidize their killing of bears elsewhere without explicitly involving either sovereign entity in any deliberations or considering population-level consequences. Because grizzly bears protected by National Parks will be dying at a comparatively low rate, the de facto mortality rate of bears on non-Park jurisdictions will be higher than the population-wide target or guideline. As a consequence, there will be a net outflow of bears from Parks to non-park jurisdictions. The subpopulation in Parks will be a reproductive engine (i.e., “source”) subsidizing otherwise unsustainable killing in the State-administered subpopulation (i.e., “sinks”). And the brunt of this will be borne by male grizzly bears.

And then consider this. Estimates of total population size will be based almost exclusively on sightings of females with cubs made over three successive years. Given a three-year reproductive cycle, this yields an estimated total number of reproductive females. Other classes of bears are accounted for in calculations of total population size simply by applying various fixed multipliers, notably including the assumption that independent males are equal in number to independent females (i.e., a 1:1 sex ratio). The MOA makes explicit provision for adjusting these multipliers (including the ratio of males to females) only if estimated total population sizes fall below certain thresholds, thereby triggering discretionary reviews leading to discretionary revisions. In other words, state managers could be slaughtering males within their jurisdictions and, because this segment is not directly monitored, continue to generate increasingly phony and inflated population estimates driven almost solely by sightings of reproductive females—without dropping below any population triggers and thereby without triggering any corrective actions.

With Predictable Destructive Outcomes

This doesn’t need to be left as a verbal hypothetical. I found it easy enough to specify a model that embodied the essentials of the methods contained in the States’ MOA, including a source-sink structure, variable but lower death rates within Parks, procedures for estimating total population size based on sightings of females with cubs, the meting out of “discretionary” deaths according to population-level guidelines for mortality rates, the realization of resulting de facto death rates on non-Park lands, and changes in prescribed mortality rates in accord with changes in estimated population size driven by numbers of reproductive females. Once specified, I was then able to use this model to project what would likely happen with implementation of MOA protocols employing the notable (and probably untenable) assumption that Yellowstone’s grizzly bear habitat would remain static. Key results are in figure 1, immediately below.

Figure 1. Results of a stochastic model simulating implementation of methods for post-delisting management of Yellowstone’s grizzly bear population described in the tristate MOA. Figure 1A shows trends in numbers of independent males and females in source (i.e., Park) and sink (i.e., non-Park) populations. Figure 1B shows trends in “real” and estimated total population sizes relative to population thresholds linked to management triggers, along the magnitude of discrepancy—or error—between estimated and real population sizes.

Hopefully without belaboring the obvious, there are some more-or-less guaranteed outcomes from implementation of the MOA. First and foremost, numbers of independent males will tank outside of National Parks, primarily because they will be subject to grossly unsustainable mortality rates. Numbers of independent males inside Parks will decline slightly because of losses to net out-migration. Numbers of reproductive females will remain steady to slightly increasing, leading to increasingly inflated estimates of total population size, despite a collapse of the male segment on non-Park lands. Within eight or so years population estimates will have been inflated by roughly 200 bears over “reality,” but without detection and without triggering any corrective measures.

And this is probably an optimistic scenario. The model does not include the on-going and foreseeable effects of unraveling habitat conditions (see this blog for a synopsis). Nor are the effects of declining female reproductive success included, foreseeably attributable to lack of sufficient breeding males outside the Parks and, before that, an ephemeral pulse of elevated cub mortality caused by social turmoil.

What do I make of this? It’s pretty obvious. The methods contained in the States’ MOA are so egregiously flawed as to call into question the competence and motives of the wildlife managers who concocted them. The Plan certainly does not build a case for trust.

And Then There is History

And then there is the history of state management. Without being exhaustive, there are two observations of particular relevance to the rather dismal track record that the states of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana have established managing our endangered large carnivores.

First, consider how the states of Idaho and Montana have managed wolves since ESA protections were removed in 2011. I don’t have the space here to elaborate on all of the relevant details (see the third point in this document), but a consistent pattern emerges. It is clear that both states unapologetically embarked upon a post-delisting wolf-killing program that was designed to reduce wolf populations in service of, first, controlling depredations on behalf of livestock operators disinclined to take the most basic of precautions; second, achieving inflated goals for elk and deer populations; and, third, offering essentially unlimited sport hunting opportunities. There is no evidence that either Idaho or Montana were attempting to serve other “values,” foster something as apparently inconsequential as wolf-derived ecological services, or, even, Heaven forbid, accommodate the inevitable toll of predation in goals for ungulate populations. Wyoming and Montana have both made clear that these are the outcomes planned for grizzly bears as well, barring, perhaps, a more circumscribed approach to sport-hunting.

