PRESIDENT'S
CORNER: Protecting the Florida Panther
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1. WOLVES: Minnesota Governor Signs Wolf Bounty
Legislation
Earlier this week, Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura signed
legislation establishing statewide "predator control areas" where
private citizens with a permit can trap and shoot wolves. The
legislature also created a state program to pay a $150 bounty for each
wolf killed by a permit holder. The bill was aggressively opposed by
environmental groups including Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club,
National Audubon Society and the Coalition to Protect Predators,
consisting of 60 wolf and grassroots organizations. Thanks to the nearly
1,000 DEN activists who sent faxes to the governor's office urging him
to veto the legislation.
The legislation is an attempt to produce a "state wolf-management
plan," which is a precondition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
removing the eastern timber wolf in Minnesota from the federal list of
threatened and endangered species and giving management of the species
back to the state. The new law lacks critical components to ensure
long-term recovery of wolves in the state such as wolf monitoring,
funding, education and habitat protection. Nevertheless, the U. S. Fish
and Wildlife Service is expected to propose delisting the wolf later
this year. Stay tuned to DENlines for an opportunity to comment on the
Minnesota wolf delisting decision.
The eastern timber wolf, a subspecies of the gray
wolf, once ranged throughout the Grate Lakes states. By the 1960s the
subspecies had been extirpated from everywhere except northern
Minnesota, where it numbered just 500 to 1000 animals. The subspecies is
currently listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Today,
the state can boast of more than 2,500 wolves.
Due to the success of wolf recovery in Minnesota, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service is now deciding whether to delist the wolf and give
management authority to the state. In 1999, the Minnesota Department of
Natural Resources held hearings and convened a citizen's committee,
which was composed of representatives of stakeholder groups including
farmers, landowners and environmentalists, to develop a state wolf-
management plan. Defenders believes that delisting decisions should be
based on the best available science and that long-term recovery of the
species should be the primary consideration.
The bill signed by Governor Ventura is seriously flawed.
Specifically, it:
- Creates an incentive for excessive wolf kill - The $150
bounty for each wolf killed by hunters or trappers creates an
incentive to kill as many wolves as possible, regardless of whether
they have been a problem. This modern-day bounty system harkens back
to when paid "wolfers" practically exterminated wolves throughout the
United States.
- Sets extremely lenient standards for the killing of wolves
- The bill allows private citizens to obtain "predator control
certification" permits to trap and shoot wolves within a one-mile
radius of areas where livestock or pet depredation has occurred.
However, permit holders are not obligated to trap or shoot only
offending wolves, but are permitted to kill all wolves in a designated
"predator control area." In addition, areas can be opened for wolf
killing even though the depredation occured as much as five years ago.
- Almost guarantees that innocent wolves will be targeted -
Any land area with a depredation in the last five years can be
designated a "predator control area." In this area control can then be
carried out by non- specialized hunters. Thus, the likelihood of
non-target animals being killed is extremely high. Further, while
seasoned wildlife personnel can identify and remove depredating
wolves, citizen hunters and trappers with only "predator control
certification" are likely to kill many non-target wolves.
2. CONGRESS I: House and Senate To Vote To Stop
Lethal Predator Control
As early as Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate
will vote on amendments to restrict funding for Wildlife Services, a
controversial federal program within the U. S. Department of Agriculture
that is responsible for killing nearly 150,000 coyotes, bears, mountain
lions and other wildlife each year. Representatives Peter DeFazio
(D-OR),Charles Bass (R-NH) and Connie Morella (R-MD) will offer an
amendment on the House floor that will prevent the use of federal funds
to kill these predators through poison traps known as M44s and aerial
gunning from planes and helicopters. Senator Bob Smith (R-NH) will offer
a similar amendment in the Senate. This massive killing of wildlife by
Wildlife Services is paid for by the American taxpayer to the tune of $7
million a year in order to benefit a few private ranchers, who believe
these predators pose a threat to their livelihood. The vast majority of
these animals are killed not in response to an actual predation but
merely in anticipation that they might one day feed on livestock. Send a
free fax to your Senators and Representative urging them to support the
Defazio/Bass/Morella and Smith amendments by going to the DEN action
center at http://www.denaction.org/.
3. CONGRESS II: Land Conservation Bill Passes
House, Moves to Senate
Next week, Defenders President Rodger Schlickeisen will testify in
front of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to fight for
changes to the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA), now being
considered by the Senate. Last week, the House of Representatives
overwhelmingly approved the historic legislation, which would set aside
$42 billion over the next 15 years to protect parks, refuges, forests
and open spaces, fund wildlife protection programs and coastal needs.
Thanks to the nearly 1,500 DEN activists who sent faxes to Capitol Hill,
urging support for a series of expected amendments to strengthen the
legislation before a last-minute compromise was struck. The compromise
substantially reduces incentives for new offshore oil development. While
Defenders sees the change as a significant step toward ensuring that
CARA is an environmentally sound bill, the legislation still fails to
ensure that state wildlife funding would be spent to benefit all
wildlife, allows coastal funding to be used for environmentally damaging
infrastructure and does not ensure full and permanent funding for the
Land and Water Conservation Fund. While Defenders supports enactment of
historic conservation funding legislation, we will fight for these
improvements in the Senate.
