The federal authorization for each state to reduce wolves to 100-150 animals puts northern Rockies wolves on a spiral toward extinction.

By Michael J. Robinson, Guest Writer, 4-21-10

Recently concluded public wolf-hunting seasons along with federal predator-control killings resulted in the shootings of over 500 gray wolves in Montana and Idaho, leaving the combined wolf population in those two states and Wyoming at around 1,700 animals, close to what it was last year.  Under state management future wolf mortality can be expected to climb significantly unless last April’s removal of wolves from the endangered species list is overturned in federal court and federal protections are restored.

According to the wolf delisting rule that was promulgated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and is challenged in court by the Center for Biological Diversity and other conservation organizations represented by Earthjustice, the states of Idaho and Montana may reduce wolf numbers to 100-150 individual animals in each state.  Idaho has been particularly adamant that it intends to drive wolf numbers as low as possible.  Montana’s open-ended authorization of predator-control actions will subject wolves to almost unlimited persecution.  Wyoming’s wolves, also subject to federal killing, are still on the endangered species list and thus not yet publicly hunted – but when delisting finally occurs in Wyoming, it too will be authorized to eliminate all but 100-150 wolves.

A northern Rocky Mountains wolf population eventually reduced to fewer than 500 animals may contain fewer than 100 breeding individuals, since only two wolves in each family pack reproduce.  Scientists warn that hundreds, if not thousands, of breeding animals are necessary to prevent the genetic unraveling of any species, with attendant births of deformed animals, reductions in birth rates, and lower survival rates.  The federal authorization for each state to reduce wolves to 100-150 animals puts northern Rockies wolves on a spiral toward extinction.

The Center for Biological Diversity has repeatedly called on the Service to conduct a population and habitat viability assessment for wolves in the region, to determine what number and distribution of wolves is necessary to ensure their long-term viability.  However, the federal agency delisted wolves without conducting such a study.

The Yellowstone ecosystem has only 38 wolf breeding pairs and the continued existence of wolves in Yellowstone depends on connectivity to wolves in central Idaho.  Last year the U.S. Department of Agriculture destroyed two entire wolf packs in the intervening habitat.  Public wolf hunts may have aggravated the damage, further isolating the Yellowstone wolves.

Hunting wolves for sport, ideology, or livestock protection can prevent single male and female wolves from finding each other, and killing wolf parents can leave the pups to starve.  Ironically, orphaned and inexperienced yearling wolves may be more likely to resort to killing livestock.  Thus, it is not surprising that as wolf packs in central Idaho were gunned down last year, two young male wolves appeared in eastern Oregon, began killing livestock, and were then shot from the air by the Department of Agriculture.

We now have extensive knowledge about the link between the presence of wolves and ecosystem health.  Wolves have been shown to benefit streamside vegetation by keeping elk on the move; the improved riparian habitat supports more songbirds, beavers, and fish.  Wolves provide carrion for scavengers such as eagles, bears, and wolverines.  And wolves boost pronghorn numbers by controlling coyotes, which disproportionately prey on newborn pronghorn.

These are precisely the types of benefits enshrined in the Endangered Species Act’s first statement of purpose: “to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved.” Yet federal predator control coupled with public wolf hunting ensures that wolves will only occupy a small portion of the northern Rocky Mountain states, denying most of the region’s ecosystems these benefits.  As the wolf killing programs gear up, the range of the wolf will shrink.  Other western landscapes such as the southern Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Northwest which have few or no wolves, depend on migrants from the northern Rockies to restore their wolf populations and ecosystems – an increasingly unlikely prospect as the wolf range contracts.

The Center for Biological Diversity is seeking a court ruling overturning the wolf delisting rule and compelling the Fish and Wildlife Service to re-assess its arbitrary position that 300-450 wolves in three states will suffice to prevent the northern Rockies wolf population from going extinct.  The Fish and Wildlife Service must develop a basis for long-term conservation of wolves and their ecosystems in the northern Rockies and throughout the United States.  That’s better public policy, and more lawful than managing a species that nearly went extinct once due to human persecution, via a new and ever-expanding body count.