Second, consider why grizzly bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem ended up on the Endangered Species list in the first place. Between 1959 and 1970 grizzly bear deaths in areas under state jurisdiction accounted for the majority of mortality in this region. Of these deaths, 84% were attributable to sport hunting. And, of these, 59% were adults—33% adult males and 26% adult females. In short, the states of Wyoming and Montana were administering a sport hunt that was unsustainable, manifest in the patently small size of the grizzly bear population at the time it was given ESA protections in 1975. The States were clearly not managing for recovery nor increases in Yellowstone’s grizzly bear population during the 1960s and early 1970s. More certainly yet, the States remained wedded to a regime of sport hunting on the basis of principle and custom, and with little apparent reference to or regard for information on population trend. Montana’s devotion to the ethos of hunting is evident in the fact that this state continued to administer a sport hunt of grizzly bears in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem until forced by litigation to stop in 1991, sixteen years after the population was listed by the FWS as Threatened.

“Trust us.” Are You Kidding?

The institution of state wildlife management in the tristate region of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana is despotic, corrupt, and fundamentally anti-predator. By design, it disenfranchises the vast majority of Americans and, because of transactional financial dependencies, overtly caters to a small number of special interest groups. It is interesting to me that very few people are even aware of these structural problems, and of those who are cognizant there is an alarming tendency to concoct narratives (e.g., the North American Model of Wildlife Management) that justify the corruption. Moreover, the demographic profile of hunters (mostly white less-well-educated males) overlaps almost exactly with Trumps’ misogynist, racist, jingoistic, and otherwise bigoted core supporters; the very same people who seem to have little respect for or understanding of democratic institutions. We can pretty much count on state wildlife managers catering to this crowd in their management of Yellowstone’s grizzly bears, including the pathetic few who apparently need a stuffed grizzly bear in their den to prop up a frail ego.

Urge Hillary Clinton to remove Salazar from her transition team

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Voters for Environmental Protection and Wildlife Conservation
 see: Change.org

Salazar is a bad choice for wildlife and the environment
Hillary Clinton has picked former Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to head her transition team preparing for her Presidency if she wins. The transition team is a small group of advisors responsible for setting the groundwork for important decisions, which includes selecting executive branch appointments. As the former head of the Interior Department, Salazar is sure to have a great deal of influence on the selection of the next Secretary of the Interior and other positions with wildlife and environmental responsibilities. Therefore, the people making these decisions would be very likely to have positions, opinions, and loyalties similar to those of Salazar himself.

This is very bad news for wildlife and the environment. Salazar’s actions and statements reveal a strong bias against wildlife and protection of natural resources and in favor of such groups as ranchers and oil executives. For example, during his tenure at Interior, and since then, he:

– delisted vulnerable wolves from the endangered species list early in his tenure

– later delisted wolves in Wyoming where wolves are treated as vermin

– refused endangered species protection to polar bears whose habitat is threatened

– consistently sided with the interests of ranchers vs wildlife on public land issues

– accelerated rates of cruel roundups of horses and sale to known slaughterers

– rejected reasonable humane solutions to wildlife problems in favor of cruel and lethal methods

– developed vast areas of public wildlife habitats for energy production, including gas and oil

– defended the safety of fracking for oil and gas and joined industry in opposing the anti-fracking initiatives in Colorado

– promoted the XL pipeline

TAKE ACTION NOW

FIRST: Sign the petition and circulate it to as many people as you can.

THEN:  strengthen the message:

1. Call Hillary’s campaign office at 646-854-1432, and urge her to remove Salazar from her transition team. Phone calls have major impact.

2. Go to Hillary’s Contact Us form https://www.hillaryclinton.com/forms/contact-us/ and copy our petition letter at the link below and paste it into the Message section, or just write a brief message urging Hillary to remove Salazar from her transition team, and send her a direct message.

THANK YOU!

