BLM Agrees to Reconsider Allowing Oil & Gas Drilling Activities in Critical Wildlife Habitat

BLM is currently taking public comment

Santa Fe-The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has agreed to reconsider its allowing oil and gas drilling activities in critical wildlife habitat in Northwest New Mexico. BLM is currently taking public comment on whether to allow exceptions to rules that protect wildlife during key breeding and wintering periods.

Pollution, noise, and physical barriers like pits and trenches from oil and gas drilling and construction activities severely endanger wildlife like elk, pronghorn and deer during winter when wildlife are already facing challenges to survival. While BLM adopted seasonal closures of public lands in New Mexico to oil and gas activities to protect wildlife, it has allowed these seasonal closures to be systematically violated due to pressure from the oil and gas industry and the Republican administration’s Energy Plan. WildEarth Guardians, a west-wide conservation group, reviewed the government’s own documents and found nearly 1,000 breaches of seasonal closures in New Mexico, including 441 in the northwestern portion of the state.

In May of this year, WildEarth Guardians filed a lawsuit in federal district court against BLM over the agency’s allowing breaches of seasonal closures designed to protect wildlife. In July, BLM sent out a letter indicating that it was reconsidering the granting of permission to oil and gas companies to breach the seasonal closures designed to protect wildlife. BLM is taking public comment on its reconsideration until August 20th. A copy of BLM’s letter, which includes the address to mail public comments, can be found at: http://ga4.org/guardians/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=26333625

Dr. Nicole Rosmarino, WildEarth Guardians’ Wildlife Program Director, said: “BLM promised the public that wildlife would enjoy increased protection from oil and gas drilling during critical winter periods but has routinely broken that promise. Hopefully BLM will provide wildlife more of the protection it needs, rather than allowing a mad rush to drill our public lands.” In addition to WildEarth Guardians, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish and members of the New Mexico Game Commission have voiced concerns over the BLM’s pattern of allowing exceptions to wildlife closures.

In an earlier lawsuit in 2005, WildEarth Guardians, New Mexico Wildlife Federation, and the Chihuahuan Desert Conservation Alliance sued the BLM over allowing exceptions to timing restrictions designed to protect lesser prairie-chickens in southeast New Mexico. The lesser prairie-chicken is an imperiled bird that has been a candidate for Endangered Species Act protection for over a decade. The lawsuit was settled with the requirement that BLM conduct surveys for the bird and solicit public comment prior to allowing those exceptions. Since the settlement, fewer than 10 exceptions have been granted annually in lesser prairie-chicken habitat.

Federal Government Exterminating More Wolves, Coyotes, and Black Bears

Record $117 Million Spent to Eradicate 2.4 Million Animals – Group Calls on Congress to End Lethal Control Program

Washington, DC – The federal government spent more than $117 million to exterminate 2.4 million wild animals (representing a total of 319 species, including some that are federally protected) and pets in 2007, according to records released last week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In comparison, the agency killed 1.6 million animals in 2006 and spent $108 million.

While the euphemistically named “Wildlife Services”-a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture-continues to emphasize extermination over practical non-lethal solutions, it has been criticized for its sledgehammer and indiscriminate approach to wildlife management. The past decade shows an escalating number of slain endangered species, including wolves and eagles, while the agency’s expenditures soar.

“Wildlife Services is killing more wildlife in the U.S. than ever, including endangered species, song birds, and other wild animals the public holds dear. While paying lip-service to civility, this gun-slinging, poison-toting agency’s first response is to kill,” stated Wendy Keefover-Ring of WildEarth Guardians. “We’re asking Congress to take away their guns, poisons, and low-flying aircraft by terminating lethal control funding,” added Keefover-Ring.

A record 340 gray wolves with an additional four Mexican gray wolves were killed in 2007-the highest number since 1996-the year when the agency was forced to make its records public. While Wildlife Services’ budget continues to climb, so too does the number of mammalian carnivores such as coyotes, wolves, bears, badgers, and cougars it kills:

· 2004: budget of $101.5 million, 102,345 mammalian carnivores killed (2.7 million total animals);

· 2005: Budget of $99.8 million, 99,346 mammalian carnivores killed (1.7 million total animals),

· 2006: Budget of $108.6 million, 117,113 mammalian carnivores killed (1.6 million total animals); and

· 2007: Budget of $117 million, 121,520 mammalian carnivores killed (2.4 million total animals).

Notably, in 2007, Wildlife Services killed 829 more black bears, 2,449 more coyotes, and 62 more wolves than in the previous year. The trend in the agency’s carnivore killing from 2004 moves steadily skyward. In 2007, Wildlife Services exterminated a record 121,520 native carnivores.

States that spent the most dollars in 2007 often used those resources to eradicate coyotes: Texas spent the most at $13.8 million to kill 19,123 coyotes, California came in second on expenditures, spending $6 million to kill 7,759 coyotes. In fifth place in spending, $3.8 million, Wyoming killed the second most coyotes in the nation: 10,915.

