Issues
Fish and Wildlife Service Publishing Special 4(d) Rule For the Northern Long-Eared Bat. This week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a section 4(d) rule in the event that it decides a threatened listing for the Northern long-eared bat is warranted. According to the Service, this 4(d) rule would provide “measures that are necessary and advisable” for the bat’s conservation should a threatened listing move forward. According to the proposed rule:
“Although the Service has not yet made a final listing determination for the northern long-eared bat, we are proposing this 4(d) rule in the event that our final listing determination is to list the species as a threatened species. If we list the species as an endangered species or find that it does not warrant listing, we will withdraw this proposed rule. If we list the species as a threatened species, we intend to publish a final
4(d) rule concurrent with, and as a component of, the final listing rule. Consistent with section 4(d) of the Act, this proposed 4(d) rule provides measures that are tailored to our current understanding of the conservation needs of the northern long-eared bat.”
The Service also announced the opening of the comment period on the proposed rule with comments due by March 17. The Service is aiming to finalize the 4 (d) prior to the scheduled announcement of a final ESA listing decision on the bat by April 2, 2015. According to FWS Director Dan Ashe, the Service is looking to “tailor the restrictions of the [ESA] law so that they protect the bat but touch activities and people as lightly as possible to ensure that we’re providing adequate protection but also recognizing that many of these activities are not the proximate cause of the species’ decline.”
Stakeholders Speak Out on Northern Long-eared Bat. This week, U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) sent a bipartisan letter with 11 of their Senate colleagues to Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dane Ashe stating concerns about the potential listing of the Northern long-eared bat, while emphasizing the advantages to issuing a 4(d) rule.
“The challenges that affected industries in our states would face should a threatened listing be issued could be minimized through practical and flexible solutions provided in a special rule under Section 4(d) of the ESA. By issuing a special 4(d) rule concurrently with a threatened listing, the USFWS could reduce harm to bat populations, while at the same time allowing certain typical forest and land management activities to continue,” the letter reads.
IPAA has also submitted comments on the northern long-eared bat, indicating that sufficient evidence does not exist for the FWS to list the species under the ESA. According to joint comments submitted by IPAA and the American Petroleum Institute in August 2014:
“No evidence has been put forward that oil and gas exploration and production operations jeopardize the future existence of this species. The development of oil and gas wells, pipelines and processing facilities in the region where the Northern Long-Eared Bat is found has not resulted in changes to habitat, hibernation, migration, roosting or reproduction of the species that cause adverse effects at a population level.”
IPAA and API also submitted comments on the bat in December 2014, supporting comments from the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC), including information submitted by states in the ranges of the species and scientific studies published since FWS first proposed the species for listing. Read these full comments HERE and HERE.
Greater Sage-Grouse Conservation Gets a Boost In Colorado. The Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust (CCALT) announced on Wednesday that it recently completed the largest single Greater sage-grouse conservation easement on one of the biggest working ranches in Northwest Colorado. The privately-owned Cross Mountain Ranch has dedicated 16,000 acres of land to connect with neighboring easements in the state.
“This easement demonstrates the power and leverage the new conservation programs in the Farm Bill can have to benefit sage grouse; It’s the locally driven conservation efforts like these that can help prevent the need for an endangered species listing,” said Sen. Michael Bennet. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper also praised the development, stating thanks to this effort “we’re seeing the power of voluntary conservation to keep the vast sagebrush lands intact where it matters most in our state and nationally.”
The agreement is the result of work between the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Sage Grouse Initiative, the state of Colorado and private donors connected with the Land Trust. Voluntary conservation projects supported by the Sage Grouse Initiative have already enlisted hundreds of ranchers across the West to help preserve sage grouse habitats using farm bill funding. Colorado Parks and Wildlife is also a major funder of the Cross Mountain Ranch easement.
Endangered Species Protection Sought in Oklahoma for Texas Horned Lizards. On December 18, 2014, a coalition led by the Center for Biological Diversity filed a formal petition seeking state endangered status for the Texas horned lizard in Oklahoma. The petitioners claim that the lizard is threatened and requires protection pursuant to Oklahoma law.
The petition also takes aim at oil and gas development in the state as a threat to the species, claiming that development of the Woodford Shale formation is impacting the lizard’s population. According to the notice, “potential effects of shale oil development, for example from well pad, road and pipeline development, are similar to other anthropogenic activities like urbanization and agriculture (e.g., habitat fragmentation and sedimentation), while other effects, such as accidental release of wastewaters, are novel to the shale gas extraction process.”
Obama Admin Advances Final Rule On ‘Incidental Take’. Late last week, the White House began reviewing a proposed rule that would give the federal government more flexibility in issuing incidental take statements.
