Kayaking in Florida’s St. Joseph Bay, Robbin Trindell with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (at rear) helps a colleague rescue a green sea turtle, one of thousands immobilized by a cold snap in 2010. Turtles rescued off the Gulf and Atlantic coasts were warmed at holding centers like one on the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (below). There, volunteers recorded size and other data on rescued turtles before sending them to a rehabilitation facility prior to release back to the wild. (Courtesy of FWC)

State-federal partnerships under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973 are resulting in myriad conservation successes for wildlife species across the nation. Among the most recent: In January, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced that it will reclassify the wood stork from endangered to threatened. Likewise, 2013 population numbers for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker show that several sites in Florida have already met their 2020 recovery goals for the species — seven years ahead of schedule — reflecting one of the best examples of state, federal, and private landowner cooperation in species conservation. Since the inception of the ESA, states have functioned as co-trustees for federally listed species.

State natural resource agencies and their experts in species and habitat management play a vital role in cooperating with federal agencies in managing listed species and working to protect non-listed species to prevent future listings. The Act mandates such cooperation: Section 6, titled “Cooperation with the States,” requires the Secretary of the Interior to “cooperate to the maximum extent practicable with the states,” including “consultation with the states concerned before acquiring any land or water … for the purpose of conserving any endangered species or threatened species.”

Such cooperation is essential for three main reasons: (1) States have a deep understanding of local values and attitudes toward wildlife conservation, (2) states have principal management authority for resident fish and wildlife, so they are in the best position to assess and meet the conservation needs of at-risk species, and (3) states own and/or manage public lands and provide technical assistance to mangers of private lands that contribute to conservation of federally listed species. In Florida, for example, where more than 25 percent of land is publicly owned, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has helped manage more than 5.8 million acres of conservation lands that contribute to the recovery of numerous listed species, including the red-cockaded woodpecker.

Getting into the Weeds

Although there are great examples of federal-state collaboration, the ESA has also created some challenges for the states and their constituents. One element that complicates ESA implementation for some states lies in structural bureaucracy. The Act is administered by two federal agencies: The FWS and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), collectively called the Services. The FWS oversees terrestrial and freshwater species, some marine mammals, and sea turtles when they are on the beach, while NMFS oversees most marine species. Unfortunately, the two Services do not always have a consistent approach to ESA implementation, which causes confusion for state partners trying to understand the implications of species’ listings.

For example, there’s a significant difference in how the Services handle “candidate” species. For NMFS, candidates are species undergoing an ESA status review, but for FWS, species become candidates only after FWS does a status review and finds that a species warrants listing even though FWS may not have resources to immediately develop a listing plan. While states support the need to federally list species when at risk of extinction, their preference is to “keep common species common” so they don’t decline to the point that they require federal protection through listing. When species do reach that point, they generally require a decades-long, arduous, and expensive journey to bring them back to a level where they are no longer endangered (at risk of extinction now) or threatened (at risk of becoming endangered).  Among the challenges states face:

Red-tape Blues. ESA listings trigger regulations and requirements that some states find onerous or inefficient. These include requiring the designation of “Critical Habitat” to protect habitat essential to the conservation of the species, and also developing “Habitat Conservation Plans” to secure incidental take permits. Public and private land managers must get incidental take permits for management activities that might cause short-lived harm to a listed species even if the net benefit of the activity outweighs the take. For example, permits are needed when conducting prescribed fire that may kill a few individuals of a listed species but may benefit the long-term survival of a population by improving habitat.

Read about the process to list a species under the ESA.

Excessive Litigation. An important component of the ESA is that it grants the public the ability to petition for species to be listed, and citizens can sue the Services if they do not meet their obligations under the ESA. However, many states feel that petitions and litigation filed by NGOs and others against the Services are increasingly impinging on states’ trustee responsibilities. That’s particularly true of the increasing number of “mega-petitions” for listing numerous species at one time, such as a 2010 petition to the FWS to list 404 aquatic and aquatic-dependent species primarily occurring across southeastern states, and a 2012 petition for the listing of 53 reptile and amphibian species across the U.S.

Federalization. Many petitioned species and candidate species are state trust species, meaning the state has full regulatory authority over their management and take. These fish and wildlife resources are publicly owned and entrusted to the state for management on behalf of its citizens. Many states maintain their own lists of state endangered or threatened species, which can include federal trust species (generally migratory or federally listed species) or species at risk in that state, or both. Federalization occurs when a state trust species is brought under the regulatory authority of one of the Services through an ESA listing. In such cases, state authority is essentially abrogated or becomes secondary to federal authority, ESA requirements, and federal policy. Recent mega-petitions litigated and settled through court action are pushing an unprecedented number of state trust species toward federalization. This is especially troubling from a state perspective because the litigation process offers few opportunities for states to engage in or influence the outcomes. As a result, outside interests determine management and regulation of species that were previously under state authority, yet state fish and wildlife agencies remain on the front lines of implementing and enforcing these measures.

Limited Capacity. State fish and wildlife agencies are facing steadily increasing workloads with decreasing funding and staffing capacity. Activities associated with ESA listings not only affect state workloads but also cause states to re prioritize activities and shift emphasis away from other species that may be more in need of conservation attention from a state’s perspective. For example, in Florida, for the past year we have allocated one staff member’s time to serve as a liaison for federal issues, including addressing petitioned and candidate species. This individual would normally work on other conservation priorities for the state.

Public Perception. Concerns about federal regulations and litigation regarding federal listings can drive public opinion against the ESA with the unintentional consequence of harming species conservation efforts. In Florida, for example, one manager of a large plantation did not want red-cockaded woodpeckers on his land because of land-use restrictions the ESA would impose. However, tools are available under the ESA to help address such concerns. That land manager, for example, ultimately signed on to FWS’s “Safe Harbor” program, which assures landowners that if they agree to support a listed species on their land, they will only be accountable for the number of individuals that existed when they entered the agreement. With that assurance, the landowner became willing to actively manage for and even encourage the birds to take up residence on the property.

A crew from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission rescues an eight-foot manatee injured by a boat near the mouth of St. Mark’s River. The animal was kept wet as it was transported to Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa for treatment. Sadly, it died the next day. (Credit: FWC)

An Ounce of Prevention …

The ESA does drive positive conservation efforts that can only be successful and durable when states and federal agencies work collaboratively to become less reactive and more proactive in imperiled species conservation efforts. Fortunately, many states have been actively working toward this end with the Services. For example, after the 2010 petition to list 404 aquatic and aquatic-dependent species, the Wildlife Diversity Committee of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (SEAFWA) — which represents 15 southeastern states and FWS — began developing an action plan to implement coordinated survey and monitoring measures for those species. The goal is to provide landscape level cooperation that delivers effective conservation for these and other species. Of the 404 petitioned species, 374 will undergo status reviews by the FWS in the future, and the committee plans to provide important data to contribute to many of these reviews.

In 2000, states gained a valuable new tool in their efforts to prevent federal listing when the federal State Wildlife Grants (SWG) program enabled all states to develop State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs), a historic first for most states. “By laying out conservation actions needed to conserve at-risk species, State Wildlife Action Plans are our best line of defense for preventing more endangered species listings,” says Mark Humpert, Wildlife Diversity Director for the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA). The SWG program provides funding for states to conserve the rare and declining species identified in their SWAPs.

Unfortunately, that funding safety net is thin at best: most states receive less than $1 million per year from SWG funding — which ranged from as little as $478,601 for small states like Connecticut up to about $2.4 million for Alaska. That’s vastly below the estimated $900 million annually needed to fully implement the SWAPs and conserve the more than 12,000 species nationwide that have been identified as at-risk (AFWA 2011). Humpert has been active in influencing Congress to ensure that SWG program funding continues, arguing that SWAPs have been instrumental in facilitating states’ abilities to develop partnerships for conserving nonlisted species. Yet year after year the SWG program is threatened by cuts, surviving elimination by HR1 in FY2011 but resulting in funding of $64 million, a 31 percent cut and the lowest allocation since the program’s inception.

