Humans faced a ‘close call with extinction’ nearly a million years ago
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US government is funding kills of endangered animals, activists say
June hunt in Alaska that killed 99 bears and five wolves prompts activists to renew their call for crackdown on ‘rogue states’
Tom PerkinsThu 31 Aug 2023 06.00 EDT
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/31/government-agencies-accused-kill-endangered-animal
The US federal government has been accused of simultaneously paying to protect endangered species while funding state-organized hunts of large, endangered predators, like gray wolves and grizzly bears, that increase the likelihood of their extinction.
A coalition of more than 35 animal welfare and Indigenous groups in late 2021 formally petitioned the US Department of the Interior to develop rules to withhold money from state agencies that fund the “slaughters”. But the department has not responded to the petition, the groups allege.
The coalition renewed their call in the wake of a June Alaska department of fish and game operation in which hunters gunned down 94 brown bears, five black bears and five wolves from helicopters. In a 23 August 2023 letter to Deb Haaland, the department of interior secretary, the coalition wrote that the “extinction crisis is not an abstraction; it is a clear and present danger and an impending catastrophe”.
It added: “The [department of the interior] is tasked with preventing extinctions, using sound science when making decisions to prevent those extinctions, and with being accountable to the entire public – not funding controversial predator-control actions for the purported benefit of a few.”
The letter also detailed the controversial “Judas wolf” tactic in which Alaska state agents put radio collars on wolves who return to their packs, which hunters then kill.
Similar hunts have been carried out in Wisconsin, Montana and Idaho, and state game agencies claim the kills are conservation efforts designed to boost thinned herds of caribou, moose, elk and other prey hunted by large predators.
In a statement to the Guardian, the interior department claimed federal money is not used for the kills. Spokesperson Melissa Schwartz said the allegation that the department funded state kills was “wildly inaccurate”.
But the coalition said the interior department’s statement is misleading. Federal money cannot be used to purchase bullets or guns for the hunts, which are paid for with state money, said Jeff Ruch, an attorney with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) non-profit.
But federal funds can be used to organize the operation and monitor the results, he added.
“Our petition is to change the rules so they can look at the whole state program and whether states are doing things that undermine federal policy and should be made unfundable,” Ruch said.
The federal money that goes to state agencies with the purpose of protecting wildlife is raised through gun and fishing tackle sales taxes. As much as $1bn is distributed to state agencies via the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which is part of the interior department, and the funds make up between one-third and two-thirds of state game agency budgets, Ruch said.
The rule-making petition aims to deny federal wildlife management funding to states that carry out the kills, and give scientists and conservation groups the ability to comment if a predator kill is proposed. That condition is currently required under law but lacks an enforcement mechanism, and the proposed rule would fill that hole, Peer attorneys said.
“We’re looking for leverage for the federal government to crack down on rogue states that are doing these crazy predator kills,” said the Peer attorney Chandra Rosenthal. “This is a tool in the tool belt to exert pressure to protect endangered species.”
Though the coalition said it has not received a response to its petition, Schwartz, the interior department spokesperson, said Haaland had responded in a 2022 letter. The department would not immediately provide the letter to he Guardian but noted it is subject to a Freedom of Information Act request.skip past newsletter promotion
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Peer attorneys said they were unaware of the letter, and Ruch said it was “odd” that the interior department would consider a letter a “response” to a rule-making petition. Federal agencies have three options in responding to a petition – adopt it as a rule, reject it or request additional information – and the interior department has not taken any of those steps, Ruch said.
Rosenthal said Haaland has twice canceled meetings with groups within the coalition, though Schwartz said there was no record of Haaland canceling. Fish and wildlife officials who have met with the coalition said any decision on the issue would have to come from further up the command chain, Rosenthal said.
She noted the federal government has taken similar steps in the past. It has withheld road funding for states that did not enforce federally recommended speed limits, and in Minnesota the interior department withheld funds from the state’s department of natural resources over timber issues.
The groups also say predator kills do little to boost prey populations. Adrian Treves, a predator-prey ecologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who sits on Peer’s board, said no proper studies exist on whether the hunts protect livestock. Rather, more studies have been conducted on how the kills affect populations of caribou, moose, elk and other wildlife, and a 2020 meta analysis of available science found little evidence that they increase populations.
Research shows two much bigger factors in herd health are weather and habitat, Treves said, but hunts are still pushed by state game agencies because “hunter perception is a big part of it, and their attitudes are typically negative toward predators”.
The hunts also seem to be more of a political and cultural issue, Rosenthal said.
“It seems like it’s part of the rightwing agenda to be able to do whatever they want on public lands, and they’re sticking it to the libs,” she said.
There’s been a shift in how we think about climate change
New Study Makes First-Ever Direct Link Between Greenhouse Gases And Polar Bear Deaths—Here’s Why It Could Change U.S. Climate Rules
ForbesFollow
Story by William Skipworth, Forbes Staff •1h
Topline
Anew scientific study offers the first-ever estimates of how many polar bear cubs die because of greenhouse gas emissions—something experts hope will allow the federal government to use the Endangered Species Act to regulate individual projects for their greenhouse gas emissions.
A polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is looking for food at the edge of the pack ice north of Svalbard, Norway in 2015. (Photo by Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images) LightRocket via Getty Images© Provided by Forbes
Key Facts
The study by researchers with Polar Bears International, published Thursday in the academic journal Science, explains that polar bears’ survival is heavily dependent on sea ice concentration, because when that sea ice melts, polar bears are forced onto land where food is less abundant and they are forced to fast for long periods of time.
Polar bears are normally able to fast for long periods of time and survive, but the study says sea ice melting is forcing them to fast for even longer than typical.
