Taking a look back, here are some of the highlights of our most effective and successful year so far!

•    Protecting the Preble’s Meadow Jumping Mouse and its Front Range Streamside Habitat.  Because of our relentless efforts to force the Bush administration to rely on good science in its decision about Endangered Species Act protection, the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse enjoyed more than two years of additional protection across its entire range and will remain fully protected throughout the Colorado portion of its range.  As a result of our campaign the Department of the Interior also admitted to political meddling in key Preble’s meadow jumping mouse decisions.  This protection is critical, especially in the face of continuing sprawl across Colorado’s Front Range.

•    Defending the Endangered Species Act and Improving Conservation of Endangered Species on Private Land.  Center for Native Ecosystems is building on our tremendous success last year – with the rest of the conservation community – defending the Endangered Species Act against the fiercest attack in at least a decade.  We led the defensive effort in Colorado last year, and while we remain vigilant for signs of renewed attacks we’ve been able to focus instead on advancing Farm Bill provisions and other legislation that improve private land conservation of endangered species.  We are simultaneously building on our impressive network of relationships in the farming and ranching communities.

•    Unmatched Legal Prowess.  We are currently involved in six lawsuits to protect endangered species, including litigation on behalf of white-tailed prairie dog and Gunnison sage-grouse.  When forced to go to court as a last resort, our litigation record is 25-3 – we almost never lose.

I was out on maternity leave August 11-November 5.  It’s interesting to be an outsider for a few months and then reenter the inner workings of CNE and endangered species conservation.  Here’s my take on the big things that happened.

More Bush Administration Mixed-Bag Decisions

Two big decisions affecting species we’re working on were announced.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed with our argument that Pariette cactus is a separate species, and proposed to treat it as such.  Yay!  Of course, this was something that they first proposed to do 11 years ago, and the Service authorized tons of oil and gas drilling in its habitat since then, but, hey, better late than never.  The Service also agreed that the very drilling that the agency has allowed over the past decade threatens the cactus with extinction, and found that our petition was correct – the cactus needs to be protected as Endangered rather than Threatened.  But in usual Bush administration fashion, they refused to actually make the change – that will take yet another lawsuit on our part.  Instead, they found that the cactus warranted additional protection but that they were precluded from adding it to the Endangered list now because of higher priority actions.  Such as?  I guess we’ll need to ask them in court.

And the Service also announced that they have officially decided that the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse is indeed a valid subspecies that warrants continued protection under the Endangered Species Act.  Yay!  But there’s the usual catch – now they’re claiming that the mouse only warrants protection in Colorado.  The mice in Wyoming are on their own.  There was a public hearing in Lakewood about this on December 10^th, and one in Wheatland on December 12^th.  Written comments can also be submitted until January 22^nd.

More Movement on Making Oil and Gas Leasing Accountable 

The Bureau of Land Management in Utah suspended their quarterly oil and gas lease sale in large part because of our successful appeal of previous leasing in black-footed ferret habitat.  The Interior Board of Land Appeals agreed with us that the BLM must do additional environmental analysis before signing over drilling rights on public lands, and now it seems like they are scrambling to start actually assessing potential impacts before ceding these areas to industry.  This is a straight out yay.

Climate Change Awareness Continues to Mount

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize, which is totally amazing.  My husband was a grad student at CU’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research in the late 1990’s, and collected lake sediment cores and ice cores in Greenland and Labrador, and modeled the impacts of volcanic eruptions on past climate.  His advisor, Jonathan Overpeck, was one of those honored.  CNE has always included the threat of climate change in our Endangered Species Act listing petitions, even though at first our attorneys recommended against doing so.  Now acknowledging that climate change may exacerbate other threats to imperiled species is mainstream.

Staff Updates

Three months speeds by, yet some changes were registered.  Brian helped sea turtles in Costa Rica.  Megan finished the hopefully final draft of her thesis.  Melissa oversaw the publication of our first print newsletter.  Josh fought off mono while running the office.  Jacob ran for mayor of Golden (and won the day after I returned!), and announced that he will be leaving CNE.  And I am feeling incredibly lucky because I’m able to do what I love by working at CNE half-time and yet still spend lots of time with our new little boy, Owen.

The only real mention of our work that I remember seeing while I was out was an AP article on the Preble’s decision, so that was a good reminder about how much of what we do goes on behind the scenes.  But please know that we are all busy plugging away wrapping up the last deadlines for 2007 and planning for our 2008 campaigns, hoping that all the imperiled critters and plants emerge from their winter slumbers to a more secure future.

The Fish and Wildlife Service's letter largely confirms what everyone already knew by now:  political appointees in the Interior Department (most notably former Deputy Assistant Secretary Julie MacDonald) had interfered with dozens of agency decisions in the last few years, and that this interference led to many deserving species being precluded from the Endangered Species list or receiving less habitat protection than they needed.  The letter is news, however, in its ostensible commitment to fix at least seven of those decisions.  The vigor behind that commitment and the will to right these wrongs in a timely fashion is another story.

Congressman Nick Rahall (D-WV), chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, released the November 23rd letter on Tuesday, saying the cases of interference it cataloged were examples of "this Administration's penchant for torpedoing science."  The letter committed the Service to reversing most of the decisions in question, including the negative initial finding on our petition to protect the white-tailed prairie dog, but it only offered specific dates for the proposed corrective actions in two cases (the proposal to remove protections for the Preble's meadow jumping mouse and the denial of appropriate critical habitat to the Canada lynx).  In both of these cases, the Service was already under court order to offer these corrected decisions by these dates.  So much for the agency jumping of its own accord to fix its past errors.