Case in point: In the Northeast, the New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis) is a priority species in all seven SWAPs in the species’ range, state listed as endangered in Maine and New Hampshire, and a FWS candidate species. Hoping to prevent federal listing, states in the cottontail’s range are partnering with FWS, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and the Wildlife Management Institute to try to reverse habitat and population declines. With a steering committee that meets quarterly, the partners are cooperating to conduct restoration on state lands, target grants to key landowners for private-lands conservation, and commit millions of dollars for restoration on private lands by NRCS. In 2015, the FWS will determine if listing is warranted. Even if that happens, the cooperative framework is already in place so recovery activities can flow from the existing partnership.

Such collaboration among state agencies is not new. States often work together to conduct coordinated surveys and monitoring to fill data gaps and thereby prevent the need for federal listing of species. One iconic case in point involves the black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus). In 1998, an NGO petitioned FWS to emergency list the species as threatened. That triggered a massive effort among states, management agencies, and tribal entities across the western range of the species to assess its conservation needs and work proactively to prevent listing. In 1999, those groups produced a comprehensive conservation assessment and strategy that assessed risks to prairie dogs — such as plague, grazing competition, recreational shooting, and land conversion — and outlined steps to begin to protect prairie dogs and their habitat (Van Pelt 1999).

In 2000, FWS named the species a “candidate” for listing. That designation gave the states time to implement a coordinated range-wide survey using similar methods in each state. This unprecedented cooperative effort yielded data that resulted in two subsequent findings that the prairie dog did not meet any of the five listing factors, which are (1) damage to or destruction of a species habitat; (2) overutilization of the species for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes;  existing protection; and (5) other natural or man-made factors that affect the continued existence of the species. Today, black-tailed prairie dogs are estimated to number around 24 million and occupy 2.4 million acres (FWS).

Finding a Better Way 

In spite of the challenges, the ESA is an effective tool for wildlife conservation. Given the pressures on wildlife and habitats, however, it’s clear that stronger collaboration among the states and the Services is the only way forward. Recognizing this need, states and the Services in 2010 formed the Joint Federal/State Task Force on Endangered Species Act Policy (ESA JTF). Designed as an executive-level forum for discussion among the state and federal fish and wildlife agencies, it comprises eight state fish and wildlife agency directors and four representatives from each of the Services. Its purpose is to provide a process to cooperatively identify and address issues of national significance and to jointly develop recommendations concerning those issues.

The ESA JTF has outlined several priorities. Top priorities include: (1) to define the role of states in listing-petition reviews and status reviews of species so states can ensure that their species data and staff expertise are available to the Services when they evaluate species for listing; (2) to clarify the authority conveyed by the Section 6 Cooperative Agreements that each state enters into with one or both Services; and (3) to increase state involvement in federal recovery planning, critical habitat designations, and implementation of the ESA’s mandate for “Interagency Cooperation” (Section 7).

Though still in its nascent stages, the ESA JTF has seen some near-term returns. For example, communication between the states and the Services has improved by providing a forum for agency directors to discuss and work together on issues. A better understanding of the differences in implementation by the two Services exists, and the Services have taken several steps to eliminate some of the differences, such as the FWS revising its policy on timing of impact analysis in designating critical habitat to align with the policy of NMFS so that economic analyses are done when the proposed rule is announced.

More recently, the ESA JTF asked all state fish and wildlife agencies to meet with their federal counterparts to discuss how well they are cooperating on implementing the ESA at the state level. Forty-nine states and territories submitted a report about their meetings to the ESA JTF. Most agreed that while communication and collaboration are better, there is still room for improvement. These reports about the state meetings affirmed the top priorities already identified by the ESA JTF and stressed the importance of developing incentives to enlist private landowners in conservation. The ESA JTF will continue to work on these priorities over the next few years. “Only by envisioning conservation approaches that empower and foster constructive integration of state, federal, and non-governmental conservation machines can we begin to imagine that the great conservation success stories of the 20th century will continue through the 21st century,” says Task Force member Larry Voyles, Director of the Arizona Game and Fish Department.

For the ESA to have continued success over the next 40 years and beyond, numerous challenges to implementation will have to be overcome. These are adaptive problems, and the co-trustees — states and federal agencies — will have to work together with other partners to chart the course. Some cultural differences between agencies will need to be sorted out to allow innovative solutions and to break down barriers to partnerships among the public and private sectors. The ESA JTF offers a strong start, for the first time providing an ongoing forum for the federal and state agencies to have meaningful dialogue and roll up their sleeves together to more effectively conserve our precious fish and wildlife resources — both before and after they require the protection of the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Author Bios

Elsa M. Haubold, Ph.D., is a biological administrator working on Endangered Species Act issues and Gulf restoration with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and is a National Conservation Leadership Institute Fellow.

Nick Wiley, CWB, is Executive Director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Co-chair of the Endangered Species Act Joint Task Force, Chair of AFWA’s Threatened and Endangered Species Committee, and a National Conservation Leadership Institute Fellow.

The fisher (Martes pennanti) is a cat-sized carnivore found in coniferous and mixed conifer and hardwood forests across Canada and in four regions of the United States, including New England, the Great Lakes, the northern Rockies, and the Pacific Northwest. Now a candidate species for listing under the Endangered Species Act, fishers in California are falling victim to rodenticides used on illegal marijuana crops scattered throughout the state’s public and tribal lands. (Credit: John Jacobson/Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife)

Another mortality signal on the radio collar of a fisher (Martes pennanti) pulses on a wet spring morning, and fear of a repeat of the previous spring’s mortalities looms in the backs of our minds. Hoopa tribal biologists scramble to recover the fisher quickly so that a necropsy can be performed to determine cause of death. The field crew reports back that the fisher is not dead but lethargic and lurching on the ground when it attempts to seek cover from approaching biologists. A conference call among researchers, a wildlife pathologist, and a veterinary toxicologist follows to determine the next course of action. Unfortunately, the consensus is humane euthanization. Though testing is ongoing, this is likely the sixth monitored fisher in California that has died from second-generation anticoagulant rodenticide (SGAR) toxicosis since 2009.

Linking SGARs to multiple deaths of a rare forest carnivore has been an alarming discovery. Even more unsettling: We’ve learned that these deaths appear to be linked to illegal marijuana cultivation on community and public lands — a finding that raises serious concerns for the health of many species of wildlife including fishers, an Endangered Species Act candidate.

A Growing Concern
Beginning in 2008, full necropsies including toxicological screens — done at the University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory (CAHFS) — have been conducted to determine proximate and ultimate causes of mortality for fishers from the Hoopa Valley Reservation Fisher Project (HVRFP), Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project (SNAMP), and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Kings River Fisher Project (KRFP). These ongoing, long-term demographic projects encompass both tribal community forests within the HVRFP and public lands including Yosemite National Park and Sierra National Forest in the SNAMP and KRFP study areas.

Toxicology screening of 58 fishers from these community and public lands revealed that nearly 80 percent of the fishers had been exposed to anticoagulant rodenticide (AR) poisons, with 96 percent of those exposures being SGARs — results that we published recently in PLoS ONE (Gabriel et al. 2012). Concerned about this trend, we led an interdisciplinary collaboration including multiple stakeholders from the Hoopa Tribe, Integral Ecology Research Center, USFS, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, CAHFS, UC-Davis, SNAMP, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife, pooling together resources and expertise for a comprehensive approach to evaluate this emerging threat.

Spatial modeling suggested that fishers were exposed to SGARs ubiquitously throughout the study areas, contradicting current thought that wildlife are at greatest risk to these toxicants near agricultural, urban, or peri-urban settings, where the pesticides are legally used to eradicate or suppress rodent pest populations. However, lifetime monitoring of the California fishers showed that most of the exposed or poisoned individuals never overlapped any of those land-use types. In addition, the use of SGARs within the study areas, in adjacent timberlands, or within campgrounds would violate current state and federal regulations. As a result, our suspicions gravitated towards undiscovered illicit uses throughout the project areas. These suspicions were essentially confirmed after federal, state, and local law enforcement officers verified that the poisons were present at most marijuana cultivation sites found on public and tribal lands.

Watch a video of a suspected toxicosis case in a fisher.