Michael J. Robinson represents the Center for Biological Diversity and is author of Predatory Bureaucracy: The Extermination of Wolves and the Transformation of the West (University Press of Colorado, 2005).

By Susan Casey January-March 2010 (Vol. 11 No. 1)

Fate can take strange forms, and so perhaps it does not seem unusual that Captain Charles Moore found his life’s purpose in a nightmare. Unfortunately, he was awake at the time, and 1300 kilometers north of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.

Returning to Southern California from Hawaii after a sailing race, Moore had altered the course of the Alguita, his 15-meter catamaran. Veering slightly north, he had the time and the curiosity to try a new route, one that would lead the vessel through the eastern corner of a 13-billion-hectare oval known as the north Pacific subtropical gyre. This was an odd stretch of ocean—“the doldrums,” sailors called it—a place most boats purposely avoided. So did the ocean’s top predators: the tuna, sharks, and other large fish that required livelier waters flush with prey. The gyre was more like a desert—a slow, deep, clockwise-swirling vortex of air and water caused by a mountain of high-pressure air that lingered above it.

The area’s reputation didn’t deter Moore. He had grown up in California with the Pacific literally in his front yard, and he possessed an impressive aquatic résumé: deckhand, able seaman, sailor, scuba diver, surfer, and finally captain. Moore had spent countless hours on the ocean, fascinated by its vast trove of secrets and terrors. He’d seen a lot of things out there, things that were glorious and grand, things that were ferocious and humbling. But he had never seen anything nearly as chilling as what lay ahead of him in the gyre.

It began with a line of plastic bags ghosting the surface, followed by an ugly tangle of junk: nets and ropes and bottles, motor-oil jugs and cracked bath toys, a mangled tarp. Tires. A traffic cone. Moore could not believe his eyes. It was as though someone had taken the pristine seascape of his youth and swapped it for a landfill.

How did all the plastic end up here? How did this trash tsunami begin? What did it mean? If the questions seemed overwhelming, Moore would soon learn that the answers were even more so and that his discovery had dire implications for human—and planetary—health. As the Alguita glided through the area that scientists now refer to as the “eastern garbage patch,” Moore realized that the trail of plastic went on for hundreds of miles. Depressed and stunned, he sailed for a week through bobbing, toxic debris trapped in a purgatory of circling currents. To his horror, he had stumbled across the twenty-first-century Leviathan. It had no head, no tail. Just an endless body.

“Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.” This Andy Warhol quote is emblazoned on a two-meter-long magenta-and-yellow banner that hangs—with extreme irony—in the solar-powered workshop in Moore’s Long Beach home.

Since his first encounter with the garbage patch 12 years ago, Moore has been on a mission to learn exactly what’s going on out there. Leaving behind a 25-year career running a furniture-restoration business, he has created the Algalita Marine Research Foundation to spread the word of his findings. His tireless effort has placed him on the front lines of this new, more-abstract battle. After enlisting scientists to develop methods for analyzing the gyre’s contents, Moore has sailed the Alguita back to the garbage patch several times. On each trip, the volume of plastic had grown alarmingly. The area in which it accumulates is now twice the size of Texas.

At the same time, all over the globe, there are signs that plastic pollution is doing more than blighting the scenery; it is also making its way into the food chain. Some of the most obvious victims are the dead seabirds washing ashore in startling numbers, their bodies packed with plastic: things such as bottle caps, cigarette lighters, tampon applicators, and colored scraps that, to a foraging bird, resemble baitfish. (One animal dissected by Dutch researchers contained 1,603 pieces of plastic.) And the birds aren’t alone. More than a million seabirds, 100,000 marine mammals, and countless fish die in the North Pacific each year, either from mistakenly eating this junk or from being ensnared in it and drowning.

Moore soon learned that the big, tentacled balls of trash were only the most visible signs of the problem; others were far less obvious and far more evil. Dragging a fine-meshed net known as a manta trawl, he discovered minuscule pieces of plastic, some barely visible to the eye, swirling like fish food throughout the water. He and his researchers parsed, measured, and sorted their samples and arrived at the following conclusion: by weight, this swath of sea contains six times as much plastic as it does plankton.

