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endangered species act
'Landmark Victory': US Proposes Endangered Species Protections for Monarch Butterfly
"We're hoping that this is a call to everybody to say this species is in decline, and now is our opportunity to help reverse that decline," said one federal scientist.
Dec 10, 2024
Biodiversity defenders on Tuesday welcomed a "long overdue" move by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service toward protecting the monarch butterfly under the Endangered Species Act—the result, the Center for Biological Diversity said, of a lawsuit filed by several groups to safeguard the pollinators and their fragile habitat.
The FWS proposed designating the butterfly as threatened with extinction, four years after monarchs were placed on a waiting list for protection.
"For too long, the monarch butterfly has been waiting in line, hoping for new protections while its population has plummeted. This announcement by the Fish and Wildlife Service gets this iconic flier closer to the protections it needs, and given its staggering drop in numbers, that can't happen soon enough," said Steve Blackledge, senior director of conservation campaigns for Environment America.
Monarch butterflies journey from Mexico each spring to points across the United States east of the Rocky Mountains to pollinate and reproduce. When cooler weather arrives they migrate back to the south for the winter.
But their populations have declined by more than 95% from over 4.5 million in the 1980s, leaving the western monarch with a 99% chance of becoming extinct over the next six decades, according to federal scientists.
The decline has been driven by the widespread use of herbicides like Roundup on milkweed, the monarch's sole food source, as well as the use of neonicotinoid insecticides. Millions of monarchs are also killed by vehicles annually during their migration, and in their winter habitats they face the loss of forests due to logging.
"The monarch butterfly is an iconic North American species and like other such iconic species, including the bald eagle and American peregrine falcon, it too deserves a chance at recovery."
Rising temperatures have also disrupted the monarch's reproduction and migration, with warmer weather tricking them into staying in the north later in the year.
"The species has been declining for a number of years," FWS biologist Kristen Lundh toldThe Washington Post. "We're hoping that this is a call to everybody to say this species is in decline, and now is our opportunity to help reverse that decline."
Western monarchs are down to an estimated 233,394 butterflies, while experts say there are several million eastern monarchs in existence.
"The protections that come with Endangered Species Act listing increase the chance that these precious pollinators will rebound and recover throughout their historic range," said Andrew Carter, director of conservation policy for Defenders of Wildlife. "The monarch butterfly is an iconic North American species and like other such iconic species, including the bald eagle and American peregrine falcon, it too deserves a chance at recovery."
The FWS is also proposing to designate 4,395 acres of the western monarch's overwintering sites as a critical habitat.
If the butterfly's protections are finalized—a process that could be completed by the end of 2025—landowners would be required to get federal approval for development that could harm the monarch.
During his first term, President-elect Donald Trump weakened the Endangered Species Act, limiting the definition of a "critical habitat."
"Today's monarch listing decision is a landmark victory 10 years in the making. It is also a damning precedent, revealing the driving role of pesticides and industrial agriculture in the ongoing extinction crisis," said George Kimbrell, legal director at the Center for Food Safety. "But the job isn't done... The service must do what science and the law require and promptly finalize protection for monarchs."
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Study Helps Explain How Wolf Removal Can 'Unravel' Key Ecological Systems
The lead author expressed hope that the research "will be of use to both conservation organizations and government agencies" amid a legal battle over protections for wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains.
Jun 20, 2024
As U.S. conservationists continue to fight for federal protections that would cover gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains, research released Wednesday highlights just how important the apex predators are to the western United States.
The study was published in the journal BioScience and led by William Ripple, a scientist at Oregon State University (OSU) and the Conservation Biology Institute known for his work on trophic cascades and carnivores as well as his demands for climate action.
The paper uses gray wolves to show the trouble with "shifting baselines," which, "in ecology encapsulate the gradual and often unnoticed alterations in ecosystems over time, leading to a redefinition of what is considered normal or baseline conditions."
As the study details:
Gray wolves (Canis lupus) in North America have experienced a substantial contraction of their historical range, at one point almost disappearing from the contiguous 48 United States. However, their conservation is important in part because of the potential cascading effects wolves can have on lower trophic levels. Namely, the proliferation and changes to behavior and density of large herbivores following the extirpation or displacement of wolves can have major effects on various aspects of vegetation structure, succession, productivity, species composition, and diversity, which, in turn, can have implications for overall biodiversity and the quality of habitat for other wildlife.
"By the 1930s, wolves were largely absent from the American West, including its national parks," Ripple said in a statement. "Most published ecological research from this region occurred after the extirpation of wolves."
"This situation underscores the potential impact of shifting baselines on our understanding of plant community succession, animal community dynamics, and ecosystem functions," he continued.
The researchers examined journal articles, master's theses, and Ph.D. dissertations from 1955 to 2021 that involved field work in national parks in the northwestern United States for whether they included information on the removal of gray wolves.
They found that "in total, approximately 41% (39 of 96) of the publications mentioned or discussed the historical presence of wolves or large carnivores, but most (approximately 59%) did not. The results for the theses and journal articles were similar."
While the researchers focused on wolves, Robert Beschta, co-author and emeritus professor at OSU, noted that "in addition to the loss or displacement of large predators, there may be other potential anthropogenic legacies within national parks that should be considered, including fire suppression, invasion by exotic plants and animals, and overgrazing by livestock."
Ripple stressed that "studying altered ecosystems without recognizing how or why the system has changed over time since the absence of a large predator could have serious implications for wildlife management, biodiversity conservation, and ecosystem restoration."