The longer they fast, the more weight they lose—nearly a kilogram of body mass each day—and this makes mother bears less able to care for and provide milk for their cubs, which makes cubs less likely to survive into adulthood.
As less cubs survive into adulthood, the species grows closer to extinction.
This study, researchers say, was able to quantify just how much each individual greenhouse-gas emitting project contributes to that sea ice melting and thus contributes to the extinction of polar bears—though the rate at which greenhouse gas emissions contribute to polar bear extinction varies by what region those polar bears live as there are 12 distinct subpopulations of polar bears each living in a different ecoregion.
For example, the study found that 24.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) emissions will decrease the amount of polar bears that survive into adulthood by 2.7% in the Chukchi Sea subpopulation and by 0.6% in the West Hudson Bay subpopulation.
Related video: Climate Change Responsible for Record-Breaking Heat in July, Study Suggests (Money Talks News)
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Key Background
In 2008, after projections showed that two-thirds of the world’s polar bears could die by the middle of the 21st century, polar bears became the first animal to be listed as a protected species under the Endangered Species Act as a result of human-caused climate change. Section Seven of the Endangered Species Act establishes a process with which the Department of the Interior must ensure projects they fund or authorize do not further jeopardize the survival of listed endangered species like polar bears. However, in October 2008, then-Solicitor of the Department of Interior David Bernhardt issued a legal opinion declaring Section Seven considerations wouldn’t be required unless one can differentiate the effects of greenhouse gas emissions of specific projects from the total greenhouse gas emissions created by humans since the start of the industrial revolution. This made it impossible for the Department of the Interior to evaluate projects based on how their greenhouse gas emissions would contribute to the death of endangered species, because the department previously had no way to establish one specific project’s impact separate from all the other greenhouse gas-emitting projects in the world. However, the researchers at nonprofit Polar Bears International believe this study has finally discovered how to do that. This study, the researchers argue, provides the scientific basis to rescind Bernhardt’s memo and begin including consideration of greenhouse gas emissions in reviews of all new projects.
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Tangent
The researchers behind this paper said that they focused on polar bears because Bernhardt’s memo was created in response to polar bears being listed under the Endangered Species Act. However, they said their findings can be extended to other endangered species. For example, they believe with more research, scientists would be able to establish a similar direct link between individual greenhouse-gas-emitting projects and the survival of marine turtles.
Further Reading
Unlock the Endangered Species Act to address GHG emissions (Nature)
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Is Reversing Evolution Possible? Exploring The Implications Of Dollo’s Law
Dollo’s law says nay, but some organisms say yay.
DR. BECCY CORKILL
- https://www.iflscience.com/is-reversing-evolution-possible-exploring-the-implications-of-dollos-law-70463
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Back in 1893, Belgian paleontologist Louis Dollo developed the principle that, once a structure is lost in evolution, then it is lost forever. It basically treats evolution like a one-way street and that evolution is not reversible. This simple concept became known as Dollo’s law. However, the law may not be as simple as you might think.
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Harvard Team Claims They Have Recovered Pieces OfAn Interstellar Object
Some scientists have broken down Dollo’s law even further into two parts.
- Lost complex characters are not regained.
- For an organism to lose the complex characteristics, the genetic and/ or developmental features have to accumulate so many mutations that they are unlikely to be reversed.
The first point seems simple enough. What gets more complicated is the second point, as with the development of new genetic methodologies, the thought that random genetic mutations cause some genes to be lost forever is becoming more doubtful. This means that old genetic pathways could be reactivated to reacquire characters or genes that are switched off can be switched on again.
For the second part of Dollo’s law to occur, it is presumed that this accumulation of mutations takes time, and during this time features could be re-expressed and could lead to the short-term reacquisition of some features.
Scientists have found wonderous natural examples that seem to go against at least the first point of the law, and this breakage may be more common than people think.
The lizards who began to re-lay eggs
One case is of the lizards who re-evolved to lay eggs, after previously evolving to give birth to live young. The Liolaemus lizard is a species that lives in colder climates, and to keep their offspring warm, they evolved internal gestation. Scientists found that when some Liolaemus species moved down to colonize the lowlands, where it was warmer, they seemed to start laying eggs again – seemingly, breaking Dollo’s law while they are at it.
This was not just unique to this type of lizard. The common lizard Zootoca vivipara also seemed to go from birthing live young to producing eggs.
The “missing” bone in birds
There was one study that found that the ancestral wrist bone seemed to make a comeback in the lineage leading to birds.
There were some dinosaurs that liked to walk on all fours. This meant that they needed strong wrists to support their weight, and one bone was called the pisiform. When dinosaurs began to walk on two legs, the bones in the wrist changed and the pisiform seemed to disappear, or there was no trace left in the fossil record.
As one group of dinosaurs evolved into birds, the wrist changed again and went from being straight to bent and hyperflexible, which allowed the birds to hold wings against their body. The birds developed a different type of wrist bone called the ulnare.
Investigating both the fossil record and modern bird embryos, researchers saw that the ulnare bone was present early in the development, but not in grown birds. However, there was a certain bone present in the adult form, which turned out to be the missing pisiform, that seemed to have emerged again.
Dust mites
Parasites are entirely dependent on the host, and once they become a parasite there is often no going back. Unless they are a dust mite, that is.
Dust mites are teeny tiny arachnids that are often living beside us in cushions and carpets. They are also organisms that have a free-living lifestyle. So, it was a surprise when scientists discovered that the house dust mite evolved from permanent parasites of warm-blooded vertebrates.
Despite Dollo’s attempt to simplify the world around him. There are plenty of examples found in nature that go against it.
All “explainer” articles are confirmed by fact checkers to be correct at time of publishing. Text, images, and links may be edited, removed, or added to at a later date to keep information current.
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