Endangered Species Update

May 3, 2011

Walrus hung up in “The Black Hole”

Pacific walrus may get a day in court, too
By Patti Epler, Alaska Dispatch, April 21, 2011

The Pacific walrus has become the latest Arctic Alaska species headed for a courtroom battle between environmentalists and the federal government under the Endangered Species Act.

The Center for Biological Diversity has notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of its intent to sue the agency for failing to list the walrus as either threatened or endangered under the law. The agency currently considers it a "candidate" species but formally listing the walrus would give it more protection from development through possible restrictions on oil and gas development, for instance.

The center is pushing the issue now because Shell Oil is seeking to drill in the Beaufort Sea in 2012, in an area the center says includes walrus habitat.

Rebecca Noblin, the center's Alaska director, said Thursday the federal government has found that the walrus is threatened with extinction because of climate change and has placed it in a waiting list for protection.

That waiting list has been described as a "black hole" for imperiled species, according to a press release from the center. The list has more than 250 species including some that have been there for more than 20 years. At least 24 species have gone extinct while on the waiting list, according to the release.

"The time to act to save Pacific walrus is now," she said in the release.

In a seven-page letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Rowan Gould of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Noblin describes the deteriorating sea ice condition off the Arctic coast. Walrus use sea ice for giving birth, nursing and resting. But, as the federal agency has recognized, dwindling sea ice has led to mass mortality events in recent years as thousands of animals have been trampled as too many of them haul out on areas of coastal sea ice that are too small. "The treats to walrus are not only imminent; they have already arrived," Noblin wrote.

The letter gives the agency 60 days to comply with the center's request or the conservation organization will file a lawsuit.

The Pacific walrus joins the polar bear, Cook Inlet beluga whale, ribbon seal and Steller sea lion on the list of Arctic species in Alaska that are the subject of legal action to better protect them from climate change and development.

Copyright © 2011 Alaska Dispatch.

U.S. Must Protect Offshore Drilling Environment, Groups Say

By Laurel Brubaker Calkins and Allen Johnson Jr., Bloomberg, April 26, 2011

Environmentalists urged a New Orleans appellate court today to require U.S. offshore-drilling regulators to enforce safeguards for wildlife and water quality that they claim were routinely ignored before last year’s BP Plc (BP/) oil spill.

Lawyers representing the Sierra Club, the Gulf Restoration Network, the Center for Biological Diversity and other activist groups asked the court to force the Interior Department to rescind several deep-water drilling permits regulators approved last April, just before and after the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

The activists complain that the relationship between the oil industry and its regulators has been too cozy, resulting in lax oversight and environmental damage. They claim that five drilling permits were awarded last April without completion of the full environmental-impact assessments required by law.

“What the agency did was rubber-stamp the plans,” Monica Reimer, an attorney for Earthjustice, said during today’s hearing at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. “We believe they need to be reopened, and that those plans must come before the court after the agency has done a complete environmental assessment.”

Protections sought for Sierra Nevada red fox

By Matt Weiser, The Modesto Bee, April 27, 2011

Environmentalists today asked the federal government to protect the Sierra Nevada red fox under the Endangered Species Act, a move that could have wide-ranging effects on land management.

The Center for Biological Diversity submitted the petition Wednesday. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has 90 days to determine if the fox warrants protection.

The Sierra Nevada red fox is considered one of the most endangered mammals in North America. Until recently, only a few dozen were known to exist in a remnant population near Lassen Volcanic National Park.

But in August, a handful were found more than 200 miles away near Sonora Pass, and later confirmed through genetic analysis.

Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaign director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the Sierra Nevada red fox has not already received federal protection "simply because nobody petitioned for it."

"This is probably something we should have done years ago," he said. "I think this petition is actually late."

Eyes Made of Rock Really Can See, Study Says

Mollusks' mineral lenses can distinguish shapes, not just light.

By Ker Than, National Geographic, April 14, 2011

When it comes to hard stares and stony gazes, no animal can match the chiton, a small mollusk with eyes made of rock crystal. Now a new study shows just what these strange eyes are capable of.

