Three Hawaiian seabirds at risk from utility cooperative

Three seabirds in the Hawaiian Islands prompted a utility cooperative on Kauai to submit a draft Habitat Conservation Plan and an Environmental Assessment for public review. The HCP and EA are part of Kauai Island Utility Cooperative's application for an incidental take permit for bird species protected under the Endangered Species Act. The public may review and comment on the documents until Nov. 29.

The three species are Hawaiian Petrel (endangered, right), Newell's Shearwater (threatened, below) and Band-rumped Storm-Petrel (a candidate for listing). According to U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service:

The three seabirds breed on Kauai, feed in the open ocean and spend the majority of the year at sea. Adults generally return to their colonial nesting grounds in the interior mountains of Kauai beginning in March and April and depart beginning in September.

Fledglings – young birds learning how to fly – travel from the nesting colony to the sea in the fall. Both adults and fledglings are known to collide with tall buildings, towers, powerlines, and other structures while flying at night between their nesting colonies and at-sea foraging areas.

These birds, particularly fledglings, are also attracted to bright lights that disorient them. Disoriented birds are commonly observed circling around exterior light sources until they fall to the ground or collide with structures, resulting in possible injury or death.

KIUC has requested an incidental take permit because its lawful activities - generating and distributing electricity - will cause the occasional death of a bird during the operation and maintenance of its facilities during the next five years. The draft HCP describes KIUC's plans to "minimize, mitigate and monitor" incidental take.

For many more details about the draft HCP and EA, visit the link above.

Hawaiian Petrel, top, courtesy of Jim Denny/U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Newell's Shearwater courtesy of Brenda Zaun/USFWS

Remove some birds to save threatened birds?

Yesterday, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service requested public input on the potential effects of removing Barred Owls from three areas in Oregon and Washington to control their predation on northern Spotted Owls, a threatened subspecies (Strix occidentalis caurina) on the federal Endangered Species List.

U.S. FWS specifically asks: What are the biological, social, economic and environmental effects that should be studied before the agency decides whether to conduct the experiments?

Information and comments must be identified with "barred owl EIS" and arrive no later than Jan. 11, addressed to Field Supervisor, Oregon Fish and Wildlife Office, 2600 S.E. 98th Ave. Suite 100, Portland OR 97266 or faxed to 503-231-6195.

“We will decide whether to conduct experimental removal of barred owls only after this open, transparent review of the effects those experiments might have,” said Paul Henson, the Fish and Wildlife Service supervisor in Oregon. “Removing individuals of a common species to benefit a species in peril is something the Fish and Wildlife Service does when necessary, but we will not proceed with this experimental removal until we better understand – and document – the environmental effects of doing it.”

“Further,” he said, “we want to be very clear that this environmental review and decision process only applies to scientific experiments on the effects of removal. If we learn enough from the experiments we will begin another decision process, complete with additional public review and input, before we would decide whether to control barred owls as a management strategy.”

The U.S. FWS press release points out that northern Spotted Owl lives in forests from British Columbia to western Washington, Oregon and northern California. Compare the subspecies' limited range with that of Barred Owl (using the link in the first paragraph).

Barred Owls cover much more of the continent than northern Spotted Owls do. Does that make it easier to consider removing Barreds from the northerns' range??

Spotted Owl courtesy of L.A. Times

Greater Sage-Grouse at the center of western law suit

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "a chicken-size game bird - mottled brown, black and white - found on sagebrush plains and high desert from Colorado to California and into southern Canada" spurs another approach to protecting habitat:

A lawsuit recently filed in federal court accuses the Bureau of Land Management of violating two major environmental laws and its own regulations by allowing commercial activities to continue on those lands in California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Utah.

But in a switch in strategy, the environmentalists aren't asking a judge to immediately halt those operations. They want to talk, and they think they may have a willing listener in the new Obama administration.

"What we are after is finding a way to do things differently than in the past and better manage these public lands into the future," said Laird Lucas, a lawyer for the Western Watersheds Project, which filed the suit.

Owler mentions concerns about Western Screech-Owls

In Thursday's Seattle Times, self-taught owler and licensed bander Jamie Acker talks about his work on Bainbridge Island. He's studied owl distribution on the island since 1996.

What began as a hobby has led to illuminating findings, including some trends over the past 12 years. Natives of the East Coast, barred owls have been slowly expanding their territory westward. The first individual was reported on Bainbridge in 1992, and Acker counted 86 barreds during the 2008 Audubon Christmas Bird Count.

"People keep asking, 'What's their saturation level?' — but we just don't know," he said. Acker has documented one barred owl continuing to nest even with a greatly reduced territory, as new barred neighbors close in. Though he emphasizes his evidence is only circumstantial, Acker is concerned about how the increase in barred owls might relate to the decline in Western screech owls. Counting 12 screech pairs 12 years ago, he was unable to locate even one individual during the recent Christmas Bird Count.

"This is a common trend among those who do owl research, yet nowhere do we see them being listed as a species of concern," he said. "To me, their numbers are crashing. They are a species we should be watching and caring for."

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Sufficient protection for threatened race of Spotted Owl?

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service released a recovery plan on Friday for Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina).

According to a press release:

Developed over two years with help from scores of scientists, a recovery team of diverse experts, and an interagency group of biologists, the plan envisions recovery of the northern spotted owl could be achieved in 30 years at a cost of about $489 million. However, many of the actions in the plan are given only a 10-year lifespan, Lohoefener noted, due to the uncertainties associated with the threat from barred owls and the severe unpredictable risk of fire, especially in the dry eastern portion of the spotted owl's range, generally east of the Cascade Mountains' crest. Recovery actions will be monitored closely for effectiveness and revised if needed.

American Bird Conservancy immediately pointed out concerns about the plan.

To conserve the owl, the plan creates Managed Owl Conservation Areas (MOCAs) on 6.4 million acres which is significantly smaller than the existing system of reserves on 7.5 million acres created under the Northwest Forest Plan. While the MOCAs overlap with the reserves in many places, they provide 1.1 million acres less habitat protection, and do not include forests on the east side of Cascade crest. The agency may also be able use the creation of MOCAs to justify eliminating the existing system reserves.

It also mentioned three other concerns and the Northwest Forest Plan.

Photo courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey

Wildlife action plans in place for all U.S. states and territories

The Interior Department recently announced that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service approved comprehensive conservation plans for the 56 states and territories. This marks the first time that we have "a nationwide blueprint of actions to conserve imperiled species and prevent them from becoming threatened or endangered."

The action plans allow state and territorial fish and wildlife agencies to receive more grants under the State Wildlife Grant program signed by President Bush in 2001. The agencies worked with biologist, conservationists, landowners and the general public to create the plans.

“A strong cooperative approach was integral when constructing our state wildlife action plans to ensure the health and survival of all wildlife,” said Ed Parker, president of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and bureau chief of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. “In just a few years time, we have already seen the results of working in closer relationships with other conservation agencies and organization within our states. Never has such a comprehensive set of plans been constructed with so much input.”

Each plan includes details about low and declining populations and the habitats that they need, identifies problems for these populations as well as research and survey efforts to improve conservation, and states priorities. The plans will be updated at least once every 10 years. To see the plan for your state, click here.