US government sued over failure to protect polar bears

 EDWARD HELMORE – THE GUARDIAN

The US government agency responsible for compiling the country’s list of endangered species will face a new legal challenge today over its failure to protect the polar bear.

Environmental groups are set to sue the Bush administration in a federal court in California, claiming the Fish and Wildlife Service is now in breach of its own mandate.

The FWS was due to have decided by January 9 whether to classify the polar bear as threatened due to climate change. This date itself was a full year after consultations began on the issue. But the service has said it is still reviewing technical data along with more than 670,000 comments on the issue.

The FWS inspector general has announced a preliminary investigation into the delay to determine whether a full-fledged investigation is warranted.

Environmental campaigners widely believe the decision is being held up by the Bush administration so it can complete sale of valuable oil and gas leases in coastal waters in Alaska — areas considered to be prime bear habitats.

“The Bush administration seems intent on slamming shut the narrow window of opportunity we have to save polar bears,” said Kassie Siegel, climate program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, which, along with Greenpeace and the National Resource Defence Council, is involved in the legal challenge.

With the polar bear having become a leading symbol of the planet’s deepening environmental crisis, its inclusion on the endangered list is a key issue to groups seeking to force the Bush administration to recognise the fact of climate change as a consequence of man-made atmospheric pollution.

While US law requires an endangered species listing decision to be made strictly on the basis of scientific information regarding the foreseeable future, groups believe that recent sales of oil and gas leases in the Chukchi Sea, as well as expectations of an energy and mining boom across the entire Arctic region, is the truer measure of the administration’s motivation.

“This administration has listed fewer species than any other — ever — under the Endangered Species Act,” said Siegel. “Time and again we have seen political interference in listing proposals that are supposed to be based on science.”

Environmental groups hope that the courts will force the administration to make a decision to protect the species — a decision that would be widely interpreted as a significant step toward acknowledging the extent of climate change. “For seven years they have denied or downplayed global warming,” added Siegel. “This is the thing that has pinned them into a corner; either they go to court and lose, or acknowledge it — and acknowledge that our greenhouse gas emissions are driving the polar bear to extinction.”

Disputed figures

There is disagreement over population numbers for polar bears. The animals are difficult to count in the wild. Unlike ring seals or walruses, which live and hunt exclusively on ice, polar bears are considered relatively adaptable. Alaskan political figures led by Governor Sarah Palin, a consistent advocate of increased oil and gas drilling, maintain the bears’ population is steady. But a recent US Geological Survey report stated that unless greenhouse gas emissions are curbed significantly, two-thirds of the world’s polar bears, including all Alaskan bears, will disappear by 2050.

What is not in dispute is the decline of ice cover. Surveys have shown there was 1m square miles less sea ice last summer than the average minimum extent observed between 1979-2000. Even this analysis is considered cautious. A study released in January by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center says the North Pole could be free of summer sea ice by 2030; one Nasa scientist says it might gone by 2012; and a meteorologist in Resolute Bay, Canada, told guardian.co.uk last summer of a projection in which the region could have “Florida summers in 40 years”.

Still, the forces arrayed against listing the bear are formidable. Listing a species obligates the Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a recovery plan and to designate critical habitats. In a cascade of knock-on effects, this would force all government agencies to ensure they do not jeopardise the species or adversely affect its habitats.

To Alaskan political figures, the implications are clear. Alaska senator Ted Stevens recently voiced concern that bear protections could interfere with construction of a pipeline from the state’s North Slope gas field. Adding polar bears to the endangered list, Stevens said, “would establish a dangerous precedent”.

Given the economic and strategic value of the oil and gas reserves in the US High Arctic — the leases on 29m acres of the Chuchki Sea raised $2.6bn and a further 83m acres are being made available — it is conceivable that the administration could reject listing the bear altogether.

“The science is unequivocal,” said Margaret Williams, director of World Wildlife Fund’s Bering Sea programme. “But anything is possible given this administration’s poor record on listing species. It’s hard to imagine such a decision could be made in good faith.”

Still, those opposed to the listing argue that the scientific justification to declare the bear as threatened isn’t there. They dispute evidence that bear populations are showing the signs of environmental stress — such as declining numbers, declining life expectancy, and low birth weight. “From my perspective, it’s very difficult to put a population on the list that’s healthy, based on a projection 45 years into the future,” said Ken Taylor, Palin’s deputy commissioner of fish and game, recently. “That’s really stretching scientific credibility.”

Hunting

Across the Arctic region of the North American continent, there is resentment over what Inuit regard as meddling southerners. Under Canadian regulations, indigenous communities are awarded licences to kill a certain number of bears each season. These “tags” are typically sold to wealthy US and European hunters, each bringing in as much as $50,000 each to impoverished communities.

If polar bears were listed, a complete ban on hunting on US territory would follow. Furthermore, the skins of bears shot in Canada would be banned from the entering the US. These measures would be a strong disincentive to US trophy hunters, who might take their lucrative business elsewhere.

Inuit elders say that since those in the south are the cause of the imbalance between nature and man, they have no right to challenge the Inuit’s tradition as huntsmen. But environmentalists stress their objective is not to deprive indigenous people of their livelihood.

Other Arctic species have been listed before — Kittlitz’s murrelets, for example — and more are proposed, including the walrus and ringed seal. But as the argument over the polar bear’s status intensifies, there’s no underestimating the emotional value invested in the outcome. “It’s a landmark decision and [a] landmark case,” said Williams. “But we still don’t know how it will play out.”

Australians worst nation on Earth at preserving wildlife

 KathyMarks – New Zealand Herald

SYDNEY – Australians love their wildlife – after all, who could fail to warm to a koala, or a wombat, or a kangaroo? But few Australians know that they have the worst record on the planet for conserving their beautiful and unusual animals.

