Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

The fate of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies is up in the air again, as the Bush administration will open yet another period of public comment on whether the wolves should be kicked off the endangered species list. The wolves, which were delisted in March and relisted in September, are probably just hungry for a decision. (Hey, you try to make a graceful reference to "Hungry Like the Wolf.")

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains will remain on the endangered species list for the foreseeable future, according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokesperson. FWS' Ed Bangs said Tuesday that the agency will withdraw its rule (released in March) that had declared the gray wolf population in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming recovered and no longer in need of Endangered Species Act protections. In April, environmentalists and wildlife advocates sued to relist the wolves due to concerns that loose hunting rules in the three states would eliminate much of the area's wolf population and that the much smaller numbers would restrict their genetic diversity. The judge ruled in the groups' favor, issuing a temporary injunction in July ordering the wolves to be relisted. And now that the FWS has decided to drop its delisting rule (pending approval by the Justice Department), the wolves will remain protected under the ESA until the agency dreams up a new plan. "Hopefully, they'll go back to the drawing board and come up with a new plan that better protects wolves," said Doug Honnold of Earthjustice.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Related Links:

Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change

Tweet for the bees

Energy Trust and the Big Hope

The amount of old-growth forest designated as critical habitat for the northern spotted owl was slashed 23 percent, or 1.6 million acres, by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday. One might think that means that spotted owls are doing well for themselves, but no: the spotted owl population is dropping by 4 percent each year. Despite widespread efforts to protect their Northwest old-growth home, the birds continue to lose habitat to logging, wildfires, and the aggressive barred owl. A federal study released last month warned that the remaining spotted owls lack genetic diversity, which may send them even more quickly toward extinction. "I have not lost hope for spotted owls," says wildlife geneticist Susan Haig, "but I think we're at a pretty serious crossroads." The federal axing of critical-habitat acreage resulted from a settlement with the timber industry, which complained that the 5.3 million acres left as critical habitat is still too much.

sources:

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Weeks before California's ban on lead bullets in condor habitat goes into effect, seven of the endangered birds have been found with lead poisoning. And that's no insignificant tally, as only 34 wild condors are known to live in southern California. Wildlife officials are in "crisis mode," says Jesse Grantham of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: "This is the highest lead exposure event we've had in 10 years."

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

The Bush administration has released a final plan for helping out the northern spotted owl, after a prior plan was deemed to have been watered down by political interference. Critics admit the plan is an improvement over last year's draft -- which relied heavily on, ahem, taking out predator barred owls with shotguns -- but still wish more emphasis had been put on restricting logging in the threatened bird's old-growth forest habitat. "We are definitely concerned this is not going to be sufficient to recover the owl," says Steve Holmer of the American Bird Conservancy. "It does appear to have some pretty significant loopholes." U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials say the spotted owl could be recovered within three decades if all goes well; the recovery plan will be reviewed in 10 years to see whether it's working.

sources:

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Related Links:

Oil: enough energy to melt glaciers!

Feed-in tariffs—the new school of thought

This Halloween, cut flesh for the climate

Related Links:

For McCain, it’s really all about the fake snow

Newtongate: the final nail in the coffin of Enlightenment thinking

John McCain’s troubles are the world’s troubles

Related Links:

Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change

Tweet for the bees

This Halloween, cut flesh for the climate

Photo: usgs.gov

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering a land swap with a Native-owned energy company that would open up about 200,000 acres of Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Alaska to oil and gas drilling. Under the pending deal, the energy company would trade about 150,000 acres of its nearby land for 110,000 acres of what it believes is more oil-and-gas-rich land now within the refuge; the deal would also give the company mineral rights to an additional 97,000 acres of refuge land. The company claims the swap is an equal value exchange, but no appraisal has been conducted as it could delay the deal. Alaska Rep. Don Young (R), an advocate of the swap, admitted it's time sensitive. "The window is the [U.S. presidential] election," he said. "We'd like to have an executive order out of the administration before they leave office." Environmentalists and many locals oppose the deal, arguing drilling would damage sensitive lands and habitat. "Interior is trying to accomplish on the Yukon what Congress denied them on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," said Grady Hocutt of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Photo: iStockphoto