The American continent once was a vast and wild
landscape of unparalleled beauty that supported an incredible array of
fish, wildlife and plants. However, development pressures and urban
sprawl are threatening some of America's most valuable remaining
wildlife habitat and scenic treasures. Funding from the Land and Water
Conservation Fund and other programs in CARA is critically needed to
protect the remnants of this once vast natural heritage before they are
lost.
CARA provides a total of $2.8 billion permanent funding annually,
some for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). LWCF was created
by Congress in 1964 to provide funds for the preservation and
acquisition of important lands. LWCF has been responsible for the
acquisition of nearly 7 million acres of parkland, wildlife habitat and
open space. To date, LWCF has helped preserve such American treasures as
Alaska's Denali National Park, the Appalachian Trail and the Florida
Everglades. For the past several decades, more than $12 billion in
federal revenue from offshore oil drilling has been set aside by law to
permanently protect these national treasures and for states and
communities to save locally important parks and wildlife habitat. But
special interests have blocked spending the money on its legally
mandated purpose.
However, conservationists are working on several needed changes to
CARA in order to ensure that this bill is truly beneficial to the
nation's natural and cultural treasures. Specifically, changes must be
made in Title I of the bill to prohibit coastal funding to be used for
environmentally damaging projects and in Title II of the bill to ensure
full funding levels for the federal portion of LWCF every year and
increased funding for non-federal land acquisition projects,
particularly of regional or national interest. Title III should contain
language supporting important strategic planning provisions that have
been recommended by wildlife conservation groups and stipulations that
increased funding will be directed towards species that traditionally
have suffered from inadequate funding.
4. FORESTS: Forest Service Announces Plan To
Protect Roadless Areas
Last week the U.S. Forest Service released a draft plan to protect
millions of acres of the largest roadless areas in the National Forest
System from damaging new road construction. The draft plan is the next
step in a forest protection process that began last October.
Conservationists urge that the plan be strengthened in two key areas.
First, the plan currently exempts Alaska's Tongass National Forest,
considered the crown jewel of the National Forest System and the largest
remaining reserve of old-growth coastal temperate rainforest in the
world. Second, the draft plan would allow both commercial logging using
bulldozers and helicopters and "forest health" logging, which accounts
for more than 65 percent of all logging on national forest lands. The
plan will be open to public comment until July 17. Stay tuned for an
opportunity to send a free e-mail to the U.S. Forest Service on this
important issue.
More than 80 percent of the 192 million acres of
national forests is currently open to roadbuilding, logging, mining and
other forms of development. More than half of the public forests in the
United States have already been industrialized. An astounding 433,000
miles of roads have been cut through these forests, primarily to provide
access for logging companies. Logging roads carved through forested
wilderness fragment habitat for endangered wildlife such as grizzly
bears and lynx, introduce damaging exotic pests and plants and erode the
landscape -- causing landslides and sediment to fill streams and choke
fish and other aquatic species like salmon.
Recently, the U.S. Forest Service announced that it would conduct
comprehensive analysis on how best to protect 40 million acres of the
largest roadless areas in the National Forest System from damaging road
construction. The announcement is one step closer to the adoption of a
comprehensive roadless-area protection policy. Conservationists hope the
final policy will permanently protect the 60 million acres of untouched
forests from both roads and timber, oil and gas activities.
Intact forest systems provide a home to more than 3,000 animal
species and 10,000 plant species. Species like brown bears, wolves,
moose, bald eagles, otters, salmon and migratory songbirds all need
wild, protected areas to flourish. Roads, even unimproved dirt roads,
can seriously degrade the quality of habitat for these species. More
than 350 forest-dwelling species are listed as either threatened or
endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
5. CREATURE FEATURE: Hummingbirds
There are 338 different species of hummingbirds worldwide, but only
about 16 inhabit the United States. In the western hemisphere, males
will initiate a 1,850-mile move from wintering grounds in Central
America to breeding habitat in the United States and Canada. The
hummingbird gets its name for the distinctive sound it makes while in
flight. They are the stunt men of the bird world, capable of flying
backwards and even upside down. A hummingbird's wings can flap up to 50
times per second, appearing as a blur to the human eye. With feet
adapted only for perching, the bird is in constant motion as it feeds on
nectar from hundreds of blossoms each day. The bird will occasionally
eat small insects to feed its enormous appetite, needed to maintain
energy for all of its high-speed activity. Many hummingbirds have
adapted unique lengths and curvatures in its bills to fit the shapes of
specific species of flowers. Hummingbirds have developed a unique
adaptation to conserve much-needed energy at night when they are unable
to feed. They are able to drop their heart rate and body temperature to
conserve energy, entering a state called "torpor," which is similar to
hibernation.
6. PRESIDENT'S CORNER: Protecting the Florida
Panther
"These federal agencies have continually failed to consider the
Florida panther in their actions and in their planning. The government's
actions are setting a dangerous precedent which, in this case, may allow
the elimination of the only known panther population in the eastern
United States in favor of irresponsible development."
- Defenders President Rodger Schlickeisen, responding to a lawsuit
filed by Defenders and several other organizations to protect habitat
for the endangered Florida panther. For more information on this issue,
Click
here.
DENlines is a bi-weekly publication of Defenders of Wildlife, a
leading national conservation organization recognized as one of the
nation's most progressive advocates for wildlife and its habitat. It is
known for its effective leadership on endangered species issues,
particularly predators such as brown bears and gray wolves. Defenders
also advocates new approaches to wildlife conservation that protect
species before they become endangered. Founded in 1947, Defenders is a
nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization with more than 380,000 members and
supporters.
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