As ESA Watch has reported before, the proposed rule relates to the use of “surrogates” to imply the likely extent of take created by a project or development. Currently, incidental take statements are produced by the Services as part of a biological opinion resulting from consultations with the federal agency under Section 7 of the ESA. Under the proposed rule, however, the Services may instead use surrogates when it is “impractical” to detect or monitor take of individual animals. As the FWS explains:
“In some situations, the most practical surrogate for expressing the amount or extent of anticipated take of listed species is the amount of listed species’ habitat impacted by the proposed action, and the expression of the habitat surrogate is fully coextensive with the project’s impacts on the habitat.”
Both conservation groups and energy developers alike have expressed concerns about the proposed incidental take rule. According to comments from the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition in November 2013, the option to rely upon a surrogate is “especially important” given the wide number of listed and hard-to-find species in the United States, yet that the rule requires additional clarity for developers. Center for Biological Diversity endangered species policy director Brett Hartl was also critical of the rule, stating, “We are still pretty concerned that this proposal fails to assess cumulative harm to endangered species, and that as a result, it will be ever harder to track the decline of endangered species across the landscape.”
In the News
Farmers in dry California decry decision involving appeals. Associated Press. The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to consider appeals by Central Valley farmers and California water districts that want to pump more water from a delta that serves as the only home of a tiny, threatened fish. The decision lets stand a 2008 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan to safeguard the 3-inch-long Delta smelt, a species listed as threatened in 1993 under the federal Endangered Species Act. The plan restricts the amount of water that can be pumped out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and sent south to Central Valley farmers and water districts.
Bill in Congress would remove protections for Great Lakes wolves. Associated Press. Several members of Congress are preparing legislation to take gray wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Wyoming off the endangered list in an attempt to undo court decisions that have blocked the states from allowing wolf hunting and trapping for sport and predator control. U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble, R-Wis., is leading the effort, his office confirmed Tuesday. Co-sponsors include U.S. Reps. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., Dan Benishek, R-Mich., and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo. The legislation is in response to a ruling by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., last month that threw out an Obama administration decision to “delist” wolves in the western Great Lakes region, where the combined wolf population is estimated at around 3,700. That followed a similar decision by a different federal judge in September that stripped Wyoming of its wolf management authority and returned that state’s wolves to federal protections under the Endangered Species Act.
Groups to sue U.S. to stop killing of Yellowstone-area grizzlies. Reuters. Wildlife advocates notified the Obama administration on Wednesday that they planned to sue to prevent the deaths of grizzly bears in the Yellowstone area tied to elk hunting and livestock grazing on public lands in northwest Wyoming. The Sierra Club and Western Watersheds Project say the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated provisions of the Endangered Species Act by permitting as many as four grizzlies to be killed in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming because of an elk hunt there and as many as 11 in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, where bears sometimes prey on livestock on grazing allotments. The groups argue that anticipated grizzly deaths stemming from the activities in the park and nearby forest, as well as expected deaths of grizzlies elsewhere in the region could mean as many as 65 female bears could be killed annually, three times the mortality limit set by federal wildlife managers.
Fish and Wildlife unveils final policy for expanding refuges. E&E News (sub req’d). The Fish and Wildlife Service today released a final policy to guide the growth of the 150-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System, a plan that aims to maximize conservation investments to protect wildlife and taxpayer dollars. The agency’s strategic growth policy requires use of the best available science to identify and prioritize the acquisition and preservation of lands and waters, with an eye toward how those projects will stand up to climate change and other human stressors. It’s the agency’s first strategic growth policy since Congress passed the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act in 1997, ordering the agency to “plan and direct the continued growth” of refuges. Under the policy, the designation and expansion of new refuges will be guided by the need to recover threatened and endangered species, implementation of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan and the protection of migratory birds of conservation concern.
Lesser Prairie-Chicken Conservation Plan. Associated Press. Kansas fish and wildlife officials are saying that the plan to protect the endangered lesser prairie-chicken has raised nearly double the expected revenue in its first year. The plan collects funds from fees on new developments in the bird’s natural habitat and dedicates that revenue to conservation efforts. Fish and wildlife officials told lawmakers Thursday that the effort has collected $36.8 million since last year, far exceeding the plan’s goal of $20 million.
Man vs. Dog: Taming the Endangered Species Act. Fox News, Op-Ed. The increasing use of the Endangered Species Act by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) places that agency on track to regulate a massive amount of the nation’s land as a habitat for one or more of the listed species and the ones that will be considered in the next few years. Until now, FWS has been virtually unstoppable in its bid to become land manager of the nation. Recent actions however, have sought to push back on that power play, including a provision in the recent legislation to fund the federal government for 2015 that would prohibit funding for further rules to place sage-grouse on the Endangered Species List. Another attempt comes directly from the local citizens being affected by FWS listings; it is an event that pits man vs. dog.
Moffat County gains trump card in Greater sage-grouse debate. Craig Daily Press. Moffat County gained another card to play in the Greater sage grouse game last month when the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust secured a conservation easement on part of the Cross Mountain ranch located near Dinosaur National Monument. The Greater sage grouse is currently being evaluated for listing under the Endangered Species Act by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — and many groups are trying to prevent such a listing by executing local conservation efforts to protect the bird.
