Contacts:
Nick Cady, Cascadia Wildlands, (314) 482-3746, nick@old.cascwild.org

Oregon Bans Trapping of Humboldt Martens

PORTLAND, Ore.— In response to a petition from conservation groups, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission voted 4-3 late Friday to protect Humboldt martens from trapping. Fewer than 200 of the martens survive in the state’s coastal forests.

The new trapping guidelines ban all marten trapping west of the Interstate 5 corridor. The rules also ban all commercial and recreational mammal trapping in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area and all traps and snares suspended in trees in the Siskiyou and Siuslaw national forests.

“I’m so relieved Humboldt martens will scamper wild and free in our coastal forests without fear of dying in a trap,” said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Banning trapping is a big first step toward safeguarding these cute creatures. Now we need wildlife crossings on highways and reconnected forest habitats.”

Only two isolated marten populations survive in Oregon. One group is in the Siskiyou National Forest, and another is in the Siuslaw National Forest. The lack of mature forest habitat on state and private forests stretching between the two populations has isolated them and put them at high risk of local extinction.

“We applaud the fish and wildlife commission for following recommendations in the published science and helping these little carnivores have a fighting chance at surviving for future generations,” said Nick Cady, legal director at Cascadia Wildlands.

Coastal martens are proposed for protection as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act, with a final listing expected in October.

“The commission did the right thing in protecting Humboldt martens from trapping so that Oregonians can have the opportunity to observe these special animals in our coastal forests,” said Danielle Moser, wildlife coordinator at Oregon Wild.

Humboldt martens were once common in the coastal mountains, from the Columbia River south to Sonoma, California. But logging of old-growth forests and fur trapping decimated and separated populations. California banned coastal marten trapping in 1946 and protected Humboldt martens as endangered in 2018.

“If any species needs our help, it’s the Humboldt marten, so it’s great that the state has finally taken an important step to protect them,” said George Sexton with KS Wild, based in southern Oregon.

Humboldt marten populations on the central coast are threatened by vehicle mortalities on Highway 101 and lack of suitable mature forest habitat for dispersal. Populations on the southern coast are now threatened by severe wildfires and rodent poisons used in marijuana cultivation.

Last year the state rejected a petition from conservation groups seeking state Endangered Species Act protection for Humboldt martens. That petition was filed by Cascadia Wildlands, the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Environmental Protection Information Center, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center and Oregon Wild.

Background
Martens are typically 2 feet long and have large, triangular ears and a long tail. They eat small mammals, birds, berries, reptiles and insects, and are eaten by larger mammals and raptors.

They are so rare they were thought to be extinct until a remote camera snapped a picture in the redwoods in 1996. Genetic studies then revealed that Oregon’s coastal martens are part of the Humboldt marten subspecies and are a different subspecies from the martens in the Cascade Range, which are not imperiled.

The post Oregon Adopts Petition; Bans Trapping of Humboldt Martens! first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

Proposed Federal Wolf Delisting

Wolves are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the western two-thirds of Oregon and Washington and throughout California, but the Trump administration, specifically the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is proposing to remove these protections. The removal of federal protections will greatly hinder, if not altogether prevent, the successful spread of wolves across the West and will also certainly have affects at home. In Oregon for example, the removal of federal protections will likely mean the death of OR-7’s Rogue Pack near Crater Lake.

Cascadia Wildlands has been gathering voices from the public in opposition to the proposal and is preparing for another legal fight to uphold the scientific integrity of the ESA.

Comments are due on May 14 to oppose the removal of wolves from the federal Endangered Species Act. Take action today and tell the Fish and Wildlife Service to maintain protections!

Cascadia Wildlands is also partnering with numerous conservation organizations on a rally in Portland on May 6 at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service building. If you are able, please attend, you can see more details and sign up here!

Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan Revisions

In the midst of collapsing federal protections, the state of Oregon is also currently trying to weaken its Wolf Conservation and Management Plan and dramatically expand the situations in which wolves can be killed. The state is proposing to deputize members of the public so those individuals can hunt and trap wolves and keep the pelts for themselves. This lethal control focus comes at the expense of the plan’s prior concentration on preventing conflict between wolves and livestock through proactive, non-lethal measures. Details of the plan can be found here.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will address these proposed changes to the Wolf Conservation and Management Plan on June 7 in Salem. There is an open public comment period, and we will show up in force to the hearing.