“Coyote eradication is expensive business,” said Wendy Keefover-Ring, “in 2007 Wildlife Services killed a record 90,326 coyotes across the nation, but the agency experienced two separate aerial-gunning aircraft crashes that resulted two fatalities and two serious injuries. It makes sense invest in guard animals and electric fences rather than waste the taxpayer funds to kill the nation’s wildlife for a handful of individuals.”

Numerically, bird species continue to endure the greatest numbers of losses from Wildlife Services. The 2007 kill numbers show this sampling:

· 1,176,641 starlings-while the species is non-native, the poison used to kill it is indiscriminate, poisoning native birds (raptors such as hawks and eagles can die from secondary toxicity);

· 307,622 blackbirds and 30,715 grackles because they eat grain and seeds. Ironically, birds are killed for feeding on sunflower crops, despite being grown for bird food; and

· large numbers of water-loving birds including 3,337 ducks, 15,739 cormorants, 21,957 gulls, and 3,138 egrets.

Many of the animals killed by Wildlife Services are not even targeted for control by the agency, but are “non-target” kills taken by indiscriminate killing methods. Across the U.S. in 2007, Wildlife Services accidentally killed, reindeer, peregrine falcons, porcupines, mule deer, pronghorn, alligators, fish, turtles, ringtails and others in lethal traps and snares. Dozens of foxes were unintentionally killed by “M-44s”, a device which releases cyanide into the mouth of any animal that triggers it.

“Wildlife Services has turned some of the most remote areas in the country into killing fields,” stated Keefover-Ring.

WildEarth Guardians has called upon Congress to defund Wildlife Services’ lethal control operations because the agency is a waste of taxpayer funds, it indiscriminately harms wildlife, pets, and people, and puts the nation at risk with its unsafe practices.

Contact: Wendy Keefover-Ring | WildEarth Guardians | cell: 303.596.3756; ofc: 303.635.1711

Groups Sue to Revitalize Mexican Wolf Program

Two federal agencies charged with failing to ensure recovery of rare wolves

Today, WildEarth Guardians and The Rewilding Institute filed a lawsuit in Phoenix, AZ regarding the federal government’s failed stewardship of the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program. The groups name the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service as defendants in the case. At issue is:

1. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s adoption and implementation of a controversial management protocol, dubbed SOP 13, which has brought the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program-and the species-to the brink of failure. The policy mandates the permanent removal of wolves known or thought to have been involved in three conflicts with livestock in any 365 day period; and
2. The Forest Service’s failure to carry out a conservation program for the Mexican gray wolf within its own recovery zone-a heavily grazed area made up almost entirely of National Forest lands.

In February of 2008, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced that the Mexican wolf population in New Mexico and Arizona had declined by 12 percent in a single year, leaving only 52 Mexican wolves in the wild. Although not highlighted in the government’s announcement, the primary cause of the decline is the implementation of SOP 13.

“The government is putting wolves on the ground with one hand, and then killing or removing those same wolves with the other,” said Rob Edward of WildEarth Guardians. “It is high time to give the lobo higher priority than livestock production,” said Edward.

From 1998 to 2004, FWS removed only 25 wolves from the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area (BRWRA) for conflicts with livestock. Since 2005, FWS has removed 45 Mexican wolves from the BRWRA, under SOP 13, for conflicts with livestock.

Dave Foreman of The Rewilding Institute argues that “In effect, the US Fish and Wildlife Service is conducting the second extermination of the lobo in the wild,” referring to the fact that Mexican wolves were effectively extinct in the wild.

The handful of remaining wild Mexican wolves were captured and placed in captivity in the mid-1970s, with the aim of rekindling the species from captive stock. All Mexican wolves presently in the BRWRA are descended from those rescued few.

The lawsuit also ties the impacts of SOP 13 to the actions of the U.S. Forest Service, which manages 95 percent of the land comprising the wolf recovery area. The Mexican Wolf Recovery Program is floundering not only because of FWS’s over-zealous killing and removal of wolves in response to conflicts between wolves and livestock, but also because of the Forest Service’s refusal to prevent such conflicts through livestock management and policy reforms.

“The Forest Service is obligated to promote the well-being of imperiled species that reside on lands managed by the agency,” said Edward. “Yet the agency acts as if Mexican wolves don’t even exist, let alone need stewardship.”

Foreman takes the argument one step further, stating that, “these agencies are washing their hands of responsibility because they find that restoration of the lobo causes them problems. They seem to think that maintaining a handful of Mexican wolves in captivity fulfills their legal and ethical obligations to one of the most endangered mammals in the world. Thank goodness that wildlife managers in Africa and India have a greater commitment to wildlife or else there would be no lions or tigers in the wild.”

In sum, the lawsuit asks the court to:

• Order the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to immediately suspend implementation of SOP 13; and
• Order the U.S. Forest Service to develop and implement a conservation program for Mexican wolves within the recovery area.

A PDF copy of the lawsuit can be downloaded at http://www.wildearthguardians.org/htm/support_docs/complaint_el-lobo_sop13_4-30-08.pdf.

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