ThinkingAfield.org

Safari Club International supports major proposed revisions by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to its Endangered Species Act regulations that were announced today.
“Today’s announcement ushers in a major move forward for the FWS.  At long last, we have leadership that recognizes the importance of flexibility in the conservation of federally listed wildlife and the recognition that different approaches, including sustainable use, can be used to recover and sustain the world’s wildlife,” said SCI President Paul Babaz.
Of the many proposed changes, SCI generally supports the proposals to provide more flexibility to the management and recovery of threatened species and to modify how the agency establishes the “foreseeable future” when making threatened listing decisions.
Under one proposal, the FWS would decide on a species-by-species basis what, if any, ESA prohibitions would apply to each species listed as threatened.  The ESA itself applies these prohibitions (e.g., regarding take and import) only to endangered species.  Congress envisioned that the FWS would decide individually what prohibitions applied to each particular threatened species.
But the FWS long ago adopted a blanket rule that the statutory prohibitions would automatically apply to all threatened species, unless the FWS adopted a “special rule” specific to a particular species that spelled out what restrictions applied.
The FWS’s sister agency in implementing the ESA, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), followed Congressional intent and did not adopt the blanket rule.  The FWS’s proposal would align it with NMFS and Congressional intent. Read more

PHOENIX – Scientists involved in Mexican wolf recovery say environmental groups distributing old and faulty data that calls for the release of captive adult wolves are not helping the recovery of the  endangered subspecies. Biologists at the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) say maintaining a savvy wild-born population and limiting introductions of naïve captive-raised adult animals have been the keys to the ongoing success of the recovery program.

“This period of strong population growth has happened with almost the entire population being wild- born wolves,” said Jim Heffelfinger, a University of Arizona research scientist, AZGFD wildlife science coordinator and co-author of multiple peer-reviewed scientific studies on wolf recovery. “We’ve also learned that releasing captive singles and pairs that have spent their lives in a zoo setting has been ineffective in enhancing genetic diversity. The sobering truth is that in the last decade, no captive-raised adult wolf released in the wild has subsequently raised pups in the wild to contribute to the gene pool.”

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and other environmental fundraising organizations have been pushing a narrative that captive-raised adult wolves should be released into the wild.  A July 12 news release from the groups called for the release of three packs of zoo-raised wolves. The piece also misstated the number of wolves already released and omitted an entire year of successful cross-fostering data from their analysis.

Contrary to the incorrect information issued by these organizations, AZGFD and its conservation partners have released 20 wolves from captivity since 2014 through “cross-fostering,” or selectively placing genetically valuable pups from captivity into wild packs to be raised by wild parents and with wild siblings. The latest wolf survey (2017) documented an all-time record number of 114 Mexican wolves in 22 packs, with 26 potential breeding pairs and 88 adult wolves in the wild population. Read more

“We reject the EA’s claim that this wind energy facility would have ‘little to no impact’” on birds, said Kimberly Kaufman, BSBO’s Executive Director, citing the critical importance of Lake Erie to migratory birds such as the endangered Kirtland’s Warbler. Read more