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July 6,
2006
Contacts:
Noah Greenwald, Center for Biological
Diversity, 503-484-7495
Joseph Vaile, Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands
Center, 541-621-7808
Scott Greacen, Environmental Protection
Information Center, 707-834-6257
Conservation Groups Sue to
Protect Rare Salamanders
Rare Northern California and Southern
Oregon Salamanders Imperiled
By Continued Logging of Old-Growth Habitats
San Francisco,
Calif. – Wildlife conservation groups filed a
lawsuit today against the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service (FWS) for denying protection
to the Siskiyou Mountains and Scott Bar
salamanders under the Endangered Species Act.
The suit challenges FWS’s April 2006 refusal
to begin a one-year review (“status review”)
to determine whether threats to the rare
salamanders are so serious that the species
require protection.
“The Siskiyou
and newly discovered Scott Bar salamanders
need the safety-net of the Endangered Species
Act to survive, not political shenanigans from
the Bush administration,” said Noah Greenwald,
Conservation Biologist with the Center for
Biological Diversity and primary author of a
formal petition submitted to protect the two
species. “The Bush administration has the
worst record protecting the nation’s wildlife
of any modern president.”
To date, the
Bush administration has protected just 56
species, which is the fewest number for any
five-year period in the history of the
Endangered Species Act and hardly compares to
the 512 species protected under the Clinton
administration or 234 protected under Bush
senior’s administration. The Bush
administration has denied or delayed
protection for hundreds of imperiled species.
“We have a
responsibility to prevent the extinction of
wildlife, because once they are gone, we
cannot bring them back,” said Joseph Vaile,
Campaign Director for the southern
Oregon-based Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands
Center. “The Scott Bar salamander was just
discovered last year. It would be a tragedy if
politics led to its extinction.”
Both species
of salamander live in mature and old-growth
forests, which once covered much of the
Northwest. Today, only fragments of these
forests remain, and they face increasing
pressure from logging and development. In its
finding on the petition to protect the
salamanders, FWS admits that logging impacts
their habitat, but the agency claims other
protections are sufficient to safeguard the
species.
FWS pointed to
the U.S. Forest Service’s “Survey and Manage”
Program and the California Endangered Species
Act, which currently lists the Siskiyou
Mountains salamander as a threatened species.
However, the Forest Service is again
attempting to eliminate the Survey and Manage
Program—having been turned away by a federal
court on its first try—and the California Fish
and Game Commission is likely to de-list the
Siskiyou Mountains salamander next year.
“It is
preposterous for the Fish and Wildlife Service
to claim that the salamanders don’t deserve a
status review because other protections are
adequate, when the lights are about to go out
on these other programs,” said Scott Greacen,
Public Lands Coordinator for the Environmental
Protection Information Center. “The Fish and
Wildlife Service has a legal and moral
obligation to stand up and address these
issues squarely, not hide behind paper
protections.”
Plaintiffs in
this lawsuit include the Center for Biological
Diversity, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center,
Environmental Protection Information Center,
Oregon Natural Resources Council and Cascadia
Wildlands Project.
Photo of
the salamander available upon request
Additional
Background Information:
The Endangered
Species Act is one of America’s most important
environmental laws, providing a safety net for
wildlife, fish, and plants that are on the
brink of extinction. The law requires the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the
places these species call home, and to use the
most rigorous science available when making
management decisions. The Endangered Species
Act has prevented the extinction of the
American bald eagle, coho salmon, the gray
wolf, and hundreds of other animals, fish, and
plants.
Endangered
Species Act protections for the salamanders
are necessary, in part, because the
Administration has eliminated other
environmental safeguards. The Salamanders were
formerly protected under a provision of the
Northwest Forest Plan called the “Survey and
Manage” Program, which required the Forest
Service and Bureau of Land Management to
conduct surveys for the salamander and protect
its habitat. The Bush Administration
eliminated the Survey and Manage Program on
March 23, 2004 to expedite logging of
old-growth forest. Hundreds of Northwest
wildlife species are threatened by the
administration’s jettisoning of Survey and
Manage protections (See:
www.endangeredearth.org/library/nwfp-saving-the-pieces.pdf).
The Survey and Manage Program has been
reinstated by court order, but the Bush
Administration is in the process of conducting
an environmental review to again eliminate the
important protections provided by the Program.
The
salamanders have two of the smallest ranges of
any salamander in western North America,
occurring in southwestern Oregon and
northwestern California on rocky slopes under
mature and old-growth trees. Members of a
group of salamanders called Plethodons,
the two salamanders do not have lungs and
instead breathe directly through their skin.
The dense limbs and shade provided by mature
and old-growth forests help retain moisture
that is key for their survival. Logging and
other activities that remove the shelter
provided by these forests destroy the habitat
that is vital for the salamander’s survival.
The rarity of
the salamanders, along with their unique
habitat specialization, makes them more
vulnerable to natural and human threats.
Protection under the Endangered Species Act
for both the Scott Bar and the Siskiyou
Mountains salamander would help safeguard
their habitat and ensure that adequate
resources are made available for recovery
efforts. |
