Alaska Targets Polar Bear Protections

  • The governor is promising to spend another $800,000 for outside legal help and he’s putting money into next year’s budget for a new attorney in the Alaska Department of Law. That attorney’s only job? Dealing with endangered species. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish And Wildlife Service)

The Governor of Alaska plans to fight
the Endangered Species Act protection
of the polar bear. Rebecca Williams
reports the governor plans on hiring
more lawyers:

Transcript

The Governor of Alaska plans to fight
the Endangered Species Act protection
of the polar bear. Rebecca Williams
reports the governor plans on hiring
more lawyers:

Governor Sean Parnell is picking up where Governor Sarah Palin left off and suing the federal government over the polar bear. Polar bear protections could get in the way of drilling for oil.

He’s now promising to spend another $800,000 for outside legal help and he’s putting money into next year’s budget for a new attorney in the Alaska Department of Law. That attorney’s only job? Dealing with endangered species.

“We’re going to continue to take this fight to the mat to protect our jobs and our economy so that the ESA, the Endangered Species Act, is used to truly protect species and not lock up our opportunities here.”

The Governor says those opportunities are jobs and money connected to oil and gas drilling in the polar bear’s habitat.

Governor Parnell will have more than the polar bear to worry about. Environmental groups are also trying to get several other species on the endangered list – including three types of ice seal.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Thinking Beyond Levees

  • New Orleans on September 9, 2005. Crews worked on areas where there had been breaks in the levee in order to avoid additional flooding. (Photo by Jocelyn Augustino, courtesy of FEMA)

Four years after Katrina, the
levees around New Orleans are
still being constructed. But
a report by the National Academy
of Sciences says the city shouldn’t
think of the levees as a cure-all.
Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

Four years after Katrina, the
levees around New Orleans are
still being constructed. But
a report by the National Academy
of Sciences says the city shouldn’t
think of the levees as a cure-all.
Mark Brush has more:

Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. A big reason it was so bad is because the levees holding back the water crumbled.

There’s a big effort to build up the levee system, but the National Academy of Sciences says the city should not solely rely on levees to protect it.

Jeff Jacobs headed up the report for the National Academy.

“There is no levee system that can provide absolute protection. There’s always the danger of over-topping. And there’s always a possibility of levee failure. And that holds true for the best maintained and the best inspected levee systems in the world.”

The New Orleans area has a particular problem. The ground can sink over time. That’s not good for levees.

The Academy recommends that people relocate to safer areas. Or, if people are going to stay, that homes be elevated – so that the first floor of a home is higher than the floodwater.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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New Polar Bear Rule for Oil

  • Oil companies are legally protected from any accidental harm caused by trucks, boats and experiments that alter the polar bear’s environment (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Just when you thought polar bears in the United States were safe under the Endangered Species Act… they’re facing a new threat. The Bush Administration has announced regulations that allow oil companies to harass polar bears while they explore for oil off the coast of Alaska. Richie Duchon has more:

Transcript

Just when you thought polar bears in the United States were safe under the Endangered Species Act… they’re facing a new threat. The Bush Administration has announced regulations that allow oil companies to harass polar bears while they explore for oil off the coast of Alaska. Richie Duchon has more:

Oil companies can’t kill polar bears. That still brings a penalty. But they are legally protected from any accidental harm caused by trucks, boats and experiments that alter the polar bear’s environment.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Bruce Woods says oil exploration is not much to worry about.

“Believe me, you won’t find more concern for the polar bear anywhere than you will in this office, but we just don’t really believe that this activity at this level poses any significant threat. The threat to the polar bear is the loss of sea ice.”

Environmental groups are furious. They say the loss of sea ice from global warming is a threat to the polar bear, but they say we need to minimize other threats with a moratorium on oil exploration.

For The Environment Report, I’m Richie Duchon.

