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.

In writing about the cancellation of the November lease sale in Utah, the Salt Lake Tribune noted that the Bureau of Land Management in that state has grown more cautious about leasing acreage in sensitive wildlife habitat after a ruling by the Interior Board of Land Appeals brought about by Center for Native Ecosystems last year.

Originally, we protested the leasing of land in a white-tailed prairie dog colony where the highly endangered black-footed ferret is being reintroduced.  Black-footed ferrets are North America's most endangered mammal, one that almost went extinct in the wild and is slowly being reintroduced in places like eastern Utah, where there are still prairie dog colonies intact enough to sustain it.  The BLM offered its oil and gas leases without considering what drilling would do to the ferret reintroduction program, and the land board's ruling to that effect has implications for all of the BLM's analysis of drilling impacts to wildlife. 

CNE Staff Biologist Megan Corrigan appears in the Salt Lake Tribune story with this apt assessment of the situation:  "It makes sense for the BLM to take time and do a good, thorough analysis that looks at the impacts on the fragile wildlife of the lands they are considering for leasing... Once that property gets turned over to the energy companies, it is too late."

High Country News also wrote about the ruling and specifically investigated how much of a precedent the Utah lease sale cancellation could set for other BLM offices.  This question was most pointedly raised by other outlets in Colorado, in part because the upcoming Colorado oil and gas lease sale includes many parcels in habitat for at-risk wildlife, such as the greater sage-grouse.

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel considered quite directly the notion that the BLM in Colorado was subject to the same interpretation of their duty to protect wildlife habitat from drilling impacts.  The opening paragraph notes that the Utah lease sale cancellation "gave conservationists reasons to object to next month’s Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease sale in Colorado, which promises to auction large swaths of sensitive wildlife habitat statewide." 

A few days later, the Denver Post weighed in as well.  The Post's story highlighted the opposition to leases offered within its borders b Grand County, which is following in the footsteps of San Miguel County, the city of Grand Junction, and other state and municipal entities around Colorado who have been forced to speak out against BLM leases offered in places near and dear to them.  Most importantly, however, the Post highlighted the concerns of the Colorado Division of Wildlife, which has been developing a statewide plan to conserve the greater sage-grouse and is rightfully upset about leases being offered in prime habitat for this and other wildlife species it manages.  Ron Volarde at the Division of Wildlife told the Denver Post, "The Colorado Division of Wildlife has several concerns to the impact on wildlife and habitat within and surrounding the proposed lease area... Fragmentation of the habitat will have a negative impact to many wildlife species."