This statistic is grim for marine animals, of course, but even more so for humans. The more invisible and ubiquitous the pollution, the more likely it will end up inside us. And there’s growing—and disturbing—proof that we’re ingesting plastic toxins constantly and that even slight doses of these substances can severely disrupt gene activity. The fact that these toxins don’t cause violent and immediate reactions does not mean they’re benign: scientists are just beginning to research the long-term ways in which the chemicals used to make plastic interact with our own biochemistry.

In simple terms, plastic is a petroleum-based mix of monomers that become polymers, to which additional chemicals are added for suppleness, inflammability, and other qualities. When it comes to these substances, even the syllables are scary.

To take just one example, we deploy annually about 450 million kilograms of chemical compounds called “phthalates”—despite the fact that California recently listed them as chemicals known to be toxic to our reproductive systems. Used to make plastic soft and pliable, phthalates leach easily from millions of products—packaged food, cosmetics, varnishes, the coatings of timed-release pharmaceuticals—into our blood, urine, saliva, seminal fluid, breast milk, and amniotic fluid. In food containers and some plastic bottles, phthalates are now found with another compound called bisphenol A (BPA), which scientists are discovering can wreak stunning havoc in the body. We produce nearly 3 billion kilograms of BPA each year, and it shows: BPA has been found in nearly every human who has been tested in the United States.

Most alarming, these chemicals may disrupt the endocrine system—the delicately balanced set of hormones and glands that affect virtually every organ and cell—by mimicking the female hormone estrogen. In marine environments, excess estrogen has led to Twilight Zone-esque discoveries of male fish and seagulls that have sprouted female sex organs.

This news is depressing enough to make a person reach for the bottle. Glass, at least, is easily recyclable. You can take one tequila bottle, melt it down, and make another tequila bottle. With plastic, recycling is more complicated. Unfortunately, that promising-looking triangle of arrows appearing on products doesn’t always signify endless re-use; it merely identifies which type of plastic the item is made from. And of the seven different plastics in common use, only two of them—PET (labeled with #1 inside the triangle and used in soda bottles) and HDPE (labeled with #2 inside the triangle and used in milk jugs)—have much of an aftermarket. So no matter how virtuously you toss your chip bags and shampoo bottles into your blue bin, few of them will escape the landfill—only 3 to 5 percent of plastics are recycled in any way.

“There’s no legal way to recycle a milk container into another milk container without adding a new virgin layer of plastic,” Moore says. He points out that, because plastic melts at low temperatures, it retains pollutants and the tainted residue of its former contents. Turn up the heat to sear these off, and some plastics release deadly vapors. So the reclaimed stuff is mostly used to make entirely different products, things that don’t go anywhere near our mouths, such as fleece jackets and carpeting. Therefore, unlike recycling glass, metal, or paper, recycling plastic doesn’t always result in less use of virgin material.

What’s more, “Except for the small amount that’s been incinerated—and it’s a very small amount—every bit of plastic ever made still exists,” Moore says, describing how the material’s molecular structure resists biodegradation. Instead, plastic crumbles into ever-tinier fragments as it’s exposed to sunlight and the elements. And none of these untold gazillions of fragments is disappearing anytime soon: even when plastic breaks down to a single molecule, it remains too tough for biodegradation.

Ask a group of people to name an overwhelming global problem, and you’ll hear about climate change, the Middle East, or AIDS. No one, it is guaranteed, will cite the sloppy transport of nurdles as a concern. And yet nurdles, lentil-sized pellets of plastic in its rawest form, are especially effective couriers of waste chemicals called persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, which include known carcinogens such as DDT and PCBs.

The U.S. banned these poisons in the 1970s, but they remain stubbornly at large in the environment, where they latch on to plastic because of its molecular tendency to attract oils.

The word itself—nurdles—sounds cuddly and harmless, like a cartoon character or a pasta for kids, but what it refers to is most certainly not. Absorbing up to a million times the level of POP pollution in their surrounding waters, nurdles become supersaturated poison pills. They’re light enough to blow around like dust; to spill out of shipping containers; and to wash into harbors, storm drains, and creeks. In the ocean, nurdles are easily mistaken for fish eggs by creatures that would very much like to have such a snack. And once inside the body of a bigeye tuna or a king salmon, these tenacious chemicals are headed directly to your dinner table.

