But a federal official said that review might not happen anytime soon.
Julie MacDonald, a former deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to drop all national forest lands from the critical habitat designation four days before a court-ordered deadline, according to FWS records released this week.
As a result, the critical habitat designation dropped from the 18,000 acres proposed by federal biologists to 1,841 acres when it was finalized last November. The bulk of the acreage eventually designated as critical habitat was in Glacier National Park.
“It's definitely not the way it would have gone if we were being scientific about the whole thing,” said Mike Stempel, Mountain Prairie regional director of fisheries and ecological services for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Denver.
Last week, FWS director Dale Hall ordered a review of Endangered Species Act decisions influenced by MacDonald on eight different species, including the Canada lynx.
Stempel expects there will be changes in the designation of critical lynx habitat following the review.
The reviews will be completed as funding becomes available.
In the Mountain Prairie Region, reviews on the white-tailed prairie dog and Preble's Meadow jumping mouse will likely take precedent over the Canada lynx critical habitat decision, Stempel said.
MacDonald proposed delisting the jumping mouse based on preliminary genetic reports later overturned by an expert panel and changed a recommendation to further review the status of the prairie dog, according to FWS records.
MacDonald's influence on critical lynx habitat doesn't stop ongoing efforts to preserve the species, Stempel said.
“We're doing a lot of good things to recover lynx right now,” he said.
Lands within critical habitat zones receive an extra layer of federal regulation. On private lands, property owners seeking a federal permit, such as permission to disturb a wetland, face a separate review for impacts to lynx habitat.
The FWS documents said MacDonald and her counterpart in the Department of Agriculture, Dave Tenney, also influenced the area covered by a U.S. Forest Service strategy designed to protect lynx by narrowing the definition of “occupied” to include only lands with strong evidence the animals were currently living there.
“Because lynx can move large distances, expand into new suitable habitat and can be difficult to detect, the narrow definition may result in adverse effects or take of lynx occurring in lands no longer considered to be occupied,” the report said.
Derek Goldman, a field representative for the Endangered Species Coalition, called the FWS decision a “good start” on reviewing actions taken by the Bush administration and the Department of the Interior on endangered species preservation.
“If they make an honest effort to perform the reviews honestly, it will be a great start,” Goldman said. “We are surprised to not see bull trout and arctic grayling on the list of decisions to be reviewed. There are certainly other decisions that need to be reviewed.”
MacDonald resigned in May after an inspector general found she had broken federal rules for improperly leaking information about endangered species to private groups and bullying federal scientists.
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