Issues

Wyoming monitor reports high-risk of West Nile virus. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) is requesting that Wyoming residents report sightings of dead sage-grouse so they can be tested for West Nile virus. West Nile virus is transmitted to birds through the bite of infected mosquitoes and the sage-grouse is known to have a low resistance to the disease. Given the bird’s low tolerance and the fact that the virus is usually fatal, the WGFD is being particularly diligent in planning for a potential outbreak.

“Warm nighttime temperatures are thought to enhance the ability of the West Nile virus to multiply in the gut of the mosquito. If conditions are warm between now and the end of August, we could see the virus show up this year,” says Tom Christiansen, sage-grouse program coordinator for WGFD.

Thus far, evidence of West Nile virus has been reported in northeast Wyoming and in surrounding states, including a sage-grouse in North Dakota. Testing the deceased birds will help WGFD monitor the scope of virus amid the bird population.

BLM puts tree removal project to help sage-grouse on hold. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) project to remove juniper trees from Idaho’s Owyhee county has been put on hold. The plan was originally enacted to combat the encroaching of juniper trees on sagebrush, an important part of sage-grouse habitat and a key part of their survival.

An environmental group appealing against the plan, Western Watersheds Project, argued that the native western juniper trees have a history of encroaching and retreating and accused the BLM of enacting the plan purely for grazing interests, not the sage-grouse. According to their appeal, grazing is disruptive to the ecosystem and allows cheat-grass, a fire prone plant, to flourish and cause wildfires that destroy sagebrush.

The plan, dubbed the Bruneau-Owyhee Sage-Grouse Habitat Project, is now in limbo as it is not clear when the BLM might issue a revised decision on the juniper cutting plan, saying Western Watersheds Project, “raised issues in its appeal that the BLM wishes to consider further and address in a revised decision.”

The BLM has plans to remove junipers in other states as well and, in some cases, has already begun.

In the News

An Endangered Frog Ends Up in the Regulatory Swamp. Daily Caller. The Trump administration unveiled its main effort to overhaul the Endangered Species Act on July 19, when the Interior and Commerce Departments proposed important changes to the law. They include letting the public know about the economic trade-offs involved in protecting endangered species, affording “threatened” animals less protection than “endangered” ones, and giving regulators greater flexibility to lessen the area of so-called critical habitat a species might need to survive (more on that below). The proposed changes would make the enforcement of the law altogether more sensible and transparent, which is much needed. In its role administering the law, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has made some incomprehensible decisions, such as one intended to protect the dusky gopher frog. In the amphibian equivalent of a shaggy-dog story, the government is trying to seize control of land it does not own, to protect an endangered species of frog that does not live there, to force private landowners to tear down a healthy native forest, and to install at landowner expense a new forest the landowner does not want.

Trump admin torpedoes Obama-era mitigation goal. E&E News, (Sub req’d). The Fish and Wildlife Service today killed an Obama administration environmental mitigation policy that aimed to improve or, at a minimum, maintain the status of affected natural resources when considering permits and projects. The much-anticipated rollback of the “net conservation gain” goal also includes restoring an overall mitigation policy from the Reagan administration. Echoing a broader critique of government’s power under the Endangered Species Act to demand environmental offsets from energy developers and others, FWS observed that “at times, the nexus between a proposed undertaking and compensatory mitigation requirements is far from clear.” “These concerns are particularly acute when coupled with a net conservation gain goal, which necessarily seeks to go beyond mitigating actual or anticipated harm to forcing participants to pay to address harms they, by definition, did not cause,” FWS stated. The revised Fish and Wildlife Service mitigation policies will be formally published in the Federal Register on Monday.

Enviros launch billboard campaign against planned grizzly hunts. E&E News, (Sub req’d). An environmental group that’s already suing the federal government for removing Endangered Species Act protections for Yellowstone grizzlies has started a billboard campaign targeting state-planned grizzly hunts in Wyoming and Idaho. The Center for Biological Diversity announced today it has placed two billboards — each depicting a standing grizzly bear waving its right paw, with a telescopic gun sight targeting the animal’s head — along highways in Casper, Wyo., and just north of Fort Collins, Colo., near the Wyoming border. Separate billboards are expected later in Cody, Wyo., and Boise, Idaho, the group said. The billboards read, “I’m not a trophy,” and include the address to a website that includes a petition to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to “restore” the Yellowstone population of grizzlies as a threatened species. The Fish and Wildlife Service last year removed the Yellowstone-area grizzly bears from the endangered species list and returned management of the iconic behemoths to states and Native American tribes — opening up the option for states to hold trophy hunts.