One study estimated that nurdles now account for 10 percent of plastic ocean debris. And once they’re scattered in the environment, they’re diabolically hard to clean up (think wayward confetti). At places as remote as Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, 3,380 kilometers northeast of New Zealand, they’re commonly found mixed with beach sand.

In 2004, Moore received a $500,000 grant from the state of California to investigate the myriad ways in which nurdles go astray during the plastic manufacturing process. On a visit to a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe factory, as he walked through an area where railcars unloaded ground-up nurdles, he noticed that his pant cuffs were filled with a fine plastic dust. Turning a corner, he saw windblown drifts of nurdles piled against a fence. Talking about the experience, Moore’s voice becomes strained and his words pour out in an urgent tumble: “It’s not the big trash on the beach. It’s the fact that the whole biosphere is becoming mixed with these plastic particles. What are they doing to us? We’re breathing them, the fish are eating them, they’re in our hair, they’re in our skin.”

Though marine dumping is part of the problem, escaped nurdles and other plastic litter migrate to the gyre largely from land. If that polystyrene cup you saw floating in the creek doesn’t get picked up and specifically taken to a landfill, it will eventually be washed out to sea. Once there, it will have plenty of places to go: the North Pacific gyre is only one of five such high-pressure zones in the oceans. There are similar areas in the South Pacific, the North and South Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean. Each of these gyres has its own version of the garbage patch as plastic gathers in the currents. Together, these areas cover 40 percent of the sea. “That corresponds to a quarter of the earth’s surface,” Moore says. “So 25 percent of our planet is a toilet that never flushes.”

Our oceans are turning into plastic—are we? Wrist-slittingly depressing, yes, but there are glimmers of hope on the horizon. Green arch-
itect and designer William McDonough has become an influential voice, not only in environmental circles but also among Fortune 500 CEOs. McDonough proposes a standard known as “cradle to cradle” in which all manufactured things must be reusable, poison-free, and beneficial over the long haul. His outrage is obvious when he holds up a rubber ducky, a common child’s bath toy. The duck is made of phthalate-laden PVC, which has been linked to cancer and reproductive harm. In the United States, it’s commonly accepted that children’s teething rings, cosmetics, food wrappers, cars, and textiles will be made from toxic materials. Other countries—and many individual companies—seem to be reconsidering.

Thanks to people like Moore and McDonough, awareness of just how hard we’ve slapped the planet is skyrocketing. None of plastic’s problems can be fixed overnight, but the more we learn, the more likely that wisdom will eventually trump convenience and cheap disposability. In the meantime, let the cleanup begin: The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has investigated using satellites to identify and remove “ghost nets,” abandoned plastic fishing gear that never stops killing. (A single net recently hauled up off the Florida coast contained more than 1,000 dead fish, sharks, and one loggerhead turtle.) New biodegradable starch- and corn-based plastics have arrived, and Wal-Mart has signed on as a customer. A consumer rebellion against dumb and excessive packaging is afoot.

The gray plastic kayak floats next to Moore’s catamaran, Alguita, which is birthed in a slip across from his house. It is not a lovely kayak; in fact, it looks pretty rough. But it floats, a sturdy, two-and-a-half meter two-seater. Moore stands on the Alguita’s deck, hands on hips, staring down at it. On the sailboat next to him, his neighbor, Cass Bastain, does the same. He has just informed Moore that he came across the abandoned craft yesterday, floating just offshore. The two men shake their heads in bewilderment.

Watching the kayak bobbing disconsolately, it is hard not to wonder what will become of it. The world is full of cooler, sexier kayaks. It is also full of cheap plastic kayaks that come in more attractive colors than battleship gray. The ownerless kayak is a lummox of a boat, 25 kilograms of nurdles extruded into an object that nobody wants but which will be around for centuries longer than we will.

