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      Montana could soon allow grizzly bear hunting for first time in decades

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      Montana could soon allow grizzly bear hunting for first time in decadesWildlife commissioners signed onto a multi-state plan as states in the northern Rockies push to ease federal protections Montana wildlife officials could soon allow grizzly bear hunting in areas around Glacier and Yellowstone national parks, if states in the US northern Rockies succeed in their attempts to lift federal protections for the animals.Grizzlies in the region have been protected as a threatened species since 1975 and were shielded from hunting for most of that time. But several states are pushing for restrictions to be eased.Montana governor Greg Gianforte last month announced the state intends to petition the Biden administration to lift threatened species protections for Glacier-area grizzlies. Wyoming governor Mark Gordon is leading a similar push to end protections for Yellowstone area bears. The two regions have the most bears in the US outside Alaska, the only state that currently allows hunting.As officials seek to make the case that protections are no longer needed, Montana wildlife commissioners on Tuesday voted to sign onto a multistate plan to maintain more than 900 bears in the Yellowstone area. Wyoming already has signed onto the plan, which would allow limited hunting. Idaho officials are expected to consider it next month.Montana commissioners also gave preliminary approval to revisions to Glacier-area bear population targets that could allow hunting of grizzlies in northwestern portions of the state if federal protections end. The rule calls for maintaining a population of more than 800 bears.Details on any future hunting seasons would be established at a later date.Wildlife advocates have objected to the bid to lift protections, saying state officials in the northern Rockies are intent on driving down populations of grizzlies and another predator, gray wolves.But state officials, backed by livestock and hunting groups, say bear populations need to be more closely controlled. They cite increasing conflicts between bears and humans, including attacks on livestock and occasional maulings of peopleAs many as 50,000 grizzly bears once ranged the western half of the US. Most were killed by hunting, trapping and habitat loss following the arrival of European settlers in the late 1800s. Populations declined to fewer than 1,000 bears in the lower 48 states by the time they were given federal protections in 1975.The last grizzly hunts in the US outside Alaska were in the early 1990s, under an exemption to protections that allowed 14 bears to be killed each fall in Montana.When Yellowstone grizzlies briefly lost protections under Donald Trump’s administration, Wyoming and Idaho scheduled hunts for 22 bears in Wyoming and one in Idaho, with hunting permits offered by lottery. A federal judge stepped in at the last minute and restored protections, a decision later upheld by the ninth US circuit court of appeals.The US Fish and Wildlife Service recommended in March to keep threatened-species protections for grizzlies. The agency cited a lack of connections between the bears’ best areas of habitat and people killing them, among other reasons. TopicsMontanaWyomingAnimalsBiden administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Victory for spotted owl as Trump-era plan to reduce habitat is struck down

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      WildlifeVictory for spotted owl as Trump-era plan to reduce habitat is struck down Biden administration move halts plan to allow logging in forests where imperiled bird lives Gabrielle Canon and agencies@GabrielleCanonTue 9 Nov 2021 22.18 ESTFirst published on Tue 9 Nov 2021 18.19 ESTIn a victory for the northern spotted owl, the Biden administration has struck down a Trump-era plan that would have removed more than 3.4m acres of critical habitat for the imperiled bird and opened the old-growth forests where it lives to logging.The population of the small chocolate-brown owl, which lives in forested areas in Washington, Oregon, and northern California, has been in decline for decades and has already lost roughly 70% of its habitat. Its numbers have plummeted 77% in Washington state, 68% in Oregon, and close to half in California, according to studies by the US Geological Survey, and biologists fear that further habitat reduction would put them on the path to extinction.A controversial decision made by Trump’s interior secretary just five days before leaving office was widely viewed as a parting gift to the timber industry. The Fish and Wildlife Service has since found that there was “insufficient rationale and justification” to reduce the threatened owl’s habitat.‘Wondrous and amazing’: female California condors can reproduce without malesRead moreUnder the new plan, roughly 204,000 acres – approximately 2% of the 9.6m acres designated as habitat for the owls in 2012 – will be made available for development while more than 3m will be restored and protected. The agency claims the exclusion of those lands from habitat designation will enable federal land managers to meet obligations to the logging industry and help limit catastrophic wildfires that continue to threaten forests in the west.“The exclusions we are proposing now will allow fuels management and sustainable timber harvesting to continue while supporting northern spotted owl recovery,” said Martha Williams, principal deputy director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, in a statement issued when the rule revision was proposed in July.Wildlife advocates, government agencies and the timber industry have sparred for decades over the northern spotted owl. Federal habitat protections imposed in 2012 were meant to avert the bird’s extinction. They’ve also been blamed for a logging slowdown that’s devastated some rural communities.The logging industry has pushed back against the revision, arguing that more thinning and management of protected forests is necessary to prevent wildfires, which devastated 560 square miles (1,450 square kilometers) of spotted owl habitat last fall. Most of that area is no longer considered viable for the birds.In the agency’s analysis of the rule-change, officials note that timber harvesting doesn’t lessen the risk of severe burns, writing that fuel reduction treatments – where smaller, less lucrative vegetation is strategically culled from the landscape – should instead be used to restore forest health. Federal land managers can still conduct these treatments in designated critical habitat, the agency concluded.Timber interests also say some of the land set aside under Tuesday’s announcement isn’t actually spotted owl habitat or is broken up into parcels too small to support the owl. As such, the smaller habitat designation issued under Trump was “legally and scientifically valid”, said Nick Smith, a spokesman for the American Forest Resource Council, a group that represents about 100 manufacturing and logging operations in five western US states.“The federal government cannot set aside critical habitat unless it is habitat for the species. That’s the critical concern,” he said.But the federal biologists found significant issues with the science used to push the previous rule through. David Bernhardt, Trump’s interior secretary, and Aurelia Skipwith, the former Fish and Wildlife service director, dismissed their concerns and underestimated the threat of extinction, according to documents reviewed by the Associated Press.Democratic lawmakers from Oregon, Washington and California in February called for an investigation into the removal of spotted owl protections, citing “potential scientific meddling” by Trump appointees.Bernhardt has defended his handling of the matter, telling AP that Congress gave the interior secretary authority to exclude areas from protection. Environmental advocates championed the move, but continue to have concerns that the agency would allow any amount of logging on the land.“We’re glad the Biden administration repealed the ridiculous and politically driven decision to strip 3m acres from the spotted owl’s critical habitat” said Noah Greenwald, the endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It needs all the habitat it can get if it’s going to make it.” But, he called the exclusions that remain, “disappointing”.“The Biden administration is condoning the cutting of old growth forests on BLM land,” he said. “It is definitely not what the owl needs and it’s not what our climate needs.”Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsWildlifeBiden administrationTrump administrationUS politicsAnimalsnewsReuse this content More