All of our documented SGAR fisher mortalities occurred from late April through early June, which is prime-time for marijuana seedling planting in California and likely the period of heaviest toxicant use to protect young plants from rodent damage. Regrettably, this is also a key time for female fishers to rear their kits. That unfortunate timing materialized when we discovered a lactating female fisher dead from SGAR poisoning in the Southern Sierra Nevadas. (California currently has two isolated native fisher populations, one within the northwestern coastal mountains, where population estimates are unknown, and another within the Southern Sierra Nevadas, where estimates suggest fewer than 300 adults [Spencer et al. 2011]). Presumably, the dead mother’s kits also died due to den abandonment.

In a separate instance, a rescue attempt on an abandoned fisher kit still dependent on its mother’s milk was unsuccessful, and the kit was found dead of starvation. Most disconcerting was that SGARs were detected in the kit’s tissues. This unexpected finding verified a transplacental or milk transfer of a SGAR from mother to kit, raising concern about fetotoxic or bioaccumulation effects of these pesticides, which are currently unknown.

These findings underscore the need to understand not only the direct impacts of these toxicants, but other possible indirect impacts that fishers and other wildlife may face at the population level. For example, we detected an average of 1.6 different types of ARs per fisher, with some fishers testing positive for four different toxic compounds. There are no data on the possible interactions of two, three, or even four different ARs, or the effects they might have on animal health. Furthermore, we cannot yet determine whether a threshold level of exposure exists beyond which an animal cannot recover, since some fishers died with low levels of SGARs while others displayed no clinical signs even with much higher exposures. We wonder if these toxicants at sub-lethal doses lower resistance to environmental stressors, as seen in other studies, and whether the distribution of SGARs within the landscape will limit prey availability and create sink habitats near cultivation sites. This is just the beginning of a long list of potential cascading impacts now being discussed in California.

Dots scattered through California’s Sierra and Sequoia National Forests represent some 600 illegal marijuana grow sites reclaimed by crews who removed trash, hazardous chemicals, water diversions, and rudimentary shelters left by growers. Blue shading represents current range of the fisher within the southern Sierra Nevadas, where the population is estimated at fewer than 300 adults. (Credit: Greta M. Wengert)

Problem Spreading Like Weeds
Illegal marijuana growing is not just a problem for wildlife. The High Sierra Volunteer Trail Crew is a nonprofit trail-maintenance crew that has spent the past seven years maintaining and cleaning trails throughout the Sierra Nevadas’ national forests. In the mid-2000s, the group realized that risks associated with large-scale marijuana production throughout most, if not all, California national forests threatened backcountry use of public lands. Since then, the trail crew’s Environmental Reclamation Team (ERT) has remediated more than 600 large-scale marijuana cultivation sites on public lands. The numbers are daunting, especially when considering that these 600 sites were in only two of California’s 17 national forests and may constitute only a fraction of the actual marijuana cultivation sites that exist in these forests. Tommy Lanier, Director of the National Marijuana Initiative, a White House supported program, states that “60 percent to 70 percent of the national marijuana seizures come from California annually, and of those totals, about 60 percent comes from public lands.”

Based on data from ERT-remediated sites, at least 50 percent of them have SGARs. Beyond finding anticoagulant rodenticides, the team and other remediation groups frequently find and remove restricted and banned pesticides including organo- phosphates, organochlorines, and carbamates as well as thousands of pounds of nitrogen-rich fertilizers. Many of the discovered pesticides have been banned for use in the U.S., Canada, and the European Union, specifically certain carbamates, which gained notoriety worldwide after an explosion of public awareness about their use to kill African wildlife. Unfortunately, these same malicious uses are occurring in California, where marijuana cultivators place pourable carbamate pesticides in opened tuna or sardine cans in order to kill black bears, gray foxes, raccoons, and other carnivores that damage marijuana plants or raid food caches at grow-site encampments.

In many cases, law enforcement officers approaching grow sites observe wildlife exposed to what officers call “wildlife bombs” due to their high potential for mass wildlife killing. For example, as federal and state officers approached a grow site in Northern California, they discovered a black bear and her cubs seizing and convulsing as they slowly succumbed to the neurological effects of these pesticides. Because toxicants are usually dispersed throughout cultivation sites, it is remarkably difficult to detect and remove all pesticide threats.

Funding to document, quantify, and remediate the damage caused by illegal marijuana cultivation on public and tribal lands has been difficult to secure through state or federal agencies or even private foundations, possibly due to the common misperceptions that illegal marijuana cultivation is not an environmental but rather a social issue, and that it is not a significant threat to wildlife. Yet we propose that funding is strongly warranted to help researchers investigate toxicant exposure and implications throughout the forests’ trophic levels, and to study impacts on all species of conservation concern, including fishers and the northern spotted owl.

Another common misperception is that it is the responsibility of law enforcement to not only protect our natural resources at illegal marijuana sites, but also to remove pesticides and remediate the sites. In truth, there is currently no standardized system for grow-site remediation. Recently, for example, we encountered more than 10 pounds of SGARs and 20 pounds of metaldehyde and carbamates from a single site that law enforcement officers had dismantled within fisher and northern spotted owl territories. Most of these toxicants were left untouched out of concern for the safety of the officers, who are not trained to handle and transport these highly toxic chemicals, especially in the frequent situation where these chemicals are unlabeled. Accordingly, without documentation of the environmental damage and threats from toxicants, and without funding for properly trained personnel, most poisons will continue to be left at grow sites, where they remain a catastrophic threat to wildlife.

Photo Gallery

Effects Extend beyond Poison
Environmental threats from large-scale marijuana cultivation are certainly not limited to toxicant contamination. At most grow sites, it is standard practice to clear patches of forest within riparian corridors in order to provide enough sunlight for growing plants. The cumulative impact of these practices across the California landscape is unknown, but disheartening in its potential. Last year, at a site within the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation in northern California, where 26,600 marijuana plants were removed, several acres of hardwood-conifer and alder forest had been cleared along one of the most productive Chinook and Coho salmon-bearing streams in the area. Under no circumstance would this clearing be allowed under the Tribe’s management plans or current state or federal regulations established to protect habitat for the salmon.

Because growers prefer areas with a constant and abundant water supply, it is these sensitive habitats that suffer the greatest impacts from marijuana cultivation. Water diversions and pesticide-filled cisterns within streambeds feeding miles of plastic irrigation lines are all-too-familiar a sight. Human waste throughout these sites is also widespread, and because many of the sites on public and tribal lands are inhabited for several months of the year by drug-traffic organizations, extensive camp systems are set up with associated trash dumps and human latrine sites just meters away from water sources.

The camps and plantations are often guarded by armed drug traffickers, so concern for the safety of field crews, students, and biologists working on these lands is ever pressing. Wildlife professionals are fearful of unwittingly running into armed growers at active grow sites, with good reason. Recently, a federal biologist in the southern Sierra Nevadas was chased by armed growers for 40 minutes through the national forest. “When we lost radio contact at one point for 10 minutes, we feared that the biologist was captured or possibly dead,” says project supervisor Jodi Tucker of Sequoia National Forest. In another incident in the 2012 field season, biologists surveying for northern spotted owls on the Hoopa Reservation were shot at by suspected illegal growers with high-caliber assault rifles. Luckily, no one was injured, but biologists avoided the survey area until the threat was addressed.

Due to heighted safety concerns and emerging patterns like these over the past several years, wildlife crews now are often composed of two individuals, whereas before, biologists worked independently in the field. The effects of these changes have not been fully ascertained, but it can be assumed that increased labor costs coupled with increased equipment and vehicle expenditures are affecting the size, duration, and thoroughness of data for many studies on California’s public and tribal lands.

Because wildlife biologists are also avoiding some study areas due to safety concerns, study designs are now being altered to avoid known grow sites, thus further impacting quality and completeness of data. Research ecologist Craig Thompson from the USFS Pacific Southwest Research Station estimates that during each field season, 10 to 25 percent of the Kings River Fisher Project area becomes inaccessible due to safety concerns. In another telling example during the 2010-2011 field season, two radio-collared fishers in this study area pulsed mortality signals but could not be recovered due to their locations near known grow sites. Eventually, under escort by armed law enforcement officers, biologists recovered the collars, yet the carcasses — and any evidence of cause of death or rodenticide toxicosis — were long destroyed.