Of all the mammal species that have become extinct in the past 200 years, nearly half are Australian.

Since the British arrived, 27 mammals – about 10 per cent of the total – have disappeared.

These are statistics that “embarrass many conservationists, myself included”, says Tammie Matson, head of the species programme at WWF Australia.

The precarious state of much of Australia’s surviving wildlife is of even greater concern, and in Darwin last week Dr Matson launched a project aimed at raising awareness of the problems facing endangered species such as the karak.

The Flagship Species Programme will focus on 10 endangered creatures that embody the threats facing those inhabiting similar environments.

They include the snubfish dolphin, which was only discovered in 2005; the brush-tailed rock wallaby, an athletic creature that can scale almost vertical outcrops; the northern quoll, a small, spotted marsupial; and the brilliantly hued Gouldian finch, also known as the painted or rainbow finch.

There are several reasons why such creatures are at risk, and why Australia has already suffered such a high rate of extinctions.

Land clearing, with the resulting habitat destruction, is one.

A change in fire regimes – from the patchy, selective burnings carried out by Aborigines to today’s devastating bushfires – is another.

But by far the most harm has been wrought by the introduction of exotic predators, namely feral cats and foxes, according to Chris Johnson, a professor specialising in marsupial biology at Queensland’s James Cook University.

Their impact has been compounded by the culling of dingoes, which would otherwise have kept cat and fox numbers down.

Dingoes, which are thought to have first arrived in Australia at around 3000BC, had replaced larger predators, particularly the extinct thylacine, or Tasman tiger, on the mainland, said Professor Johnson.

But in sheep-farming areas, dingoes had been virtually eliminated.

“We should be rethinking the dingo’s ecological role,” he added.

Species already lost include the lesser bilby, a delicate marsupial that burrowed in desert sand dunes; it was only discovered in the late 1800s, and 50 years later was extinct.

The pig-footed bandicoot was tiny, with long legs, and paws that resembled hooves, or pigs’ trotters.

Early accounts say it looked like a miniature horse.

“There’s nothing like it living today,” said Professor Johnson.

Dr Matson, a zoologist, points out that most Australian species are unique to the continent, so when one vanishes, the loss is felt globally.

She has just returned from a decade working in Africa and says Australia could learn much from the poorer continent.

“We’re very good at a lot of things, including sport,” she said.

“But we’re also very good at killing our mammals. We’re not shooting them out [of existance] anymore, but we’re having the same effect by removing their habitat.”

- INDEPENDENT

Endangered orang-utan baby born at Perth Zoo

Perth Now

PERTH Zoo has announced the birth of one of the world’s most critically endangered animals – a Sumatran Orang-utan.

Today’s public debut of the male infant coincides with the 12-month anniversary of the Zoo’s historic release of one of its female orang-utans into a protected national park in Indonesia as part of an orang-utan re-introduction program.

Temara – the first captive bred orang-utan in the world to be released into the wild – is thriving in her new home and continues to be closely monitored and tracked daily.

Perth Zoo’s Curator of Exotics, Leif Cocks, said the Zoo’s newest addition, young Nyaru, was born on October 20 to 14-year-old first time mother Negara. Nyaru weighed just under 2kg at birth.

“We gave Nyaru and his mother some private time together before introducing him to the public,” Mr Cocks said.

“He is doing very well and Negara is proving to be a wonderful mother. She is very protective and caring.”

Perth Zoo is a world leader in breeding Sumatran Orang-utans and is part of a regional breeding program for this most threatened species.

“Orang-utans are facing imminent extinction in the wild due to poaching and habitat loss, in particular, land clearing for palm oil plantations,” Mr Cocks said. “There are only 7300 Sumatran Orang-utans left in the wild.

“With the success so far of the reintroduction of the first zoo-born orang-utan to the wild, successful breeding programs like that at Perth Zoo may assist with the re-establishment of extinct populations of Sumatran Orang-utans in protected areas.”

Fifteen-year-old Perth Zoo-born Temara was released into the Bukit Tigapuluh National Park in Sumatra in November 2006 as part of an international effort to re-establish a population of this critically endangered species in the national park. The park is protected by specially trained anti-logging and anti-poaching patrols.

“The release of Temara provides the opportunity to increase the numbers and genetic diversity of the orang-utan population in Bukit Tigapuluh,” Mr Cocks said.

The community can support Sumatran Orang-utan conservation by donating to Perth Zoo’s Wildlife Conservation Action to help build an open orang-utan breeding sanctuary in Sumatra.

• Nyaru will start eating some solids, such as tropical fruit, at about five months of age but will continue to suckle for the next five to six years.

• The father of Nyaru is Perth Zoo’s breeding male 20-year-old Dinar, who arrived from Canada in 2004, bringing with him a valuable new genetic line.

• Nyaru is named after an orang-utan rehabilitation centre in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Nyaru is also a Dyak word meaning ‘very strong’. The Dyak people are the original inhabitants of Kalimantan.

• Since 1970, 26 orang-utans have been born at Perth Zoo. The last birth (a male named Semeru) was in 2005.

• The Zoo’s colony currently comprises eight females and four males.

• Perth Zoo is part of an Australasian captive breeding program for the critically endangered Sumatran Orang-utan.

• Sumatran Orang-utans are the slowest reproducing species in the world. Adult females only give birth to an infant every nine years. The gestation period of orang-utans is 260 days (or 8.5 months) – almost identical to that of humans. The oestrous cycle of orang-utans is 30 days – once again, almost identical to humans.

• Females usually have their first offspring between 12-16 years of age.

• One of our closest biological relatives, orang-utans have around 97% human genetic make-up and have an intelligence level equivalent to that of a five or six-year-old child.

• Orang-utan means person of the forest in Indonesian.