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Great Lakes Call for Help

  • Some feel the Great Lakes are being ignored by Congress (Photo courtesy of Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, NOAA)

The Great Lakes might be the most ignored
resource on the continent. Great Lakes advocates
say they have not been able to get enough attention
or money from Congress. Rebecca Williams reports
one group is outlining what needs to be done to fix
the Lakes before climate change makes things worse:

Transcript

The Great Lakes might be the most ignored
resource on the continent. Great Lakes advocates
say they have not been able to get enough attention
or money from Congress. Rebecca Williams reports
one group is outlining what needs to be done to fix
the Lakes before climate change makes things worse:

Washington D.C. is a long way from the Great Lakes. Most members of
Congress don’t live near the lakes. And many don’t understand just how big
they are.

Don Scavia used to work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration in Washington.

“I’ve spent 15 years inside the Beltway and I just know that the Great Lakes just don’t
have the same sense of urgency and importance inside the Beltway as some other places like the Chesapeake Bay and others have. Senators and
Congressmen don’t have boats on it like they do on the Chesapeake. I think
it’s a matter of if you haven’t been here, if you haven’t seen them, you
really don’t get it.”

These days, Don Scavia is a scientist at the University of Michigan. He’s a
co-author of a report on global warming and the Great Lakes. He says we
need to help the Great Lakes adapt to the changes that are already happening
because of global warming.

“The restoration strategy is put in place specifically to increase the
resiliency of the Lakes, increase the buffering capacity of the Lakes, to allow them
to adapt to this near-term climate change.”

Just about everyone around the Great Lakes has noticed that water levels are
dropping. Recreational boats can get stuck. Big cargo ships can’t get into
harbors. And they have to carry lighter loads when lake levels drop. That
means more trips, and, eventually, higher prices for all of us. And
climate change might make it worse.

On top of that, the Great Lakes are struggling with fisheries collapsing,
invasive species damaging the ecosystem, and pollution that’s never been
cleaned up.

Jeff Skelding is with the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition.

“When Great Lakes effort began, we had a lot on our plate to deal with and
then we looked at the science of global warming and its impacts on the Great
Lakes it kinda froze us in our tracks. Now we’ve got global warming to
contend with.”

So, what do the advocates want from Congress?

There’s a $20-billion price tag on Great Lakes restoration.

Bits and pieces of it have gone before Congress. And there’s been some
progress on money for things like restoring wetlands. But for the most
part, most of the time, the Great Lakes just haven’t been a priority in
Washington.

Rahm Emanuel is a Congressman from Illinois. He holds a leadership position
among the House Democrats. He says he hopes the money will be approved by
Congress sometime soon.

“I don’t want another study, I don’t want to pay for another analysis, I’m
over studied, over analysis-ed. We know what it takes to fix it, we know
what the pollutants are, now we’ve got to put our money where our mouth is.”

Politically, the time might not get any better for Great Lakes advocates.
There’s a Census coming up and new Congressional district lines will be
drawn. The Great Lakes region will lose representation in the US House.
That means the Great Lakes states will lose clout in Congress.

So, the region’s members of Congress need to get a Great Lakes restoration
package to the next President before that happens. Great Lakes advocates
are hoping the next President – whether it’s McCain, Obama or Clinton – will
give the Great Lakes more attention, and money.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Where the Wild Things Are…in Trouble

  • East Pioneers, MT (Photo courtesy of the Campaign for America's Wilderness)

An environmental group is calling on Congress
to better protect some of the last wilderness areas of
the lower 48 states. Lester Graham reports the group
identifies ten wild spots it says are in trouble:

Transcript

An environmental group is calling on Congress
to better protect some of the last wilderness areas of
the lower 48 states. Lester Graham reports the group
identifies ten wild spots it says are in trouble:

The group, Campaign for America’s Wilderness, reports on pristine places that are
facing pressures from development and other actions the group sees as threatening.

Mike Matz heads up the environmental group. He says although there are some
restrictions on how the public lands are used, sometimes they’re not enough.