Voters for Environmental Protection and Wildlife Conservation

Hillary Clinton taps former Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar to lead White House transition team

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http://www.denverpost.com/2016/08/16/ken-salazar-hillary-clinton-white-house-transition-team/

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton on Tuesday named former U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado as the chairman of her White House transition team — a job that puts him in prime position to join Clinton’s administration if she wins the election.

As head of a lineup that includes former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and former National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Salazar will be in charge of vetting potential agency leaders and officials, as well as consulting with President Barack Obama’s administration on issues ranging from the economy to national security.

“Once Hillary Clinton makes history by being elected as the nation’s first woman president, we want to have a turnkey operation in place so she can hit the ground running right away,” Salazar, a Democrat, said in a statement released Tuesday by the Clinton campaign.

While transition teams are nothing new, their role has become increasingly official in recent years. Salazar’s team will meet regularly with the administration and use work space provided by the General Services Administration. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was tapped in May by Donald Trump for a similar assignment.

Clinton’s selection of Salazar is not a complete surprise, said Colorado Democrats who know both politicians. Salazar has been a longtime Clinton supporter — hosting a campaign event for her last fall — and he was mentioned as a possible running mate in the early months of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Clinton and Salazar have a history, too. Not only did they serve together in the U.S. Senate, the two politicians both were Cabinet officials under Obama: She with the State Department and he with the U.S. Department of the Interior.

“My perception is that Secretary Clinton and Secretary Salazar built a strong relationship when they both were serving in the Cabinet,” said Steve Bachar, a member of Clinton’s National Finance Committee. “They gained a lot of mutual respect and when Secretary Clinton announced her candidacy for president, Ken stepped in to be as helpful as he could in every way he could.”

Although Clinton ultimately selected U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia as her pick for vice president — over Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper — the transition team could provide Salazar a road back to Washington if he wants it.

More: http://www.denverpost.com/2016/08/16/ken-salazar-hillary-clinton-white-house-transition-team/

Sates Prove Playground Bullies In Push To Delist Yellowstone Grizzly Bears

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[grizzly-commons:3378] Counterpunch: States Prove Playground Bullies in Push to Delist Yellowstone Grizzlies
‘Louisa Willcox’ via The Grizzly-Commons

by LOUISA WILLCOX

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State wildlife managers from Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho have recently dispelled any illusions about how they intend to treat grizzly bears after wresting management control away from the federal government. Removal of Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections will probably happen later this year and, if that happens, the states have made clear that they plan to go on a blood-letting binge involving the slaughter of hundreds of bears. They are already showing their thuggish nature in dealings with the public and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). State managers, most notably those representing Wyoming, have been the proverbial playground bullies during recent public meetings and, unfortunately, the FWS is rewarding this nastiness by acquiescing to every demand.

Not only do the states intend to allow trophy hunting, they also want a free hand to kill more grizzlies without any accountability to the national public that treasures these bears… or even any accountability to the majority of state residents who don’t support hunting grizzlies. At a meeting of grizzly bear managers earlier this month, only Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Dan Wenk had the courage to speak out in defense of the grizzly bears that define the nation’s oldest Park (link). Wenk objected to hunting grizzly bears in lands bordering Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. The state managers who were present responded by saying, basically, “bugger off.”

The battle lines are clearly drawn. On one side, the states are representing the ethos of death and violence, slaved to the interests of hunters and ranchers. On the other, the Park Service is upholding an ethos of preservation and respect, on behalf of the broader American public. The states are about guarding the franchise of a few and their exploitative pursuits, while the Park Service is about empowering the many, who tend towards more benign, even altruistic, treatment of wildlife and wildlands.

The Park Service’s philosophy reflects a broader cultural trend towards greater inclusiveness, greater tolerance, and greater respect for those who are different—increasingly including animals (Among other great books on the topic is Stephen Pinker’s Better Angels of Our Nature).  This trend is reflected in the fact that, according to Acting FWS Recovery Coordinator Wayne Kasworm, over 99% of the 290,000 comments submitted during May of this year to the FWS in response to its proposed removal of ESA protections opposed this move, opposed trophy hunting, and supported increased protections.

The states, which have the upper hand right now, are making no secret about their agenda or their disregard for the widespread concern about their prospective treatment of grizzly bears. A letter submitted in May to the FWS by Wyoming, Idaho and Montana makes this agenda crystal clear (link). More on this later.