And as Moore stands on deck looking into the water, it is easy to imagine him doing the same thing 1200 kilomters west, in the gyre. You can see his silhouette in the silvering light, caught between ocean and sky. You can see the mercurial surface of the most majestic body of water on earth. And then, below, you can see the half-submerged madhouse of forgotten and discarded things. As Moore looks over the side of the boat, you can see the seabirds sweeping overhead, dipping and skimming the water. One of the journeying birds, sleek as a fighter plane, carries a scrap of something yellow in its beak. The bird dives low and then boomerangs over the horizon. Gone. ❧

Susan Casey is editor in chief of O, the Oprah Magazine. This story is adapted from an article that originally appeared in Best Life.

The marriage between chocolate and conservation might be more bitter than sweet. For years, conservationists have chased after the goal of making shade-grown cacao farms a win-win for business, poor farmers, and the environment. But a new study in Conservation Letters explains how economic boom-bust cycles have gotten in the way.

Led by Yann Clough of the University of Göttingen, Germany, the researchers chronicle how most new cacao plantations are planted in thinned tropical forests, where shade and fertile soils initially allow the plants—and biodiversity—to flourish. But a problem arises when the cacao plants mature. Once the plants form a canopy of their own, farmers almost invariably cut down the other tree species in their midst. In the short term, the cacao flourishes in the direct sun, causing yields and profits to spike upward. Then a downward slide begins.

Over time, the increased sun stresses the cacao plants and opens the door to new pests and diseases. Farmers fight these with increased amounts of fertilizer and pesticide. Yet these provide little defense. Crops are decimated. Yields become unpredictable. Profits plummet.

At that point, the farmers typically abandon cacao. In Brazil, struggling cacao crops were razed in favor of full-sun coffee. In Malaysia, cacao gave way to oil palms. In other words: tropical areas that once housed functional forests are ultimately replaced by traditional agriculture. Making matters worse, the demand for cacao is shifted to other parts of the world, opening new farming frontiers where the boom-bust cycle takes place once again.

The authors point out that sustainable cacao remains theoretically possible, perhaps through schemes that pay farmers to keep their shade trees. But the reality to date underscores an old adage: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. ❧
—Justin Matlick

Clough, Y., Faust H., and Teja Tscharntke. 2009. Cacao boom and bust: sustainability of agroforests and opportunities for biodiversity conservation. Conservation Letters 2(5):197-205.

1. Once reform is fully implemented, over 95% of Americans will have health insurance coverage, including 32 million who are currently uninsured. (2)

2. Health insurance companies will no longer be allowed to deny people coverage because of preexisting conditions—or to drop coverage when people become sick. (3)

3. Just like members of Congress, individuals and small businesses who can’t afford to purchase insurance on their own will be able to pool together and choose from a variety of competing plans with lower premiums. (4)

4. Reform will cut the federal budget deficit by $138 billion over the next ten years, and a whopping $1.2 trillion in the following ten years. (5)

5. Health care will be more affordable for families and small businesses thanks to new tax credits, subsidies, and other assistance—paid for largely by taxing insurance companies, drug companies, and the very wealthiest Americans. (6)

6. Seniors on Medicare will pay less for their prescription drugs because the legislation closes the “donut hole” gap in existing coverage. (7)

7. By reducing health care costs for employers, reform will create or save more than 2.5 million jobs over the next decade. (8)

8. Medicaid will be expanded to offer health insurance coverage to an additional 16 million low-income people. (9)

9. Instead of losing coverage after they leave home or graduate from college, young adults will be able to remain on their families’ insurance plans until age 26. (10)

10. Community health centers would receive an additional $11 billion, doubling the number of patients who can be treated regardless of their insurance or ability to pay. (11)

Sources:

1. Final vote results on motion to concur in Senate amendments to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, March 21, 2010

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11. “Affordable Health Care for America: Summary,” House Energy and Commerce Committee, March 18, 2010

4. “Insurance Companies Prosper, Families Suffer: Our Broken Health Insurance System,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Accessed March 22, 2010

5. “Affordable Health Care for America: Health Insurance Reform at a Glance: Revenue Provisions,” House Energy and Commerce Committee, March 18, 2010

8. “New Jobs Through Better Health Care,” Center for American Progress, January 8, 2010

9, 10. “Proposed Changes in the Final Health Care Bill,” The New York Times, March 22, 2010

11. “Affordable Health Care for America: Health Insurance Reform at a Glance: Addressing Health and Health Care Disparities,” House Energy and Commerce Committee, March 20, 2010

Information from moveon.org

You can make a difference by contacting your senator today and urging support for the Protect America’s Wildlife (PAW) Act. To date, 130 U.S. Representatives and 7 senators have signed on as co-sponsors for this legislation.

