Issues
IPAA submits comments on rusty patched bumble bee. This week, IPAA and the American Petroleum Institute (API) submitted joint comments on the rusty patched bumble bee. As IPAA has noted before, in January 2013 the Xerces Society and partners submitted a petition to the Fish and Wildlife Service to list the bee as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA); this September the Service issued a 90-day finding on the bee.
According to the comments, the petition to list the bee relies on incomplete data and does not present sufficient information to warrant listing the bee at this time. The comments also call on the Service to compile and evaluate the best available scientific and commercial data on the bee, including all information about ongoing and planned activities that will provide a conservation benefit to the species such as existing conservation efforts already being directed at other species like the monarch butterfly and the northern long-eared bat. The comments also request the Service consider Safe Harbor protections for oil and gas operators who voluntarily modify their activities on site, including changes to re-vegetating project sites or modifying the use of pesticides to protect the bee. Read the full comments from IPAA and API HERE.
IPAA releases critical habitat one-pager. To enhance the profile of the impending critical habitat rules, IPAA has put together a one page fact sheet to provide additional clarity around these proposed rules and to highlight the impact of the changes if they move forward. For background, the Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed a new regulation that would dramatically expand the areas that could receive critical habitat designations. If the rule is adopted, the Service would become, in effect, a National Zoning Commission with authority to close off areas that have never been occupied by a threatened or endangered species and are not presently (and may never be) necessary to their survival. Check out the website page and the printable one-pager on the ESA Watch website, and look out for additional materials on the issue from IPAA in upcoming days.
Wyoming report estimates costs of sage-grouse decision. An upcoming report commissioned by Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead’s office calculates that the federal land-use plans for the greater sage-grouse will result in a loss of 5,500 jobs, $349.9 million less in labor earnings, and $56 million less in state and local government revenue.
According to E&E News (sub req’d), the report calculates that lands that serve as sage grouse habitat in Wyoming – the state with the largest sage grouse population — provide a direct annual impact of $18.4 billion for the state. The report also analyzed the potential costs of a federal listing for the greater sage-grouse. David Bush, communications director for Mead, noted that “there are costs associated with the plan, but a listing for the sage grouse would have been far more devastating.”
In the News
USDA allots $350 million for conservation easements. Agri-Pulse. USDA is making $350 million available to help landowners protect and restore key farmlands, grasslands and wetlands across the nation. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the funding is provided through the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP), created by the 2014 farm bill to protect critical water resources and wildlife habitat, and encourage private owners to maintain land for farming and ranching. Through the voluntary sale of an easement, landowners limit future development to protect these key resources. In Colorado, two land trusts in plan to use ACEP funds to enroll 1,805 acres to protect critical sage grouse habitat in Saguache County and in the Upper Colorado River Corridor Priority Landscape located in Grand County. Note: USDA has issued a press release.
Scientists urging government to remove gray wolves from endangered list. 9 and 10 News. A group of wildlife scientists is urging the federal government to remove gray wolves from the Great Lakes’ endangered species lists. The 26 scientists signed and sent a letter to the U.S. Interior Secretary and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The letter explains that the integrity of the Endangered Species Act is undercut if species are not removed when they have scientifically recovered. Wolves nearly disappeared from the lower 48 states in the last century, but populations have bounced back in some areas including the Great Lakes region. The combined wolf population in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin is about 3,700.
Lessons from the sage-grouse: Collaboration is key to rare species recovery. The Hill (Blog). The unprecedented collaboration among landowners, states, federal agencies, industries, conservation groups and individuals involved in sage-grouse conservation across the vastness of eleven Western states should not be an isolated instance, but the norm. We need to view it as a model for effectively protecting biodiversity. As policymakers consider the future of the Endangered Species Act, lessons from the Greater Sage-Grouse resurgence and other conservation successes should be central to managing species.
Butterfly tops list of threatened species in Minnesota. Public News Service. A species of butterfly that calls Minnesota home is perilously close to becoming extinct. The Karner Blue butterfly is on a list of the top 10 “most isolated” species in the United States. The report, called “No Room to Roam,” noted that the Karner Blue butterfly population has dropped by 99 percent, and its territory once stretched from Maine to Minnesota. That’s no longer the case, as the butterfly is now living in about half the states it used to, according to Melissa Smith, also a field representative for the coalition. Even in the states where the butterfly can be found, she said, its numbers have significantly dropped.
Prairie Pothole drainage threatens piping plover – study. E&E News (sub req’d). The increased drainage of smaller wetlands in a region of North Dakota that is a critical nesting and breeding ground for waterfowl is reducing available breeding habitat for a federally protected population of piping plovers, according to a new federal study. The study, conducted by researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey, is part of an ongoing effort by the agency to evaluate the impacts of draining smaller wetlands into larger wetlands to establish larger, more consistent sources of water, usually for agricultural operations. FWS in 1986 listed the northern Great Plains and Atlantic Coast plover populations as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and the Great Lakes population as endangered.
Public Lands Council wants Endangered Species Act reform. WNAX. The Public Lands Council wants Congress to reform the Endangered Species Act. Council Executive Director Ethan Lane says they’d like to see more local control, with state agencies taking a greater role in the regulation. He says recovery and delisting of species needs to be part of the rule rather than constantly listing various species. Lane says another major problem with the current Act is that there’s so much regulatory uncertainty.