In his Science editorial “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Garret Hardin lamented the loss of our public resources due to the greed and inconsid- eration of some individuals (Hardin 1968). We believe the vast and ever-growing misuse of our public and tribal forests for the financial benefit of a few individuals is an enormous threat to these resources and a deplorable tragedy of the commons. Our public and tribal land and agencies are being hit on two fronts: first by having to endure the illegal use, take, and destruction of natural resources without our permission, then having to support the financial burden of renewing these lands from the disastrous ecosystem degradation that illicit cultivation produces. Regrettably, most of this is occurring without the knowledge of the public, whose land it is. Though this is a sad story that often brings surprise, disgust, and a feeling of helplessness in those hearing it for the first time, in the words of Rachel Carson, “The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can do so only when in full possession of the facts.”

Author Bios
Mourad W. Gabriel is a Doctoral Candidate at the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory at the University of California-Davis and President of the Integral Ecology Research Center.

Greta M. Wengert is a Wildlife Ecologist with the Integral Ecology Research Center.

J. Mark Higley is a Wildlife Biologist with Hoopa Tribal Forestry.

Shane Krogan is Executive Director of the High Sierra Volunteer Trail Crew.

Warren Sargent is a Forensic Engineer with the High Sierra Volunteer Trail Crew.

Deana L. Clifford, DVM, Ph.D., is a Wildlife Veterinarian with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Harnessed in protective climbing gear, author Sarah piecuch navigates a bridge-painting project site where a contractor had spotted a nesting peregrine falcon. piecuch helped establish a safety buffer around the nest, and monitored the endangered bird’s progress. (Credit: Tanya Pace)

Like most wildlife biologists, I am a lover of wild places, a seeker of remoteness, a despiser of the din of traffic. Yet I am employed by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT). Wildlifers working for road builders may sound like a conflict of interest, even an oxymoron. But we transportation biologists see it very differently.

Biologists at transportation agencies are deeply involved in wildlife conservation. Our job is to ensure the development and maintenance of roads in an environmentally sound manner. Much of this work is straightforward, but also wide-ranging: it involves obtaining federal and state wetlands and stormwater permits, working with engineers to ensure that road projects avoid sensitive wildlife habitat, minimizing and mitigating environmental impacts to streams, wetlands, and endangered species, and managing invasive species. The work can also offer biologists unique opportunities that they might not find in more-traditional roles, such as working on long-range projects with public-private partnerships across state lines, all in the interest of efficiently moving people while protecting habitat.

The need for such expertise has gained recognition at a national level. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), “The Service encourages the design of transportation projects that provide the greatest value to the greatest number of people while avoiding or minimizing impacts to habitat and to the disruption of the ecological processes that naturally sustain these areas” (FWS 2012). In addition, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issues two classes of awards — for Exemplary Ecosystem Initiatives and Environmental Excellence. These awards honor projects that reduce habitat fragmentation and barriers to animal movement, encourage sustainable mitigation sites, foster ecosystem research and planning, or go beyond mere “compliance” to benefit the environment. Achieving these goals, however, often requires some out-of-the-box thinking and intense collaboration.

Listen to a transportation biologist talk about his professional roles and responsibilities.

Roads that Work for Wildlife
One vivid example of broad-scale collaboration in- volves the I-90 Snoqualmie Pass East project, now under construction in Washington State. Linking Puget Sound to eastern Washington, I-90 intersects the rugged Cascade Mountains in Washington’s Snoqualmie Pass region, which has been identified as a critical link in the north-south movement of wildlife species such as bear, elk, mountain lions, wolverines, and several species of small mammals and amphibians. This area is also the focus of an extensive effort by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to expand the highway while making it safer for people and wildlife.

The effort involves extensive collaboration among WSDOT and the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the FHWA, FWS, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), the state’s Department of Ecology, the Environmental Protection Agency, and regional cities, counties, and community groups, which are all working together to develop consensus on their vision for the project. The ultimate goal is to create an efficient six-lane freeway that will have fewer closures from avalanches and rock slides, yet accommodate wildlife movement. Plans include connecting wildlife habitat on either side of I-90 with new bridges and culverts, which will allow for safer passage while minimizing wildlife-vehicle collisions. “It is very rare to have an opportunity to provide and restore ecological connectivity at this scale,” says Craig Broadhead, WSDOT assistant manager for biology. “We have the chance to provide untold benefits to wildlife species and populations at a scale far beyond the scope of a typical highway project.”

Such projects are expensive, but because road functionality is directly related to commerce and the economy, state DOTs are generally among the better-funded state agencies. Even a simple transportation project can have a large budget, and some transportation project costs exceed the entire annual budget of a state’s natural resource agency for targeted species management. It’s therefore advisable — and often very doable — to incorporate wildlife improvements into overall road project costs, especially since those wildlife improvements often run less than 10 percent of the total project cost.

For example, NYSDOT was planning a bridge rehabilitation project that cost $11.5 million. We worked with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) to design and incorporate two snake hibernaculums (at a total cost of $10,000) to help protect queen snakes (Regina septemvittata), a state-listed endangered species that would not have received habitat management without DOT funds. A day’s work of strategically hand-placing flat rocks in an area cut near the bridge abutments created lots of access to a partially submerged structure that will give the snakes winter shelter from predators.

Read about how agencies collaborate to manage hellbender salamanders.

Power of Persuasion
It can take the skill of a diplomat to arrange such improvements, however. A transportation biologist must be a mediator, or a translator between biologists working for regulatory agencies and the transportation agencies’ engineers. Each has its own vernacular that may not be understood by the other. During permitting, I’ve often noticed that both sides are viewing things from different scales or saying the same things but using different terms (i.e., stream invert = streambed). The result is confusion, misunderstandings, and delayed permit approvals. It’s challenging, but once these issues are overcome, great partnerships can develop. In my experience, engineers enjoy the challenge of integrating ecologically sensitive solutions into their project designs. The key is to educate them of the need, and inform them of it early in the project’s development.
Early engagement is crucial both internally (with project engineers) and externally (with regulatory agencies) for a transportation biologist, because if you wait until permits are submitted, it is usually too late to add features for the betterment of wildlife. Highway and bridge projects — even those perceived as “simple” roads — can take several years to design, and the closer you get to the construction date, the harder it is to change design plans. Some regulatory agencies tend only to comment on projects when they have a permit application to review, and by that point the project design is 90 percent complete, so changes are very difficult to make without compromising the budget or schedule — both of which are high priorities for transportation agencies.

An example of effective early planning involved a project at Melvin Brook in Clyde, New York. Early in the project’s development, I noticed a road-killed otter (Lontra canadensis) at the site. Because the large culvert was constantly filled with water, the scent trail of this mustelid had been interrupted. The lack of an upland area forced otters to travel out of the water and over the road embankment to leave a scent trail, thus making them vulnerable to traffic. I explained the need and ideal parameters for an upland bench to be built under the culvert. The project engineers eagerly brainstormed the “how,” took ownership of this wildlife improvement, and brought it to life. We made a great team: I identified the need and they created a solution. A year of post-construction monitoring has shown that several medium-sized mammal species are using the bench.

Even the best planning can’t prevent unexpected events during construction. For example, after a bridge painting project had already begun, the contractor spotted the nest of a peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), an endangered species not seen in that area before. Prompt discussions with NYSDEC’s endangered species biologists resulted in establishing a buffer area around the nest. Work was allowed to continue while I monitored the adult bird’s behavior and fledgling progression to make sure construction activities were not disturbing the falcons. This resulted in minor delays to the project. By summer’s end, the contractors were still eagerly observing and reporting the falcon’s activities.

Route to Nature’s Renewal
Roads have traditionally been viewed as connections for society to transport people and aid commerce. But today the significance of roads has expanded beyond pavement, and their role as links between wildlife corridors is now at the forefront of transportation planning. Likewise, the role of transportation biologists has expanded. Beyond making technical improvements to the ecological integrity of projects, we also contribute to the environmental awareness of the traveling public.