Make your voice heard here and let the Fish and Wildlife Commission know that you oppose weakening Oregon’s wolf protections!

Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission

You may have also seen that Governor Kate Brown has recently appointed 2 individuals, including a trophy hunter and a timber industry representative, to the Fish and Wildlife Commission that will certainly attempt to weaken protections for a host of native species at the state level. The last thing that our state needs is Commission members that will further unbalance our fish and wildlife policy in the state.

The Senate is set to vote on these candidates on May 8th, and we need Oregonians to contact their Senators as soon as possible and urge them to vote no on James Nash (a trophy hunter) and Mark Labhart (a timber industry representative). Please also voice your support for Mary Wahl and Jill Zarnowitz that will bring balanced, science-based perspectives to the Commission.

Oregonians take action now and urge your Senator to vote to restore balance to the Fish and Wildlife Commssion!

Cascadia Wildlands will continue to face these threats head on, and we just prevailed in a legal challenge in California, upholding protections for wolves there. As always your resolute support on this issue has been critical, thank you, and check into the website for regular updates on these efforts.

The post Wolves Under Assault on Multiple Fronts, Your Help Needed! first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

Court: Gray Wolves Can Keep California Endangered Species Protection

Judge Finds No Merit in Pacific Legal Foundation, Rancher Challenge

SAN DIEGO — A state court judge today upheld protection for gray wolves under the California Endangered Species Act. The ruling rejected a challenge from the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of the California Cattlemen’s Association and California Farm Bureau Federation.

“We’re so glad the court got it right and kept protection in place for California’s recovering gray wolves,” said Amaroq Weiss, the Center for Biological Diversity’s West Coast wolf advocate. “The Pacific Legal Foundation’s case was the worst kind of grasping at straws. This is a great result for the vast majority of Californians who want wolves to recover and who understand their importance to healthy ecosystems.”

Ranching groups had challenged gray wolves’ endangered status based on the erroneous claim that the wolves in California are the wrong subspecies. They also wrongly argued that the listing was improperly based on a single wolf’s presence, and that wolves can’t be endangered in the state as there are plenty elsewhere in the world.

“Wolves are coming back to California, and today’s decision gives them a red carpet to return home,” said Tom Wheeler, executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center.

In 2011 a wolf known as OR-7 crossed the border into California from northeastern Oregon, becoming the first confirmed wild wolf in the state in 87 years. The Foundation had argued, however, that OR-7 was from a subspecies that never existed in California.

The court rightly concluded that the California Fish and Game Commission has the authority to list at the species level and that OR-7 and subsequent wolves that have come into the state share a genetic history with wolves that once were widely distributed across California.

“State protections for wolves are critical given the animosity toward the species at the federal level, “said Nick Cady, legal director of Cascadia Wildlands. “It is a shame that this species, and many others, have been subjected to these political games.”

The court found that the state’s endangered species law protects species at risk of extinction in California and the commission need not consider the status of gray wolves globally. It found that threats to wolves necessitate their protection and the commission has the discretion to protect native species that were historically present based on visitation by even one animal, given the wildlife agency’s projections that more will likely arrive.

“There can be no question that gray wolves in California are endangered and need protection,” said Heather Lewis, an attorney at Earthjustice. “The gray wolf’s return to California is a success story we should celebrate, and we look forward to wolves continuing to recover in the Golden State.”

California has seen the establishment of two packs since OR-7 made his star appearance before returning to Oregon to settle down with a mate. The Shasta pack was discovered in 2015 but by mid-2016 had disappeared. The Lassen pack was confirmed in 2017 and produced pups for the second year in a row in 2018.

“Wolves are not yet close to recovered in California. At a time when the Trump administration is hostile to endangered species conservation, it is critically important that the state of California help recover wildlife like the iconic gray wolf,” said Joseph Vaile, executive director of Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Protection Information Center, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center and Cascadia Wildlands Center, represented by Earthjustice, intervened on behalf of the state.

