Unfortunately, global warming threatens to undo decades of progress for many endangered species, including Montana’s grizzlies.
When grizzly bears were listed as “threatened” in 1975, they persisted in only 2 percent of their historic range in the lower 48 states, in remote regions of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Indeed, lawmakers had grizzlies in mind in drafting the Endangered Species Act to not just save animals and plants but to recover them in significant portions of their historic range and to restore the ecosystems upon which they depend. With their need for large areas, grizzlies embody the mutual necessities of species conservation and habitat conservation. You cannot have one without the other.
Yet grizzlies’ outlook is precarious. They remain in five disparate, genetically isolated populations in shrinking habitat. Eighty percent of mortality is caused by encounters with humans. Despite this, soon after entering office President Bush canceled plans to reintroduce grizzlies to the Bitterroot wilderness, its best remaining unoccupied habitat. Then, just last spring, the administration rushed ahead with declaring Yellowstone’s estimated 650 bears “recovered” and removed them from federal protection. But in placing them on the endangered list in the first place, the Fish and Wildlife Service cited their drastic decline in most of the western United States and their resulting isolation “where bears cannot be reinforced, either genetically or by movement of individual bears.” The Bush administration is gerrymandering grizzly bear recovery.
Add global warming to the picture. According to the grizzly bear recovery plan, warming threatens to render “already marginal grizzly habitat in areas such as Yellowstone National Park… unsuitable for occupancy.” Grizzlies face dwindling alpine invertebrates and mammals, cutthroat trout, carrion and white pine nuts, all sources of food.
As this lame-duck administration plots its exit strategy, slashing protections for endangered species is high on its agenda. In many cases, this means suppressing, ignoring or denying the looming problem of global warming.
The administration proposed to remove Louisiana’s brown pelicans from the endangered species list just as half of their population was wiped out by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, and even though their nesting barrier islands are slated to be lost as sea levels rise.
Bush is proposing to delist the West Virginia northern flying squirrel while all global warming models predict the complete disappearance of the squirrels’ high-elevation red spruce forest habitat.
The administration overruled agency scientists and censored references to climate change in its report recommending that the California least tern be downgraded from “endangered” to “threatened” status.
Just recently, the administration was forced to concede the scientific realities with respect to the “canary in the coalmine” of global warming. It listed the grizzly’s cousin, the polar bear, as “threatened,” ending a two-year shutdown in new listings (not for lack of species in need).
Yet, in the same breath, the administration announced “guidance,” or special rules, preventing the listing from applying to greenhouse gas emissions that are causing the polar bear’s endangerment. Disassociating the cause of threat and the species does not hold up under the Endangered Species Act. They know the move will be challenged in court but it does waste valuable time while the window for the polar bear and plenty of other species quickly closes.
Clearly, the nation needs a comprehensive strategy to protect species under the threat of global warming. The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned six cabinet-level departments and the Environmental Protection Agency in February 2007 to review the impacts of their programs in light of global warming and to develop consistent regulations via a public process to ensure a future for grizzlies, polar bears and terns.
One department rejected it. The rest ignored it.
It will be up to the next administration to begin the process of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and rethinking how to protect species in a warming world. Unfortunately, that administration will also be saddled with the work of undoing the damage created by the current administration in its waning days. It’s a distraction we and endangered species can ill afford.
Andrew Orahoske is a conservation advocate and Will Hodges is a biodiversity advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity. Orahoske writes from Missoula and Hodges writes from Tuscon, Ariz.
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