Document Actions
Protections for Forest Carnivores Moves Forward
Document Actions
Positive 90-day finding for the Pacific fisher
Court settlement sets October 15 deadline for initial finding on Wolverine
For immediate release: July 31,
2003
Tim Preso, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, (406) 586-9699
Joseph Vaile, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (541)488-5789
Federal protections for two forest carnivores moved forward this month. Government biologists determined the West Coast populations of the fisher are distinct and made an initial determination to protect the species under the Endangered Species Act. Under a legal settlement announced today by conservationists, a similar determination must be made for the wolverine by October 15, 2003. That settlement, which was approved yesterday (July 30, 2003) by a Montana federal court, jump starts a process under federal law that could yield new legal protections for one of the rarest wilderness wildlife species in the lower-48 states.
In response to a lawsuit from the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a positive 90-day finding today on a petition filed in 2000 by conservation groups including the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center to list the Pacific fisher as an endangered species. The Fish and Wildlife Service will now begin a one-year review of the rare mink-like carnivore to determine if endangered status is warranted.
An old-growth dependent species, the Pacific fisher has been decimated by a combination of logging and historic fur trapping. It has been extirpated from Washington, most of Oregon, and half its range in California. “Without protection from old-growth and roadless logging, the fisher will go extinct,” states Joseph Vaile a biologist with the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center. Vaile cites several old-growth timber sales in southern Oregon that would harm the fisher. A fisher was recently photographed in one of the Mt. Ashland Ski Area proposed new runs.
The Bush Administration recently announced plans to substantially weaken protections for old-growth forests in the Sierra Nevada, which were enacted in a plan called the Framework. Bush Administration would double the amount of logging currently allowed under the Framework. Bush Administration has also recently weakened protections in the Pacific Northwest developed under the Northwest Forest Plan.
In the Northwest, the fisher has been extirpated from Washington and is now listed as a state endangered species, and is reduced to two small populations in Oregon: one in extreme southwestern Oregon and another reintroduced population in the southern Cascades. Endangered status for the fisher requires protection for old-growth forests, benefiting the entire ecosystem, and would boost efforts to reintroduce the fisher into vacant parts of its range.
The largest member of the weasel family, the wolverine is a bear cub-sized forest predator that persists in small numbers in the last remaining big wilderness areas of the lower-48 states. The powerful wolverine once ranged across the northernmost states from Maine to Washington, and south as far as the mountainous regions of New York, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. Although sporadic, unconfirmed wolverine reports continue in Oregon and California, today the wolverine is known to exist only in the northern Cascades of Washington and the Rocky Mountains of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
“Wolverines need the protection of federal law,” said attorney Tim Preso of Earthjustice, who represented a coalition of conservation groups (Defenders of Wildlife, Predator Conservation Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, Superior Wilderness Action Network, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, and Northwest Ecosystem Alliance) in the lawsuit that yielded the settlement. “Montana persists in allowing trapping of wolverines even as their remaining habitat continues to dwindle.”
“We want the wolverine back in the Pacific Northwest where it belongs,” said Joseph Vaile of KS Wild.
Concerned about the wolverine’s decline, conservationists in July 2000 submitted a petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asking that the wolverine be added to the federal endangered species list. Among other things, listing under the Endangered Species Act would mean that wolverines could no longer be trapped, and that federal agencies would have to consider the needs of the wolverine in their land management decisions. Despite the Act’s requirement that the Service make a preliminary finding on the petition at the latest within one year of submission, to date the Service has failed to take any action while threats to the wolverine have mounted. The conservationists sued the Service last October to force action on the petition.
The settlement announced today concludes that lawsuit by imposing deadlines on the Service. Under the settlement, the Service must make an initial finding regarding listing of the wolverine by October 15. If that finding is positive, the Service must undertake a full review of the wolverine’s status, and must issue a final determination on listing the wolverine as an endangered species no later than February 2005.
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Tim Preso, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, (406) 586-9699
Joseph Vaile, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (541)488-5789
Federal protections for two forest carnivores moved forward this month. Government biologists determined the West Coast populations of the fisher are distinct and made an initial determination to protect the species under the Endangered Species Act. Under a legal settlement announced today by conservationists, a similar determination must be made for the wolverine by October 15, 2003. That settlement, which was approved yesterday (July 30, 2003) by a Montana federal court, jump starts a process under federal law that could yield new legal protections for one of the rarest wilderness wildlife species in the lower-48 states.
In response to a lawsuit from the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a positive 90-day finding today on a petition filed in 2000 by conservation groups including the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center to list the Pacific fisher as an endangered species. The Fish and Wildlife Service will now begin a one-year review of the rare mink-like carnivore to determine if endangered status is warranted.
An old-growth dependent species, the Pacific fisher has been decimated by a combination of logging and historic fur trapping. It has been extirpated from Washington, most of Oregon, and half its range in California. “Without protection from old-growth and roadless logging, the fisher will go extinct,” states Joseph Vaile a biologist with the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center. Vaile cites several old-growth timber sales in southern Oregon that would harm the fisher. A fisher was recently photographed in one of the Mt. Ashland Ski Area proposed new runs.
The Bush Administration recently announced plans to substantially weaken protections for old-growth forests in the Sierra Nevada, which were enacted in a plan called the Framework. Bush Administration would double the amount of logging currently allowed under the Framework. Bush Administration has also recently weakened protections in the Pacific Northwest developed under the Northwest Forest Plan.
In the Northwest, the fisher has been extirpated from Washington and is now listed as a state endangered species, and is reduced to two small populations in Oregon: one in extreme southwestern Oregon and another reintroduced population in the southern Cascades. Endangered status for the fisher requires protection for old-growth forests, benefiting the entire ecosystem, and would boost efforts to reintroduce the fisher into vacant parts of its range.
The largest member of the weasel family, the wolverine is a bear cub-sized forest predator that persists in small numbers in the last remaining big wilderness areas of the lower-48 states. The powerful wolverine once ranged across the northernmost states from Maine to Washington, and south as far as the mountainous regions of New York, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. Although sporadic, unconfirmed wolverine reports continue in Oregon and California, today the wolverine is known to exist only in the northern Cascades of Washington and the Rocky Mountains of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
“Wolverines need the protection of federal law,” said attorney Tim Preso of Earthjustice, who represented a coalition of conservation groups (Defenders of Wildlife, Predator Conservation Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, Superior Wilderness Action Network, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, and Northwest Ecosystem Alliance) in the lawsuit that yielded the settlement. “Montana persists in allowing trapping of wolverines even as their remaining habitat continues to dwindle.”
“We want the wolverine back in the Pacific Northwest where it belongs,” said Joseph Vaile of KS Wild.
Concerned about the wolverine’s decline, conservationists in July 2000 submitted a petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asking that the wolverine be added to the federal endangered species list. Among other things, listing under the Endangered Species Act would mean that wolverines could no longer be trapped, and that federal agencies would have to consider the needs of the wolverine in their land management decisions. Despite the Act’s requirement that the Service make a preliminary finding on the petition at the latest within one year of submission, to date the Service has failed to take any action while threats to the wolverine have mounted. The conservationists sued the Service last October to force action on the petition.
The settlement announced today concludes that lawsuit by imposing deadlines on the Service. Under the settlement, the Service must make an initial finding regarding listing of the wolverine by October 15. If that finding is positive, the Service must undertake a full review of the wolverine’s status, and must issue a final determination on listing the wolverine as an endangered species no later than February 2005.
#30#30#30#