The post Legal Victory for California’s Wolves! first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

Conservation Groups Oppose Effort to Remove Wolf Protections in California

Organizations Seek Intervention on Industry Challenge to Endangered Status

SAN FRANCISCO— Four conservation groups filed a motion today to intervene in a lawsuit seeking to remove California Endangered Species Act protections from wolves. The lawsuit, against the state Fish and Wildlife Commission, was brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation and wrongly alleges that wolves are ineligible for state protection.

The intervenors — Cascadia Wildlands, the Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Protection Information Center, and Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center — are represented by Earthjustice.

“Pacific Legal Foundation’s lawsuit is baseless,” said Amaroq Weiss, the Center’s West Coast wolf organizer. “Gray wolves were senselessly wiped out in California and deserve a chance to come back and survive here. We’re intervening to defend the interests of the vast majority of Californians who value wolves and want them to recover.”

Brought on behalf of the California Cattlemen’s Association and California Farm Bureau Federation, the lawsuit alleges that wolves are ineligible for state protection because wolves returning to the state are supposedly the wrong subspecies, which only occurred intermittently in California at the time of the decision and are doing fine in other states.

Each of these arguments has major flaws. UCLA biologist Bob Wayne found that all three currently recognized subspecies of wolves occurred in California. Also — importantly — there is no requirement that recovery efforts focus on the same subspecies, rather than just the species. The fact that wolves were only intermittently present actually highlights the need for their protection, and the California Endangered Species Act is rightly focused on the status of species within California, not other states.

“The gray wolf is an icon of wildness in the American West, and its return to California after almost 100 years is a success story we should celebrate,” said Earthjustice attorney Greg Loarie. “Stripping wolves of protection under the California Endangered Species Act at this early stage in their recovery risks losing them again, and we’re not going to let that happen.”

The four intervening groups petitioned for endangered species protections for wolves in February 2012. After receiving two California Department of Fish and Wildlife reports, scientific peer review assessment of those reports, thousands of written comments submitted by the public and live testimony at multiple public meetings, the California Fish and Game Commission voted to protect gray wolves in June 2014.

State protection makes it illegal to kill a wolf, including in response to livestock depredations — a major issue for the livestock industry. But despite the industry’s concerns, a growing body of scientific evidence shows nonlethal deterrence measures are more effective and less expensive than killing wolves. In addition, the Department of Fish and Wildlife has been allocated federal funding that can be used for nonlethal conflict-deterrence measures and to compensate ranchers for livestock losses to wolves, which make up a very small fraction of livestock losses.

“The cattle industry has made clear that it views wolves as pests and that they filed suit to allow killing of wolves,” said Tom Wheeler, executive director at the Environmental Protection Information Center. “Wolves are a vital part of American’s wilderness and natural heritage, helping to restore balance to our ecosystems by regulating elk and deer populations. The path to restoring wolves is through protecting fragile recovering populations.”

Wolves once ranged across most of the United States, but were trapped, shot and poisoned to near extirpation largely on behalf of the livestock industry. Before wolves began to return to California in late 2011 — when a single wolf from Oregon known as wolf OR-7 ventured south — it had been almost 90 years since a wild wolf was seen in the state. Before OR-7 the last known wild wolf in California, killed by a trapper in Lassen County, was seen in 1924.

Since 2011 California’s first wolf family in nearly a century, the seven-member Shasta pack, was confirmed in Siskiyou County in 2015, and a pair of wolves was confirmed in Lassen County in 2016. An additional radio-collared wolf from Oregon has crossed in and out of California several times since late 2015.

The post Cascadia Goes to Court to Defend Wolf Protections in California first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

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“Silence in the face of injustice is complicity with the oppressor.” Ginetta Sagan

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Former EPA scientist Joe Greene, an avid gold prospector who has been suction dredging since the 1960s, is less than impressed with the EPA’s propaganda and Tomten’s claim that dredging is illegal under the CWA (see here)

The post General Response to Joe Greene first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.

The post Dredging Up The Truth first appeared on Cascadia Wildlands.