As institutions, the states are obsessed with power and meting out death, which are not unrelated. State wildlife managers still adhere to the archaic view that nature must be subdued to enable economic progress and provide killing opportunities for those who find gratification in such pursuits (link). Reflecting past, more regressive times, state game agencies and their commissions are mostly for and about white guys, as evidenced in their sexualized literature that surrounds sport hunting (link). Elsewhere, I have written about the numerous times I have been belittled and ridiculed by the thugs who lead Wyoming’s Game and Fish Department, because I am a woman standing in opposition to the state’s destructive policies, and thus not an enfranchised member of their clientelle… nor apparently  even worthy of being treated respectfully (link).

But nothing rankles state wildlife managers more than a perceived threat to their power from the federal government. Any federal restrictions on their ability to kill things are seen as an anathema — especially when it comes to large carnivores such as grizzlies that these managers see as competitors for opportunities to sell licenses to hunt elk, deer, and moose (link). Never mind that they depend on welfare payments from the federal government in the form of huge annual grants. Never mind that the weight of scientific evidence shows that weather, habitat, and sport hunting govern population dynamics of large herbivores far more than does predation.

It is no surprise that the states have demanded that the FWS revoke the few requirements being imposed as a condition for removal of ESA protections and instead substitute handshake agreements.  And they have demanded that the FWS eliminate provisions for triggers that could lead to reinstating ESA protections if the states fall down on the job and the bear population tanks.  They also reject provisions for monitoring habitat 5 years after delisting, especially the current FWS requirement that such monitoring be “in perpetuity.” In essence, the states are saying “trust us” with the future of the grizzly bear, even though their historic hostility toward bears was the main reason why this species ended up as an endangered species 40 years ago.

At the recent meeting of state and federal bear managers, the states were brazen enough to press FWS even further by insisting that they be allowed to manage for a population decline.  This would make grizzly bears the only species in the history of the Endangered Species Act where population decline was an explicit post-delisting goal.

The consequences of such a policy would likely be catastrophic for Yellowstone’s grizzly bears, which are the members of slowest reproducing land mammal species in North America, faced with unprecedented threats from climate change and human population growth. According to one model employed by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, the population may already be decline, the likely result of a spike in across-the-board mortality that began more than a decade ago (link). Indeed, some experts fear that the population could already be at a tipping point, headed towards a crash if bear deaths continue to mount.

Recovery Target of 500 Was “Pulled Out of the Government’s Ass”

Put simply, the current threshold of 500 bears set for determining population recovery by the FWS is far too low. And it is this number that is driving much of the states’ rhetoric as well as backing the FWS into a corner of its own making.  As a bit of historical context, grizzly bears in Yellowstone were once part of a contiguous population of many thousands of grizzly bears that extended from the Bering Strait to central Mexico. But European settlers managed to wipe out over 95% of the bears in the western United States in little less than 100 years. By the time Yellowstone’s bears were given ESA protections in 1975, they were down to perhaps 300 to 350 animals totally isolated from grizzly bears anywhere else on Earth (link).

Under federal protections that prohibited hunting and excessive killing, the population had stabilized at around 350 bears by 1992 when the federal government revised its grizzly bear recovery plan. In the plan, the government adopted 500 animals as the recovery target, largely because that was considered to be a generous increase over what they thought they had at the time, with little other justification. The states, already agitating to delist the population and renew a sport hunt, resisted higher recovery numbers.

One expert, who advised the FWS in the recovery planning process, later offered this: “The FWS basically pulled this number out of its ass.” He and a number of scientists argued — then and since —  that 500 animals, only about 27% of which are capable of breeding, was far from enough, especially since the Yellowstone population was (and is) entirely isolated.

Since 1992, scientists’ understanding of endangered species recovery has advanced greatly. Today, there is scientific consensus that an interconnected population of populations, or “meta-population”, of as many as 6,000 bears is needed to ensure long term persistence in the face of rapid change, as is occurring now (link). This would necessitate reconnecting Yellowstone to other ecosystems in the Northern Rockies, including Glacier, which boasts the largest population of grizzlies. Numerous analyses have been done showing that ample habitat is available to achieve a recovered meta-population of grizzly bears. In light of today’s scientific understanding, a recovery target of 500 isolated mammals does not pass the laugh test – except where politics, rather than science, rules.