Road travel is often a first step to outdoor recreation, and that’s where people connect with wildlife. Dendritic branches of roads that reach into wild areas facilitate encounters with wildlife, returning us to our roots in nature. This leads to the growth of relationships with nature, which are foundational to a person’s desire and will to protect the environment. People will protect what they know and love, so it’s not a far reach to conclude that roads support the growth of conservation ethics.

It’s therefore logical to have biologists working for transportation agencies. It’s our job to ensure that roads function in the most ecologically friendly ways possible, while facilitating and enhancing the experiences of the traveling public. It’s our job to think beyond the pavement.

Author Bio: Sarah Piecuch, CWB, is an Environmental Specialist with the New York State Department of Transportation.

Roadblock for a Beetle

Safe Passage for Turtles

Employees with the New York State Department of Transportation place large flat rocks (see close up, below) to enhance hellbender habitat as part of the Eastern Hellbender Habitat restoration project in the Allegheny River Watershed in New York. (Credit: Ken Roblee)

In these fiscally changeling times, funding for species-specific conservation efforts is in short supply. Creative collaborations with transportation departments can be a way to do more with less. For example, the New York State Department of Conservation (NYSDEC) requested the involvement of the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) and the Buffalo Zoo in a grant to hatch the eggs of hellbenders (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) — giant salamanders endemic to eastern North America — and rear them to eight-to-nine-inch juveniles for release back into the wild. Hellbenders are listed as a special concern species in New York State; endangered in Maryland, Ohio, and Illinois; and threatened in Alabama. Surveys reveal a decline in hellbender numbers, possibly the result of pollution of their aquatic habitat, damming of rivers and streams, and falling victim to bycatch (New York State Department of Environmental Conservation).

A key component of this hellbender project was to improve habitat for hellbenders by restoring large flat rocks — lost to shoreline stabilization and sedimentation — back into the watershed before hellbenders were released. Hellbenders rely on these flat “cover rocks” for nesting, hunting, and shelter. NYSDOT was responsible for the purchase, delivery, and placement of the rocks. As a result of the team’s efforts, approximately 400 juvenile hellbenders were successfully raised in an aquaculture setting at the Buffalo Zoo. To date, 146 of them have been released into the Allegheny River Watershed, with the rest to be tagged and released this summer. This type of forward thinking and collaborative effort between NYSDEC and NYSDOT should bring back the hellbender population and create breeding sites for the rare salamander for years to come.

Author Bio: Sarah Piecuch, CWB, is an Environmental Specialist with the New York State Department of Transportation.

Watch a video of a hellbender swimming in the Allegheny River Watershed.

Paul Wagner, a transportation biologist with the Washington State Department of Transportation, has been with the department for more than 20 years. He manages the biology branch, which involves assessing natural resources in an area that’s about to undergo a transportation project, determining how a project might impact protected species in an area, and designing projects to minimize some of those impacts.

For instance, one of the department’s major initiatives is the rebuilding of Interstate 90 as it goes through the Cascade Mountains in a place called Snoqualmie Pass. “I’ve been involved in thinking about how do we do that project in ways that help to maintain ecological connectivity,” Wagner says. The department has also incorporated wildlife-crossing structures into the design of the project, working extensively with natural resource agencies, the forest service, and non-profit environmental organizations interested in promoting habitat protection.

For Wagner, there’s no such thing as a typical day. His tasks range from addressing questions related to individual projects to coordinating with outside agencies to identify and plan upcoming endeavors. “In my office, we also work with a lot of developments of guidance and policy for the department,” Wagner says. His team is currently reviewing various bills within the state legislature to see how they might affect the department. “[We’re] weighing in on some of those as they might relate to environmental issues for the department,” Wagner says.

Wagner also participates in the International Conference of Ecology and Transportation — a biennial conference that began roughly 15 years ago. According to Wagner, the conference offers a platform for people, mostly from North America, to discuss and understand the ecological effects of transportation projects on natural resources and determine ways to plan for and mitigate some of these effects in an environmentally responsible way. The next conference will be in June in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Developments Along the Way
Over the years, Wagner has found that the field of transportation biology has grown. “It’s something that’s really … become a discipline of applied ecology and come into being just in the last few years,” Wagner says.  A number of factors account for that growth. “In part, the regulatory context to do transportation planning has become more complex,” Wagner says. “Our whole approach to habitat management has become more sophisticated in understanding our cultural impacts in ways we haven’t really articulated before.” Today, there are programs of study on road ecology that never existed before, making this a good time for aspiring wildlifers to consider transportation biology as a career. As Wagner says, “If people are looking for places where there might be opportunities in the field — especially for applied things — this is probably an area where there’s going to be continued growth.”

Author Bio: Divya Abhat is Managing Editor of The Wildlife Professional.

A costumed technician uses a whooping crane puppet to encourage a whooper chick to swim at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland. FWS declared the whooping crane endangered in 1967 under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966. Since then, state and federal management efforts have resulted in an increase in crane numbers from fewer than 20 birds in the 1940s to more than 400 today. (Credit: USGS)

The year 2013 marks the 40th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) — a landmark law established “to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved.” The 1973 Act came on the heels of two notable predecessors: the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, designed to protect vulnerable species native to the United States, and the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969, which expanded on the 1966 Act to cover a larger number of species, including animals threatened with worldwide extinction. The 1973 ESA that we celebrate today went further, providing greater protections to listed species along with the ecosystems on which they relied.

Since passage of the ESA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) — the two federal agencies that administer the ESA — have enjoyed notable successes in rescuing dwindling species like the bald eagle and the peregrine falcon. Yet these agencies have also endured steep challenges, such as criticisms over listings and delistings, frequent litigation, inadequate funding, and struggles with states over jurisdiction.

Despite such challenges, the Act is destined to endure as an imperfect but vital safety net for wildlife and habitats at a time of mounting pressures on the nation’s natural resources. Today it offers protections for more than 1,400 plant and animal species in the United States that are listed as threatened or endangered, with close to 200 species categorized as “candidate” species under consideration for inclusion on the endangered species list. Those labels are significant, as they result in the following actions or protections:

Endangered. This designation applies to species currently in danger of extinction. Endangered species are protected from “take” — which includes being killed, wounded, trapped, or moved — and they cannot be traded or sold.

Threatened. This term applies to species that could become endangered in the foreseeable future. It results in many, but not all, of the same protections as are given to endangered species.

Candidate. A candidate species is one being considered for protection under the ESA. Although FWS has enough information on a candidate species’ biological status to propose listing, higher priority listing activities keep the listing process from going forward. These species do not receive statutory protection under the ESA.

Such pat definitions belie the political, social, and logistical complexities that arise in the wake of a listing. Nevertheless, during this 40th anniversary year, it’s worth reflecting on some of the milestones that have helped define the ESA as one of the most significant environmental laws of our time and explore a few key species, issues, and incidents that encapsulate its journey.

Learn about how FWS and NMFS collaborate to save sea turtles.

When Industry Impacts Species

Although the key purpose of the ESA is simply to protect wildlife species and their habitats, actual execution of the Act has been anything but simple. For decades, wildlife biologists and researchers have been at odds with some industries and landowners over protections of listed species. While the former will highlight the risk of extinction of a particular species, the latter may express concern that protection measures could restrict development and result in financial loss. Two landmark cases from ESA history highlight this complex struggle.

Snail Darters. In August 1973, David Etnier discovered the snail darter (Percina tanasi) in the Little Tennessee River. At the time, Etnier, a biologist and professor at the University of Tennessee, was embroiled in a lawsuit against the Tennessee Valley Authority over construction of the Tellico Dam and Reservoir Project along the same river. Etnier and other experts were concerned that construction could result in the extirpation of a number of fish species, and discovery of the three-inch snail darter only added pressure to protect it and other fish in the region.

Etnier and colleagues began by taking stock of the new species: They estimated that there were probably about 5,000 snail darters in the Little Tennessee River and determined that construction of the dam would almost guarantee the species’ extinction. Still, despite lawsuits and appeals to stop the project, TVA continued to build the dam. In 1975, the snail darter was listed as endangered under the ESA, and in 1978, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling made it clear that the ESA forbade completion of projects that would likely jeopardize survival of a particular species. In 1979, however, then Senator Howard Baker (R-TN) and Representative John Duncan (R-TN) pushed through an appropriations rider overruling the ESA and other laws. By November of that year, the reservoir was completed and the river impounded.