Scientists had long known that chitons have hundreds of beadlike structures resembling eyes on the backs of their shells. The lenses "are like big, clear pieces of rock," said study leader Dan Speiser, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

What's been unclear, however, is if the creatures could actually see using these organs or whether the eyes were good only for sensing changes in light intensity.

"It's been known for over a hundred years that these eyes exist, but no one's really tested what sort of vision they provide," Speiser said.

His latest research—conducted while he was a graduate student at Duke University in North Carolina—revealed that the sea creatures' eyes are the first known to be made of the mineral aragonite, the same material chitons use to make their shells.

What's more, these stony eyes likely have unique advantages over the squishy eyeballs of other animals.

Mollusks in Lockdown

To test the chiton's vision, Speiser and his team collected Indian fuzzy chitons (Acanthopleura granulate) from the Caribbean.

When left alone, a chiton will lift part of its oval-shaped body to breathe. But when threatened, the animal will clamp down tightly on the seafloor to protect its soft underbelly.

In the lab, the scientists placed individual animals on a stone slab beneath a white screen, which could change colors. Once the chitons seemed relaxed, the team either placed a black disk directly above the mollusks or changed the color of the background screen from white to gray.

The black disk was designed to simulate a suddenly appearing predator, while the dimming screen mimicked subtle changes in natural light that chitons might experience in the wild—for example, when a cloud passes in front of the sun.

In the experiment, the chitons went into lockdown mode when shown the black disk, but the animals remained at ease when the screen dimmed. This suggests the chiton's eyes are able to distinguish shapes, a prerequisite for true vision.

"The eyes allow the chitons to see objects—not with much detail—but they can distinguish between approaching objects and just decreases in light," Speiser said.

Speiser estimates chiton vision is about a thousand times courser than human vision, and it's likely they see only in black-and-white.

"Even compared to other animals with small eyes, chitons don't see particularly well," Speiser said.

Lawsuit Launched to Protect Alabama Shad Under Endangered Species Act

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.— The Center for Biological Diversity filed a formal notice of intent to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service today over the agency’s denial of Endangered Species Act protection for the Alabama shad. The pending lawsuit will challenge a February decision by the agency that a Center petition to protect the shad did not present sufficient information to warrant a further review of the shad’s status.

“There’s no question that the Alabama shad has undergone dramatic declines and needs Endangered Species Act protection to survive,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director with the Center. “The decision not to consider the shad for protection failed to follow either the law or the science.”

The Alabama shad once occurred in rivers from Florida to Oklahoma, but today only a handful of populations survive. The shad was once so abundant that it supported commercial fisheries in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Indiana and Iowa. Dams, pollution and drought have caused widespread decline of the shad and continue to threaten its survival.

“Too many species that desperately need help are being denied protection,” said Greenwald. “We had hoped for better environmental protection from the Obama administration, but so far it has a dismal record on endangered species.”

To date the Obama government has only granted federal protection to 59 species, 48 of which occur on one Hawaiian island, for a rate of 29 species per year. In contrast, the Clinton administration protected 522 species, for a rate of 65 species per year.

Alabama shad spend most of their six-year life in the ocean, returning to fres hwater rivers to breed. Juvenile shad remain in freshwater for the first six to eight months of their lives, feeding on small fishes and invertebrates. Populations of the shad are thought to remain in the Apalachicola River, Florida, the Choctawhatchee and Conecuh rivers, Alabama, the Pascagoula River, Mississippi, the Ouachita River, Arkansas, and the Missouri, Gasconade, Osage and Meramec rivers, Missouri.

Contact: Noah Greenwald, (503) 484-7495

NOTE:

THIS EVENING I SAW A WOODCHUCK CLIMB A TREE TO GET AT THE NEW LEAVES. I KNOW THAT WOODCUUCKS CLIMB TREES, BUT HAVE NEVER ACTUALLY OBSERVED one actually do it. . .


PEACE / RESIST

Martin