Nodding ever so slightly towards the newer science, the FWS included in its conditions for removing ESA protections a provision that limited the number of bears that could be killed by hunting, saying that if the population, now estimated at 717 animals, dropped below 674, hunting would stop. And, the agency stated that maintaining at least 600 bears is important to the population’s genetic health, and that if the population dropped to or below 500 animals, “the population would not be considered demographically recovered.” Importantly, the FWS encouraged—but did not require–connectivity between Yellowstone and other grizzly bear populations.

But the states are having none of this. Instead, they are demanding that the FWS remove all language that might even encourage managing to connect populations. They are asking that hunting be allowed to continue until the population hits 600, not 674 individuals. Perhaps most disturbing is their rejection of the FWS’ claims that a population of fewer than 500 would be considered in peril, indicating that the states may not be willing to sustain even this minimum number of bears.

Instead, the states argue that adherence to the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is good enough.

The States’ Answer to Grizzly Bear Recovery: The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation

In lieu of the FWS’ meager post-delisting restrictions, the states maintain that grizzly bears would be fine because they will be governed according to principles of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation (link).  This model argues that hunters are the major if not sole drivers of wildlife conservation. The Model espouses a fanciful rendering of history in which hunters have been the primary agents of wildlife protection, and have benefited not only targeted big game species, but all other species as well. Advocates of the Model claim that this ”just so” history is a prescription for the future, and that, to be effective, conservation must be based on providing hunters and trappers hunting and trapping opportunities as repayment for their presumed ardent support of all things preservable.

But the Model is, in fact, a “just so” story designed to serve a political purpose. It is not based on a comprehensive or accurate understanding of history. Among other powerful critiques, Thomas Dunlap’s Saving America’s Wildlife: Ecology and the American Mind: 1850-1990, shows wildlife conservation to be the product of efforts by non-hunters as well as hunters – and that hunters have actually persecuted and striven to eliminate a number of species under the rubric of “varmints” and “vermin”. Read: carnivores such as grizzly bears, wolves, and mountain lions.

It is a fact that the major wildlife and environmental laws enacted from the 1960’s to the present, including the Endangered Species Act and the Wilderness Act, were NOT passed due to the influence of hunters, but rather due to the efforts of a broad-based national constituency. According to Department of Interior data, hunter numbers have been shrinking in recent decades, and the primary “consumers” of wildlife are increasingly those who watch, rather than kill, wildlife. Simply put, those who value wildlife alive for moral, aesthetic, spiritual and scientific reasons are the biggest force behind wildlife conservation today—not hunters or trappers.

And, even if hunters did contribute something to wildlife conservation in the past, this does not mean that they should dominate the policy process now. The fact is, as I noted earlier, those advocating preservation rather than hunting of grizzly bears constituted over 99% of those who submitted comments to the FWS during the period during which the public had an opportunity to comment on the proposal to remove ESA protections. Overwhelming opposition to delisting was similarly expressed during the last 9 public processes that occurred over the last 15 years (link). Yet the FWS and state wildlife managers are catering to less than 1% of hunters and ranchers who expressed the a desire to kill bears, under the guise of a “Model” that is, in reality, nothing more than a myth.

Knowing that they are flying in the face of public opposition, the states are now ducking the hunting issue, while attempting to rewrite history.

 Of Trophy Hunting and Human-caused Mortality

Although state officials have been advocating a return to hunting grizzly bears for over 20 years, recently codified in their state plans, they asked for the first time ever in their May letter to the FWS  that hunting not be mentioned in the delisting Rule. Why? Because of the tsunami of public protest against trophy hunting grizzly bears – and against trophy hunting more broadly—that has occurred in the last months and years. Since at least the early 1990s, the overwhelming majority of the American public has disapproved of killing wildlife for fun and ego-gratification, rather than for food.

It must be noted that wildlife managers in the states of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana have not had a change of heart. Rather, here they espouse Lefty Gomez’s epithet: “if you don’t throw it, they can’t hit it.”

As part of their plans for driving the Yellowstone grizzly bear population down to basement levels, the states are also seeking permission to kill more bears, even bears that have not been involved in conflicts with humans. Under the post-delisting Memorandum of Agreement developed by state managers, as many as 72 bears could be killed per year. To facilitate this outcome, the states are pushing the FWS to remove any mention in the Rule of excessive human-caused bear mortality as a problem — even though this was one of the major reasons that grizzlies were listed in the first place and continue to be threatened. Ironically, all grizzly bear management agencies, including the states, have prioritized co-existence practices and voiced support for reducing bear deaths. Indeed, progress in this area has been perhaps the key reason that delisting is even being discussed today.