“The land managers often times need some additional tools to be able to prevent certain
damaging activities, whether it’s logging on national forests or mining on public lands.
And one of the most pervasive threats we see today is from off-road-vehicle
traffic that is rampant and unregulated.”

Off-road-vehicles are allowed on many of the sites, but Matz says the riders don’t
always stay on the trails and end up damaging areas. The group points out that
only 2.5% of the continental U.S. is protected as wilderness.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

New Rules Mean More Logging?

  • Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)

The US Forest Service has just released new
rules for managing the nation’s forests. Some
environmental groups say the new rules don’t do enough
to protect wildlife. They also believe it will mean more
logging on national forest land. Mark Brush reports:

Transcript

The US Forest Service has just released new
rules for managing the nation’s forests. Some
environmental groups say the new rules don’t do enough
to protect wildlife. They also believe it will mean more
logging on national forest land. Mark Brush reports:

The National Forest Service is required to draw up management plans for all 155
National Forests. Environmentalists say the new rules for drawing up these management
plans gut environmental protection standards.

The Center for Biological Diversity along with 13 other environmental groups have filed
suit against the Forest Service. They say the new rules will keep citizens in the dark.

Marc Fink is a lawyer for the Center.

“We’re talking about our public national forests. And I think it’s important to give the
citizens who are concerned about these forest the right to have meaningful standards to
hold their local officials accountable for when they’re proposing projects that might be
bad for the forests.”

Fink says, if the plan goes forward, logging could increase, or wildlife habitat could be
damaged without the public knowing about it.

The Forest Service says it’s just trying to take the red tape out of the forest planning
process.

For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Chester the Molting Monk Seal

  • Hawaiian Monk Seal on Sandy Beach (Photo by Ann-Marie Kirk)

This story is about Chester. Chester is one of the
most endangered marine mammals in the US. He’s a Hawaiian
Monk Seal. This year, Chester decided his annual molt will
take place on a popular beach. Anne Keala Kelly
reports:

Transcript

This story is about Chester. Chester is one of the
most endangered marine mammals in the US. He’s a Hawaiian
Monk Seal. This year, Chester decided his annual molt will
take place on a popular beach. Anne Keala Kelly
reports:

Chester is among only 1200 Hawaiian Monk Seals alive today. Most of them live in the
Northwest Hawaiian Islands.

They’re called Monk Seals because they’re solitary animals.
They prefer their own company to socializing with each other, especially during a
molt. Molting is a process that renders them weak and vulnerable.

“This animal is on the beach because it is going through a huge physiological change
right now.”

That’s David Schofield. He’s the marine mammal response coordinator in Honolulu for
NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“It’s shedding all of its skin and fur in a relatively short period of time, keeping
his behavior very minimal. So he is actually not getting into the water, he is not
swimming; he is not expending a lot of energy.”

He says Chester has
chosen to molt on Kailua, an East Oahu beach that attracts thousands of visitors. It’s not a very safe place for a defenseless seal. Because of budget cuts, NOAA relies almost
completely on volunteers to help protect seals when they come on shore. They keep
curious people and their pets away from Chester.

Chester is known here. He’s been seen on a number of Oahu beaches over the years.
Usually he stays along isolated stretches. But he’s never been seen on the busy east side. In
fact, he is the first Monk Seal anyone recalls seeing on Kailua Beach.

DB Dunlap coordinates volunteers for NOAA. He says this is not the first time he’s seen
Chester.

“I met Chester in 2002. And he was emaciated and skinny, I didn’t think he was gonna
make it through the day he was so pathetic looking. Now I realize that he had just
finished a molt, just exactly like he’s doing here and during that process they lose a lot of
weight.”

The molt takes a while. About two weeks into his molt, Chester went missing. He’d rolled into the water. He
probably went into the ocean to eat. A couple of hours later he was back on the beach
about half a mile farther down. The volunteers quickly reassembled the yellow crime
scene tape around him fifteen feet in each direction.