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      Can red wolves come back from the brink of extinction again?

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      There are perhaps no more than 10 red wolves left in the wild, and they are all in just one place: North Carolina.
      It is an astonishing statistic for a species once hailed as undergoing the most successful reintroduction programme in the US, providing the blueprint for Yellowstone national park’s much-lauded grey wolf rewilding project.
      “The [red wolf] programme has almost entirely crumbled since I’ve been working here,” says Heather Clarkson, who works with the environmental charity Defenders of Wildlife. “It took about 20 years to get the programme to a strong place, that’s the really sad part. Because now it’s crashed. Disappointed barely scratches the surface.”
      In January, following legal action by conservation groups including Defenders of Wildlife, the district court for the eastern district of North Carolina ruled that the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), which had cancelled the red wolf reintroduction programme, must resume the release of wolves into the wild. This month the USFWS presented a new plan to the judge and he has given the groups that launched the lawsuit two weeks to lodge any objections.
      Start of the rewilding scheme
      The plan to boost the number of red wolves in the wild began in 1973, when the USFWS set out to capture as many of the remaining wolves as possible to establish a captive-breeding programme.
      In 1980, the red wolf was declared extinct in the wild. Seven years later the first reintroduction was made at the 60,000-hectare (152,000-acre) Alligator River national wildlife refuge in North Carolina. A breeding pair was released, and captive-bred pups were later fostered by the pack.
      At its peak, in 2011, there were as many as 130 red wolves back roaming the marshes, swamps and coastal prairies. Their recovery was the first time in the US that a large carnivore had been declared extinct in the wild and then successfully reintroduced. More

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      The animal species imperiled by Trump's war on the environment

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      Climate countdown

      The animal species imperiled by Trump’s war on the environment

      A humpback whale breaches in the Pacific Ocean. The Trump administration has withdrawn regulations aimed at preventing humpbacks and other creatures from being entangled in nets off the west coast.
      Photograph: Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images

      Despite a grim outlook for American biodiversity, Trump has lifted protections for at-risk animals as part of his aggressive rollback of environmental rules
      75 ways Trump made America dirtier and the planet warmer
      by Paola Rosa-Aquino

      Main image:
      A humpback whale breaches in the Pacific Ocean. The Trump administration has withdrawn regulations aimed at preventing humpbacks and other creatures from being entangled in nets off the west coast.
      Photograph: Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images

      The prognosis for biodiversity on Earth is grim. According to a sobering report released by the United Nations last year, 1 million land and marine species across the globe are threatened with extinction – more than at any other period in human history.
      According to a recent study, about 20% of the countries in the world risk ecosystem collapse due to the destruction of wildlife and their habitats, a result of human activity in tandem with a warming climate. The United States is the ninth most at risk.
      Despite this desperate outlook, the Trump administration, as part of its aggressive rollback of regulations designed to protect the environment, has lifted protections for America’s animals. It has shrunk several national monuments and opened up a huge amount of federal land for oil and gas drilling, coalmining and other industrial activities – actions that conservationists warn could imperil species whose numbers are already dwindling and that are core to the health of our ecosystems.
      Here we look at some of the animals most at risk from Trump’s rollbacks.
      Wolverines More

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      Lions, tigers and bears: the US presidents who took animal ownership to extremes

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      Using trophy animals as power symbols didn’t start with Tiger King. According to Mammoth author Chris Flynn, the American obsession dates back to the 1700s • Read more about Guardian Australia’s Unmissables series US presidents have always kept animals at the White House; Calvin Coolidge’s two lions were named Tax Reduction and Budget Bureau. Photograph: […] More