Alaska Files Polar Bear Lawsuit

Alaska has filed its lawsuit challenging the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species.

The listing, announced by the Interior Department in . . ., is based on a conclusion that the bear's habitat is being lost as ice melts in the Arctic.

According to a report in the Anchorage Daily News:

Polar bears rely on sea ice for hunting ringed seals. In recent years, summer sea ice has receded far beyond the relatively shallow, biologically rich waters of the outer continental shelf, giving polar bears less time in prime feeding areas.

The bear's numbers rebounded after the 1970s, but conservation groups contend that was in response to measures taken to stop over-hunting.

Polar bear researchers fear recent effects of the loss of sea ice on Alaska polar bear populations. A 2006 study by the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that far fewer polar bear cubs in the Beaufort Sea were surviving and that adult males weighed less and had smaller skulls than those captured and measured two decades previously - trends similar to observations in Canada's western Hudson Bay before a population drop.

However, Alaska authorities argue that the listing was not justified on the basis of
reliable scientific information.

Most experts on the ESA, however, disagree.

Should the Wolverine Be Put on the Endangered Species List?

The wolverine (Gulo gulo) was once a ubiquitous presence across the United States.

According to the Wolverine Foundation,

The historical North American distribution of the wolverine included the northern part of the continent southward to the northernmost tier of the United States from Maine to Washington state. It extended south along the Sierra-Cascade axis through Oregon into the southern Sierra Nevada in California and along the Rocky Mountains into Arizona and New Mexico. Records of the wolverine within the upper midwest apparently pre-date human settlement, with the animal most likely absent by the early 1900's. The wolverine has been extirpated from the northern plains states east of Montana.

In California, the historic range of the wolverine included much of the north coastal area and the Sierra Nevada. . . .

Wolverines likely occupied a wider variety of habitats during pre-settlement times as evidenced by historical presence in upper mid-western states, and fossil evidence of extant representatives in Great Basin habitats of southern Idaho. Human encroachment into historically occupied wolverine habitat may have forced the wolverine into its present distribution.

The Bush administration, disregarding the loss of range in this country and the decline of the species to no more than several hundred individuals in the northern Rockies, declined in March to list the wolverine as an endangered species. The Interior Department justified its decision on grounds that sufficient numbers of wolverines exist in Canada to make extinction unlikely.

Now the New York Times has weighed in with an editorial urging Bush to reconsider.

The paper specifically took aim at the administration's rationale that the animal is plentiful enough in other countries to preclude protection here:

If that logic — ignoring the health of an animal here if it is doing well elsewhere — had been allowed to prevail, many of the act’s notable successes, including preserving the grizzly bear and the American bald eagle, would never have happened.

Several environmental groups are considering a lawsuit challenging the administration's refusal to list the wolverine.

Judge Orders Gray Wolves Returned to Endangered Species List

The Rocky Mountain gray wolf is again an endangered species.

The population numbers haven't changed since the Bush Administration removed the species a few months ago. Instead, a federal judge in Montana issued an injunction Friday requiring the Interior Department to restore Canis lupus to protected status.

According to a New York Times article to be published in Saturday's editions, the court's decision was heavily swayed by the administration's decision to reverse course from an early refusal to allow Wyoming to put in place a management plan allowing extensive hunting.

According to a press release issued by Natural Resources Defense Council, one wolf per day has been killed, with mortality exceeding 100 animals, since the Bush Interior Department removed Endangered Species Act protections on March 28, 2008.

The gray wolf was originally listed as an endangered species in 1973, shortly after the Endangered Species Act became law. The species was eliminated from about 95 percent of its habitat in the United States by the 1930s after a lengthy, government-sponsored extermination campaign.

An Ice-Free North Pole This Year?

This summer could see the North Pole ice-free for the first time since the Pleistocene era, say scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Satellite data accumulated by CU's National Snow and Ice Data Center show that relatively young sea ice that is no more than about 60 inches deep and much more susceptible to melting away now comprises only 72 percent of the Arctic ice sheet. Using that estimate, scientists at the center see a 50 percent chance that ice at the highest point in the Arctic will melt by the summer's end.

Center research Andy Mahoney says the weather will determine whether the prediction turns out to be accurate.

"It will probably come down to how cloudy it is this summer," Mahoney told ABC News. "If there's clear skies and if atmospheric patterns resemble last year's, you're going to see a lot more melt."