The states are now demanding that the FWS rewrite history, ignore science, and be silent on the need to place limits on killing bears. Instead the states want the FWS to help pave the way to killing even more bears after delisting. If the current level of killing was not enough of a problem now, the states would guarantee a crisis soon after delisting.

But wouldn’t the FWS reinstate ESA protections if the population crashes under the heel of state management? Not if the states also gets the FWS to remove any of the current provisions in the Rule that would automatically lead to a relisting process.

States Seek Responsibility without Accountability

The FWS has so far included a few triggers (which many consider inadequate) that would potentially lead to relisting. One is if the states fail to adequately fund post-delisting monitoring and management requirements. If funding is inadequate enough to indirectly jeopardize the population, the FWS currently provides assurances that it will step in and begin deliberations that could lead to relisting Yellowstone bears. The states are asking FWS to strip this provision.

The FWS also requires that the states and federal land managers commit “in perpetuity” to a post-delisting habitat monitoring program outlined in the Conservation Strategy, which is a companion document to the delisting Rule. This is a tacit admission by the FWS that the future will not necessarily look like the past, and that the government must keep watch over the quality of the bear’s habitat.  The collapse of two key bear foods, whitebark pine and cutthroat trout, over the last few decades demonstrate how quickly habitat can deteriorate (link). But predictably, the states want monitoring after the usual 5-year post-delisting period to be eliminated.

The states are also requesting that all other requirements pertaining to population distribution and composition be eliminated and replaced by the Memorandum of Agreement among the states. But the MOA is a killing, not a conservation policy (link). Furthermore, the MOA is a handshake agreement, and thus completely discretionary. Given the states’ notorious anti-carnivore histories (yes, despite propaganda to the contrary, they have indeed treated carnivores badly), why should they be trusted with a handshake?

The ball is in the FWS’s court to either accept or reject the states’ demands.

Will FWS Bow to the Bullies, or Defer to the Wishes of the Broader Public?

So far, the FWS’s leaders, most notably Director Dan Ashe, have demonstrated an unqualified desire to placate the states rather than uphold the ESA when it comes to dealing with grizzly bears (link). Unprecedented public outcry on behalf of bears seems to have made no difference. Nor has harsh criticism by numerous independent scientists, including Drs. Jane Goodall and E.O. Wilson. Why?

Because the FWS is enslaved to the narrative that delisting of grizzly bears (and wolves) is needed to “save” the the ESA. This seems to translate into obsequious cow-towing to the states. Elsewhere, I have written that this story has zero justification (link). Hatched in the mid-1990’s, the narrative has taken on a life of its own and is now embedded in the culture of the FWS where it seems impervious to critical examination.

As outrageous, the FWS’s point person for delisting Yellowstone grizzly bears is Deputy Regional Director Matt Hogan, who was formerly the head lobbyist of Safari Club International, one of the hunting groups that stand to benefit directly from a grizzly bear trophy hunting (link). And equally outrageously, the FWS also contracted with a company that services the oil and gas industry, headed up by an ex-Haliburton executive, to conduct the scientific peer review of the delisting Rule (link). The reviewers predictably gave the Rule a green light. Conflict of interest, anyone?

In response, the Oglala Sioux, one of fifty Tribes opposed to delisting, have requested a Congressional investigation of the matter (link). The Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) letter says: “the FWS is not, the evidence suggests, conducting the process in good faith with either the OST or any other tribal nation.” Or the rest of the nation, I would add.

Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell, who has yet to respond, should see this as an opportunity to correct the FWS’ tragic course on delisting, and support the Park Service’s efforts to introduce some sanity in the process. It is the centennial of the National Park Service, after all. She should respect the views of the Tribes, and comply with legal requirements to consult with them on the fate of the bear. She should heed the advice of scientists who advocate caution. She should uphold principles of democracy and serve the interests of the majority of Americans who want to see the grizzly bear protected, not hunted. And she should clean house at the FWS while she is at it.

Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson

Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson

Should the gray wolf keep its endangered species protection?

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Gray wolves

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/should-the-gray-wolf-keep-its-endangered-species-protection
Dan StahlerGray wolves are currently protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (and are not always gray).