Because of this lack of commitment to take prompt action, we have sued the Service over the white-tailed prairie dog finding.  Our intention is to secure a date certain to which we can hold the Service legally accountable.  Unfortunately, given the state of the Service's budget and internal priority setting, this is the only way to ensure that the white-tailed prairie dog, which every day faces more and more oil and gas wells in its habitat, will see the protection it needs anytime this decade.

The Service's letter caused a big media splash, aided largely by Congressman Rahall's news release.  The Washington Post reported on the letter as well as our lawsuit.  The Jackson Hole Star Tribune, Denver Post, and Rocky Mountain News also ran stories.  The L.A. Times' story included an astute observation from Kieran Suckling, Policy Director at Center for Biological Diversity, that the Service has been politically calculated in narrowing down their list of tainted decisions to the seven in their letter.  While referencing the dozens of other species decisions that groups like CBD, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Center for Native Ecosystems have already exposed as politically tainted, Suckling said "[t]hey [the Fish and Wildlife Service] are not giving anything up. . . . They're desperately trying to contain a public scandal rather than investigate the depths of corruption at Interior."

Indeed, Union of Concerned Scientists lists at least thirty endangered species decisions from the past several years that were manipulated by political appointees who forced staff scientists to alter or ignore scientific findings.  CBD has filed at least six other lawsuits on species affected specifically by Julie MacDonald's meddling, and Center for Native Ecosystems and others are continuing to pursue legal redress for the Gunnison sage grouse,  greater sage grouse, and Gunnison's prairie dog, all of which were influenced by Julie MacDonald.

We have been saying for long time now that two things need to happen in light of the Julie MacDonald scandal.  First, the specific decisions that she and others like her tampered with need to be corrected, and second, the internal workings of the Interior Department need to be reformed so that such corruption of science-based decision-making cannot happen again.  Yesterday's revelation from the Fish and Wildlife Service only addresses part of the first of those need.  Clearly, much more needs to be done before our at risk wildlife and plants will be safe and our confidence in the federal body charged with protecting species on the brink of extinction is restored.

Thanks to a 1986 international moratorium on commercial whaling, populations of one of the world's most beloved animal, the humpback whale, have rebounded.  While estimates put the humpback's numbers at around 30,000, much better than the historic low of 1,000 in 1960, officials still consider the whale to be at high risk of extinction.  Japan is about to test that assertion by conducting an organized hunt, under the guise of scientific research, to harvest fifty humpbacks along with 1,400 whales among seven species.

Japan has been one of the most outspoken, and rebellious opponents of the whaling moratorium, filing protest after protest and claiming whaling as an important part of its culture.   Japan has actually been conducting these "research" hunts for nearly 20 years, but this is the first time they have targeted the endangered humpback.  Supporters of the humpback believe that this hunt is a way for Japan to test the resolve of conservation groups and those who protest whaling.  If there is little or no protest of this hunt, the flood gates may open, leaving Japan to harvest the endangered humpback to historic lows yet again.

Listen to their haunting songs.

Breaking news: Australia may use military forces to monitor Japan's whale hunt.

On Thursday the Senate Agriculture Committee finished its two-day mark up of the 2007 Farm Bill, which contains the single-largest source of conservation funding in the U.S. It includes many of the conservation incentive programs that assist landowners in protecting our natural resources such as soil, water and wildlife habitat.

Lacking reform

The Senate Agriculture Committee's Farm Bill includes enough funding to keep important programs open such as the Grasslands Reserve Program, Wetlands Reserve Program and, my own favorite, the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program, open to new enrollments for the next five years. However,  it excludes many reforms of inequitable commodities and direct payments to wealthy farmers earning more than a million dollars a year, and improved funding improvements that that were being called for, such as the Denver Post ("Millionaires don't deserve subsidies," 10/23/07 ) and Rocky Mountain News ("Maybe the worst farm bill ever," 7/10/07)

Senator Salazar Speaks Up

At one point, Colorado's Senator Salazar introduced and then immediately withdrew an amendment that would  have increased funding and enrollment of the Grasslands Reserve Program and Farmland Protection Program. These programs are designed to assist landowners in preserving our fragile shrinking grasslands and farms from urban sprawl. They are also important programs in Colorado. After an eloquent speech, the Senator withdrew his amendment stating lack of necessary funding for them. In order for this to move beyond good politics, the Senator should work with Senate leadership in the coming days before the Farm Bill makes its way to the Senate floor for debate by the full Senate to ensure adequate funding and support for his amendment.

Why the Farm Bill and Landowners are Important to Endangered Species Conservation

• The majority of threatened and endangered species habitat in the U.S. exists on private land;
• More than half of the land in America is managed by ranchers, farmers and foresters; and
  
• Two-thirds of landowners who offer to conserve and protect natural resources like wildlife habitat are turned down due to lack of funding.

Take Action

Email Senator Salazar today and ask him to work with Senate leadership to find adequate funding and support of his Wetlands Reserve Program/Farmland Protection Program amendment. He should introduce his amendment when the 2007 Farm Bill hits the Senate floor for full Senate vote sometime in the next two weeks.