Tag Archives: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Feds begin review of Canada lynx threats

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Although focused primarily on the Canada lynx situation in Maine, this article offers some useful general observations, as well . . .

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is starting a review of federally protected Canada lynx at a time when the largest population of the cats in the Lower 48 appears to be poised for a decline.

The end of clear-cutting in Maine with the Forest Practices Act of 1989 has allowed forests to fill in, taking away some of the habitat preferred by snowshoe hares upon which lynx feed, potentially reducing populations of both species, said Jim Zelenak, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Montana.

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Suit filed over lynx habitat

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A number of conservation groups feel the feds are being too restrictive when it comes to lynx habitat designation . . .

Wildlife advocates sued the federal government Monday after it declined to designate some areas in the West as critical habitat for the imperiled Canada lynx.

WildEarth Guardians and three other groups assert that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service improperly excluded the southern Rocky Mountains of New Mexico and Colorado from 39,000 square miles of protected habitat for the elusive, forest-dwelling wild cat.

The plaintiffs, who filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Montana, also say the agency left out important habitat in portions of Washington state, Idaho, Montana and Oregon.

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Environmental groups will sue to protect fisher

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A lawsuit is in the works to force federal protection for the fisher . . .

A coalition of environmental groups warned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service it plans to sue over the agency’s decision not to protect the fisher under the Endangered Species Act.

“Fisher in Montana are being decimated by trapping and logging,” said Arlene Montgomery of Friends of the Wild Swan, one of the five groups suing the government. “While the Fish and Wildlife Service delays protection, the Northern Rockies fisher faces imminent threats to its survival.”

The groups initially asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to give the fisher protection in 2009. The agency ruled there wasn’t enough information on what kind of habitat the fur-bearing carnivore needed in the northern Rocky Mountains. The groups appealed again in September 2103, and the agency had one year to respond. That deadline was reached this September.

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Feds get until 2018 to hand in their Lynx recovery homework

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gets until 2018 to come up with a Canada Lynx recovery plan . . .

A federal judge on Wednesday set a 2018 deadline for the government to complete a long-delayed recovery plan for imperiled Canada lynx in the Lower 48 states.

Wildlife advocates had asked U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy to push the government into faster action on the snow-loving big cats, which were added to the list of threatened species in 2000.

But after federal officials said budget issues and competing priorities were slowing their work, Molloy indicated Wednesday in an order that he was reluctant to second-guess them. He said the January 2018 deadline proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was reasonable.

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Montana FWP: Feds getting ready to delist grizzlies

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More press about removing grizzlies from the endangered species list in the Northern Rockies . . .

The head of Montana’s wildlife agency said Thursday federal officials will seek to lift federal protections from some threatened grizzly bears in the Northern Rockies in the next two years.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks director Jeff Hagener told lawmakers he expects the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to propose rules that could remove two populations of grizzlies from the Endangered Species list.

One rule could lift protections for bears in and around Yellowstone Park in 2015, Hagener said. The other rule ending protections would be for grizzlies in the Northern Continental Divide region by 2016, he said.

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Judge tells U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to get off the dime on lynx recovery plan

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was told in federal district court to get moving on a lynx recovery plan . . .

Saying a decade was long enough, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy this week ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to finish its recovery plan for the imperiled Canada lynx, giving the agency 30 days to present its proposal.

Environmental groups that sued the agency lauded the decision as a critical and long-sought win for the wild cat. FWS said it would review Molloy’s ruling and determine its next move.

“We are reviewing the judge’s decisions and working on a strategy to comply with it,” said Leith Edgar, public affairs specialist with the Mountain-Prairie Region of FWS.

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For bears, ‘chickens are the new garbage’

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Bears like chickens, which is causing headaches for bear management personnel . . .

Wildlife and land managers say they are seeing gradual acceptance and improvements in public education and outreach for grizzly bear conservation, but there also are setbacks in some areas, most notably the proliferation of bear-attracting chicken coops across Western Montana.

“The hobby chicken farmer is one of the greatest threats to the grizzly bear these days,” Chris Servheen, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator, said Wednesday in Hungry Horse.

Servheen was one of the speakers during a meeting of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem subcommittee, a multi-agency panel that guides bear conservation and management.

As state grizzly bear management specialist Jamie Jonkel puts it, “chickens are the new garbage.”

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U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service wolf recovery information online

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For those of you who like to dig into source materials, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maintains a web site with news, information and recovery status reports on gray wolves on the Northern Rockies. You’ll find it here: http://westerngraywolf.fws.gov.

The agency’s “Office of External Affairs” also maintains a page with links to wolf-related press releases, public notices, hearing transcripts, articles and studies at http://www.fws.gov/home/wolfrecovery/.

Panel says assumption of ‘eastern wolf’ species not justified

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One of the assumptions basic to the federal government’s wolf recovery plan may be in error . . .

A proposal to lift federal protections for gray wolves across most of the U.S. suffered a significant setback Friday as an independent review panel said the government is relying on unsettled science to make its case.

Federal wildlife officials want to remove the animals from the endangered species list across the Lower 48 states, except for a small population in the Southwest.

The five-member U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service peer-review panel was tasked with reviewing the government’s claim that the Northeast and Midwest were home to a separate species, the eastern wolf.

If the government were right, that would make gray wolf recovery unnecessary in those areas.

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U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service delays decision on wolverine protection

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Over at the Missoulian, Rob Chaney posted more information about the delay in extending federal protections to wolverines . . .

Disputes over the science of wolverines has prompted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take an extra six months of study before it decides whether to put the elusive carnivore on the endangered species list.

The agency already extended its public comment period once through Dec. 2, after receiving conflicting opinions on the reliability of available research earlier this year. Wolverines had been considered “warranted but precluded” from ESA protection until 2012, when FWS decided to make a more thorough review.

“During the six-month extension, we will be formally engaging with experts in the scientific community to further evaluate areas of scientific disagreement and uncertainty as they relate to the wolverine delisting,” the agency said in a written statement Tuesday. “We intend that any final action resulting from these proposals be based on the best scientific and commercial data available and be as accurate and as effective as possible.”

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Note: The instructions in the article for retrieving information about the proposed rule to list wolverines under the Endangered Species Act have minor errors. The best approach seems to be to open the entire “docket folder” and browse the contents.