Excerpt from Defenders of Wildlife – Action Fund

Alaska is home to the largest remaining population of gray wolves in the United States. These magnificent creatures roam in diverse habitats across the state, from barren arctic tundra to lush temperate rainforests.

Not only do wolves play an essential role in a healthy ecosystem, but they have also become vital to Alaska’s tourism economy. Travelers from around the world come to the state to see wolves in their natural habitat.

No Protection in Alaska
The State of Alaska classifies wolves as both big game animals and furbearers — this means they can be legally hunted and trapped. According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, more than 14,000 wolves were killed by hunters and trappers between 1994 and 2005. But according to the Department’s Game Harvest Summary, the actual number could be significantly higher since unreported takings could equal or exceed the reported number.

Alaskan wolves were never added to the Endangered Species list since populations have never declined to the extent they have in other states. While efforts continue to restore wolves to their former habitats in the lower 48 states, Alaska continues to pursue wolf control programs — including the barbaric practice of aerial gunning.

A Bloody History
Alaska’s wolves have had a bloody history. Before gaining statehood, the U.S. Government killed hundreds of wolves each year — entire packs were shot from airplanes and poisoned throughout the state. Large numbers of wolves were also killed by private citizens in search of bounties offered by the government.

After Alaska became a state in 1959, federal wolf control programs ended and state programs took over — primarily through aerial gunning.

In 1995, negative publicity to Alaska’s wolf snaring program prompted Governor Tony Knowles to suspend the wolf control policy. In addition he called for a review of all of Alaska’s predator control programs by the National Academy of Sciences. The resulting report found that the programs were based on insufficient information.

At the same time, Governor Knowles stated that any predator control program under his administration would have to meet three criteria:

1. 1. be scientifically sound
2. 2. be publicly acceptable, and
3. 3. be cost effective.

Despite the findings of the National Academy of Sciences as well as other scientific studies, wolf control proponents continue to push for intensive culling programs.

Alaska Government Hostile to Public Opinion
Although Alaskans have voted twice to ban aerial control of wolves, the Alaskan legislature and Governor continue to reinstate this cruel and barbaric policy. In his first year as Governor, Frank Murkowski signed a law legalizing aerial gunning of wolves.

Defenders Action Fund is working with partners on the ground in Alaska to once again put this issue before voters.

“..aerial hunters haven’t come close to killing the number of wolves the state wants to cull this year from the Fortymile region to boost moose and caribou numbers.”

A 4-3 vote has eliminated the “buffer zone” outside of Denali National Park, where wolf trapping and hunting was previously prohibited. In a strange twist of fate, this vote went completely against what the park authorities had actually recommended. They had suggested increasing the buffer zone to protect the wolves that don’t understand the man-made boundaries of the parks. These wolves are what draws loads of tourists to the park each summer.
In a 6-million-acre park area…there are only approximately 70 wolves left. This number is the lowest it’s been since 1987 (according to park authorities).
According to Alaskan wildlife advocate Rick Steiner:

“It’s an outrageous decision,” he said. “The Board of Game placed the interests of three or four trappers on the eastern edge of Denali over the interests of hundreds of thousands of visitors to the park, and countless public comments from Alaskans asking not only to maintain the existing buffer, but to expand it.”

If only the wolves were able to read the signs and understand that their lives are in danger if they step between state and federal lands – even Denali’s famous Toklat pack is at risk of death. Can you imagine being chased down by helicopters, run to the point of utter exhaustion, and then gunned down by some greater-power-that-be? And for what? Simply to boost moose and caribou numbers for the hunters?

For further reading:
Helicopter to be used in wolf hunts
Area around Denali opened to wolf hunters
Fortymile wolf hunters to use helicopters again

If you would like to support this cause, please visit
Defenders of Wildlife – Action Fund
Your support could help to curb these killings and to fight this case in congress.