{"id":3045,"date":"2020-12-19T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-19T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=141371"},"modified":"2020-12-19T13:30:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-19T13:30:00","slug":"there-are-only-300-wolverines-left-in-the-lower-48-why-wont-the-government-protect-them-the-fish-and-wildlife-service-downplayed-the-threat-of-climate-change-and-deferred-to-indus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/19\/there-are-only-300-wolverines-left-in-the-lower-48-why-wont-the-government-protect-them-the-fish-and-wildlife-service-downplayed-the-threat-of-climate-change-and-deferred-to-indus\/","title":{"rendered":"There Are Only 300 Wolverines Left in the Lower 48. Why Won\u2019t the Government Protect Them? \u2013 The Fish and Wildlife Service downplayed the threat of climate change and deferred to industry groups in a recent decision not to protect wolverines under the Endangered Species Act, according to two lawsuits."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Editor\u2019s Note: This article was originally published<\/a> by Montana Free Press.<\/em><\/p>\n

Conservation groups filed a pair of lawsuits Monday challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service\u2019s decision to deny federal Endangered Species Act protections for the wolverine. <\/p>\n

The lawsuits argue that wolverines, a snow-dependent species with only 300 individuals living in the Lower 48, face imminent threats in the face of a warming climate, reduced snowpack and population isolation, and that the federal government downplayed those threats in its October decision to deny protections for the species.<\/p>\n

The decision on whether to list the wolverine<\/a> is decades in the making. Conservation groups first filed a petition outlining the species\u2019 challenges in 2000. In 2013, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed protecting the species as \u201cthreatened\u201d under the Endangered Species Act, but agency officials reversed that decision in 2014. A lawsuit filed by the conservation groups challenged that decision, and in 2016 a federal judge ruled that the agency did not follow the best available science in determining that reversal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s disappointing that it is taking multiple lawsuits and many decades to get wolverines the protections they need,\u201d said Andrea Zaccardi, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits<\/a> along with Defenders of Wildlife, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and six other groups.<\/p>\n

The two lawsuits are likely to be consolidated, and are set to be heard by U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula. Molloy is the same judge who sided with the conservation groups in 2016. Zaccardi said Molloy made it clear that wolverines need protections to help them deal with climate change and \u201cthe Fish and Wildlife Service pretty much ignored that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In October, the agency released a revised decision arguing that new science has determined that wolverines aren\u2019t as likely to be affected by climate change as previously thought. That determination relied on new research about where wolverines den and are present in the Lower 48 states. Much of that new research was drawn from a 2018 species status assessment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But that science was \u201ccherry-picked\u201d to support the federal government\u2019s predetermined decision to not protect the species, the lawsuits allege. Evidence for that predetermination includes the agency\u2019s assessment that the \u201cforeseeable future\u201d for wolverines extends to 2055, when many climate assessments go to 2100, and an assumption that female wolverines, which den almost exclusively in deep snow, will be able to adapt to diminished snowpack.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the scientific papers are pointing in one direction, and
\nthat\u2019s that wolverines are in a lot of trouble in the Lower 48,\u201d said
\nMatt Bishop, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center,
\nwhich is representing WildEarth Guardians, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and other conservation groups<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That opinion was shared by peer reviewers of the federal species status assessment, according to the lawsuit filed by<\/a> the Western Environmental Law Center. The peer review was shared with Montana Free Press.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears that the authors have made an inference that climate
\nchange is insignificant to wolverines and are going to great lengths to
\ndismiss inconvenient truths,\u201d one peer reviewer wrote.<\/p>\n

The reviewer also wrote that the federal agency\u2019s document \u201ccherry
\npicked\u201d and \u201cmisconstrued\u201d many scientific papers to reach conclusions
\nthat weren\u2019t supported by the referenced papers.<\/p>\n

The agency\u2019s decision also claimed that wolverines in the Lower 48 are not distinct from a much larger and more robust Canadian population, a reversal from earlier federal discussions about the species. If Lower 48 wolverines are considered part of the Canadian population, \u201cthey don\u2019t look imperiled in the same way,\u201d said Lindsay Larris, wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians. <\/p>\n

But 2019 studies that weren\u2019t included in the 2018 species status assessment found the two populations to be significantly separated, both by the Trans-Canada Highway and by significant trapping activity at the U.S.-Canada border. The most recent estimate of the \u201ceffective population\u201d \u2014 i.e., the population that contributes to breeding and the genetic diversity of the species \u2014 is 35 individuals in the Lower 48 states.<\/p>\n

Another significant issue with the 2018 species status assessment is who was \u2014 and who wasn\u2019t \u2014 invited to submit comments, Bishop said.<\/p>\n

Bishop said his clients \u201ctried forever\u201d to get involved in the formulation of the document, and had to file a Freedom of Information Act request to even see it.<\/p>\n

That FOIA request also revealed that industry groups including the
\nAmerican Petroleum Institute, the International Snowmobile Manufacturers
\n Association, the Western Energy Alliance and the Utility Air Regulatory
\n Group were given early access to documents and invited to submit
\ncomments, Bishop said. All of those groups, which represent fossil fuel
\nand recreation interests that could be impacted by regulatory
\nprotections for the species, objected to wolverine protections,
\naccording to the complaint.<\/p>\n

Bishop said he\u2019s never seen such a \u201cone-sided\u201d consultation, in which
\n the Trump administration reached out to industry groups for input, but
\nnot conservation groups or wolverine biologists.<\/p>\n

Larris said WildEarth Guardians tried to get involved, but was stonewalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was clear [the Fish and Wildlife Service] was protecting certain
\ninterest groups, and the conservation community at large was not one of
\nthose interest groups,\u201d Larris said.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: This article was originally published by Montana Free Press. Conservation groups filed a pair of lawsuits Monday challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service\u2019s decision to\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":313,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/313"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3046,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045\/revisions\/3046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}