The loss of Arctic sea ice would likely cause the planet's atmosphere to heat up even more because the ice pack bounces the sun's rays back into space. This reflective property, known as albedo, also prevents the rays from reaching the ocean, where heat is absorbed.

Therefore, a loss of sea ice results in warmer ocean waters, which in turn increases the melt of the ice even more.

"Losing the ice sheet means losing an important way of cooling down," Mahoney told ABC News. "As a result, global warming would accelerate as the ice retreats."

Alaska Will Sue U.S. to Stop Polar Bear Listing

The state of Alaska says it will sue the Bush Administration to prevent the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species.

The announcement by Gov. Sarah Palin (R) said that Alaska will file the lawsuit in the federal district court in Washington, D.C.

"We believe that the listing was unwarranted and that it's unprecedented to list a currently healthy population based on uncertain climate models," said Alaska Assistant Attorney General Steven Daugherty.

Daugherty also criticized the long-established consultation process set forth by the Endangered Species Act, arguing that it "is a long and time-consuming process" and "just, basically, a big time-and-money-waster."

Polar Bears Listed as Threatened Species

After a lengthy delay, federal officials listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act today.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said that shrinking summer ice is the most significant threat to the animals.

"Because polar bears are vulnerable to this loss of habitat, they are—in my judgment—likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future," Kempthorne said during a press briefing.

However, Kempthorne also said the listing would not affect U.S. climate change policies. He argued that scientists have not established that greenhouse-gas producing human activities have an adverse impact on individual polar bears.

"That would be a wholly inappropriate use of the Endangered Species Act," Kempthorne said. "ESA is not the right tool to shttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1612962387080512646et U.S. climate policy."

Kempthorne also announced that a provision of the Endangered Species Act allowing activities consistent with the Marine Mammal Protection Act to go forward would be applied to the polar bear.

The impact of that ruling means that oil exploration within the bear's habitat will be allowed to continue, as will subsistence hunting of polar bears by native Americans and trade in native handicrafts made from the animal's fur and other body parts. Import of polar bear products made in Canada will be banned.

The U.S. Geological Survey concluded in 2007 that two-thirds of polar bears could go extinct by 2050.

Feds Say Mouse Still Threatened in Colorado

After months of silence, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced Nov. 1 that it intends to remove the Preble's meadow jumping mouse (Zapus hudsonius preblei) from the threatened species list in the Wyoming part of its range but maintain it on the threatened species list in the Colorado portion of its range.

The jumping mouse, which is found in the foothills of Wyoming and south along the Front Range to El Paso county, Colorado, inhabits mature plains riparian-area vegetation in relatively undisturbed grassland areas near a water source. Human presence in the riparian areas of Colorado's sprawling Front Range has severely curtailed the mouse's habitat.

The mouse, which reaches a maximum length of about 7 to 10 inches and is nocturnal, can jump about three feet in order to evade predators.

The mouse was first listed by FWS as threatened throughout its entire range on May 13, 1998. Critical habitat was designated on June 23, 2003.

In December 2003 a Colorado group of development advocates and the Governor of Wyoming petitioned FWS to de-list the Preble's meadow jumping mouse. They argued that the mouse did not constitute a subspecies eligible for listing under the Endangered Species Act.

FWS found that the petitions presented information substantial enough to indicate that de-listing might be warranted on Mar. 31, 2004. Nearly one year later, the agency proposed to de-list the mouse.

In reaching that preliminary conclusion, FWS relied heavily on research conducted by Dr. Rob Roy Ramey, formerly of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and colleagues, which suggested that the Preble’s mouse should be considered the same subspecies as the Bear Lodge meadow jumping mouse (Zapus hudsonius campestris).

Later research, especially a report commissioned by FWS from the U.S. Geological Survey in 2006, concluded that the Preble's meadow jumping mouse is, in fact, a distinct subspecies.

FWS published its proposed revision of the Preble's meadow jumping mouse listing on Nov. 7, 2007.

Hearings on the Fish & Wildlife Service's proposal will be conducted Dec. 10 at the agency's Rocky Mountain Region office, 134 Union Blvd., Lakewood, CO, and Dec. 12 at the First State Bank conference center, 1405 16th St., Wheatland, WY.

In addition, FWS is accepting written comments on its proposal to revise the listing of the Preble's meadow jumping mouse until Jan. 14, 2008. Comments may be mailed to Field Supervisor, Colorado Field Office, Ecological Services, P.O. Box 25486, Denver Federal Center, Denver, CO 80225 or e-mailed to FW6_PMJM@fws.gov.