A recovery team consisting of Etnier, biologists from TVA and FWS, and others then hatched a plan to save the fish. “It looked like about the only thing we could do — assuming that TVA would eventually win and the Tennessee population would be gone — was try to reintroduce them [elsewhere],” says Etnier. The plan worked. Though the snail darter was extirpated from the Little Tennessee River, reintroductions established populations that now exist in the Lower French Broad, the Lower Holston, and Little River. Further, researchers have found what appear to be naturally occurring populations in five additional Tennessee River tributaries. In 1984, the listing designation of the snail darter changed from endangered to threatened. “I suspect it will be eventually moved from the list without much fuss,” says Etnier.

Northern Spotted Owl. In 1973, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), FWS, and Oregon’s fish and wildlife agency collaborated to form the Oregon Endangered Species Task Force, which began working to protect Oregon’s northern spotted owls and their old forest habitat. At that time, however, federal agencies were eliminating “decadent” old forest stands and replacing them with vigorously growing younger trees as part of a forest management plan. The Task Force faced a dilemma: how to maintain the species and its habitat on a changing landscape. By 1977, BLM and USFS agreed to protect spotted owl habitat in accordance with guidelines from the Task Force, which recommended maintaining 400 pairs of spotted owls in Oregon and providing each pair with at least 300 acres of old timber.

Seeing that the spotted-owl habitat problem wasn’t restricted to Oregon, the effort was expanded to address owls in California and Washington. The issue heated up as the timber industry expressed concern over the loss of jobs and income because of reduced logging, while environmental and animal activists called for the protection of old-growth forests and spotted owl populations that relied on them. “The more we learned, the worse the situation looked,” says FWS/Oregon State University researcher Charles Meslow. Eventually, environmentalists filed lawsuits challenging USFS and BLM timber sales.

By 1987, FWS had received a petition to list the spotted owl, and in 1990 it listed the species as threatened. Within a year, a federal court order halted old forest logging in northwest federal forests. Then, in 1994, the Clinton administration adopted the Northwest Forest Plan, which still forms the basis for forest management for federal lands in the Northwest. Though significant, the plan “hasn’t been effective in stopping the decline of the northern spotted owl,” says Meslow, likely because of another factor at play: barred owls. Scientists have found that an increase in barred owls has coincided with a decline in spotted owls (USFWS).

Despite decades of efforts to protect the northern spotted owl, its numbers continue to decline, especially in the northern part of its range (southern British Columbia and Washington). Scientists had hoped that as younger forests matured they would bolster the role of the old forest that these owls rely on. “It’s been almost 25 years now and the decline of the spotted owl has not stopped,” Meslow says.

A biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service works with a tranquilized polar bear in Alaska. In 2008, FWS listed the polar bear as threatened under the ESA largely because of a rapid decline in sea ice — the species’ primary habitat. (Credit: Karyn Rhode/USFWS)

Balancing Science and Politics

Like industry, politics can play a significant role in ESA policy and planning. In 2011, for example, legislators from Montana and Idaho attached a rider to an approved federal budget deal, with the rider requiring FWS to remove protections for wolves under the ESA in Montana, Idaho, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and north-central Utah, and prohibiting further judicial review.

Far more common than such interventions are questions involving climate science. Climate change was barely a blip on the radar of science or politics back in the 1970s, but today the ESA increasingly considers global-warming impacts on species. In May 2006, for example, the NMFS listed two corals — elkhorn and staghorn — as threatened. The listing was prompted by research showing a significant decline in coral populations over the previous 25 years, largely because of warming oceans. More recently, FWS proposed to list the wolverine (Gulo gulo) as threatened under the ESA, largely because of the threat of climate change on the species’ snow-pack habitat in the northern Rockies.

Such climate-related listings can pit science against political agendas, oftentimes independent of FWS and NMFS. Consider the polar bear. In 2008, FWS listed it as threatened because of the projected loss of its sea ice habitat due to warming oceans — a controversial listing still on appeal.* (See update below.) Some scientists went on to argue that this was one reason to limit greenhouse gas emissions, considered a factor in global warming. But both the Bush and Obama administrations have ruled that the government should not invoke the ESA to curb such emissions. Instead, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that the global risk of greenhouse gases had to be tackled by comprehensive policies rather than as a collection of agency efforts implemented for particular species (New York Times 2009). In another climate-related case, in 2010 the FWS ruled that although the American pika (Ochotona princeps) was potentially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, it did not warrant ESA listing (FWS 2010) because some research suggested that the species could survive at higher elevations — a ruling that drew much criticism from environmental groups.

Clearly, the ESA will remain a lightning rod, drawing praise and blame. Among its critics, Doc Hastings, Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources, wrote in 2012 that the ESA “is failing to achieve its primary purpose of species recovery and instead has become a tool for litigation that drains resources away from real recovery efforts and blocks job-creating economic activities” (U.S. House of Representatives 2012). Conversely, many commend the ESA for protecting vulnerable species. “The Act is a safety net for species in real trouble,” says Gary Frazer, FWS’s Assistant Director for Endangered Species, “and it’s been remarkably successful in focusing attention and preventing extinction of species that desperately need our help.” Now 40 years and counting, the ESA will continue to fight for species and their habitats in the face of an ever-shifting world.

*Update: On March 1, 2013, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals upheld the 2008 decision to protect polar bears throughout their range under the Endangered Species Act.

Author Bio: Divya Abhat is Managing Editor of The Wildlife Professional.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife staff and interns check sea turtle nests as part of a relocation project on Alabama’s Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge. (Credit: Bonnie Strawser/USFWS)

When it comes to protecting species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the responsibility is fairly clear-cut: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) primarily manages species found on land while the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS, or NOAA Fisheries) manages marine species. However, the line blurs when it comes to protecting species that split their time between land and sea.

Consider the sea turtle: Six of the seven sea turtle species worldwide are listed under the ESA as threatened or endangered, with all of those species found in U.S. waters. Because sea turtles live in the marine environment but nest on shore, FWS and NOAA Fisheries jointly manage and protect them, using both internal and external research to develop conservation and recovery actions for each species. Further, the two agencies work together to designate critical habitat areas and develop ESA Recovery Plans to guide conservation and recovery. Each agency also has a designated sea turtle coordinator to help implement recovery and conservation efforts both nationally and internationally.

“One of the key areas of work [within the] National Marine Fisheries Service focuses on understanding and reducing the bycatch of turtles in commercial fishing activities,” says Barbara Schroeder, National Sea Turtle Coordinator for NOAA Fisheries. Biologists working in NOAA Fisheries Science Centers and Regions in both the Atlantic and Pacific focus on gathering information on sea turtle populations, their life history and ecology, the threats they face in the marine environment, and solutions for reducing those threats. Chief among these efforts has been the development and implementation of turtle excluder devices (TEDs) — special devices that allow a sea turtle to escape from a fishing net. (Read about the success of TED devices in “A Sea Change for Survival” by William Robert Irvin, The Wildlife Professional, Spring 2013.)

International Management Efforts
FWS and NOAA Fisheries collaborate closely to implement conservation actions and recovery activities to protect and recover these vulnerable species, both in the United States and internationally. For example, the two agencies recently worked with the Mexican government to develop the 2011 Bi-National Recovery Plan for Kemp’s ridley sea turtles. Today, both NOAA Fisheries and FWS monitor the threats facing the species and implement management measures, such as providing assistance on nesting beaches in Rancho Nuevo, Mexico (where the majority of Kemp’s ridley nesting occurs) and monitoring threats from fisheries near nesting beaches. “We are all working toward the same recovery goals for these imperiled species,” Schroeder says. “We work very closely together to try to maximize the potential for recovery.”