"We hope our study will be of use to both conservation organizations and government agencies in identifying ecosystem management goals," he added.
"Nature is a really complex tapestry... When you start to pull threads out like you remove apex predators, the whole thing begins to unravel."
Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), welcomed the study, tellingInside Climate News that "I think this is a really important paper, because sometimes science advances at a certain rate without a self-introspection."
"Nature is a really complex tapestry," she said. "It's woven together by threads that hold it together and keep it strong. When you start to pull threads out like you remove apex predators, the whole thing begins to unravel."
The paper comes amid a wolf conservation battle that involves Weiss' group. In February, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) determined that Endangered Species Act protections for the wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains were "not warranted."
Two coalitions of conservation organizations, including CBD, swiftly filed notices of their intent to sue over the decision if FWS didn't change course. After the legally required 60-day notice period passed, they filed the lawsuits in April.
Earlier this week, "the cases were voluntarily dismissed and immediately refiled to avoid any potential arguments from the defendants that the plaintiffs failed to give the secretary of the interior proper 60-days' notice under the Endangered Species Act," Collette Adkins, an attorney who leads CBD's Carnivore Conservation program, told Common Dreams in an email Thursday.
"Plaintiffs believe that their case was properly noticed," she said, "but we refiled to avoid any further disruption of the proceedings."
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House GOP Anti-Wildlife 'Extremists' Approve Boebert's Delisting of Gray Wolves
"The inappropriately named 'Trust the Science Act' not only puts endangered gray wolves at risk for extinction, but it completely undermines the purpose of the Endangered Species Act," one wildlife advocate said.
May 01, 2024
Overriding the opposition of more than 100 environmental groups, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday that would strip gray wolves in the Lower 48 states of their protections under the Endangered Species Act.
The so-called Trust the Science Act, which was introduced by far-right election denier Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), passed by a narrow 209-205 margin. It would reimpose a Trump administration decision to delist gray wolves that was later overturned in federal court.
"This move by extremists in Congress to push forward an anti-wolf, anti-science bill is irresponsible and emboldens cruelty towards gray wolves," said Endangered Species Coalition executive director Susan Holmes.
"This is yet another troubling sign that our elected leaders in the House are increasingly choosing to subvert our nation's landmark environmental laws and ignore the biodiversity crisis that threatens wildlife populations around the globe with extinction."
There were once around 2 million gray wolves in North America, but they were nearly hunted to extinction with government support. After the federal government began to protect them in the 1960s, their numbers rebounded to around 6,000, but they only roam through less than 10% of their historic range in the lower 48 states.
Scientists have discovered that wolves are very beneficial for the ecosystems they inhabit; their reintroduction into Yellowstone National Park increased the park's biodiversity by controlling elk and deer that had overgrazed trees, allowing willows and aspens to thrive and attract the song birds and beavers that depend on them.
"The inappropriately named 'Trust the Science Act' not only puts endangered gray wolves at risk for extinction, but it completely undermines the purpose of the Endangered Species Act," Raena Garcia, senior fossil fuels and lands campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said in a statement. "The ESA is essential environmental legislation that needs to be strengthened, not weakened. As a keystone species that plays a vital role in preserving biodiversity, the livelihood of gray wolves can't be dictated by industry-driven politicians."
The Endangered Species Act Coalition and Friends of the Earth Action were two of the more than 100 groups that sent a letter to representatives on Monday urging them to oppose the bill. In the letter, they pointed out that the Trump-era ruling it is based on was overturned because of its faulty science: It based its determination for national wolves on only two populations, it did not define what it meant by a "significant" portion of the species' range, it did not consider what it means for gray wolves to have lost so much of their historic range, and it did not account for the fact that West Coast wolves and northern Rocky Mountain wolves have different ancestries. Despite these flaws with the decision, the bill would also prohibit courts from weighing in a second time.
"The 'Trust the Science Act' undermines the integrity of the ESA by forcing the reinstatement of the Trump administration's scientifically indefensible delisting rule and precluding judicial review, undermining the rule of law that holds government officials accountable in the courts," the conservation groups wrote.
Environmental organizations also argue that the bill would put wolves at even greater risk from human violence. In Wyoming, where wolves are delisted, a man recently injured a young wolf and showed it off at a local bar before killing it. When wolves were delisted during the Trump administration, a hunt reestablished in Wisconsin killed off up to a third of the state's wolves.
"The recent torture and killing of a young gray wolf in Wyoming shows how critical the Endangered Species Act protections are for the survival of this species core to our country's natural heritage," Holmes said.
The bill also comes as the Earth is losing species at such alarming rates that scientists say humans have likely instigated a sixth mass extinction.
"This is yet another troubling sign that our elected leaders in the House are increasingly choosing to subvert our nation's landmark environmental laws and ignore the biodiversity crisis that threatens wildlife populations around the globe with extinction," Robert Dewey, vice president of government relations for Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement. "Wolves play hugely important roles in maintaining healthy ecosystems and cutting short their recovery will only harm our nation."
"The majority of Americans believe that protecting biodiversity should be a national priority and today their voices were stifled," Dewey continued. "We urge the Senate to take the scientifically sound path forward and not take up this bill."
Whatever the Senate decides, it is unlikely the bill would become law while President Joe Biden is in office. The Executive Office of the President's Office of Budget and Management issued a statement on Monday saying the Biden administration "strongly opposes" the bill, arguing that its passage "would undermine America's proud wildlife conservation traditions and the implementation of one of our nation's bedrock environmental laws."
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