Alaska federal court throws out polar bear critical habitat rule

A federal judge in Alaska has rejected a regulation that designated critical habitat for the polar bear.

According to a Jan. 11 article by Associated Press reporter Becky Bohrer:

U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline, in a written order dated Thursday, said the designation was too extensive and presented "a disconnect between the twin goals of protecting a cherished resource and allowing for growth and much needed economic development." He sent the matter back to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to correct "substantive and procedural deficiencies."

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The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service set aside critical habitat for the polar bear in December 2010. The amount of critical habitat - about 187,000 square miles - is larger than California. However, that is only a small portion of Alaska, which encompasses more than 586,000 square miles.

Critical habitat is designated pursuant to section 4 of the Endangered Species Act. It is limited to areas that are occupied by a species when it is designated as threatened or endangered and that contains "physical or biological features essential to conservation" of the species which require special protection or areas outside the area occupied by the species at the time of listing that are "essential for conservation."

A critical habitat designation has no impact on purely private economic activities. Instead, it is relevant only when an activity that might affect a listed species or its habitat occurs on federal property or involves in some way the expenditure of funds from the U.S. treasury.

Ursus maritimus was added to the list of threatened and endangered species in May 2008. Polar bears are threatened because their seasonal ice floe habitat is disappearing as Earth's climate warms.

Photo of polar bear courtesy U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, photo by Terry Debruhn.

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U.S. Supreme Court denies certiorari in case upholding spotted owl critical habitat

The U.S. Supreme Court sidestepped Tuesday an opportunity to review a lower court decision that upheld the designation of millions of acres of land as critical habitat for the threatened Mexican spotted owl.

The denial of a petition for certiorari came in a case filed by cattle ranchers in the southwest.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in June 2010 that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had provided a valid economic analysis in support of the designation and did not violate the Endangered Species Act by including in the designation land that did not contain any owls.

In general, the ESA requires USFWS to designate critical habitat for a listed species at the time of listing.

In the case of the Mexican spotted owl, the administration of former President George W. Bush designated 8.6 million acres in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah as critical habitat in 2004.

The species was added to the list of threatened and endangered species in 1993. A previous critical habitat designation by the Clinton administration was withdrawn in 1998.

The Mexican spotted owl (Strix occidentalis lucida) is the smallest of the spotted owl species, which include the California spotted owl and the northern spotted owl. The species lives in old growth forests in mountains and canyons located in a range extending from southern Utah and Colorado through Arizona and New Mexico and into west Texas and northern and central Mexico.

A predatory animal, Mexican spotted owls are nocturnal. Climate change is the most significant risk to their forest habitat.

The case is Arizona Cattle Growers Association v. Salazar.

Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Washington sets critical habitat for polar bear

The icy home of the polar bear received additional legal protection Wednesday as the Obama administration designated nearly 200,000 acres as critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act.

The decision could pose an insurmountable obstacle to additional oil and gas drilling off the Alaska coast, as the designation includes large areas of sea ice.

“This critical habitat designation enables us to work with federal partners to ensure their actions within its boundaries do not harm polar bear populations,” the Interior Department's assistant secretary for fish, wildlife, and parks, Tom Strickland, said in a statement. “Nevertheless, the greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of its sea ice habitat caused by human-induced climate change. We will continue to work toward comprehensive strategies for the long-term survival of this iconic species.”

Nearly all of the protected acreage is ice on the surface of the Chukshi and Beaufort seas, which are sought-after exploration zones for the oil and gas industry.

The designation means that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will have to decide whether extraction activity would damage the polar bear's habitat or set back its recovery before necessary exploration permits are granted.

About four percent of the lands protected by the decree are used by polar bears for denning and protection from human disturbance.

The administration lowered the amount of protected acreage by about 13,000 square miles from the total proposed in Oct. 2009. FWS also excluded five U.S. Air Force radar stations and two native villages from the area covered by the designation.

Polar bears cannot survive without sea ice. They use it as a platform to hunt seals, to seek mates, and occasionally to build maternity dens in which to raise cubs.

Private lands are not affected by the designation unless the owner seeks a federal permit, plans to use federal funds for a project, or the federal government itself engages in activities on it.

Feds to Designate Critical Habitat for Polar Bears

The Interior Department announced today that it has agreed to designate "critical habitat" for the recently-listed polar bear.

A spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the agency doesn't yet know what portion of the Chukchi Sea might be designated and noted that the federal government is coping with uncertainty about how much of the Arctic Ocean region may be free of ice in the summer in future years.

Because the Endangered Species Act prohibits federal government actions that could damage critical habitat, the decision could result in restrictions on future offshore oil drilling in the Arctic.

The announcement came as part of a settlement of a lawsuit challenging the Bush Administration's failure to designate critical habitat filed by several environmental advocacy organizations in March.

The lawsuit was filed in the federal district court in Oakland, CA. According to Kassie Siegel, a spokesperson for one of the environmental group plaintiffs, the critical habitat designation will be made next year. The government agreed to a June 30, 2009 deadline for the final specification of critical habitat for the polar bear.