On an even broader international scale, there are several different treaties and agreements between the United States and other countries to conserve and protect sea turtles. For example, the Inter-American Convention for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles—an intergovernmental treaty that helps inform turtle conservation—provides protection for six species of sea turtle in the Americas and the Caribbean. To date, 15 nations have signed on to the Convention. “One of the things about turtles is that they do not recognize international boundaries, they migrate long-distances, and may spend different parts of their life in habitats under the jurisdiction of many countries over their lifetimes,” Schroeder says. “It takes a collaborative and concerted effort to recover and conserve these species, both here in the United States and beyond our borders as well.”

Author Bio: Kristen Kortick is the Editorial Intern for The Wildlife Professional.

As part of an intensive study of wolf predation, biologists with Yellowstone National Park track radio-collared wolves of the Slough Creek Pack in Lamar Valley. Research has revealed that area wolves kill an average of 1.8 elk per wolf each month in winter (with kill rates higher in late winter than in early winter) — data that informs elk herd management. (Courtesy of NPS)

“Dave, would you do another legal declaration on the wolf for us?” The weary voice on the phone belonged to Mike Jimenez, Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Management and Science Coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). He was calling from Wyoming to ask me to prepare a document to address a legal challenge to the FWS’s August 2012 delisting of the wolf (Canis lupus) in Wyoming, a highly controversial move. Mike’s tone reflected the reality that — as so many wildlife biologists know and live each day — wildlife management is mainly people management. This contention could not be truer for managing any wildlife species than for managing the wolf.

Dubbed “the beast of waste and desolation” by Teddy Roosevelt (The Wilderness Hunter 1893/1900), wolves had been universally hated as prolific predators of valuable livestock and game. Around the turn of the 20th century, members of the U.S. Biological Survey and various state agents, ranchers, cowboys, and other frontiersmen poisoned and persecuted wolves, extirpating them from most of the contiguous United States (Young and Goldman 1944). By 1967, Minnesota and nearby Isle Royale National Park in Michigan held the only remaining wolves in the Lower 48 states, prompting the FWS to place the wolf on the Endangered Species List (established by the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966). The wolf then became the list’s poster species, and the timing was ideal: Silent Spring (Carson 1962) had just seeded and fertilized the environmental movement, which blossomed on Earth Day (April 22, 1970) into the environmental revolution. “Save the wolf!” became one of the movement’s rallying cries. And save the wolf we did.

Arduous Road to Recovery 

It seemed to matter to no one that a thriving population of 60,000 wolves remained next door in Canada and Alaska: Because they were gone from the western wilderness — including Yellowstone National Park and other wild lands in the contiguous states — wolves were officially endangered and considered worthy of salvation. I was an early proponent of that philosophy. My book The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species ended by saying, “The wolf haters must be outnumbered. They must be outshouted, outfinanced and outvoted” (Mech 1970). To save the species, federal agencies put protections in place. Soon the ranks of wolf supporters began to rise, making it easier to outvote the anti-wolf factions.

After the passage of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA), wolves gained new protections. In 1978, the FWS approved the Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf (a subspecies of gray wolf) that eventually covered populations in Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Wolves were already increasing in Minnesota by that time (Fuller et al. 1992), and the added protection furthered the increase and allowed Minnesota’s population to flow over into Wisconsin and Michigan (Wydeven et al. 2009, Beyer et al. 2009). In 1987, the Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Plan proposed restoring wolves to Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. Meanwhile, a similar public attitudinal change in Canada (Carbyn 1983) reduced pressure on wolves there, and dispersers from the rising Canadian wolf population began to recolonize Montana (Ream et al. 1991).

The ESA of 1973 also gave new impetus to an idea that had long been simmering among professional conservationists  the restoration of wolves to Yellowstone National Park (Leopold 1944, Pimlott 1967, Mech 1970). Assistant Secretary of the Interior Nathaniel Reed championed the idea in the 1970s. A long political process followed involving considerable Congressional wrangling, a $350,000 appropriation for an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on wolf reintroduction, 160,000 written comments on the EIS, an unsuccessful court case against the reintroduction, and a last-minute injunction against releasing the wolves that was soon rescinded (Cook 1993, McNamee 1997).

The process culminated in the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone and central Idaho in 1995 and 1996 (Bangs and Fritts 1996) as part of FWS’s Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Plan. According to that plan, wolves would be considered “viable” (or recovered) in the region once 10 breeding pairs were maintained in each of three designated recovery areas (in parts of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming) “for a minimum of three successive years” (FWS 1987). Thanks to legal protection and the wolves’ biotic potential, the species reached the recovery goal in 2002 with at least 663 individuals, and numbers have continued to increase.

Likewise, the plan for wolves in the Upper Midwest specified that the species would be considered recovered once Minnesota retained its existing population of at least 1,250 wolves for five consecutive years, and when Wisconsin and Michigan were supporting at least 100 wolves between them (FWS 1992). By 1999, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan had reached those objectives, and their wolf populations also continued to increase.

More Wolves, More Tension

Lone Wolf Racking up Miles

Track OR7′s epic journey from northeast Oregon to California.

The understanding and intention of both the Northern Rocky Mountain (NRM) and Upper Midwest wolf recovery teams were that once the wolf populations reached their science-based biological recovery levels, the FWS would delist them, and their management — including public harvest — would be returned to the states. Those expectations met numerous roadblocks, however.

In 2003, FWS changed the status of Upper Midwest wolves to threatened rather than endangered, and in 2007 and 2009, delisted them. In 2003, 2008, and 2009, FWS also tried to reclassify or delist the Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming wolf populations. Each attempt, however, was successfully challenged in court by animal-protection groups on the basis of legal technicalities, such as failure to address threats to wolves outside the core recovery areas.

Wolf populations in the NRM and Midwest have continued to increase beyond recovery levels, much to the chagrin of many ranchers, hunters, and guides. In the NRM, those folks generally have been extremely patient and tolerant while wolf populations have grown far beyond the levels that many residents had believed they would have to live with based on the publicly vetted recovery plans. After wolves were delisted in the West (except in Wyoming) and then relisted once more by court order in 2010, some western residents appealed to their Congressional representatives. As a result, in 2011 Congress intervened by legislatively delisting wolves in Montana and Idaho (as well as in parts of Washington, Oregon, and Utah), and exempting that ruling from legal challenges (ENS 2011). By then, the NRM wolf population exceeded 1,750 wolves, about six times the minimum recovery level. Likewise, in the Upper Midwest, the Minnesota wolf population had reached more than twice the minimum recovery level, and the Wisconsin/Michigan population hit 12 times the minimum level, so FWS again delisted wolves in the region in late 2011.

With each of these states’ wolf populations far higher than recovery levels, some groups began to strongly promote public wolf harvesting. (Federal culling of depredating wolves had been ongoing for years in these states, resulting in removal of more than 4,000 wolves.) All the states with recovered wolf populations (except Michigan) began to allow various forms of public wolf harvest. Their approaches varied: all allowed hunting, some allowed trapping, snaring, and baiting. But all set conservative quotas and seasons in their first year’s regulations.

Even so, neither Montana nor Idaho nor Wyoming reached their initial harvest quotas, and wolf populations continued to increase. Montana, for example, had hoped to harvest 220 wolves in the 2010-2011 season but ended up taking only 166, even after extending the season. The state’s wolf population then increased by 15 percent. Likewise, Minnesota, which had issued 3,600 wolf permits during the 2012 deer season, saw hunters harvest 147 of the 200 quota. (A second special season for hunting, trapping, or snaring wolves, with 2,400 permits and a quota of 253, did reach that quota.)

Though conservative wolf-harvest quotas were based on population science, hunting of wolves greatly upset many members of the public. Saving wolves had gained a large and passionate constituency. Wolves in Yellowstone were seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors and had generated an estimated $35 million per year for the local economy (Duffield et al. 2008). Some biologists had also concluded that through trophic cascades, wolves were improving populations of everything from beetles to trout in the Yellowstone ecosystem (Hebblewhite and Smith 2010), and the popular media had greatly publicized those findings. (After a recent review of the literature, however, I concur with several other scientists who question those findings [Mech 2012].)