Research by UCLA biologists published today presents strong evidence that the scientific reason advanced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act is incorrect.

A key justification for protection of the gray wolf under the act was that its geographic range included the Great Lakes region and 29 Eastern states, as well as much of North America. The Fish and Wildlife Service published a document in 2014 which asserted that a newly recognized species called the eastern wolf occupied the Great Lakes region and eastern states, not the gray wolf. Therefore, the original listing under the act was invalid, and the service recommended that the species (except for the Mexican gray wolf, which is the most endangered gray wolf in North America) should be removed from protection under the act.

A decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act may be made as early as this fall.

In the new study published in the journal Science Advances, biologists analyzed the complete genomes of North American wolves — including the gray wolf, eastern wolf and red wolf — and coyotes. The researchers found that both the red wolf and eastern wolf are not distinct species, but instead are mixes of gray wolf and coyote.

Bridgett vonHoldt and Robert Wayne

Reed Hutchinson/UCLA
Bridgett vonHoldt and Robert Wayne in 2009.

“The recently defined eastern wolf is just a gray wolf and coyote mix, with about 75 percent of its genome assigned to the gray wolf,” said senior author Robert Wayne, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. “We found no evidence for an eastern wolf that has a separate evolutionary legacy. The gray wolf should keep its endangered species status and be preserved because the reason for removing it is incorrect. The gray wolf did live in the Great Lakes area and in the 29 eastern states.”

Once common throughout North America and among the world’s most widespread mammals, the gray wolf is now extinct in much of the United States, Mexico and Western Europe, and lives mostly in wilderness and remote areas. Gray wolves still live in the Great lakes area, but not in the eastern states.

Apparently, the two species first mixed hundreds of years ago in the American South, resulting in a population that has become more coyote-like as gray wolves were slaughtered, Wayne said. The same process occurred more recently in the Great Lakes area, as wolves became rare and coyotes entered the region in the 1920s.

The researchers analyzed the genomes of 12 pure gray wolves (from areas where there are no coyotes), three coyotes (from areas where there are no gray wolves), six eastern wolves (which the researchers call Great Lakes wolves) and three red wolves.

There has been a substantial controversy over whether red wolves and eastern wolves are genetically distinct species. In their study, the researchers did not find a unique ancestry in either that could not be explained by inter-breeding between gray wolves and coyotes.

“If you did this same experiment with humans — human genomes from Eurasia — you would find that one to four percent of the human genome has what looks like strange genomic elements from another species: Neanderthals,” Wayne said. “In red wolves and eastern wolves, we thought it might be at least 10 to 20 percent of the genome that could not be explained by ancestry from gray wolves and coyotes. However, we found just three to four percent, on average — similar to that found in individuals from the same species when compared to our small reference set.”

Red wolf

Dave Mech
Red wolf

Pure eastern wolves were thought to reside in Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park. The researchers studied two samples from Algonquin Provincial Park and found they were about 50 percent gray wolf, 50 percent coyote.

Biologists mistakenly classified the offspring of gray wolves and coyotes as red wolves or eastern wolves, but the new genomic data suggest they are hybrids. “These gray wolf-coyote hybrids look distinct and were mistaken as a distinct species,” Wayne said.

Eventually, after the extinction of gray wolves in the American south, the red wolves could mate only with one another and coyotes, and became increasingly coyote-like.

Red wolves turn out to be about 25 percent gray wolf and 75 percent coyote, while the eastern wolf’s ancestry is approximately 75 percent gray wolf and 25 percent coyote, Wayne said. (Wayne’s research team published findings in the journal Nature in 1991 suggesting red wolves were a mixture of gray wolves and coyotes.)

Although the red wolf, listed as an endangered species in 1973, is not a distinct species, Wayne believes it is worth conserving; it is the only repository of the gray wolf genes that existed in the American South, he said.

The researchers analyzed SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) — tiny variations in a genetic sequence, and used sophisticated statistical approaches. In the more than two dozen genomes, they found 5.4 million differences in SNPs, a very large number.

Carla Schaffer/AAAS
Genomic sequencing reveals that red wolves and eastern wolves are hybrids of gray wolves.

