Wildlife

CALIFORNIA The Quincy Library Group has given up on collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service. Nearly nine years after developing a controversial management plan for 2.4 million acres of national forest land in Northeastern California, the coalition of environmentalists and civic and timber industry leaders has suspended its monthly meetings with agency officials. It now […]

GREAT BASIN Environmental groups have stepped up to the plate three times for the Bonneville cutthroat trout since 1979, asking the Fish and Wildlife Service to grant the trout a slot on the endangered species list. On Oct. 9, the agency threw the fish’s defenders their third strike. Officials said that threats to cutthroat habitat, […]

WASHINGTON Washington may log land formerly set aside for the endangered northern spotted owl. In 1997, the state implemented a Habitat Conservation Plan, which allowed the state to log some owl territories if it set aside other land for habitat. As an extra layer of protection, then-Department of Natural Resources Public Lands Commissioner Jennifer Belcher […]

MONTANA The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has found that successful reintroduction of the black-footed ferret is nearly as rare and elusive as the weasel-like predators themselves. So when the Bureau of Land Management asked the agency this summer for an allotment of ferrets for release in less than ideal habitat, it ranked the request […]

WASHINGTON As flames sped through Okanogan National Forest on July 10, ground dispatchers delayed a helicopter water-drop because they were unsure whether siphoning water from the Chewuch River would violate the Endangered Species Act. That afternoon, four firefighters died (HCN, 7/30/01: Tragedy re-ignites wildfire debate). But an investigative report, released on Sept. 26 by the […]

ARIZONA Since the federal government listed the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl as endangered in 1997, it has been a point of conflict between developers and slow-growth advocates in Tucson (HCN, 8/30/99: A pocket-sized bird takes on Sunbelt subdivisions). Now, a federal district judge has removed some federal protections for the tiny owl’s habitat. In July […]

OREGON For years, scientists have argued over the differences between hatchery and wild salmon (HCN, 10/9/00: Killing salmon to save the species). When it listed the coho salmon as endangered, the National Marine Fisheries Service included only wild fish, drawing a line between hatchery and wild populations. In fall 1999, the Pacific Legal Foundation, a […]

OREGON, CALIFORNIA Amid all the fighting this summer over water in the Klamath Basin of Oregon and California, many forgot about a significant water user that couldn’t protest in the streets or file a lawsuit – the threatened bald eagle. Although a biological opinion issued in April by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service mandated […]