In any case, wolf aficionados took great umbrage at states for instituting wolf harvesting. In Minnesota, for example, some 15 anti-wolf-taking billboards appeared along major highways; protests and vigils were regularly held in front of Governor Mark Dayton’s home; new websites were launched; and the ad-hoc group “Howling for Wolves” filed a suit to stop the hunt. When that failed, a lawsuit was filed against the FWS by the Humane Society of the United States and three other groups to relist the wolf in the Upper Midwest.

Delisting had clearly opened the floodgates to action by constituents with strong pro and anti-wolf feelings. It turns out that the 1978 Eastern Timber Wolf Recovery Team had been prescient when it wrote the following: “It is important to remember that the wolf is controversial, so there will be local opposition to any attempt to re-establish the animal or afford it any measure of protection. Similarly there will be opposition from other quarters to any effort to control the animal, although control may be necessary for the good of the animal itself in certain areas. If re-establishment of the wolf is accomplished, regulated taking of the animal undoubtedly will be necessary in the restored range sooner or later” (FWS 1978).

Similarly, NorthernRockyMountain team members wrote, “We predict that controversy will continue well beyond the time when wolves are recovered and removed from federal protection, although the focus will shift from whether and how wolves should be restored to how wolves should be managed (Mech 1995), particularly in relation to state-regulated ungulate hunting programs” (Bangs and Fritts 1996).

Biologists collar and assess a breeding male (formerly alpha male) of Yellowstone’s Blacktail Pack, which was immobilized by helicopter darting. Up to 30 percent of wolves in Yellowstone are collared, says Douglas Smith, wolf project leader for the park. “What we know about wolves,” he says, “hinges on having a marked population.” (Credit: Dan Stahler/NPS)

Special Case in Wyoming

Those predictions typify Wyoming’s situation. Yellowstone National Park forms about half of the planned Wyoming recovery zone for wolves. However, the area outside that zone comprises some 80 percent of Wyoming and is intensively grazed by livestock. Wolves in that massive area — which Wyoming named the Predator Zone — regularly prey on livestock, causing problems for area ranchers. From 2003 through 2012, agencies authorized the killing of 70 depredating wolves in the Predator Zone, which resulted in no packs ever being able to persist there. Nevertheless, this area for years has been a special zone of contention for wolf advocates, and still is.

The FWS had mandated that each state develop a management plan showing how it would achieve and sustain wolf recovery. By 2008 the Service had approved recovery plans for Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Montana, and Idaho, but it had rejected Wyoming’s plan partly because it proposed unrestricted taking of wolves in the extensive non-wilderness Predator Zone — long a prominent feature of the state’s various wolf management plans. Very few wolves inhabit that area because of their constant conflict with livestock, so biologically nearly all of that portion of Wyoming is inconsequential to Wyoming’s wolf population. However, in principle (wildlife management is primarily people management, remember?), the idea that wolf taking would be unrestricted in such a large portion of Wyoming has been unacceptable for many wolf advocates.

Media became complicit in this controversy by failing to note that relatively few wolves inhabit the Predator Zone. That “oversight” appears deliberate. For example, in several phone interviews with the media, other biologists and I have regularly pointed out this key fact, but seldom was that included in a story. The overall impression was that Wyoming intended to wipe out most of its wolves. One widely circulated account stated that eight groups suing the FWS claimed that Wyoming’s management plan classified wolves as “predators that can be shot on sight in most of the state” (Denver Post 2012).

In any case, FWS refused to approve Wyoming’s plan for years, and it was that plan that figured prominently in lawsuits and even in the Congressional 2011 delisting of the wolf in Montana and Idaho but not Wyoming. In 2012, however, the FWS approved a new Wyoming Gray Wolf Management Plan, which had some modifications that addressed the Service’s biological concerns but still allowed open, year-around taking of wolves in the Predator Zone. The FWS delisted the wolf in Wyoming in August 2012 (FWS 2012). The state promptly opened a regulated take of 52 wolves in a “Trophy Zone” (which held about 450 wolves, at least 224 of which were outside of Yellowstone National Park) and unlimited take in the Predator Zone. Some 41 wolves were taken in the trophy area and 20 or so in the Predator Zone. As of this writing, two groups of animal-protection organizations are suing the FWS to relist wolves in Wyoming. Thus Wyoming wildlife managers, who had never before had to contend with controversy over public wolf harvests, suddenly were faced with conflicting views of the Wyoming legislature, big-game hunters, and livestock producers on one side versus wolf advocates on the other. The controversy continues to simmer.

Other Challenges over ‘Take’

Once wolf populations recovered in the Lower 48, several states began to allow public wolf trapping (in addition to shooting) and faced new controversy over that method of take. A graphic photo of a legally trapped wolf in Idaho went viral on the Internet in March 2012 and brought worldwide protest. In addition, the Wisconsin legislature passed a law in 2012 allowing hunters to use dogs to hunt wolves in keeping with that state’s long tradition of using dogs to hunt bears (Ursus americanus), coyotes (Canis latrans), and bobcats (Lynx rufus). Animal-protection groups  successfully sued to postpone that on the grounds that it would be cruel to the dogs, fearing that the wolves would turn on the dogs and eat them! (After the season closed, the court ruled that use of dogs would be legal.)

Wisconsin has also had to deal with two other new wildlife management issues—tribal interests and night hunting—that have arisen since it assumed wolf management responsibility in 2012. Some tribes, including Ojibwes in the Upper Midwest, view the wolf as sacred. “The Ojibwe have always understood the wolf to be their brother. They look at wolves as teachers, showing … how to live on the landscape, how to raise young using family units, how to persevere under persecution — all the traits necessary to survive in this often-harsh environment” (Johnston 2012). Thus Wisconsin reserved 85 wolves of its planned quota of 201 for the Ojibwe, who then vowed not to kill them. Likewise, in Minnesota, tribes have prohibited public wolf harvest on tribal lands.

A regulation in Wisconsin that allowed night hunting of wolves spawned another new problem and lawsuit. The Ojibwe reasoned that if the state allowed night hunting of wolves, then the natives should be allowed night hunting of deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Thus the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission recently authorized Wisconsin tribes to hunt deer at night with lights. According to one news account, Sue Erickson, a spokeswoman for the Commission, said, “The DNR said it’s safe to have hunters in the woods at night hunting wolves and using a light at the point of kill … The tribes are simply instituting the same thing” (Star Tribune 2012). The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has now sued the tribes to stop their night hunting of deer.

Clearly the varied issues related to public harvest of wolves will be a challenge for all the states with recovered wolf populations — an idea recently captured by Tom Ryder of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. “Wolves represent every facet of wildlife management and the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation,” he says, “touching on public ownership of wildlife, how science must be brought to bear, predator-prey relationships, the challenges of managing a charismatic species, politics, and human dimensions.”

Given all those complexities, there are no easy answers to the dilemma facing states trying to responsibly manage such a controversial creature as the wolf. One approach that might help pacify wolf advocates would be for each state to set aside special wolf sanctuaries free from public wolf taking. Such sanctuaries could provide buffer zones around national parks and perhaps reduce the number of park wolves killed just outside the park. (So far in 2012, eight radio-collared Yellowstone Park wolves valuable for research have been killed, drawing much media attention and public condemnation.) Sanctuaries might also help satisfy some of the tribal concerns and would be favored by at least some of the animal protection-groups, although setting aside sanctuaries certainly would not end all the controversies.

In summary, wolf recovery in the Midwest and NRM was easy—for the wolves — but just the opposite for the states. Similar endless and expensive controversy also pervades the ongoing Mexican wolf recovery program in the southwestern U.S. and the red-wolf (Canis rufus) program in the Southeast. Such controversy probably ensures that wolf restoration will never be undertaken in other areas.

After that weary phone call from Mike Jimenez, I did submit the legal declaration he requested for the Wyoming court cases. The wolf population is secure in that state today, but only time will tell whether all the legal technicalities were followed in the delisting process. One wonders if all this controversy and litigation by both sides — which began in 1994 and likely will persist into the foreseeable future — might cause some future wildlife-management students to start wondering whether to change their major to pre-law.

Author Bio: L. David Mech, Ph.D., is Senior Research Scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, Adjunct Professor at the University of Minnesota-St. Paul, and Founder of the International Wolf Center in Ely, Minnesota.

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