N.C. governor: Don’t remove protections for red wolf. E&E News, (Sub req’d). North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) is pushing back against a federal proposal to shrink a conservation area where endangered red wolves live. “The wild red wolf is part of the cultural and economic fabric of our state and is the only wolf unique to the United States,” Cooper said in a letter sent to the Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday. “There is a viable path forward for North Carolina’s red wolves living in the wild.” The June proposal by FWS would allow wolves that wander outside the boundaries of conservation areas to be killed. It would also shrink the conservation area to federally owned land in two counties. A public comment period on the plan wrapped up this week. As of 1980, red wolves were considered extinct in the wild. Captive-bred wolves were later reintroduced, but only about 35 wolves are left in the wild. All of them live in North Carolina. A decade ago, their population numbered 120. Existing rules and restrictions stem from an order by a federal judge. Litigation that is still in process could complicate federal efforts to change the restrictions. FWS declined to comment on the letter.

Senate OKs first Interior-EPA bill in years. E&E News, (Sub req’d). The Senate backed its first spending bill for EPA, the Interior Department and other environment-related agencies in nearly a decade, paving the way for potentially contentious negotiations over a final version of the legislation with the House. The Senate this afternoon voted 92-6 for a $152.4 billion minibus, containing the fiscal 2019 Interior-EPA, Agriculture, Transportation-Housing and Urban Development, and Financial Services-General Government spending bills. It’s the first time since fiscal 2010 that the Senate debated and advanced an Interior-EPA measure without negotiating it as part of a year-end omnibus spending package behind closed doors. Approval came after the Senate adopted a package of 58 amendments last night, including ones expanding federal efforts aimed at fighting lead in drinking water, combating algae blooms and requiring the Transportation Department to report on developing “intelligent” transportation systems. A proposed amendment to reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund was not included, despite some bipartisan backing. All told, the Senate approved fewer than 20 percent of the more than 280 amendments introduced.

5 tree-dwelling tarantulas up for protection. E&E News, (Sub req’d). The Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that five brightly colored, tree-dwelling tarantula species found in Sri Lanka deserve federal protection as an endangered species. The decision to designate the five tarantula species as endangered under the Endangered Species Act was made in response to a petition by WildEarth Guardians in 2010. A chief reason for the listing is that the Sri Lankan forested habitat for the spiders has significantly declined in the past few decades. The goal of the ESA listing, which comes with federal protection, is to cut down on the illegal removal of the spiders that are sold as “exotic pets” in the United States and elsewhere. “We’re thrilled that these beautiful spiders, imperiled by human greed, now have additional protections to help them survive,” Taylor Jones, endangered species advocate for WildEarth Guardians, said in a statement.

Opinion: New approach would benefit prairie chickens. The Oklahoman. In “Prairie chicken numbers belie claims of its demise” (Our Views, July 25), The Oklahoman editorial board described how short-sighted thinking about the Endangered Species Act often goes. Unless we try a different approach, the lesser prairie chicken may require ESA protection. The habitat the chickens have is nearly gone and is not being reclaimed fast enough as the Western Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) itself and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have already agreed. The habitat numbers, a parameter that is foundational to success but consistently under-emphasized, need to be at least as good as the population numbers. Right now the bird numbers at 38,000 are only slightly more than half of the minimum necessary number of birds of 67,000. The habitat under those birds, which is the best predictor of future bird numbers, is steeply down.

Committee to vote on sea lion euthanasia bill. E&E News, (Sub req’d). If there’s one issue that can unite members of Congress this year, it may be this: a desire to kill more sea lions. Last month, the House voted overwhelmingly to approve a bill that would allow a tenfold increase — from 92 to 920 — in the number of California sea lions that could be put to death each year. The animals are held in low regard by Democrats and Republicans alike in the Pacific Northwest, where they’re considered a nuisance for eating endangered salmon in the Columbia River. After the House voted 288-116 to pass its version of the sea lion killing bill, the action will move Wednesday to the Senate, where more bipartisan unity is expected. The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will vote on S. 3119, the “Endangered Salmon Predation Prevention Act.” It’s sponsored by a pair of unlikely allies: Republican Jim Risch of Idaho and Democrat Maria Cantwell of Washington. They prefer to call their companion legislation a salmon-saving bill. Risch said the bill would allow “more flexibility in addressing predatory sea lions” that are threatening both salmon and steelhead.