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has decided not to list wolverines in the Lower 48 states as threatened or endangered. The agency concluded that wolverines didn't need Endangered Species Act protections in the Lower 48 since viable populations exist in Canada and Alaska. The FWS said the Lower 48 wolverine population "is not separated from wolverine populations in Canada, and is likely dependent on them to some degree for maintaining genetic diversity." However, some wildlife advocates saw the decision as pawning off species protections to other countries. "This sets a new low in a long line of irresponsible, disturbing decisions made of late by the Bush administration," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, former director of the FWS in the Clinton administration. "The Endangered Species Act was designed to protect and preserve imperiled wildlife populations -- not so that we can pass our responsibilities off onto our border neighbors." Green groups said they'll likely challenge the decision in court.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

In a significant and unexpected victory for environmentalists, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reversed its plans to significantly cut critical habitat for the marbled murrelet. The tiny seabird is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and the FWS had threatened to cut over 90 percent of its critical habitat as part of the Bush administration's plans to increase logging of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. But with the reversal, 3.9 million acres of federal old-growth forests will remain protected. Along with the spotted owl, the fight over murrelet habitat has pitted forest and species advocates against timber interests eager to log federal forests. "This reversal, coupled with a recent court decision throwing out a timber industry attempt to delist the murrelet, should end the timber industry's profit-driven and illegal attack on the coastal forests that murrelets need to survive," said Earthjustice attorney Kristen Boyles.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed that 42,753 square miles of the northern U.S. be designated as critical habitat for the Canada lynx. The new area is more than 20 times bigger than a proposal made in 2006, which the agency promised to revisit after it became clear that former USFWS overseer Julie MacDonald's influence trumped scientists' recommendations. Activists generally applauded the new plan, although some were disappointed that no areas of the southern Rockies were included. The Interior Department is taking public comment on its lynx-habitat proposal until Apr. 28.

sources:

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has again missed a deadline for announcing whether or not it will declare polar bears a threatened species.

Related Links:

On “climategate”

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

Environmental and native groups have sued -- as they are wont to do -- in an attempt to force the Interior Department to rethink its decision to sell oil and gas leases in Alaska's Chukchi Sea, which is prime polar bear habitat. The lease sale by the department's Minerals Management Service is scheduled to go ahead next week; meanwhile, another agency in the department, the Fish and Wildlife Service, has delayed its decision on whether polar bears should be protected as endangered species. FWS Director Dale Hall told a Senate hearing Wednesday that while staff recommendations are complete, the agency is unlikely to issue its final decision until the lease sale has been completed. Not because it values oil sales over polar bears, no sirree -- because it wants to be sure the polar-bear decision will be fully understood by Congress and the public. Uh huh. We think we understand just fine.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Seven green groups have sued over a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan that would loosen restrictions on killing gray wolves in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Photo: iStockphoto

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced it is altering a rule that will make it easier to kill gray wolves in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. Gray wolves in the area are still protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, though the FWS intends to delist them this spring and hand management over to the states. The rule change allows states and tribes with wolf-management plans to kill wolves in areas where deer and elk populations are declining and would let landowners kill wolves caught attacking dogs or livestock. "This is a giant step backward," said Suzanne Stone of Defenders of Wildlife. "Under the rule finalized today, more than 750 wolves -- over half of the region's wolf population -- could be killed, even though this wolf population is still protected by the Endangered Species Act."

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Discontented with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's announcement that it will not meet its deadline for deciding whether to list polar bears as a threatened species, the Big Three green groups -- Greenpeace, NRDC, and the Center for Biological Diversity -- have notified the government that they plan to sue.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, expected to announce on Wednesday its decision about whether to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, has announced instead that it will miss that deadline. The agency said it hopes to make a recommendation to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne within the next month, after continued analysis of scientific data and public comment. The fact that the Interior Department is having a sale of drilling rights in polar-bear habitat in early February is probably merely coincidence.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science