Now, going into day 19, he appears even more lethargic. And… he smells bad if you’re
downwind. Half of his fur is hanging in dying patches on his now loose skin. David
Schofield, with NOAA, describes where Chester is in his molt.

“His belly and his face are pretty much done. That nice silvery coat is the new fur and
the brown stuff on the back is the old molt. So we’re saying right now he’s at about the
50% mark.”

One of the volunteers watching over Chester is a Hawaiian man named Eric Poohina. He
says though the Kumulipo, the Hawaiian
creation chant, native Hawaiians have spiritual ties to seals like Chester. Poohina refers to him as Kalaheo.

“I’m not naming him, I’m just referring to him as a Kalaheo, a Kalaheo is a verb, it’s not a
noun. Kalaheo is a proclamation, a urgent global proclamation. That animal is doomed.”

As Poohina explains the Hawaiian cultural relationship to this animal, he’s also
expressing the frustration many feel over political and economic values that have brought
the Monk Seal to the brink of extinction.

In the main Hawaiian Islands, military and real estate interests have over-developed the
coastline. They’ve been taking over the seal’s habitat. And in the Northwest Hawaiian
Islands where most of the seals live, young seals become easily entangled in fishing
industry debris. The young seals often drown. And, military maneuvers disrupt normal
breeding and nursing of healthy pups.

Schofield: “If this population is gonna recover, it’s gonna take all of us. We need 2900
of them for 20-years to get them off the endangered species list.”

(chanting)

Volunteer Eric Poohina is chanting about the sacredness of Chester’s ordeal. 26-days after
he started, Chester has finished his molt. It’s a process that has remained virtually
unchanged in his species’ genetic code for more than 15 million years. Imagine, once a
year, no matter where you are or what you’re doing, nature demands that you just have to
stop and let it all go.

Poohina: “What the chant means is we acknowledging the laws of the universe, yeah.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Anne Keala Kelly.

Related Links

Song Satirizes Trash Dumping

If you think your neighbor across the border sends too much garbage to your local landfill, you now have a songwriter on your side. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

If you think your neighbor across the border sends too much garbage to
your local landfill, you now have a songwriter on your side. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Some states are dumping grounds for trash from other states and from
Canada. The U.S. federal courts have ruled that the garbage hauling is
interstate commerce and have protected the practice, but that doesn’t
quiet a Wisconsin musician who lives near a fast growing landfill which
takes in trash from three states.


“Thank you for your generosity. Mountains full of garbage give us one
more place to ski.”


Kevin McMullin’s song urges the other states to just send cash instead of
trash, but many pro-business legislators in some states see trash as cash.
So, when environmentalists call for higher landfill dumping fees to try to
slow the amount of garbage… the lawmaker’s song remains the same –
they vote no.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Timber Wolves Moving Into New Area

  • Timber wolves have been making a comeback in the Midwest for some time. Recently, they've been reappearing in places they haven't been seen in decades.

Timber wolves are moving into an area where they
haven’t been seen for about 80 years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Timber wolves are moving into an area where they haven’t been seen for about 80 years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Timber wolves have been repopulating areas of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the upper peninsula of Michigan for some time now. But recently, a wolf was shot and killed in the lower peninsula of Michigan. Since then, tracks of two more wolves have been identified not too far away from the shooting. The two peninsulas of Michigan are separated by water five miles across the connect Lake Michigan to Lake Huron. Sometimes, it freezes over. Michigan Department of Natural Resources biologists figure a small pack of wolves made the trek across the ice. Brian Roell is with the DNR.


“Well, it’s interesting that, you know, wolves are, you know, repopulating areas that, you know, they’ve been removed from. It’s really nice to see that these wolves are making their own comeback.”


Hunters are warned to be careful when trapping or hunting. The wolves are still federally protected. The wolf shooting this fall was ruled accidental because the trapper shot the animal thinking it was a coyote, since wolves were killed off in the area decades ago.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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States Ready for Wolf Delisting?