Wayne said the Endangered Species Act has been extremely effective. He adds, however, that when it was formulated in the 1970s, biologists thought species tended not to inter-breed with other species, and that if there were hybrids, they were not as fit. The scientific view has changed substantially since then. Inter-breeding in the wild is common and may even be beneficial, he said. The researchers believe the Endangered Species Act should be applied with more flexibility to allow protection of hybrids in some cases (it currently does not), and scientists have made several suggestions about how this might be done without a change in the law, Wayne said.

Co-authors of the study include lead author Bridgett vonHoldt, an assistant professor at Princeton University and former UCLA graduate student and postdoctoral scholar who worked in Wayne’s laboratory; Beth Shapiro, UC Santa Cruz associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology; Jacqueline Robinson, a UCLA graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology in Wayne’s laboratory; and Zhenxin Fan, an assistant professor at China’s Sichuan University, who was a visiting graduate student in Wayne’s laboratory.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Turner Endangered Species Fund, the Wilburforce Foundation, and the Morris Animal Foundation.

Delisting wolves was a mistake (OPINION)

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http://www.projectcoyote.org/delisting-wolves-was-a-mistake/

by | Nov 24, 2015 | Notes From the Field |

The decision by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission to delist wolves from the state’s Endangered Species Act protection was based on faulty science and political expediency. The biggest problem is with the department’s criteria for delisting — more than four breeding pairs of wolves for three years in a row— is that it fails to ensure full restoration of the wolf across the state. Many outside scientists, including myself, feel the small population of 80 to perhaps as many as 100 wolves statewide is hardily sufficient to guarantee a robust and speedy restoration of the species.

A hundred or fewer wolves may preclude the extinction of the species, but it does not restore the ecological function of the wolf. And restoring the ecological function of the species should be the prime goal of any conservation effort. Precluding extinction is a very low bar and does not serve the people of Oregon, the wolf or our ecosystems.

I did an analysis of the potential for wolf restoration in Oregon back in the 1990s and concluded that the state could easily support 1,500 to 2,000 wolves. Others have reached similar conclusions. Restoring wolves across the state so that they are functional members of the wildlife community should be the goal of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

If, hypothetically, elk were the species under consideration and were protected under the state’s Endangered Species Act, I can almost guarantee you ODFW would want way more than 100 individuals before they would recommend delisting. They would want to see elk restored across the state.

Wolves are in a sense a “keystone” species that influences ecosystem health. Having a token population of wolves is not the same as having a functioning ecosystem member. Wolves not only eliminate weaker prey individuals but can shift habitat use; for instance they can reduce elk and deer foraging on aspen, willows and other browse species in riparian areas. Wolves can also affect the distribution and numbers of other species. Where wolves are present, there are often fewer coyotes. Coyotes kill the smaller Sierra Nevada red fox that is just hanging on in the Cascades. Restoration of wolves could thus assist the recovery of the red fox.

The rush to delist wolves is driven by false perceptions of wolf impacts on livestock and big game populations. Out of 1.3 million cattle and 195,000 sheep in the state, only 114 domestic livestock have been confirmed killed by wolves since the first wolves appeared in the early 2000s. Comparisons between Montana and Oregon are often made by ODFW. Using Montana, in 2014, the state’s 600 or so wolves killed 35 cattle and six sheep out of a total of 2.5 million cattle and 220,000 sheep respectively, By comparison, non-wolf losses accounted for 89,000 deaths. And though six sheep were killed by wolves, some 7,800 sheep died from other causes, like weather.

Wolves are simply not a threat, or even barely a factor, in the economic viability of the livestock industry.

The idea that hunting will be negatively affected across any significant portion of the state is also unlikely. Between 2009 and 2014, all wildlife management units (WMUs) of northeastern Oregon with established wolf packs had increasing elk populations, and two of the four (Imnaha and Snake River) were above the established management objectives for elk since wolves became established (ODFW data).

A similar situation exists in Montana, where elk numbers grew from an estimated 89,000 animals in 1992 (Montana Elk Plan) to 167,000 elk today (Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, 2015). If this is what you get with wolf predation, I think most reasonable hunters would agree we could use more wolves in Oregon!

In the end, ODFW capitulated to mythology and false fears of hunters and ranchers without providing context and did not meet its wildlife responsibilities under the public trust doctrine to work diligently for full restoration of the ecological function of the wolf.

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George Wuerthner lives in Bend.

Comments regarding the proposed delisting of gray wolves in Oregon from Adrian Treves, Project Coyote Science Advisory Board member