  • Once hunted nearly to extinction, the gray wolf has recently rebounded under the protection of the Endangered Species Act. Now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to take the wolf off of the Endangered Species List and hand wolf management back to the states. (Photo by Katherine Glover)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to remove the eastern population of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List and turn over wolf management to state control. But not everyone thinks the states are up for it. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:

Transcript

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to remove the eastern population
of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List and turn over wolf management
to state control. But not everyone thinks the states are up for it. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:


(sound of wolves howling)


The image of the wolf has always had a powerful effect on people. Wolves seem dangerous,
mysterious, romantic. They are a symbol of the untamed wilderness. Before Europeans came
to America, wolves roamed freely on every part of the continent. In 1630, the colony of
Massachussetts Bay started paying bounties to settlers for killing wolves. Over the next
300 years, wolf killing spread across the country, until all that was left was a few small
pockets of surviving wolf packs.


When the Endangered Species Act passed in 1973, the only wolves left to protect in the
Midwest were in Northern Minnesota. By some estimates, there were as few as 350 of them.


Today, Minnesota has a healthy wolf population of around 2400 animals, and smaller populations
are growing in Wisconsin and Michigan. Becaue of this success, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
has proposed removing the animals from the Endangered Species List. This would mean wolves would
no longer be federally protected – it would be up to the states.


(sound of gate opening)


Peggy Callagan works with captive wolves at the Wildlife Science Center in Minnesota. She’s the
Center’s co-founder and executive director. She and her staff research ways to minimize
conflicts between wolves and people. Callahan is looking forward to seeing the wolf taken off
the Endangered Species List.


“It’s a good thing for the Endangered Species Act, to take a wolf off or an eagle off or a
peregrine off when it has recovered. The act was not established to provide a permanent
hiding place. It was established to protect a species until such time that they could be
managed in a different way.”


Wisconsin and Michigan have wolves because young born in Minnesota have migrated east to start
their own packs. Callahan says how Minnesota manages its wolves will affect wolf numbers in the
Midwest. And she isn’t crazy about Minnesota’s current wolf management plan, which has different
rules for different parts of the state.


“Now, there’s a boundary; there’s a boundary called a wolf zone, and there’s a boundary that’s
called the ag zone. And nobody likes it. We went backward.”


In Northeastern Minnesota, where the majority of wolves are, landowners can only kill wolves
if they can demonstrate an immediate threat to pets or livestock. In the rest of the state, where
there is more agriculture and more people, the rules are more lenient. On their own property,
landowners can kill any wolf they feel is a danger, without having to prove anything to the state.


The Sierra Club is opposed to taking the wolf off the Endangered Species list, largely because
of Minnesota’s management plan. Ginny Yinling is the chair of the Wolf Task Force of the Sierra
Club in Minnesota.


“They’ve pretty much given carte blanche to landowners, or their agents, to kill wolves
pretty much at any time in the southern and western two thirds of the state; they don’t even
have to have an excuse, if a wolf’s on their property they can kill it. Instead of this being
what should have been a victory in terms of wolf recovery and the success of the Endangered
Species Act, instead we’re afraid it’s going to turn into something of a disaster.”


Yinling is also concerned with the protection of wolf habitat, such as den sites, rendezvous
sites, and migration corridors.


“The current management plan protects none of those areas; it leaves it entirely up to the
discretion of the land managers.”


But wildlife managers say these are not critical for a large wolf population
like Minnesota’s. Mike DonCarlos is the wildlife program manager for the Minnesota
Department of Natural Resources.


“As you look at the range of species that are threatened by habitat change, ironically the wolf
in Minnesota is not one of them. As long as there’s a prey base that continues, wolves should
do just fine. The key is mortality rates and availability of food.”


In Wisconsin and Michigan, where there are fewer wolves, state laws will continue to protect
wolf habitat. Peggy Callahan says she has faith that the wolves will be fine, even if the
Minnesota state plan is not perfect. But at the Sierra Club, Ginny Yinling says they have
plans to challenge wolf delisting in court.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Katherine Glover.

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